ENTITLED? TO WHAT?

I read, like most people, of the senseless tragedy in the almost empty movie theater in Florida where an off duty police officer shot and killed a fellow patron for texting during the beginning of the film, even after being asked to stop

While it is claimed guns don’t kill people, people do, the fact is it is far easier to maim or kill someone with a gun than without one.

There is no excuse for this behavior and, no doubt justice will be served and severe.

That said there is something else going on that too needs to be discussed, not anything that justifies shooting someone but it is the nature of personal interactions that currently take place in society.

We often hear the term “entitled” when applied to many people. People who behave as though they are entitled to do something that others are not because they rationalize their reason is more important, at the moment, than that of others.

Cell phones, texting, email and all electronic devices are likely culprits, but certainly not the only ones.  When a person uses a device to the annoyance of others or acts in an inappropriate manor, then there are bound to be repercussions. Talking too loud, using a device in public places when asked not to are good examples.  They point to another sometimes-overlooked realization.

We all have two personas. One is private and the other is public. We are all both. When in the confines of our own personal place we do have the right to do as we see fit, so long as it too does not impinge on the rights or comforts of others. We decide what, and when, we do whatever it is we want.

However, when in public there is a built in behavior expectation for all of us. We must operate with our public persona. We don’t have the right to use devices when asked in public not to, we don’t have the right to toss our trash out on to the streets because it is more convenient, we don’t have the right to break rules of the road because there are no police around.  The examples

Of how we should, and should not, behave in public are many, but we own the responsibility for monitoring how each of us as individuals behave.  

The perception of someone operating as though entitled, undoubtedly could easily cause annoyance, resentment and, in too many cases, anger. If we behave in public the way we behave in private and don’t expect it could have negative consequences we are fooling ourselves.

When we are in public we share the public space, the road, the theater, the streets, the benches etc. etc. The public environment is for the benefit and enjoyment of all of us and has its own implied rules. We all need to know, respect and follow those rules without needing to be reminded and we have the right to expect others will do the same, while they are in public.

GlOBES SHOULD BE BETTER

 With Oscar Nominations out this morning the focus quickly turns to the myriad of activities surrounding the nominees, the films and the show. But before they write the show let’s go back for a moment to review the Golden Globe show and share a thought or two on what I felt went wrong with that one. Hopefully I won’t have to see a repeat on Oscar night.

I know most media I read loved the performances of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. While they are both brilliant talents when performing in scripted entertainment, neither of them are brilliant stand up comedians, which is a completely different form of comedy.

They spent about 9 minutes simply reading the lamest jokes off a monitor.  Neither of them is particularly good at telling jokes so they just read them off one after another.  If someone calls what they were reading, writing then they should be ashamed of themselves. The jokes were sophomoric, crude, insulting and amateurish.    I envision a room full of adolescent writers going through the list of films and performers and having to come up with something suitably crude and insulting about each one.

The show goes on at 5PM so there are probably kids in the TV audience: Tom Hanks wore a prosthetic genital in Captain Phillips, George Clooney only dates younger women, Matt Damon is garbage and Jona Hill masturbates at his own pool parties are just some of the nonsense they shared with the audience. You want your child to listen to that?

I will never understand why all these shows find it necessary to criticize, through their own warped sense of humor, the work of so many other talented people in the business. Making a film or a television product is one of the most challenging, expensive and risky endeavors for anyone to undertake. Finding good material, the money and dealing with the myriad of things that could, and mostly do, go wrong is a challenge in and of itself. Then to find an actor willing to lose 45 pounds for a role, or spend the entire productions schedule in character, or to put themselves in positions of enormous vulnerability, while acting in the film, and then make a successful role out of the effort is next to impossible.

But year after year all of the hosts feel it necessary to make fun of the craft through the products and the performers, but the material they “read” to share their criticism only gets dumber and dumber as a result. I sometime wonder what some of the so-called comedy writers would do if it were not for body parts.

Crude humor is everywhere today because it is easier to write. Writing something funny that is not crude is difficult and most writers today seem content diving down to the lowest level possible because they don’t have the talent to write well.

Maybe one of these years an award show would take what they do seriously and make jokes at something else, if they still feel the need to ridicule.

CHANGE CAN BE RISKY

Put a snow globe on a shelf and look at it. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of little individual pieces of fake snow. If you never move that globe nothing inside it will ever be different.

But imagine for a moment that all the places inside the globe are not equal. The ones on the bottom might be starved for air and feeling the weight of those above them. Maybe a few are facing the sun, happy and prefer not to move but there are others who face the dark and are getting tired of it.

Well as I said if you leave the globe alone everything remains the same. But if lots of those little pieces wanted to change their positions you would have to pick up the globe and shake it, vigorously. Now lay it down again and all the pieces will be in different positions. Some will be happy with the new positions, others not so. But a change has occurred.

There in lies the key to understanding change and why so many people shy away from it. To effect change there will be a period of chaos, risk, uncertainty and in the case of the globe, if you are inside it, violence.

After the enormity of a hurricane, a tornado an unnatural storm there is always a calm.  The next day invariably the sun is out, bright and the day appears as if is nothing just took place last night.

That is the key to understanding change. It will be hard to deal with, will involve risk, will cause apprehension, confusion and uncertainly.  But, and this is the single most important part of it, is that nothing will change without the turmoil. If the globe stays on the shelf, if you stay at the desk of your unhappy job or stay with the mate you know you should give up on, then you will remain forever unhappy about the situation you are in.

But if you are willing to take the chance, accept that change requires risk and maybe something far worse then you will have the chance to make a better something else for your self.

In the end it will be better to go for it. There is always a good chance it will work out for you. Plan for it correctly and embrace what is about to happen.