For the last three weeks, I’ve been working in a new job in a Media agency. I’m in the sports and entretainment side of the company. The agency mainly works for the Hispanic public in USA and the Latin American market. Most of my co-workers are Latinos, in fact from 72 employees the company had, there is just one American.

From all my time living in Mexico and knowing people from different Latin American countries I knew that the world “cool” was not used. But since I started this new job I’ve noticed something in all my co-workers, and all my Latinos friends living in America:

They all use the word cool at least once in each sentence they say. Maybe they are trying to fit in and feel more gringo like… Maybe is the new trend in spanish speaking people (I have to find out when I go back to Mexico), I don’t know.

But it was worth noticing and for me an interesting fact… 

                                                             ”WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection”

                           ”Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding.                                We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology” 

For our generation is not a surprise to find a new product (every three months) named i-x (ipod, iphone, ipad, itv, imac, itunes…). In fact it is a demand. We have been somehow “hypnotized” to feel like every product we own has a monthly expiration date. We need a new pair of shoes, even though the ones we have work perfectly; we are desperate to have the new generation of Ipad, even though the one we have is 6 months old. We want everything to be accessible over the internet, we don’t see the point to go to the library anymore, you can find any book you want online; What’s the point?

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Alsup’s last post reminded me of something I watched in the news like two years ago:

The I-Doser: What is it?

“I-doser is an audio-based program created several years ago that utilizes the effects of binaural beats (a complicated technology) to alter your brain. These effects are selected to simulate the effects of most recreational drugs (Examples- LSD, cocaine, marijuana, Meth, alchohol)”

As I said, I am never surprised to see a new technological product, I’m used to it, I was born with it. But when I first heard about the I-doser I was in complete schock. This is not a product, this is an I-expirience. I couldn’t believe that now we are offered the possibility to get high online….

What’s killing Cool?

The accessibility of information and the velocity to which it travles is not stranger to all of us. And that’s killing cool, slowly but still killing it. What its quickening this process is the replacement of expiriences with technology.

We are living an I-Life… and that is sad…

One day you’ll be cool. Look under your bed, it’ll set you free.     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmVaCbxkd34 

Almost Famous is my favorite favorite movie of all times. Maybe because I like the music of this period of time, maybe because underneath I wish I could be like Penny Lane, or like Russell, or at least be as close to them like William Miller.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, this movie is set in San Diego California in 1973. William Miller is a young student who secretly wishes he could be a rock journalist. His mother is against rock and roll music, she calls it Muisc of the devil. His sister went away from his home because of her mother and her strict limitations, telling William “One day you’ll be cool”. William is a sweet naive boy, who is struggling to fit in, to be cool. By luck he gets a job writting for Rolling Stone magazine covering the story of “Stillwater” and their life on the road. He meets Penny Lane one of the main band-aids, as they use to call themselves (they were groopies but got ofended with this term). Penny introduces him to Russell, the lead guitarist of the band. Friendships are built, innocence is destroyed, Will falls in love and falls in dissapointment when he realizes that being cool is a self destructive quality.

Now that you know what this movie is about I want to talk about Penny Lane. If I have to choose my favorite fictional character with no doubt I will choose Penny Lane. This girl is trouble, she is smart, mysterious (we never know where she comes from, how old is she really, and her real name is an enigma almost until the end of the movie), but at the same time she is naive and with a great heart, a freat friend, an a terrible enemie.

She portraits most of the characteristics of classical cool, she changed her real name, she doesn’t have a home she lives on the road, she is adventourous, she almost all the time drinking alcohol or taking drugs, her life is a party, she doesn’t separate work and play. Play time is work time and work time is play time.

William is all the opposite. He is the synonym of discipline. He is structure. He lives in boring San Diego with his strict mother, and he does whatever she asks him to do. His mother never told him his real age and he is attending High School with much older kids. Ho feels like he doesn’t fit into society, he is awkward, with not self confidence whatsoever, inexpirienced and very very noble. He is in the pursue of cool.

Somehow, Penny and William become best friends. They even have some sort of romance. She likes him a lot, and in some way she is teaching him how to be more cool, but feels bad because she knows that this adventure will take away his sweetness.

The next post has a video of when Penny and Will first meet.

We are always looking for instructions. We complaint about them all day long, but still, we are always looking for instructions. Having the freedom to decide and to give ourselves our own set of instructions terrifies us. Being in front of an opportunity to be creative and create (sorry for the redundancy) blocks our mind. We are always looking for instructions.

We are (also) always looking for entertainment. That’s why the entertainment industry (one I hope to be part of) is so successful nowadays. That is also why we have TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, sports, movies, music, computers, internet, video games, and the list can go on and on. That is why we have reality shows. Because we want to escape our own existence and be part of someone else’s “reality”. We are always looking for entertainment.

We always want to be amused by others. But we easily forget that we have the most powerful and cheap source of entertainment within ourselves. We think that the only way to be awake is by external stimulus. When I am tired and I have to finish an assignment I drink a shot of coffee and maybe put some music on. When I am bored I turn on the TV. Why do we forget that we have a creative imagination? We seek to always be amused by others.

I always knew I could write, they taught me how in the first grade. I know how to sing, I took almost six years of lessons. I know how to dance, because, who doesn’t? But sometimes what I forget how to do, is to enjoy doing those things. Because sometimes (almost always) I am more concerned about what you are going to think and how are you going to judge me. I always knew how to write. In fact, I enjoy it. I don’t like to show people what I write, but nonetheless I enjoy writing. I always knew how to write.