M is for Myg

Dear Sun,

Sometimes I think it strange that I continue to write to you — or even that we have corresponded at all. Here I am, a hermaphrodite DJ in Second Life, you, a giant ball of fire 93 million miles away. You are 4.5 billion years old, and the temperature at your core reaches 13 million degrees Kelvin. In the morning, your rays stream through the slats on my venetian blinds and illuminate the little constellation of dust floating above the glass of water on my bedside table.

I saw you yesterday — warm and bright in the afternoon sky. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see you. The winter here is gray and overcast. (Remember what I told you about the atmosphere here — all nitrogen and oxygen!!) Did you see me? I know you can barely make out my little speck of a home, but I jumped and waved anyway.

O Sun, here’s the reason for my writing: did you know that some days — today, for example, I have trouble going on? The simplest things seem a struggle — and thus of course they are a struggle. I feel like some hero of classical myth beset by enemies, confounded by obstacles — like Dorothy in the field of poppies, for example:

They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever. But Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep.

But the Tin Woodman would not let her do this.

“We must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark,” he said; and the Scarecrow agreed with him. So they kept walking until Dorothy could stand no longer. Her eyes closed in spite of herself and she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep.

“What shall we do?” asked the Tin Woodman.

“If we leave her here she will die,” said the Lion. “The smell of the flowers is killing us all. I myself can scarcely keep my eyes open, and the dog is asleep already.”

It was true; Toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. But the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, not being made of flesh, were not troubled by the scent of the flowers.

“Run fast,” said the Scarecrow to the Lion, “and get out of this deadly flower bed as soon as you can. We will bring the little girl with us, but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried.”

So the Lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. In a moment he was out of sight.

“Let us make a chair with our hands and carry her,” said the Scarecrow. So they picked up Toto and put the dog in Dorothy’s lap, and then they made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers.

The poppies are inside me, of course, a vast, lush and colorful field rooted deep in the soil of me. My internal Tin Woodman and Scarecrow are there too, most of the time, to carry the Dorothy of me through to the next clearing, but always the lion of me is left behind. He runs, but the flimsy poppies always get him.

Do you remember, Sun, how the lion is saved? The Tin Woodman saves the life of the queen of the field mice by beheading a wildcat — and so her squeaky little subjects, tens of thousands of them, express their gratitude by pulling the lion out of the field on a wagon that the Woodman fashions from nearby trees. Each of them brings a bit of string with which to make a rope.

O Sun, where are the field mice of me? Today, did my Tin Woodman miss and chop off his own head instead of the wildcat’s? (Do you remember that the Woodman beheaded himself once? It was the last of him, I think, to be chopped off and replaced with tin.) Without them, my lion slumbers on to death!

Sometimes, without the mice, a certain music will rouse the lion, for I am Esteban Moody, purveyor of the true funk. Praise the lion with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp! Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs! Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals!

But today the music is not working, so I write to ask your help. O Sun, help me to open the heavy lids of the cowardly beast! I know a piece of your great fire burns inside him. Will you make it burn bright and and hot enough to wake him? In the distance I can see the tall turrets of the Emerald City, but without my lion I am helpless.

Love,

Esteban

Funk me, it’s Friday! | 14 March 2008: play or right-click here to download.
Set list:

The Deacons: Sock It To Me Part I
The Deacons: Sock It To Me Part II
G.R.I.T.S.: Jan Jan
Groove Armada: I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Mix)
Run-D.M.C.: Sucker MC’s
Cookin On 3 Burners feat. Kylie Auldist: Settle The Score
James Brown: Hot (I Need To Be Loved, Loved, Loved, Loved)
Jackie Moore: Singing Funky Music Turns Me On
The Jaggerz: Born Poor
Ides of Time: K-Car for Sale
Bonnie Pointer: Free Me From My Freedom/Tie Me to a Tree (Handcuff Me)
Laura Lee: Women’s Love Rights
Georgie Fame: Beware of Dog
Jackie Mittoo: Ghetto Organ
The Lions: Givin Up Food For Jah
Johnny Hammond: It’s Too Late
Jackie Wilson: You Left the Fire Burning
The North Philadelphia Juniors: I Know Jesus Is Calling
Brenda Holloway: Every Little Bit Hurts

Dear Myg,

You know I know how it feels. How does it work? We want one thing; we do another. Who’s in charge? Who’s the commanding officer here? I remember when I quit smoking: there was one in my hand again, even though I had told myself no.

I told myself no. Funny that that even makes sense. Why would the I need to tell the self? Isn’t it supposed to be the self in the first place? I told myself no, but my self did it anyway.

The usual story is this: the self does it anyway because the self lives in a fantasy world — or wants so much to live in a fantasy world it acts as if the fantasy were real. When my mother died, my father took us back to Ireland and turned to the drink. My great-grandmother made him dandelion tea for his nerves. On May Day, she scattered primrose petals on the stoop and smiled at me sideways. “So the fairies leave the cows alone,” she said. Some flowers were not allowed in the house and she cured the dog’s limp with comfrey and vinegar. One night my father fell into a ditch on the Shangarry Road and was attacked by a swan — a pen defending her chicks. After that night, he never swallowed a drop.

But what if it were the other way ’round? What if the self’s drive for addiction were its way not of striving for fantasy but of holding up a mirror to Real Life? Everywhere we look, the world tells us to surrender to addiction. Television. Sex. Money. Youth. In Real Life, addiction is what it means to be alive. It follows — doesn’t it? — that Second Life is where we keep addiction at bay. Of course these things are tricky, and sometimes with what’s Real and what’s Second, we may lose track of the wisdom to know the difference.

When in doubt, I look for the ditch with a swan in it.

Love,

Esteban

Funk me, it’s Friday! | 29 February 2008: play or right-click here to download.
Set list:

Wild Cherry: I Feel Sanctified
Brothers Johnson: Get The Funk Out My Face
The Isley Brothers: It’s Your Thing
Room 5 Featuring Oliver Cheatham: Make Luv (Extended Mix)
Prince: Kiss
Tom Tom Club: Genius Of Love
Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s: J.B. Shout
The Unemployed: They Won’t Let Me
Calypso King & The Soul Investigators: Raw Grapes
Chambers Brothers: Funky
Voices of East Harlem: For What It’s Worth
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: How Long Do I Have To Wait For You? (Ticklah Remix)
Stevie Wonder: Maybe Your Baby
Aretha Franklin: Groovin’

Funk me, it’s Friday! | 7 March 2008: play or right-click here to download.
Set list:

Earl Van Dyke & the Soul Brothers: The Flick Part I
Earl Van Dyke & the Soul Brothers: The Flick Part II
The Delegates: Pigmy Part 1
The Delegates: Pigmy Part 2
James Brown: Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag [Parts I and II] [instrumental]
James Brown: I’m a Greedy Man (Parts 1 & 2)
The J.B.’s: The Grunt (Parts 1 & 2)
Rufus Thomas: The Breakdown (Part I)
Rufus Thomas: The Breakdown (Part II)
Bobby Franklin’s Insanity: Bring It On Down to Me - Pt I
Bobby Franklin’s Insanity: Bring It On Down to Me - Pt II
Vicki Anderson: The Message from the Soul Sisters (Parts 1 & 2)
Isley Brothers: That Lady (Parts 1 & 2)
Billy Preston: Greazee Part I & II
Lou Donaldson: Funky Mama [Parts 1 & 2]
Don Covay and the Goodtimers: Can’t Stay Away

It fucks with me. It really does.

On the one hand, it’s this social, creative outlet. A community of people I love and enjoy spending time with, even if that time is translated through a fiber optic network at high speed.

I look at my Second Self and I say, “that’s me.” And it is. It’s often closer to the biological me than you might realize. In fact, what I’m wearing in that photo, how I’m sitting, it’s nearly identical to how I’m sitting as I type this and the clothes I’ve got on this frigid mid winter eve. The vodka bottle is steps away in a kitchen cabinet and sounds a better idea the longer I type.

On the other hand, it’s this black hole of productivity and time. The more time I spend online, the less I get done in my life. I resent going to work. Laundry sits in heaps on the floor. The dishes pile up around the sink. I don’t write music anymore. I struggle to write anything other than blog posts here, even though I consider myself a writer.

Do you know you can get addicted to anything?

When I spend a lot of time online, my brain feels the same it did when I was addicted to cigarettes. Owned by something, not me. Duller. Scattered. Unable to concentrate deeply on anything. I’m one of those lucky people who can be addicted to something and still keep my shit marginally together. I can still get to work, do my work just barely well enough to not get in trouble, get the laundry done when I’m out of socks and underwear. That sort of keeping my shit together.

But I can’t get anything meaningful accomplished. Like I got the novel started but I can’t get anywhere with it. I had the idea for a song, but I can’t pick up my guitar and bang it out. I keep meaning to call that friend who I blew off at Christmas time, and it’s almost March but I haven’t made the call.

Any one of those things, if I did them, would make my life better.

I don’t know that I can honestly say the same about the internet.

It’s not Second Life, actually. I can get compulsive about Second Life but usually I don’t. More than that, I get compulsive about blogging. I get obsessive about this blog, but I also compulsively check and read other blogs throughout the day too. Sadly, I can surf on the internet forever. It’s a lot worse than television. And I always feel so useless when I do it.

It’s like I don’t want to miss any of the conversation. But I feel I’ve got less and less to add.

I’m not going away. I’m just explaining. If every few months or so you see the posts here slow down, it’s because I need a break.

That’s not a break from you though. You, I miss.

Last night during TMI Tuesdays, I was around the corner in the Mainline shopping area, trying to finally get my Reaction Affiliate store set up. Seesh. Window displays, vendor placement, trying to make the area look enticing to passersby who want to own cool surf/streetwear. I do nothing of the sort in RL so my GOD this is a pain in my ass. For over a week I’ve been trying to get this shit finished. I’m a shopper, not a window dresser. Clearly. I got so frustrated again last night I gave up and went dancing. Typical Myg!

In SL I’ve been a writer, a part-time DJ, a landlord, a shopowner, a builder, a shape maker. Man, I can’t fucking focus! There’s so much I want to do, and the whole retail affiliate thing is to help offset some of the hefty sums Alex and I pay out every month in tier and stream rental fees. But so far, RL supports our SL and not the other way around, like it is for some.

I want it to be that way for us! Too bad, as in RL, Alex and I have talents that aren’t exactly the money making kind.

I am all kinds of curious to know how the entrepreneurs of SL make it happen. While I doubt SL is big-business friendly when it comes to meaningful profits, more and more I hear of people who buy islands or sims and set up rental districts, retail, design stuff, open clubs and add meaningfully to their RL income. I want to be them!

Alas, I am Myg. And that means the thing I am actually good at is not the kind of thing that makes money.

Story of all my lives.

Blogged with Flock

Okay so it’s not the sexiest of blog post titles. And to be honest I wasn’t planning to cover the heavy stuff first, but being a RL mental health professional I was just blown away when I read this today:

Research on Asperger’s Syndrome done in Second Life shows early promise. That’s an SLNN article (which I found via The Grid Live) about Brigadoon, a private community created by Braintalk. (Okay caveat, that article is a bit, erm, confusing.) The author states this:

“Brain-imaging and neuro-cognitive tests on the patients have shown, both before and after visiting SL, improvement in the areas of social appropriateness. The effectiveness is still being evaluated but the preliminary results look promising.”

Which is awfully exciting but sadly there’s no reference to any specific research being done (study? authors? I think it’s probably research by the Center for Brain Health, but I’m not sure). Asperger’s is a form of autism where people are cognitively high functioning but have lower functioning in the brain areas responsible for social interaction. If the quote above is true, the areas of the brain responsible for social cognition are demonstrating improved functioning after treatments incorporating SL. And they’re proving it with probably CT-scans and fMRIs. Which is, well, awesome.

This video shows how SL is used in treatment by the Center for Brain Health. A client with Asperger’s demonstrates how he uses SL with a clinician to practice a job interview. According to the Center for Brain Health, this actually helps the brain form new neuro-pathways - reteaching the brain essential skills necessary to cope in both worlds with other humans. The video claims Second Life can also provide this kind of assistance to people with Schizophernia and ADHD.

I for one can definitely see how. Second Life social encounters appear to stimulate the brain differently from RL social interactions, and might very well afford those who are somehow compromised in RL situations advantages. Consider yourself - do you feel differently when you’re interacting with others in SL? Less inhibited perhaps? Or maybe more? This difference has got to be partially due to the lack of non-verbal social cues, (which those with Asperger’s struggle to interpret and respond to in RL).

In terms of helping out with other kinds of psychiatric disorders, I definitely see a use for SL role play, therapy sessions and groups using voice technology being able to assist people with a lot of different mental health issues as well. Imagine the agony of someone with crippling depression or anxiety who can’t leave the house, and the potential help it would be for that person to log in and receive treatment in SL, at least until they were able to go in person. And for anxiety and social phobias, I think the idea of gradual exposure through simulated experience in SL could be a huge assistance.

But that’s just my opinion.

Gosh, this article wasn’t funny at all, was it? Meh, sorry. But I’m trying to compile the good stuff about SL, and in all honesty, as great as it is for many things I think this could be one of the more important contributions SL makes to RL.

Happy Saturday, folks.

Eds. note: Mygdala March is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in RL with a private practice (for teenagers) and a background in in-patient psychiatric treatment, which is why she has opinions and such about things like this…

Second Life is a strange new world, isn’t it? Sexy enough that big corporations have tried jumping in to dominate its culture, strange enough that even some of the most powerful marketing teams on earth haven’t been able to crack its code.

The media controversy over Second Life’s value to the mainstream has always pissed me off. I was thinking about it after reading Phil Linden’s blog post the other day. He said:

There has been lots of speculation and skepticism in the media regarding the success that businesses are having in-world. I’d like to point out that most of the most visible media coverage has focused narrowly on attempts to use SL for brand marketing.

It’s true, a lot of mainstream writing about Second Life has criticized it from the perspective of big business without understanding it, sorta like criticizing an exotic country after spending an afternoon there. I mean jeez, if you spent some actual time in Second Life, I’d think its limitations as a mass-marketing platform for big corporations would be damned obvious.

Useful criticism of Second Life, I think, targets the things that inhibit growth. For example, most people I know don’t own computers that can run SL well enough to make their time in world not suck. This is especially true for teenagers, who are the natural inheritors of this world. The teens I know salivate when I describe the social and creative possibilities of Second Life - but they can’t get in because their machines won’t run it. Sure, there are some kids who own amazing gaming computers, but the vast majority of young AIM/Myspace junkies are running entry to mid-level machines.

I’m speculating that people who do own high end gaming computers want to spend time in high end games. Since Second Life isn’t a game in any traditional sense there’s probably a huge gulf between Second Life’s tech requirements for users and its natural audience, who I’m guessing are not hard core gamers as much as hard core artistic/creative types and web 2.0 users who are motivated by the social aspects.

Then there’s that whole noob experience. Once you’re in the world, it takes a long time to figure out and a lot of us won’t be bothered to stick around for it. (See rant on ugliness as a barrier here.) And of course, stability issues, which certainly piss everyone off, but will drive away those who aren’t addicted.

My hope for Second Life is that the gap starts to close between the natural audience and the computer power required for a decent time in-world. And that Linden figures out how to make the new user experience not suck so bad (I think the portals are a decent idea, but when I created my Morrisey alt, I was NOT impressed with the portal I chose…).

All that said, you know I love Second Life. And there are of course great things to talk about here. That’s why so many of us blog, flickr, and twitter it. I’m going to start featuring the good stuff here, especially for the uninitiated to get a sense of why they should bother to suffer the learning curve. I’m talking about things like music, small business, socializing, making stuff, gratuitous violence, sex and the like. So if you’ve got some ideas of what’s good about Second Life, drop me a comment or an IM (Mygdala March) and I’ll add it to my list.

Out.

Folks, do you have a special someone in your life? He’s the one who jumps you as soon as you walk in the door, tries to lick you all over and then looks longingly into your eyes hoping that you’re thinking what he’s thinking. That’s right - dinner. And I only say “he” because the dog in my life happens to be male. But dogness isn’t a gender issue - it’s a role issue. Dogs come in multiple gender flavors.

Thing is, if you don’t train your dog, your dog will train you. It happens subtly, but before you know it, you’ll come home after a hard day at the office and just automatically head into the kitchen. All the while he lovingly looks at you, practically drooling, not leaving your side until he’s gotten what he wants. He then promptly ignores you as he devours the special feast you’ve prepared for him.

Oh, it’s not just food preparation they’ll train into you. Next thing you know, he wants to go out and will be a complete pain in the ass until you let him. Whining, scratching, maybe even barking until you open the door. Finally you just leave the door open so he can come and go at will just to avoid fighting.

And let’s talk about arguing for a second too. Dogs can make you all kinds of fucking mad, can’t they? They roam around sniffing every strange ass that comes down the block. At home they take your stuff and put it in places you can’t find. They eat every last morsel of food in the house without regard to anyone else who may want it. When they’re alone and bored they’ll nick your dirty panties out of the laundry and sometimes, on the worst of days, it seems like they mess up the things you love just to make you mad.

But have you ever noticed–it almost seems like they *like* to make us mad. Sometimes when we yell and fight, they get a little bit of a rise, if you will, from it. And that’s when you–and they–know, they’ve got us trained.

How do they do it?

It’s a simple matter of conditioning, people. The dog will do something (like unexpectedly curl up next to us on the couch and let out a big sigh) and get a response out of us (such as, “awwww let me go make you a sandwich.”) If the dog likes the response, he’ll keep repeating the behavior - and we will repeat the response. See? Smart dogs figure out what motivates us and use high-value rewards. For example, if I feed my dog, he lavishes me with love and attention. God knows, I love attention, so my dinner-making habit becomes reinforced. However, over time when my dinner-making behavior becomes routine he may feel he doesn’t need to spend so much time drooling all over me, thanking me, smacking his lips in appreciation for each meal. That’s when I might feel unappreciated and the resentment can settle in, and that just sucks. But luckily, there’s something we can all do if this happens.

We can counter-train. This we can do in three easy steps: 1. Motivation 2. Notice good behavior 3. Reward it!

1. Find out what motivates your dog. Now, as far as I know, many, many dogs are motivated by the same thing - tail. If you have a dog, he likes your tail, guaranteed. Other possibilities include hamburgers, naps, and pay-per-view fights.

2. Notice good behavior - no matter how small it seems! He gives you a big kiss when you get in bed? The toilet seat is down in the middle of the night when you have to pee? These are the kinds of habits that can tip the balance when you’re seriously thinking of putting him in the shelter.

3. Using motivation identified in #1, reward the behavior you want to promote! Did your dog come home and start the laundry without being asked? Why not shake your tail a little as you walk out of the room. Next thing you know, he’s folding it and putting it away as well. (Of course, odds are, the dog will incorrectly fold the shirts and put the socks in the wrong drawer, but you can shape these behaviors as well with a little hard work and perseverance!)

Does your dog like food? Well, when he agrees to stay home with the kids so you can go out with your friends, bring him home an Italian sub. For extra good kid watching, bring him a six-pack as well. Did he do yard work without being asked? Do the dishes? Pick up the house? I don’t know who trained who on this one, but when my dog does any of that kind of stuff, he gets rewarded with a special cut, nearly every time.

Don’t forget, dogs like praise too. Be sure to lavish plenty of it when your dog is doing stuff you like, no matter how small it seems. (”Nobody can order pizza with as much precision as you can, sweetie…”)

You know, many of us spend a lot of our time bitching at our dog for his mistakes, ruminating over the stuff the dog doesn’t do so well, or sometimes even lamenting to the dog our frustration that he is being too dog-like. When we do that, we forget about the fun, the affection and the unflappable steadfastness of a good dog. Not to mention the mind-blowing sex.

Oops. Perhaps the metaphor breaks down here.

But the message holds.

Rosie tagged meh! So here, for those of you who are wondering:

1. Are you and early shopper or a late shopper?

I shop on 12/23, never before, and I buy everything from 1 or 2 local merchants (no fucking malls! Kill me first!)

2. What is your favorite cartoon (current or passed)?

Ren and Stimpy

3. On a scale of 1-10, how competent are you on home repair projects?

Probably about a 6 if I actually do them. I’m definitely at a 1 for “getting around to it,” meaning, I’ve lived in my RL house for four years and there are still no doors on any rooms upstairs. My SL experience has taught me that doors are a waste anyway (if you have no kids!).

4. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Skinny skiing and drunken gift wrapping

5. Describe your favorite kiss? Do you give it or receive it?

Up against a wall, hard with lots of tongue, special delivery from Burgess. (You asked…)

Bonus (as in optional):What is the best holiday gift you have ever gotten? Best you’ve given?

See #5. “Extra special delivery” from Burgess.

May all your Christmasses, Hannukahs, Kuwanzases and New Yearses be memeorable

(And nope, no tagging again!)