Skip to main content

Yes, I Took A Week Off

It was a bit overwhelming last week. I had five columns to write for Urban Milwaukee and my commitment to Two Many Wives' screenplay. All writing and no play make Jeff a confused old man. 

The columns for Urban Milwaukee are all previews of Plays opening up in Milwaukee regional theater this fall. Not only were companies touting their opening shot at live in-person theater but announcing their season selections. I don't care if you're looking for edgy drama or a frothy musical; Milwaukee has some great stuff coming. 

I addition to writing, I took my pencil in hand and resumed my sketch-a-day habit. Primarily gleaning my subjects from posting on Instagram. 

This leads me to another subject. That is the daily emergence of myself into the evil empire of social media. It got me thinking about my use of Facebook, Google, Instagram & WhatsApp. 

I know my comments will sound like the people who blame the opiate-addicted instead of the big Pharma and their marketing for the problem of Opiate Addiction in our society. However, I'm using Social media for my benefit and am pretty critical of the content I consume from my perspective.

First of all, I do check in with MSNBC every day. I do see political commentary on Facebook. I did quit reading on Twitter. I like the reasoned arguments of Robert Reich. I read online, The Guardian, BBC, and Urban Milwaukee. I'm a many-year subscriber to The New Yorker. Finally, I consume Aaron Nagler on Cheesehead TV, an obviously biased website devoted to our beloved Packers. The most bias of my news sources is Cheesehead TV, and even they are often critical of their subject.

What do I like about Facebook? I like that my family members often share photos and comments about their activities. Many would say that I don't have a family. A fair observation would be that I'm the patriarchal head of a herd. Nonetheless, keeping up with the family scattered all over the country would be almost impossible without Facebook or something like it.

I use Instagram, as noted above, to find photo's to base my pencil sketching on.

One of my sons, Brad, travels internationally, and I have another friend, Lawrence, who has moved to Europe, so there is an excellent reason to use WhatsApp.

I think one of the most important things I've learned is from Weightwatchers. Watch what you eat. Eat what you want. Everything is in moderation. So with Facebook, be critical of what you see, look closely at what you disagree with, and admit you're not always right.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ring The Bell

 It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...
Post a Comment
Read more
One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...
1 comment
Read more