Sorry, Steve, I'm a fan of your vlogs but I have to
disagree with your comments.
"Being honest" begins with the person.
Someone who is defensive about their age is someone with a badly flawed value
system. I was hoping Dick Cavett would have told me he was 80 years old
and proud of it! I guess I was wrong in thinking he was "much" older than
myself. That doesn't matter.
We all live in a world in which we are getting
older and closer to death every minute. Forgive me, but I am an
Immortalist (someone who dreams of defeating aging and living forever). I
value nothing more than honesty and openness. When someone asks to "ask a
politically incorrect question" and the subject eagerly says "bring it on" and
then gets defensive..well, that is disappointing.
I've always thought some of the "proprieties" of
our society were wrong. They say you never ask how old someone is, what
their income is and what rent they pay. What is wrong with this
world???
I'm 67 years old. I have an income of about
25,000 annually and my rent is $939.10 a month. What is the big
deal???
I really wanted to ask Dick Cavett if he was
working on new projects and if he was facing age discrimination in doing
so. That would be significant. However, his vanity prevented me from
going that far. That is sad!!!
Women should realize that being open about their
age is really a step toward freedom. An intelligent, functioning, powerful
woman who is eighty years old really towers over a thirty-five-year-old sex
kitten with limited mental capacity.
Don't pull this "politically correct" nonsense that
one "shouldn't ask a woman what her age is" on me. If she is thirty, I
know she can bear children. if she is forty, I know she is unlikely to do
so. Just realities of age, no prejudice intended.
I think you young people should embrace a
"lets-be-honest-about-our-age" ethic. Truth is really always the best
policy. Cavett actually answered my question (assuming I knew Pearl Harbor
was in 1941 and his being five made 1936 his birth year. When I guess his
age at 75, he should have shot back at me: "Are you crazy? I'm only
69! You need glasses because I don't look that old!"
I would have been chastised correctly in that
manner.
Actually, if you see both vlogs, you will see that
"old" Dick Cavett was actually one of the most outspoken and free people
there.
Vloggingly yours,
Randolfe (Randy) Wicker
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 10:22
PM
Subject: [videoblogging] Re: "LIVE AND
UNCENSORED IN NEW YORK CITY"
Who are real people? Do you really dislike people who are
uptight about their age, or just dislike the fact they are uptight but not
the person?
If you dont like seeing humans in an armoured defensive
state, then I fear a problem that sometimes carrying a camera will increase
this phenomenon. I guess theres also a difference between someone
being uptight about their age, and someone being offended if you guess
their age as much higher than it actually is.
Im only 30 so its easy
for me to say I dont care about my age, who knows what my attitude will be
when Im older. But if I decided to be open, that doesnt mean I demand
everyone else to be too? Id probably take offense at your prying and
percive it as a total lack of respect for privacy, or get paranoid that it
was a trap to make me look stupid on video, and my defenses would go up
regardless of me not really caring if people know my age.
And what
about women? I was taught it is rude to ask a womans age, though I guess
that maybe sexist, especially as it origins may have something to do with
concepts about a mans age being something to be proud of, 'increased
worth', vs Women being percieved as 'past it'. This isnt what I think, just
trying to understand the logic behind it, maybe its tied to fertility or
something. Maybe its still tragically true in certain fields, such as older
acresses struggling to find as many roles as older men, forced into
premature retirement due to the image-based demands of a one-dimensional
sex-obsessed industry/society?
Please forgive me for stating my opinion
on this, I couldnt help myself. On reflection I think I have a bone to pick
with the whole immortality thing too. As we experience life as self-aware
beings with an apparently finite lifetime, and struggle to imagine a world
without ourselves (what use is it to me if Im not there? etc), its
completely natural to dream of such things I suppose. But I suggest that
only in the current age where the resource realities of our world have
become so disconnected from the realities we experience each day, can
the idea be considered in any way just. Why should the energies
of humankind be focussed even partially on keeping those who have already
lived a long life, going for huge and unnaturally extra decades, in
a world that does not yet focus enough energy on preventing the
deaths of staggering numbers of children every day from disease and
malnutrition?
Furthermore I suggest that via the use of fossil fuels,
we have already artifically changed the life-support capacity of our planet
in a way that will not be sustainable once the oil etc have gone.
For every premature death that the industrial revolution has caused,
it has also created many systems of support that are in some
ways unnatural in their scale, at the very least a large
distortion, because we are using up millions of years worth of energy in
just a hundred or so years.
For me the only possible immortality
works in a very different way, science never gives me hope for such things,
quite the opposite, it is the destroyer of many conforting possible
'phlosophical/spiritual' beliefs relating to the self being immortal.
It leads me back to age, for time is the answer to me, how we
think about time. We are all immortal if time is not seen merely as
linear. Sure we experience it in a linear way, but it that it? Do I not
always exist in November 2005, typing this message? Think beyond the
eternal now and we are all immortal.
Anyway you in no way deserve
this rant, its just the topic got me thinking.
Steve of
Elbows
--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Randolfe Wicker
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think he used "your silly
little camera" as an excuse and in an effort to make me
insignificant. Actually,if you read my other posts, he actually
answered my question "indirectly" by saying he was five during pearl
Harbor--which would make him 69 years old. > > I really dislike
people who are "uptight" about their age. I actually thought he was
in his eighties. Maybe I was wrong. I guess so. Why can't
"real people" be realistic about their age. I'm 67 and make no bones
about it. When I'm 80, I still won't make no bones about it. >
> > Randolfe (Randy) Wicker > > Videographer,
Writer, Activist > Advisor: The Immortality Institute > Hoboken,
NJ > http://www.randywickerreporting.blogspot.com/ >
201-656-3280 > > > ----- Original Message
----- > From: Ronen > To:
videoblogging@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Friday, November 18,
2005 11:30 AM > Subject: Re: [videoblogging] Re: "LIVE AND
UNCENSORED IN NEW YORK CITY" > > > I got a
chance to meet with Cavett -- he seemed very nice and open in person, just
media-weary. I take it that he would have been glad to speak with
you, if not for you 'silly camera'. > > > On
11/18/05, Share <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >
Wow! Fan-bloody-tastic! > Can't wait to see your
vlog about it and congrats on experiencing
such > an unusual
event. > Sorry to hear about Mr. Cavett. I
remember him, too and he was an > amazingly
aware and articulate host. > >
cheers. > Share >
www.rocknrolltv.net > > --- In
videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Randolfe
Wicker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >
wrote: > > >
> > That was the title of an event held this
evening at Steven Kasher > Gallery, 521 W. 23rd
St, NYC. It was sponsored by a 501C
group called > "The Creative
Coalition". Membership costs $250 a year. However,
a > great art exhibit consisting of body images
in video can be seen for > free for a few more
days. I suggest you attend. > >
> > I contacted them a few hours before the
event, said I was a vlogger > (someone who
did video and posted it on the Internet) and asked to
be > put on the
"list". > > >
> I held my breath as I checked in downstairs. My name was on
the > list and I found myself mixing with the
media elite. Catherine Crier, > anchor
of Court TV, was the moderator. The panel consisted
of > actor/comedian/writer Richard Belzer (Law
& Order:SVU), Time Blake > Nelson (Actor,
Syiuana, Meet the Fockers, Minority Report,
o Brother, > Where Are Thou?), Dick Cavett
(legendary Emmy Award winning talk show >
host) and Bill Devlin (a born-again Christian with enough sense
to > stay in the Democratic Party whom I had
once debated on the issue of > human
reproductive cloning at Haverford College in
Pennsylvania). > >
> > Thanks to my good Christian friend, Bill
Devlin, I was made aware of > the event and
managed to get "in"--even though there was a notice
that > "press credentials" would be checked. I
took a Time Magazine with my > picture in it
along to flash if I was challenged. It proved not to
be > necessary. >
> > > I also urged three other vloggers(
Jay Dedman, Jonny Goldstein and > Adam Quirk) to
join me in a
vloggers-take-on-the-establishment >
exercise. Adam was working. Jay and Jonny never got back to
me. I > went
alone. > > >
> I'm always amazed at how thin the "partition" is between
the plebian > world of everyday-vlogger-life
and the glittering world of famous > celebrities
and people with real power. > >
> > So, there I was in the elite world of
"blue activism" (???). There > was an open
bar (always to be avoided) and orderves enough to make
you > feel totally
elite. > > >
> On the walls were ads, fabulous and sexy ads, which you'd have
to > spend half a lifetime thumbing through
magazines to find. I never > knew so many
sexy and hot ads existed. I got to film them all for
my > vlog (or vlogs) about this
event. > > >
> I handed out my pink slips promoting "Join the Media
Revolution" > with links to Freevlog and this
site. Of course, I plugged my own > site
and email address at the end. > >
> > Waiting in line at the bathroom, I gave
my pink fliers to two of the > organizers of
the event. Events on the wall of the gallery
looked > very "liberal" and "leftist" to
me. No problem there. > >
> > I joined the audience and stood up
against a wall near the front > filming the
entire event. It was quite fascinating. I
filmed famous > people telling stories about
famous people...including Dick Cavet > talking
about how Yoko Ono and John Lennon who sang a song entitled
(I > believe) "Women are the niggers of the
world"--and how that caused > censorship which
he avoided with a lead-in that got more
complaints > than the song did....etc,
etc. > > >
> Well, after it was all over, I got to "smooze" with the celebs.
I > gave Catherine Crier a pink flier and told
her that "vlogging was the > new revolution"
which was bound to raise interesting new
legal issues > in the near future. At
least it got into her purse. > >
> > Then I turned my camera on Click Cavett,
one of my 'old heroes' of > television. I
couldn't resist the urge to say: "Mr. Cavett, I
vlog > and put my videos on the Internet.
Could I ask you a 'politically > incorrect'
question?" > >
> > Cavett looked open so I popped the
question. > >
> > "How old are you?" I
asked. > > >
> "How old do you think I am?" Cavett
replied. > > >
> "You're older than me (I'm 67). You have to be at least 75. (I
was > being kind. He's in his 80s I
suspect)." > >
> > "Oh, 'you and your silly little camera'
(italics mine)" Cavett > replied and moved on
without answering my question. > >
> > So, tonight one of my 'idols'
died. The man who was always upfront >
and free and who took political correctness to task was
'too > traditionally' uptight to tell me his
real age. That was really sad, > for
me. > > > >
Bill Devlin, my Christian friend, who had enabled me to attend,
made > fun of me for being an Immortalist when
he realized I was the fellow > who had been
filming him all evening. > >
> > It was a great event and I'll be doing a
vlog about it. You'll have > to wait a
couple days. > >
> > > >
Randolfe (Randy) Wicker > >
> > Videographer, Writer,
Activist > > Advisor: The Immortality
Institute > > Hoboken,
NJ > > http://www.randywickerreporting.blogspot.com/ >
> 201-656-3280 > > > >
> > > > > >
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