Childermas Reconsidered: My Important Year

“You’re beginning something pretty important, and it will be forever.”

On this day in 1954, actor Denzel Washington, professional wrestler Lanny Poffo, and magazine editor and morning news anchor Gayle King, were born -- as was yours truly. Shortly after seven in the morning, at Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home on Cleveland's east side, I came into the world. About two weeks later, already settled into the second floor of a modest duplex apartment, I received my first letter.

Saint Susanna Rectory
500 Reading Road
Mason, Ohio

January 8, 1955

Master David Lawrence Alexander
875 Helmsdale Road
Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Davie,

Before this letter arrives, you will have been welcomed many times. I wish to add my voice to the chorus of welcome however.

You're beginning something pretty important, and it will be forever. You've got a big job to do, and that is to save your immortal soul that the Good God has given you. Dad and mother will help you in that, and will consider it their most important duty and privilege, which of course, it is.

But God will likely expect more then usual from you. You see, you have very good stuff in you, and that makes His investment pretty heavy and serious. So you'll have to do more than most others because of your rich endowment.

But despite the fact that you mommie and pop are pretty high class folks, even they have their shortcomings. Take dad for instance. Somehow or other, dads have a way of wishing their sons were big guys before they are. And so they treat them kinda rough some times. If he gets to throwing you up in the air and catching you, just to make you rough, you better explain to him that you do not approve. The first way to do that is to cry real loud. Sometimes that does the trick; but not always. Then you have to use stronger measures. For instance, sometime when he has a nice clean shirt on, and he gets a bit rough, just throw up on that nice clean shirt. That, Davie, will do it! If even that doesn't cure him, I guess you'll have to write me for further suggestions.

And now, Davie, if there is any time that I can help you to straighten out either dad or mom, just drop me a line, and I'll be glad to do what I can for you. And be sure to give them my best regards, and congratulations too on your safe arrival.

Faithfully yours,

[Father] Charles J Murphy

I still have the letter somewhere, amidst a host of memorabilia, papers, magazines, pamphlets, photographs -- things that seem worthless to anyone but whomever collected them. They are the things that trigger the memories, that tell the story, somewhere between the lines that are their pages, and the dust that collects thereupon.

My Favorite Year

Life has its own challenges at the age of sixty and beyond. One is past the point of building a life, and the focus is on how to spend its last years gracefully. This year, at the age of sixty-two, I am officially eligible to collect Social Security. However, I'd have to quit working full time in order to do that, and my benefits would be reduced.

But there will be no retirement at the end of this year. In fact, 2016 has probably been the best year of my career. After more than thirty years as a professional graphic designer, I made the decision seven years ago to switch to videography. One condition was to also serve as a photographer. Another was to risk failure, but that was less certain than the risk of mediocrity. Three and a half years ago, I was officially reclassified, from being a "Visual Information Specialist GS-1084" to an "Audiovisual Production Specialist GS-1071." And with the most recent evaluation, I went beyond a "Satisfactory" rating of "3" to a "Highly Satisfactory" rating of "4" on a five-point scale. When I was in college, I wanted my graphic design career to specialize in multimedia. The only problem was, the thing that I wanted to do hadn't even been invented yet. The merger of art and technology took nearly four decades for me. Far from slouching into obsolescence, I am at the very height of my career. A prediction of two years ago is continuing into fruition.

While the year has seen discoveries, and rediscoveries, there were sacrifices that had to be made, disappointments endured. They will be the subject of a piece to be released as the year draws to a close.

And so it goes.
 

Childermas Reconsidered: Turning Sixty

“You’re beginning something pretty important, and it will be forever.”

On this day in 1954, actor Denzel Washington, professional wrestler Lanny Poffo, and magazine editor and morning news anchor Gayle King, were born -- as was yours truly. Shortly after seven in the morning, at Saint Ann's Infant and Maternity Home on Cleveland's east side, I came into the world. About two weeks later, already settled into the second floor of a modest duplex apartment, I received my first letter.

Saint Susanna Rectory
500 Reading Road
Mason, Ohio

January 8, 1955

Master David Lawrence Alexander
875 Helmsdale Road
Cleveland, Ohio

Dear Davie,

Before this letter arrives, you will have been welcomed many times. I wish to add my voice to the chorus of welcome however.

You're beginning something pretty important, and it will be forever. You've got a big job to do, and that is to save your immortal soul that the Good God has given you. Dad and mother will help you in that, and will consider it their most important duty and privilege, which of course, it is.

But God will likely expect more then usual from you. You see, you have very good stuff in you, and that makes His investment pretty heavy and serious. So you'll have to do more than most others because of your rich endowment.

But despite the fact that you mommie and pop are pretty high class folks, even they have their shortcomings. Take dad for instance. Somehow or other, dads have a way of wishing their sons were big guys before they are. And so they treat them kinda rough some times. If he gets to throwing you up in the air and catching you, just to make you rough, you better explain to him that you do not approve. The first way to do that is to cry real loud. Sometimes that does the trick; but not always. Then you have to use stronger measures. For instance, sometime when he has a nice clean shirt on, and he gets a bit rough, just throw up on that nice clean shirt. That, Davie, will do it! If even that doesn't cure him, I guess you'll have to write me for further suggestions.

And now, Davie, if there is any time that I can help you to straighten out either dad or mom, just drop me a line, and I'll be glad to do what I can for you. And be sure to give them my best regards, and congratulations too on your safe arrival.

Faithfully yours,

[Father] Charles J Murphy

Sixty is the new forty.

Parade magazine recently broke the big news of a generation, that life really begins, not at forty, but at the age that everybody with an unpublished thought claims only seems like forty. Or something. We examine it more closely as we read the signs of The Times. For example, there's the one in New York ...

Yes, my generation, born between 1946 and 1964, has physical concerns: Friends are dying, joints are aching, and memories are failing. There are financial issues, with forced retirement and unemployment, children needing money and possibly a bed, and dependent parents. But for many of us, it is a psychological quandary that is causing the most unpleasantness: looking around and suddenly being the oldest.

Every generation gets old, but for those who were told we’d be forever young, it just seems more painful …

... which comes off as only so much self-indulgence. One is more inclined to identify with the voice of a similar name in London.

And please, can we stop this “60 is the new 40” thing? No one is saying 20 is the new 10. And who wants to be 40 anyway? An insipid, insecure age.

They're right.

I remember turning forty. I had been divorced two years earlier, and was only then getting used to the solitary life on my own terms again. I wouldn't return to that era even if it did buy me another twenty years on this earth below. The office environment had become thoroughly dysfunctional, my supervising official was an alcoholic and a sadist who made my life absolutely miserable, and who fooled everyone with a title (rather easily, I'm sorry to say) into thinking nothing was amiss. They would learn differently only five years later, and my view of management was forever changed (the details of which will find a proud place in my memoirs, or my retirement luncheon, whichever comes first).

I remember turning fifty. Sal and I were sitting in an Irish bar in Cincinnati. We were in town for her to meet my family. My life, for the first time in what seemed like … well, ever, was more or less where I wanted it to be. And where I was, was a helluva long way from forty.

I remember turning sixty. Or at least I will. But how, exactly?

It is when reading the New York Times piece, that part of you wants to say, oh, cry me a river already! And then you remember that you're actually talking to yourself. Yes, "my generation, born between 1946 and 1964," really didn't want to end up like our parents; old, in the sense of being "old-fashioned," confined to the rocking chair and decrying "these kids today." But you really can't help it, because "these kids today" really are a pain in the ass. You see it in the workplace. Not only do they not show much respect to their elders, but they really don't see the point of it. They are younger, brighter, prettier, more enlightened, and in many cases, they outrank you. What more could you ask of a generation?

At the place where I work, I am older than most of the people I see in the office, in the hallways, in meetings. The exceptions are almost all of Senior Executive rank, which I try not to think about, since over the years, people who couldn't organize a sock drawer have assured me that I have no future in management (and looking at them, I can see why). I have a son who's older than one political appointee or another, any one of whom could very well feel obliged to explain to me how the world works. It doesn't actually happen to me personally, but I know it happens to others. Alas, many of the Enlightened Ones will be replaced in two years, by those who appear even younger, but who are not, because I got older.

To reach sixty is to know that your own mortality is just around the corner. People get heart attacks at this age. Even the annual issue of Esquire magazine, the one devoted to maturing through the decades of life, concedes that after your fifties, "you're on your own." For me, going back to "the Latin Mass" was a sign of getting on in years, when after seeing "folk Masses" consisting mostly of aging adolescents trying to hang on to the unattainable, one is even less tolerant of anything with the appearance of novelty. Who wants to remember, or be remembered for, the things that pass like leaves in the wind?

Finally, and as can be discerned from the above, to reach sixty is to no longer care so much what others think of you, secure in the knowledge that, even if you had to, the die that is you has been pretty well cast by this point, and the world is going to have to live with it, if only for a little while longer.

The above being said, one can enter the later passages of life gracefully. Witness a certain Phyllis Tucker-Saunders of Newark, New York, for whom time will not slow her down. And there are so many others, who can look in the mirror and say, well, at least I still have my health. I can say that as well, up to a point. I have a herniated disc that got a good dose of Cortizone back in 2011, and there is the occasional flare-up of arthritis in my knees. I cannot walk for great distances without a cane, and even a minor back injury prevents me from being able to stand on a moving bus. So I have a cane with me, and I have to sit down.

And I'll still take to the hills around Mount Rainier when I tour the northwest. It's harder now than a decade ago. Still ...

On the other hand, people keep telling me (and without any prompting) that I really don't look sixty. Sal assures me of the same thing -- with my hat on.

The Road Not Taken -- Yet

It is the point in life when the light at the end of the tunnel that is retirement looms ever larger. They tell you to start planning for the inevitable, and so I shall. The soonest I would ever retire from the government is the end of 2020, when I will have just turned sixty-six. But even then, I imagine I will continue working for several more years.

And why wouldn't I?

When I was in college studying graphic design, I wanted to pursue an academic minor in multimedia. But even though I learned to use simple video equipment, and made a couple of animation films, what I really wanted to do with my life hadn't been invented yet. In the coming year, I will return to my studies in web design and development. I also found the sort of curriculum that is suited for my needs, not to mention my budget. Between that and a growing aptitude in video production, and I can finally say I have reached that goal of forty years ago, the marriage of art and technology. My next few years in my evolving profession could very well be my finest. I was always a late bloomer anyway.

And so it was, that after the Latin Mass today, for which I was the Master of Ceremonies, the sacristan dragged me to the rectory basement to help her bring my present upstairs. I tried really hard to act surprised by what I found as a turned the corner, really I did.

And so it goes, turning yet another corner, on to the next decade.
 

paul@twentyeight

“Sunday's child is full of grace.”

That was the quotation on a set of announcement cards hurriedly assembled one evening, twenty-eight years ago today, when my son Paul David Alexander was born. The 6th of October fell on a Sunday in 1985 as well.

Before he entered the world, safe within his mother's womb, he was known as “Tad.” The name was generic enough, since we didn't know what we were getting at the time. It was also reminiscent of “Tadpole,” a nickname one of my uncles would call me, whenever he into town from the farm. For much of elementary school, Paul was known as “Alex,” and for a time, carried on a tradition for three generations (although for his grandfather, it was met with three or four heads popping out the door at its calling, rather than one).

It was on the first day of school, either in the fifth or sixth grade, when the teacher asked him his name, and with only a moment to think of something clever, he responded with “Cubby,” and it managed to stick with him for most of the year that followed. By the time he was a senior in high school, he went by the stage name of “Memento Mori,” while making the rounds in the local freestyle and hip-hop circuit. In 2009, he entered the U S Air Guitar championships as “Fender Splendor,” winning the title in the Philadelphia regionals, and placing sixth in the nation. This latest moniker is also his Twitter handle, albeit temporarily under the name of “scary benghazi egg.” Don't ask me why.

In the past fifteen months, he completed his senior year at the über-prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia, majoring in Interactive Design and Game Development. In August of last year, following a summer internship, he was offered a position with Camouflaj, a recently opened and up-and-coming design studio in Bellevue, Washington, across one of the numerous lakes from Seattle. Upon graduating “fere cum laude” (that is, with a 3.4 GPA, thus almost with honors) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, he was already on the design team for his firm's first release, “Republique,” the first video game in history to be optimized for mobile devices (specifically, the iOS platform for iPhones, although Mac and PC versions are in development). Paul has also been designated as lead designer for their next endeavor, known only as “Project Porpoise.”

Meanwhile, he has engaged his father's professional services in a bit of rebranding. (I can hear my typography professor now, suggesting I go back and do one hundred more versions of this until I get it right.)

Along the way, he has appeared on HuffPost Live this past summer, as a guest interviewer of Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, and author of the book Finding the Next Steve Jobs. (Paul starts at about 09:30.) In the time since that show was done, Paul and I have conversed at length, not only on the future of game design, and the design industry in general, but regarding its effects on popular culture. Paul sees himself on the fast track, and aspires to rise to critical acclaim within his profession.

And yet, there is also a transformation of sorts. In an age when so many of his generation have so many means of communication at their disposal, does it take away from their humanity, their ability to simply talk to one another, rather than walk through the streets of the city, their ears plugged into devices, their eyes half-fixed to something called “Google Glass,” only being half-aware of their real-life surroundings?

If this is the future, the impertinent question remains: is this an opportunity to invent, or to warn of, the next big thing?

Paul must go to Seattle for the second half of this month, to complete the big project. One can only work via computer from 2500 miles away for so long. Even with the latest technology, there is no replacement for being there, which may in itself be an answer to the question ... in question.

Playing the blues harp on the street at the Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, August 2003.

His business in Atlanta having been completed, he hopes to move to that fair city in the northwest by the end of this year. He first went to visit there with me ten years ago this past summer. It was to his mind the best vacation he ever had. And even though living in one place is not the same experience as just visiting, I believe that Paul will discover that Seattle and its environs will agree with him. One can only hope.
 

My Not-So-Epic Graduation

Thirty-five years ago today, I was awarded my degree as a Bachelor of Science in Design from the University of Cincinnati. Looking back on that evening, I can still remember ... how little there was to remember.

I had made a decision during my junior year, in lieu of any prospect of an academic minor in multimedia, to enroll in two film classes. One was a "Film Design" class in my own graphic design department, the other was an "Introduction to Film Production" course taught by the fine arts department. In the former, I did an animation in Super 8 format, while the latter was more ambitious, requiring a one-minute live action or animation piece in 16mm. I got an A in the fine arts class, but the sum total of workload was more than I could handle, and my academic advisor allowed me to take an incomplete with two of my courses. The price of the department's indulgence came a year later, when I did not graduate with the other twenty-six students in my graphic design class, but had to finish during the summer quarter.

We assembled on that August night in the basketball arena on campus. There was the usual jocularity amongst the tasseled masses, of course, to listen to a keynote speaker whose name I forget to this day. (My already-departed classmates were treated in the spring to the "boy mayor" of Cincinnati, one Jerry Springer. I met him once. He was just as obnoxious back then.) At the end of the proceedings, we were to line up and receive our degrees. It was then that the students from the College of Design, Architecture, and Art, were directed the other way, to the back of the room, where a folding table was being hastily assembled for the dean of our college, who arrived with an assistant, each of them carrying a cardboard box. Our names were called, and we received our "sheepskins" in about as unceremonious a fashion as one could imagine.

When it was over (such as it was), I met my brother Steve and sister Mary, and we headed uptown to Pleasant Ridge, to my Aunt Marge and Uncle Bill's place on Grand Vista Avenue. Their house was just down the street from where a scene from "Rain Man" was shot in 1988 starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman -- yeah that's it in the picture -- but that's another story. Anyway, we arrived at the porch, and Mom came out. That's when ...

She hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Now, Mom's parents were not much with familial affection, especially Grandpa, not because they were cold, but it was just their way. It tended to rub off on Mom. In fact, Dad tended to be more affectionate towards us kids than Mom. The thing is, she had never done that before that I could remember, and I don't know what I did to make her start then and there.

It certainly wasn't relief that the expense of college was over. I paid half my way through college through my internships, and Dad financed the other half. While other kids went to Florida on spring break, I spent my breaks doing production work for a free-lancer named Tom Newsome. He taught me a lot that I didn't learn in school. I also got to be a teaching assistant that summer, in lieu of Independent Study. I learned a lot there too, like how being a teaching assistant wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I put my plans for graduate school aside.

And with that, the tradition of an anticlimactic college graduation was begun, one continued by my son Paul earlier this year, when he graduated fere cum laude from the über-prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, with a 3.4 grade point average. Naturally, he carried the tradition a step farther than me. he didn't bother showing up. (My GPA was 3.0, by the way. Don't ask.)

At the end of the day, I might have been better off considering the experience I gained from both the delay, and the circumstances that caused it. I was aspiring to a specialty that was yet to be invented, one that I only could conceive in vague terms, and would only be realized with the advent of the personal computer, the graphical user interface of the Macintosh, and the advent of the internet. With a bit more nerve, I could have been Nick Selby before there was a Nick Selby.

But that's another story too.
 

Fatherhood

Today I distributed my Father's Day piece from two years ago entitled “Dad” to the usual suspects.

The best thing I can say about my Dad, is not only that he was a great father, but that he was a great father in spite of himself. I cannot ask more of a man than that …

One of them posted the link thereto, and I got over 500 visits today, which is about as much as I get in about four days -- weekdays, mind you. (H/T to New Advent.) C S Lewis once said he wrote the things that he wished others would write. I try to do likewise. Most writers will compose either a glowing encomium or a bitter screed. Neither would do justice to my father's story, so I simply wrote the truth. He was an imperfect man, who only reached perfection by Grace, in a life that just as easily could have turned out much differently, but for a decision made at an early age. A pedestal would have been too much even for him.

Since that time, he has passed into eternity, so here's what happened next.

Feb 20 2012: Paul Andrew Alexander (1925-2012)

Feb 29 2012: The Long and Reverent Farewell

Mar 05 2012: Random Thoughts on a Requiem

Mar 21 2012: A Month’s Mind

Feb 20 2013: Altare Privilegiatum

That's my Dad in the picture to the right, from his days in seminary. He would have been eighteen-and-a-half in the spring of 1944. By this time, he would have already received tonsure (the ritual cutting of a lock of the hair, symbolizing admission to candidacy), allowing him the privilege of wearing the cassock outside of ceremonial duties. He would leave the seminary two years later.

Closer to the present, today's homily was about fathers and fatherhood. As master of ceremonies for the Latin Mass today, my place was near the celebrant, which included being seated near the pulpit, so if I had a problem keeping my composure, it would have been hard to miss.

Meanwhile, my son decided to post his own tribute to his dad.

My dad's greatest gift to me in the past year was conceding, at last, that I'm smarter than he was at my age and am on track to lap him soon.

… which is not quite what happened. I should explain.

My son recently graduated from the über-prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design, with a BFA in Interactive Media and Game Development, and a GPA of 3.4. Thirty-five years earlier, I graduated from an equally-über-prestigious program at the University of Cincinnati, with a BS in Graphic Design, and a GPA of 3.0. I simply pointed out that he did better than I did, which is even more remarkable when you consider that his high school GPA was … well, not so remarkable. But somehow, possibly from the after effects of an alcohol-and-drug-induced adolescence (so it's not really his fault, you see), this observation was embellished to take its present form.

So, we'll be having another one of those little talks when he gets back to DC next month. You see, you never stop being a father, especially when some punk-ass kid never stops being a little twit. But he's my little twit, and I love him for it.
 

Aaron Swartz (1986-2013)

Everyone who works on or uses the Internet (including yours truly) owes a lot to this man. Today was his funeral.

In 2010 and 2011, Aaron Swartz downloaded a lot of academic documents from JSTOR (the online library of scholarly articles) with the intent to distribute them because he believed more information in more hands would make the world a better place. A noble idea, but the Department of Justice decided to make an example of him. Aaron faced 35 years in jail and $1 million in fines before he decided to commit suicide. Watch this moving talk from 2012 about how he helped stopped COICA and SOPA, two congressional bills that would have essentially created a great American firewall and made it easy to censor the Internet.

Writer and internet advocate Mischa Nachtigal has provided the above content, and has also furnished time-coded highlights of his friend's testimony. If you have 23 minutes to spare, if you use the internet (kinda like you are now), and you prefer that the government not be in your business any more than it absolutely has to, you owe it to Aaron, to Mischa, to say nothing of yourself, to give ear to listen.

Thanks, Mischa. Rest in peace, Aaron.
 

FAMW: The Politics of Animated GIFs

Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, is a universal image format that is popular for smaller animated images on the web, like the ever-popular image you have seen in this venue at one time or another, or this other one from Wikipedia of the earth turning. We use them here sometimes to convey and idea, or just to create a meaningless distraction.

But what of the influence of animated GIFs on the upcoming general election? (Yeah, we're gonna go there ...)

According to this guy on the PBS Idea Channel: "This election season, GIFs of Obama, Romney, Biden and Ryan, populated not only Tumblr and Buzzfeed, but also media heavyweights like The Atlantic, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. It became the perfect vehicle to capture a reaction, a gaffe or hilarious election moment and stream it ad infinitum. Will the Graphics Interchange Format swing the election for Obama or Romney? Probably not, but it's a pretty bold step for our pal the GIF!"

And just the thing for this week's Friday Afternoon Moment of Whimsy.
 

Your Federal Tax Dollars At Work

Nearly a decade ago, I knew I had gone as far as I was going to go as a graphic designer, at least where I was currently working. So I wrangled my employer into paying roughly half my tuition expenses for diploma studies in web design at the Art Institute of Washington. I completed the course work and was preparing for final review when they told me, we don't need you to do web design, we're outsourcing the back end of that anyway.

So I wrangled them into getting me into video editing. I learned the software, did a couple of assignments, and got a year-end bonus equivalent to one paycheck, which was unprecedented for me, and anyone at my pay grade, for that matter. In the year that followed, they sort of went back and forth on what they wanted me to do. Then they put some sniveling empty suit in charge who came out from underneath his desk when the political execs weren't around and said, hey, we just don't see you doing video anymore, but we need a photographer, so would you ...?

Then, after a year of doing "grips and grins" (and getting quite good at it), they said, hey, we need you to get up to speed in a big way with video editing, and what the hell's taking you so long?

Still wonder why government doesn't work? You don't know the half of it!

So for these past two weeks, I (more or less) successfully produced, directed, shot, and edited my first training video. I can't show it here because it's not final, and it's for internal use only (besides giving away where I work), so here's a sample tutorial of the software I used to get the job done.

After all, who am I to argue with the kind of reasoning described above?