Something That Happened.

One of my personal hero-authors has passed away, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. If you happen upon news of this event, you'll read that he was one of the great science fiction writers, was a visionary, was a futurist, was inspirational to a great number of people, and collaborated with film director Stanley Kubrick (on the 1968 cinematic tour de force, 2001: A Space Odyssey). All of these are certainly true, but is it also true that he was a pedophile? Is that why he moved to Sri Lanka?

A quote from Arthur Charles Clarke:

Every revolutionary idea evokes three stages of reactions: At first people say, “It's completely impossible.” Then they say, “Maybe it's possible to do it, but it would cost too much.” Finally they say, “I always thought it was a good idea.”

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I just received an email from the US Copyright Registry. At first I thought it was spam, but closer examination seems to indicate that’s it’s real. Apparently, I own a domain (Internet address) that is now available for copyright registration. In other words, I can register my website with the US Patent and Trademark Office and be protected from anyone else infringing upon my works. If someone produces a work that is derivative of my website, I can sue them for damages.

Here’s the funny thing: The domain itself was once a copyright infringement. I purchased the name because it was one letter of difference from another, much more popular, domain. Kind of like what MacDonalds.com is to McDonalds.com. In fact, in my case it was another popular McSite (but not related to McDonald’s).

I have to take a side trip here, because something unusual just happened while I was considering the name of America’s most famous restaurant chain. I was looking at the name, “McDonald’s”, and I had the sudden realization that it’s such a mundane, normal name. McDonald’s. A last name. A family’s name. It could have been Smith’s or Swift’s or Johnson’s or Swanson’s. It could have been Cho’s or Pho’s or Hung’s or Kim’s. It could have been Morales’ or Garcia’s or Sanchez’ or Gomez’. It could have been Washington’s or Jefferson’s or Black’s or White’s. That name, which today represents French Fries, Coke, kids -- that name, “McDonald’s”, is curiously mundane and could easily have been any other family’s name. “McDonald’s” could easily have been “Obama’s”.

You think I’m way off, don’t you? Obama’s? No way, you say, not in America. Well, maybe you’re closed-minded, or you have the notion that most Americans would be uncomfortable with a name that recalls the Middle East. Yet back in the fifties, before all of this 9/11 madness and fear of all things Middle Eastern, when McDonald’s came into existence it easily could have been named after Barack’s family. After all, they represented the American Dream, to some extent. Immigrating to the United States to make a better life and all that. Had they opened the fast-food chain we all can’t help visiting from time to time, we would now be conjuring up images of golden arches and a fire engine red-haired clown whenever the name “Obama’s” was uttered.

To be perfectly honest, however, I have to admit that the Obama family’s half-blackness could have been a problem for their business back in that pre-enlightened era. They still had a few years before the Civil Rights Movement would differentiate between the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. So maybe “Obama’s” is a bad example. Point is, McDonald’s could have had plenty of other names, and it’s quite likely those other names would have represented the same things McDonald’s does today. McDonald’s conjures up images quite different than Callendar’s, doesn’t it? Yet Callendar’s could have been the name that brought up cheap ass microwaved apple “pies” rather than homestyled pie-tinned holidays.

Do you ever have those moments? When you look at a word -- when you stare at a word -- and see it for what it truly is? Or at least, see it as something different from what you always thought it was? If you think you haven’t, maybe I haven’t properly articulated my realization. We’ll leave this side-trip now, in any case, and get on with the domain issue.

So I received an invitation from the copyright office to register a domain that I had used to mimic another website, and all just to gain a few more visitors to my own website. Thankfully, the owner of the original domain hadn’t sued me; they were hip enough to realize that my little game was more of a tribute than an actual attempt at infringement. Besides, I linked back to the original name: I told visitors that they’d arrived at the wrong site if they’d been searching for “Mc____”, as my site was “Mac____”.

All this is kind of difficult to explain, or at least I’m thinking it might be difficult to understand if you don’t know a thing or two about domains. Still, it gave me something to write about, and I appreciate the time you took to read it. Perhaps it even gave you a little something to think about. Now go get a word or a name and think about it for a long time, and let me know how odd it seems when you really think about that word.

I hadn’t realized television had decayed to the point of recycling the Battle of the Network Stars concept. The updated version, of course, is Battle of the Network Reality Stars. I discovered this while doing some research -- you know, your typical Google/Wikipedia search on some topic of passing interest. It probably began with reading a news article about an alleged criminal act performed by a former Reality series “star”...feeling like I recognized the name of said “star”...being irked that I’m not certain...bored and procrastinating...digging around online for more information in the attempt at satisfying that nagging feeling of recognition...I’m sure I know this guy, it’s on the tip of my tongue...my girlfriend exclaiming (“That’s him!”) her boss has a working relationship with the very same criminal person...sidetracking into other Wiki-information. Somewhere along the way, there it is: Battle of the Network Reality Stars.

Are you kidding me? Is television getting this desperate? I mean, I know this show wasn’t broadcast on the Networks, as it was in the old days -- this time around it was a Bravo production, which explains why I hadn’t known about it before (since I haven’t had cable or satellite service in years). But still...Is Bravo so desperate as to resort to this type of recycled programming? Apparently so.

It’s not simply that the concept is recycled. That’s not what bothers me; television has delivered plenty of recycled concepts I’ve enjoyed a-plenty. In fact, I recall really enjoying Battle of the Network Stars when I was a kid. Nothing like watching Tattoo and Mr. Rourke team up with the crew of The Love Boat in a tug-o-war against Eight is Enough. It’s a postmodern delight, genre-busting mischief that could only be enjoyed by true television aficionados.

I’m also not a Reality Hater. Really. I’m not one to duck Reality. (Well, for the most part.) So maybe it’s just a knee-jerk reaction, this nausea over Bravo’s attempt at entertainment. I suppose I might have really enjoyed watching Battle if I’d actually invested more television time to Big Brother and Apprentice and Average Joe and Amazing Race and America’s Next Top Model and American Idol and Real World. But I didn’t, so this Reality show and Reality stars just seems plain silly to me.

This sounds about as legitimate as "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes". That's what we call a pyramid scam, isn't it? Regardless, it's got to be incredibly difficult to get 20 others to follow through with those offers. A couple of years ago, I really wanted a Mac mini and so signed up for one of those "Get a Mac mini for free" schemes offers. I had to register for a bunch of "free" trial offers from a variety of companies, one of which I used to work for and already knew were, in a sense, scam artists. (Kind of like Earthlink and AOL making it impossible to unsubscribe from their dial up 'Net access.) After I'd completed a number of these, I simply had to get 10 other people (or was it 20?) to follow this same exact procedure: Join this program, register for a bunch of "free" trials...at that point I would, apparently, get my "free" Mac mini.

I bought my mini, but not through this process. I'll admit, I didn't try very hard to get the 10 or 20 others to join the program. Yes, I posted a few self-made banners on my website, but when I really considered all the work I'd have to do, all the folks I'd have to convince to participate in this scam offer, I figured it wasn't worth it. So many things have to fall into place to make this work: After your family and friends have politely rejected you, you have to convince strangers by posting banners in the most possible places you can on the web or by spamming forums to all Hell. Or by spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to hack into some database to steal some email addresses (or alternatively, spending some money on Bulk lists) in order to spam them with the same offer I was sucked into.

It all reminded me too much of those "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes" scams I'd first encountered as a child. I remember the slight feeling of disappointment I'd had after first sending in my S.A.S.E. and a dollar only to receive some vague flyer in my return envelope. Even more, I remember "investing" another $10 or $20 I'd scrounged only to receive some lame book describing the process of placing ads in various newspapers with the same message I'd received and then asking them to invest more of their money for some lame book and who knows what else.

In some sick and twisted way it could be argued that this was making money stuffing envelopes. It seemed ingenious in a way, getting potentially thousands of others to send their dollars and stamped envelopes my way so that I could return some ridiculous information they probably had already figured out themselves but had long before decided was an illegitimate way to make money. It seemed wrong; it was taking advantage of people's ignorance and weakness for easy money. I felt burned, and I knew that I'd been suckered.

Burned as I felt, I wasn't ready to let go. I'd already invested a considerable sum of money in this scheme, young and unemployed as I was. I wasn't ready to let go until I'd made an attempt to recover some of my lost funds. So I executed the first part of the process, placing a free ad in the local Pennysaver magazine advertising the same ad I'd been victimized by, "Make Money Stuffing Envelopes", along with a request for "one dollar and a self-addressed stamped envelope". The first part of the scheme. I intended to get my twenty dollars back. I wasn't going to go any further than that, I did't think.

But I'd only placed the one ad, and so only received two or three envelopes. I placed my flyers in the envelopes and then mailed them out. I didn't really feel bad about this until I received an angry letter in the mail a week or so later from one of the folks I'd mailed the flyer to. He wanted his dollar back. He wanted his stamps back. He wanted his money bad enough to threaten me in his letter. That's when I begin to feel bad, and so I never placed another ad.

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