The Internet Is A Bad Neighborhood

 

On a recent road trip coming northward out of Sarasota we detoured to Jacksonville. After the time in Jacksonville we were in an awkward spot to get home to northern Georgia. If only using the interstates to travel it would have meant going out of the way westward on I-10 to I-75 or heading north on I-95 to I-16 in Savannah and then getting on I-75 in Macon. Logistically it made no sense. I decided the old fashioned way of studying a map and choosing back roads was the better option and would be more interesting. Off we went across the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia zigging and zagging through Waycross, Alma, Hazelhurst and many other towns. It was a fun drive, with no traffic and no stress. I would do it again and maybe change it a little to see new towns unseen.

I am still attempting to visit every one of the one hundred and fifty-nine counties in Georgia which is the second most to Texas in the number of counties. I do not have many left as I have visited well over a hundred of them. On this trip I added Bacon, Appling, Jeff Davis and Dodge counties to my total. I feel like I have been to more counties in this state than the politicians that claim to represent it.

 

On the drive I kept thinking about simpler and saner times. Country roads have a way of stripping away the man-made artifices, modern technology and information overload and the troubles of the world that really have no direct bearing on my life. The roads passed through the endless pines, the green fields, by the barns, over the creeks, rivers and swamps and by houses large and small. I like to think of the countryside as reality and cities as artificial bubbles.

The American flag at rest on Broad Street in Monroe, Georgia. Photo by me, April 2026.

When President Carter died in 2024 I watched his funeral. Some of my motivation was a sense of obligation since he was, like me, a son of Georgia, but mostly it was admiration that made me watch. Carter's presidency has felt like the end of simpler and saner times in part because it was the end of the 1970s and also because of the person he was, the son of a South Georgia farmer. His funeral was more than his own, it was the funeral of the last vestiges of simpler and saner times in America and decency too. I would like to think that one day this country will be sane again, but that would require both sides reversing their charge to the extreme ends of politics and returning to where some of us live in the middle. I have no hope of it happening. I love this country, am proud of it, but I think we are fucked by both sides who are too blinded by their smugness and self righteousness for the foreseeable future and perhaps the remainder of my life. It did not have to be this way.

 

"Nor had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselves to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time." - James Joyce writing about Dublin, Georgia on the opening page of Finnegans Wake. 

 

Dublin, Georgia. Photo by me, April 2026.

 

Dublin, Georgia. Photo by me, April 2026.

Dublin, Georgia. Photo by me, April 2026.

I recently stopped in Dublin, Georgia in Laurens County for the first time. I had a good dinner in their pleasant downtown. The restaurant was busy, people were out on the sidewalks in the evening and it was good to see another small Georgia town's downtown thriving. 

 

Monticello, Georgia. Photo by me, 2026.

Monticello, Georgia. Photo by me, 2026.

Later, before making the final leg home we stopped in the square of Monticello. It is another small Georgia town with a downtown that thrives. I have watched several sunsets in the past few years from that square on my way back from other places. The back roads seem to take me through there no matter from where I was coming. There is something so peaceful and calming about that square at sunset. The world feels okay there.

I have noticed this many times, but in small towns life still feels sane and normal for the most part. There is a great divide between small towns and the cities much like American politics. It is in cities and large suburbs where people ignore out of fear or complacency the crazy, the bad manners, incompetent drivers, dangers and the growing incivility of American life. Small towns are where the life and the country I knew growing up still exists in large part. It is weird for me to feel this way as it requires me to admit that I was wrong for decades of my life when I thought cities were better.

I wish American cities were cleaner, safer and more polite, but they are not and it should not be tolerated or accepted and yet it is. Is it apathy by the citizens, the local governments and police? Yes and it is up to them to take responsibility and solve those problems. In bad neighborhoods people say to look the other way and are told to mind their own business. Looking the other way is cowardly and shreds any sense of community which leads to bad neighborhoods. If taking care of one's community is not minding one's own business and is not in one's own best interest then nothing is.

Somewhere near Milledgeville, Georgia John Cougar Mellencamp's Small Town played on the radio. I sang along. I thought about my mother, she was a huge Mellencamp fan. The world was okay on that back road and in that reality. 

 

Me on the beach in Sarasota, Florida. April 2026.

 

With that written and after walking miles around a lake on Monday, I am putting my long form blog, Notes from Rabbit Tobacco Field, on indefinite hiatus. I am deep into writing my next novel and I do not have the spare mental capacity to keep writing long form posts for a blog. I have to concentrate on novel writing.

Another reason, is that I do not desire for my blog to become what I disliked about the men of the previous generation who talked back to the television news and complained about everything. I notice the men of my generation do it on Facebook or other social media and I find it negative and annoying. I do not want to contribute to that type of discourse on the internet nor waste my time consuming it.

Also, I have been pulling back my time from the internet in general. My use of the internet for any purpose has declined significantly over the last year. I spend very little time on the internet surfing or browsing as if I have seen the end of the web and it is suffocated with bots and AI. The web I started with in the mid 1990s that was human, cool, interesting, filled with originality, was mostly friendly and not so commercial is dead and has been for a long time. The greatest invention for the average person in my fifty plus years of living was ruined. It did not have to be this way. The internet became the ultimate bad neighborhood.

Finally, I like my privacy more than this blog. The internet's influence on society and the current politics are enough to make a person become a misanthrope and to be thankful for the gates that we have control over.

This website is not dying, but changing and will still serve as my primary outlet for my books. I will keep posting periodic updates about my next novel.

Thank you for reading,

Chris M. Vise

 

In The Heat of the Hazzard Vampire Darlings

The courthouse in Covington, Georgia. Photo by me, November 2025.

Is it Hazzard County or Mystic Falls or Sparta? This town was all three fictional places about moonshine, rebel flags, Daisy Duke cutoffs, Archie Bunker as a cop and teenage vampires in television shows, but the real place is Covington, Georgia; a town of fourteen thousand residents and filled with fine homes east of Atlanta in Newton County.

 

Get that selfie bro! People wait outside a tour company. Photo by me, November 2025.

The few times I have stopped in Covington and not simply passed through on the back roads to elsewhere I have been surprised at how busy the downtown is with sightseers. I had no idea people were that interested in taking tours of places where television shows and movies were filmed. I was unaware this many people were deeply connected to television shows and that they would track down the real life filming locations and pay for tours. Is it an odd psychological quirk for a hobby I suppose. I might could understand if it were Hollywood, but Covington? I might not understand, but maybe there is good reason for this.

Covington thrives on this piggyback tourist industry and there is even a museum about these television shows and films. Meanwhile, actual filming in Georgia for movies and television has taken a downturn as production companies flock to cheaper locations. The local film business has slowed so much that some of the studio buildings and land on the bypass were purchased in October by the city and will be converted for municipal uses.

One of the more popular shows filmed here was The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017. Covington was the fictional town of Mystic Falls, which sounds like the name of a cheap wine or car air freshener with a musky scent. I can smell it now coming from a Tesla.

Someone I am kind of related to and was an actor was on the show several times as an extra. I have never seen an episode and do not recognize the names of any of the actors. I assume it must be about vampires writing their secrets in little notebooks that they hide under their coffin pillows. 

 

As I walked I was near one of the major filming locations for the series. Teenage girls with heads down stared at themselves on their phones. They blocked the sidewalk and I patiently waited until finally I had to say excuse me like an adult should. The girls were the dreaded phone zombies and not vampires in broad daylight at the corner of College Avenue and East Street. Not to pick on teenagers, but people of all ages too often have lost the basic courtesy that when in public you have to share it with others, that the world does not revolve around you and the faux image of yourself that you present via a smart phone. Real life in public is not your personal television show, a TikTok post or a YouTube channel.

The filming location of Lockwood Mansion. Photo by me, November 2025.

The filming location of Lockwood Mansion. Photo by me, November 2025.

This is Lockwood Mansion, the television den of the Lockwood family of vampires. People were creepily possessive about their spot outside the gates to get their perfect and amazing photos. As is my style, I walked through them, took a few cell phone photos and stayed ten seconds. I felt rather silly about the whole moment, but it was a nice house. 

The county courthouse in Covington as seen in the opening credits of the tv show In The Heat of the Night.

In the 1980s my mother watched In The Heat of the Night so I saw many episodes of that show. Covington served as Sparta, Mississippi. I was not exactly the target demographic for the show, it was okay. Carroll O'Connor was a big name actor, but I never said to myself that one day I was going to track down the shooting locations and take a selfie. And so I did not in 2025.

The General Lee and the Duke Boys being chased around the courthouse square in Covington.

I did watch The Dukes of Hazzard when it premiered in 1979 and for a couple of seasons after until I lost interest. My closest friend at the time, a boy I have written about in my books as the character Robin, could do a perfect “yeehaw” just like Bo Duke. I was jealous. I was six years old so what did I know? How many car chases with a couple of good ole' boys can one watch? Sing it Waylon. Most of my classmates were obsessed with the show, had model versions of the General Lee car, tee shirts, bedroom posters and talked about the show into high school. This was about the same time that Cooter, actor Ben Jones, became a Georgia Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988. Among the more impressionable minds of some of my classmates, some are still die hard fans as they refuse to outgrow their childhood tastes well into middle age.

Only the first five episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard were filmed in Covington, Conyers and Atlanta in the fall of 1978. The show thereafter was filmed in California and it never looked the same as the real locations in Georgia. The red clay dirt, dense woods and rural landscapes just cannot be replaced by dusty California. During its seven seasons on CBS, the show was in the top ten for three seasons and peaked at number two in 1980 to 1981. I can still remember how big that show was and how it seemed for a time the show that every kid talked about on the school bus and playground.

A stuntman lands a plane on the courthouse square of Covington as locals watched as extras in a Hal Needham directed film.

A film that seemed to be in perpetual repeat on HBO in the early 1980s was The Cannonball Run (1981). I saw it in the theater and then had it on in the background many times as a kid while I played with my Hotwheels. I did not know it at the time nor would I have cared then either, but parts of the movie were filmed in Covington. In the scene above a stuntman lands a plane that is supposed to be piloted by Burt Reynolds on the courthouse square. The reason for the unexpected landing was that Burt and Dom DeLuise had run out of beer. 

The film is a comedy car chase that would certainly be less humorous if made today. The Rod McKuen joke, which was quite funny, would not be understood today by younger generations as you had to be alive in that period to fully understand and much of the other humor might also be unappreciated. The bloopers that ran at the end of the film were great. I miss Dom DeLuise's laugh. I miss Burt Reynolds too. 

I remember the late 1970s and early 80s as a very loose, humorous time. Some of my belief resides in the fact I was a kid, but you also see it reflected in the entertainment of the era. It is easy to be misled by people with ulterior motives into believing, especially if you were not there, that the past was some miserable experience. Nor was it perfect either, but people were far less hung up, concerned and socially neutered with bullshit. Compared to the blunt and adversarial categorizations of today, people's sense of place in the world and how to relate to others was more nuanced and also more sophisticated. If you transported anyone under the age of forty today back to 1981 they would be utterly lost as to how to behave, communicate or function; even pumping gas, using a telephone or getting along with people would be problems. People did actually try to get along in public back then at least where I came from. The two greatest losses in my lifetime might be the loss of authentic humor and observing coping skills be supplanted by entitlement. Both of those losses are cross generational.

Twenty minutes east of Covington between there and Madison is Hard Labor Creek State Park. The park was the primary filming location (a few scenes were shot in Atlanta) for the 1980 Paramount Pictures film Little Darlings. The film starred Tatum O'Neal, Kristi McNichol and Matt Dillon. The movie is set at a summer camp and is about two girls, one from a wealthy family and the other from the wrong side of the tracks, who bet to see which one can be the first to lose their virginity. Gasp! Imagine a film like that in 2025, it would offend the sensibilities of the left and the right and would be a box office smash hit as everyone went in secret to watch it.

Top Left: The title sequence. The character who Tatum O'Neal played was supposed to live at The Swan House in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. Top Right: The kids are loading up on a parking deck outside the old AJC newspaper HQ in Downtown Atlanta. Second Left: McNichol arrives in Downtown Atlanta. Second Right: Actor Nicolas Coster stands with the now demolished Omni Coliseum behind him and the Omni International which would become the world HQ of CNN known as CNN Center from 1985 until 2023. Bottom: McNichol in Downtown Atlanta. 

I must have watched this film a few dozen times on HBO on repeat as a child. I knew I shared something with McNichol, but I was not sure what at the time. She did some of her best acting in this film.

Camp Little Wolf at Hard Labor Creek State Park. Little Darlings 1980.

There was trouble caused by McNichol during filming of Little Darlings which might have been a glimpse of things ahead for her later in life. 

People Magazine cover March 31, 1980.

In a profile of McNichol in People Magazine during the promotion of the film it was revealed what had happened.

"The movie's crew, as it happened, preferred Tatum's quiet but polite reserve to Kristy's more impatient and sometimes disdainful moods. In one moment of boredom, Kristy gunned her car into nearby Madison, Ga. and, jumping the curb, tore a large "donut" into the grass on the town green. Confronted by angry police, the embarrassed production company later apologized (as did Kristy personally). "I'm just relieved that if my daughter has to be a rebel, she's ruining grass instead of taking drugs," says Carollyn." A Pad of Her Own in People Magazine March 31, 1980 by Karen G. Jakovich 

 

In 1979, when the movie was filmed, I can believe that a seventeen-year-old McNichol could have gotten away without trouble for doing doughnuts in the middle of sleepy Madison. She was rich and famous, American culture was less celebrity obsessed and not as connected with twenty-four hour news and the inescapable internet. Today, Madison caters to an upscale clientele and news of any sort spreads within minutes on social media and there would be videos from twenty different angles. A mention of the incident in 1980 in People Magazine did not even raise an eyebrow at the time.

McNichol, most known at the time for her role as Buddy in the 1970s television series Family, was no stranger to Georgia. She filmed the 1978 made-for-TV movie, Summer of My German Soldier in Crawfordville and Madison. Her 1981 film costarring Dennis Quaid and Mark Hamill, The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia was shot on location in northwest Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

Jimmy Carter as Georgia Governor in the 1970s.

It also probably did not hurt that Georgia was beginning to emerge as a welcome place for filmmakers in the 1970s and 1980s. Burt Reynolds deserved some of the credit behind the push to film movies in the state. He had starred in Deliverance (1972) filmed in the Georgia mountains and advocated for more movies to be made here. Credit also belongs to then Governor Jimmy Carter who had the foresight to create the Georgia Film Office in 1973. 

During this time, Georgia was used for Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Sharky's Machine (1981), The Cannonball Run (1981), Swamp Girl (1971), Together For Days (1972), The Greatest Gift (1974), Buster & Billie starring a very hot Jan-Michael Vincent (1974), The Longest Yard (1974), Conrack (1974), Cockfighter (1974), Poor Pretty Eddie (1975), Return to Macon County (1975), Moonrunners (1975), Squirm (1976), Gator (1976), Greased Lightning (1977), The Farmer (1977), Scalpel (1977), The Great Bank Hoax (1978), Our Winning Season (1978), John Huston's Wise Blood (1979), Moon In Taurus (1980), City of the Living Dead (1980), The Long Riders (1980), Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), Cannibal Apocalypse (1980), Breaking Away the television series starring the adorable Shaun Cassidy filmed in Athens (1980), Madhouse (1981), The Four Seasons (1981), Coward of the County (1981), Six Pack which was partly filmed where I grew up in Georgia (1982), The Sender (1982), The Slayer (1982), Murder In Coweta County (1983), The Slugger's Wife (1985), Summer Rental (1985), A Killing Affair (1986), As Summers Die (1986), Manhunter (1986), Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), The Mosquito Coast starring Harrison Ford and River Phoenix and partially filmed near where I grew up (1986), Foxfire (1987), Made in Heaven (1987), Funland (1987), From A Whisper to a Scream (1987), Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Your Mother Wears Combat Boots (1989), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) among others.

 

Movies and television shows would continue to be made in Georgia in the 1990s. It would be after 2000 when production exploded that Georgia became the Hollywood of the South. In 2016 Georgia had more feature films made here than California. Though Georgia's entertainment industry has begun to wane again in recent years.

Kristi McNichol canoes with Matt Dillon in Little Darlings.

I doubt Little Darlings is part of the film location tour circuit, but the park and its lake where Camp Little Wolf was located still exists. You can get a selfie by the lake, maybe hotwire a bus and sing along to One Way or Another by Blondie.

Consider and Reconsider

 

A nice piece of reality from a September walk near home. Photo by me, September 2025.

If you read, watch or listen to the news, then you might be convinced that the world is falling apart. This feeling is not something new, but it is amplified more now via the internet, but the world has kind of always been falling apart with global crises, murders and all sorts of calamity and mayhem unfolding in the words of reporters between the advertisements. The world is a chaotic place, though when focusing on the United States, it certainly appears more chaotic than recent decades, at least since the 1960s. Whether that chaos is good or bad or even to what degree probably depends on your political bent, as most everyone online is acting out their performative political obsession, which is now bleeding into reality, from shaking their heads at every perceived slight injustice, from attacking strangers for different opinions, boycotts of retail stores or television networks to the far extreme act of assassination.

Having been born after the sixties in the early seventies, I have no personal experience with that decade. The sixties was a decade I learned about as vivid images and stale words in history books in the eighties. My assumption is that to the average person living in the United States in the suburbs or a small town, it probably seemed like a crazy time to be alive with political assassinations, Vietnam, Kent State, the Manson family murders, the civil rights movement, Woodstock and so on. There was one big difference between then and now: it was much easier to avoid the news and keep it at a healthy distance.

If you did not watch the network evening news or read the newspapers, then you were detached from what was happening in the cities or in far-flung places like California or Vietnam. The news on television was not close to home, outside your door or in your face. The news that mattered most was who was getting married, having their second child or who got a new job down at the plant. There was no internet to digitally bring all of these events to your bedroom as you pulled the covers up to your chin. The internet has brought the chaos up close and personal and the addictive intimacy of the twenty-four-hour news cycle is driving people crazy as they overdose on the news. The human brain, as powerful and adaptable as it is, cannot handle modern technology very well.

Nature is not concerned with the news. Photo by me, September 2025.

Today's world offers a person plenty to think about, consider and reconsider. I read the news and then I go out into the world and enjoy what is in that moment and in my presence, or at least I try. Keeping the news in a proper perspective and at a distance helps me stay sane. I do not make policy or battle criminals and whatever is going to happen is going to happen no matter what I may think. I am an observer of the larger world and a participant in my much, much smaller life. I foster my opinions mostly in private, rarely on social media and share a few on this website or in my books. It would be impossible and unwise to comment on subjects I know little about or do not care to know enough to have a solid opinion.

Here is one solid opinion of mine: the world would be better if people lacking self-control did not rush half-cocked to social media to fire off emotionally inflamed words. Once the haze of the dopamine rush clears, they are left to look like a fool; whether they see it or not, others do and they remember it. It is worth remembering and often forgotten, but the world does not revolve around you; you are only along for a temporary ride through the vast emptiness of space. There is a benefit in stepping back from the keyboard, putting the phone down, going for a walk, reading a book, watching a movie, meditating or doing something better with the time you have.

 

After a few miles I sat and considered the world near home and what mattered the most. Photo by me, September 2025.

Do not lose perspective.

R.E.M. It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Bethlehem, Georgia & The Christmas Card Tradition

The post office in Bethlehem, Georgia. Photo by me, December 2024.

Growing up in the 1980s and watching Atlanta television news there were some stories that would be recycled every year during the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year. One was the lighting of the Rich's Great Tree in Downtown, there would the annual Hosea Feed The Hungry and Homeless on Thanksgiving, the Christmas parade, the Peach Drop at Underground and at least one of the television stations would assign a field reporter to drive northeast of town to far-flung Bethlehem, Georgia in Barrow County to do a story on Christmas cards. 

Bethlehem, Georgia in 1978 when I was five years old. It looked more like a traditional town then than it does today. The tiny post office then is in the second row on the right. Images courtesy WSB-TV archives at the University of Georgia.

Bethlehem, Georgia in December 2023 and December 2024. There is very little remaining of what stood in the late 70s. It looks less like a town today and more like a wide spot in the road. Photos by me.

I did not know where Bethlehem, Georgia was located when I was a child in Paulding County. I had never been there until a few years ago when I moved out of Atlanta. Now I pass through every couple of weeks on my way to Monroe. Bethlehem is a small town, population seven hundred and fifteen as of the 2020 census, that is more of a community than a true town with a cluster of businesses and sidewalks. It reminds me of where I grew up in another small Georgia community in the 1970s and 80s. Except, Bethlehem has one traffic light and a post office and my hometown did not. My old community has long since been swallowed by the Atlanta sprawl of subdivisions and shopping centers and unfortunately the sprawl is now beginning to edge towards Bethlehem too. I hate to see it happen again as no place in Georgia north of the Fall Line seems to be immune from it.

By Bureau of Engraving and Printing. - U.S. Postal Service; National Postal Museum: 1967 Christmas Issue

There is a special Christmas tradition that this little town just off the newly finished exit off Highway 316 is known for: the Christmas postmark from Bethlehem for Christmas cards. The tradition began in 1967 and at the time included a special issue postage stamp from the United States Postal Service which has since been discontinued. The special postmark still includes the Three Wise Men and the Star of Bethlehem and reads, 'Greetings from Bethlehem.' During the first Christmas season, the tiny post office that employed a postmaster general and one part-time employee handled 500,000 cards and letters. Over three dozen temporary employees were hired to handle the volume.

Over the decades since, I wondered if maybe the tradition had waned, but when I mailed cards this past Sunday, the slot for out of town mail was stuffed full. It was a happy sight for me to know that people were still sending cards and sending them out of Bethlehem for the postmark. In a time when the cheap spectacle reigns supreme over value and people cannot seem to be bothered with most traditions anymore like dressing appropriately for funerals and weddings it is surprising to know that this one continues.

Every year my family sent out Christmas cards and I still carry on the tradition though I never receive a single card in return. The last year I received a card in the mail was in 2003, the last Christmas my mother was alive. I refuse to let the tradition die that I see as a way to acknowledge someone and wish them well during the holidays without relying on a soon to be forgotten social media greeting. I wrote about my memories of Christmas cards last year.

 

Merry Christmas, season's greetings and happy holidays to you.

A Modern Death

The film Harold and Maude, 1971.

The other night I decided to watch one of my favorite films, Harold and Maude about an eccentric young man who falls in love with an eccentric and much, much older woman. The two meet in the 1971 film over their shared appreciation or hobby for attending the funerals of strangers. It might sound morbid, but this is a tender and comedic take on a coming of age story. I have loved this dark comedy film since I saw it as a child in the 1980s and I had a bit of a crush on the slim Bud Cort with his dark hair and blue eyes. The movie, directed by Hal Ashby who also made one of my other favorite films Being There, was a critical and commercial flop when it was released, but over the decades it found its audience and became a cult classic.

The film was on my mind due to the recent sudden death of a cousin. Their death, was the second sudden death of a cousin this year. Both were too young to have died and both died alone at home only to be discovered later. The coincidental circumstances seemed odd to me being so close together. Perhaps it says something greater about the loneliness and isolation of modern life in the United States stitched together by cell phones and social media. Or maybe it simply says something about those individuals.

Additionally I was bothered at how the information of the deaths spread through the family. In both cases I was notified by text message, one from a family member and the other from an elementary school classmate who was friends with my cousin and to which I was very grateful. In the second case, I would have likely not known about my cousin's death until much later or at all. It is possible as there have been other family deaths over the years that I never knew about until many years later. These were people I was close with as a child, had meant something to me and it would have been respectful to have said goodbye at their funeral.

Is it so hard to pick up the phone and text or better yet call someone to tell them that a family member has died? Have we lost even that little bit of decency and courtesy?

How deaths are announced now are on social media like a press release written to whom it may concern and especially on Facebook sandwiched between the silly cat videos, fattening recipes, political gripes and photos of restaurant meals. There are several problems with this way of announcing a person's death.

It is unseemly for a person to log onto to Facebook, if one does that at all, and scroll through the newsfeed of ads and discover that your cousin or anyone you know has died like it was a status update of having gone for a walk in the woods.

 

Another is that not everyone has Facebook or there are people like me who go months or years without logging into it. I loathe Facebook despite having an account because of how the service operates and how people use it. One significant problem with announcing a death on Facebook is that there is no guarantee that the algorithms will allow it to be seen and not buried in the crap of ads, pages and groups that I do not follow or all the stupid recipe posts from people who seem to think posting hundreds of times a day on Facebook is a real job. You cannot assume that just because you posted something on the service that people will actually see it.

At the conclusion of one's life do they not deserve better than to become a status update on Facebook? What does it say about them and what does it say about us that this is thought to be acceptable manners?

I am as frustrated as Harold was with his mother and society in the early 1970s. I do not live on a remote island without a phone or lack an outside connection to the world that makes me unreachable. I have all of the same means of communication available to me and more than when people seemed to pass on family news quite easily and quickly before the invention of Facebook. It is no wonder people are dying alone in isolation because people are losing touch with their humanity due to the coldness of technology. Human connections have been replaced with technological ones and people will not realize it until it is too late as they clutch their cell phones, stare into the abyss and keep feeding the machines and algorithms absolutely and mind-numbingly meaningless data.

Harold and Maude, 1971.

In order for me to find out about my cousin's death via Facebook, I had to track it down through specifically searching for it. I only found out about the funeral plans two days in advance through third hand information from someone I am not even friends with and that is pathetic. The funeral stood a better chance of Harold and Maude randomly attending than it did for me. I cannot attend due to the scheduling and I will find my own way of saying goodbye like Harold driving his car over the cliff and walking away playing the banjo.

The Political Whiners

 

This icky feeling comes over me whenever I log into Facebook for so many reasons. The primary source bothering me now is politics - I hate the stupid filtered selfies too, the constant updates by people acting as if they are celebrities on a reality show also, but the political ranting is the worst nuisance at the moment. 

 

People should keep their political opinions off the service. Were they not taught that politics and religion should not be mentioned in polite company? 

 

A friend from way back, said a few years ago that she used to love to discuss politics with me in the 1990s. I eschew such now, but I enjoyed the conversations then and we did not agree on everything. In the 90s it was possible to have a political conversation and disagree, but not now. People have wrapped their entire being into one of two teams, either red or blue and cannot be civil or believe they know everything or believe in stupid conspiracy theories. I blame social media, identity politics, television, print and internet media and the lousy politicians for this change.

 

It is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing or being a Republican or Democrat or a Whatever-the-fuck, it is just inappropriate to spew your political rants on Facebook. Unfortunately, it is an election year and people have nothing better to post between the beach selfies and memes. It makes me wish I could find a way to permanently leave that service behind.

What has been on my mind is how it felt for Soviets prior to the collapse in 1991 when nothing made sense for them and whether some saw it coming or not. It makes me think of those Adam Curtis documentaries for the BBC, especially TraumaZone which is about the Soviet Union  and Can't Get You Out of My Head which is more about the U.S. and Europe. The documentaries of Curtis are a bit of an acquired taste I admit and they do require the viewer to give them a chance so I doubt the Facebook loudmouths have the patience for them.

 

The United States is deeply troubled, has been for several years, and I wonder where it leads. I do not recognize this country after decades of social and political upheaval. It is not the country I was born, raised and enjoyed much of my life. What a somber Fourth of July.

View from a Hill - The Chameleons 

The 90s or The 70s

I have been writing so much for the next novel and in emails that I have neglected my blog for almost a month.

 

After not using my Facebook account in the past couple of months I decided to deactivate it until I need it again. It will remain in that state until my next novel comes out some time this fall. Work on the novel set in the 1990s continues and progress has been excellent especially without the distraction of Facebook. 

 

The 90s are a complicated time to write about because there were so many highs and lows I experienced like many twenty-somethings do. It can be the make or break period for dreams and so much change occurs in a person's life in those years. You hope to come out of it by the time you reach thirty having found yourself and figured out your way through life. The consequences of actions and responsibilities only grow with age and the sooner you accept that the better off you will be.

 

The other day I was flipping through records in an antique store in Roswell, Georgia when I came across an album by the group Bread. They were a band in the 1970s that to my ears are the sound of that decade. They were a hugely successful group with multiple hits on the Billboard charts and today you never hear them on the radio. Most people under the age of forty likely never have heard of them, unless maybe one of their songs has appeared in some comic book action movie in an ironic fashion. Everything from the past is either to be ridiculed or smeared today. Oh how we have forgotten about hindsight and perspective it seems.

Life has taught me many lessons and one is that it always changes. Some aspects of the past were worse and some were better. If you live long enough you will understand that.

 

I was going to snatch up that Bread album, it was priced at three dollars, until I removed it from the sleeve. It was scratched on both sides and that was disappointing. YouTube will have to continue to supply me my fix of Bread.

 

In the first half of the 90s I spent much of that time alone and that is not necessarily a complaint. I remember sitting alone in that big empty house on the hill with the windows open on a rainy spring night. My father was out after he and I had spent the day cleaning house from top to bottom. There were a number of stereos in the house and we had some that played eight tracks. We had a fair amount of eight tracks to go with our massive record collection. I inserted one by Bread. It was intensely peaceful to sit there alone for hours with the lights off, the sound of the steady falling rain and Bread.

 

I thought about the seventies and how I missed being a young boy. I am not a sentimental person or prone to nostalgic fits, but that one night I did miss that time – the golden period from my perspective. Music made me remember a family, a friend and feelings.

 

It is funny to me that in 2022 I had to listen to music from the 1970s to remember a night in the 90s. Pesky time warps via the ears!

If you read one or both of my earlier books you may believe you know my family, but there is more. 

Thank you for reading.

 

 

Leave A Message After The Beep

 

When did it, in this 24/7, world of instant communication become unreasonable to have time to yourself? 

 

I need it, time to let the mind wander or think of possibilities or think of nothing at all. Perhaps it was the invention of the smart phone, text messages and instant communication software. Take your pick of poison that you can chain yourself to with Facebook Messenger, Facetime, WeChat, Skype, Zoom etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

 

I remember the world before all of that and it was a better world when it came to privacy and personal freedom. I remember the world without cell phones when there was no expectation on the human mind to always be contacted and connected. I walked outside then and if I did not hear the phone ring, my answering machine took the call and the caller left a message or not. I would return at some point, spot the blinking light or hear the beeping machine that indicated that a message waited on a mini cassette tape. I would listen to that message at my discretion and maybe, if needed, I would return that call or not. The caller could call back later and I might answer then or maybe not. It was my choice and on my schedule. 

 

Now the outside world and other people impose themselves on you and your time at their discretion and expect or demand a reply right then and there. I am reminded of an aunt yanking me by the arm as a young boy and screaming, “you're gonna answer me,” before she left her hand print on the side of my face. 

 

This constant connection has made it harder for us as humans to connect with ourselves and especially our inner selves. Do people close their eyes and think anymore? What is back there in that dusty box in the attic of the mind? I know what I think about every night right before I sleep, it is one of two things and then I am gone to what awaits. What do others think or do they fall over clutching an electronic device that shines white light on their closed eyelids? The constant connection to something other than themselves vibrates, trying to rouse them from the safety of sleep to lure them back into their addiction -pets of Pavlov.

Do they answer?

 

The song Pets plays while I pull on my hiking boots and then roll up the sleeves of my flannel shirt.

Not me. Now that I am disconnected again from Facebook this is my time. I am the astronaut untethered and floating through the deep space of my own life. I fetch no more. I can create, work and focus on my next novel without that noise and harassment. I can get lost to find what I need and where no map can lead me. It is all off-trail through the brush, cold creeks and up that mountain again.

 

This is not my first time.

 

When I wrote my first novel, Dweller On The Boundary, I disconnected from all social media and deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts, not deactivated – I deleted those suckers of time, data and humanity. I had no social media except my website and no one contacted me through that enough at the time to bother me. 

 

I digitally jumped off the map.

 

Somewhere in reality. Florida. April 2018. Photo by me.

 

I hopped in the car the next day and set off for Florida. It would be a year and three months before I joined Facebook again and did so very, very discretely. During that disconnected time, only those close and important to me knew where I was on any day or week or month. No one else needed to know, why should they? I did not owe them that right.

No one bothered me. 

 

Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. 2018. Photo by me.

I took a road trip across the country to California and back. I hiked down into the Grand Canyon, got sick in Amarillo on bad Thai food, sweated to death at Hoover Dam in 116 degree heat, danced in the desert, got into the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica and none of it, not one bit of it made it onto the internet. I did not have the thought to show off, boast or perform for social media. At most, three people knew where I was on the planet and only one knew every day where I was because they were with me. That time before I got back on Facebook was the greatest period of freedom I had experienced since the early 2000s.

 

By the time I jumped back onto the digital map I was Rip Van Winkle. The interfaces and designs had changed and of course it had more features than it did when I left to keep you in the spider's web. It was disorienting and I questioned whether it was the right decision for me to put myself back out there for people to find me, that I did not want to find me. My gut said that I did not want or need to be there, but I sucked it up and gave it one more shot. 

 

I had the manuscript of Dweller On The Boundary close to finished by the summer of 2019. I worked, rewrote, added, subtracted and tweaked it for another year. That first chapter had so many versions, but inspiration and the truth had me pick the correct one. I allowed a handful of people to read the original manuscript, made changes and shopped it to literary agents. It was not easy, it was not as smooth as it sounds, it was difficult as anything worthwhile should. 

 

When my feet were wet again with the likes, comments and the connections of social media, I asked one longtime friend going back to the middle 1990s if they would be interested in giving me an opinion on the manuscript. It was by that time nearing the polished form minus the stray typo. I did not want a fully fleshed out critique and I made that clear. I wanted a general opinion and nothing more. They agreed to read it. I sent it with the condition there was no pressure and that they could read it at their leisure, but to please let me know what they thought. It was simple. 

 

My eyes fighting the 1990s sunshine on Tybee Island, Georgia.

 

I knew this person well, we had a long history and many meaningful memories going back to my early 20s. This was a person I had allowed to sleep on my sofa in my Atlanta loft for months. I had stayed with them too for a couple of weeks when I first moved to another city. The last time they were in Atlanta, I hosted their entire family at my house instead of a hotel in the 2000s. They had even stayed at my childhood house in the 1990s, which for me to allow that meant that you were one of the most trusted people on the planet. They met my parents a few times and I rarely allowed that. They had witnessed my highest highs and we sang the RENT Original Broadway cast recording over and over. I had toured them at one of the radio stations I had worked and let them in the studio with me. I gave them a calico cat for Christmas one year since they wanted one. We had developed an idea for a television show involving books and travel – well, I did most of the work, but we had a plan! We had packed U-Hauls together and drove them long distances through the middle of the deserted night in thunderstorms. We laughed at the dumbest things that only twenty-somethings can and haunted bookstores. They had asked me several times that if they never found their soulmate to father a child with them (read that twice). These were not little favors asked by an acquaintance. We had real, see you at your best and worst history. This person was well-read, allegedly open-minded and knew me as an adult, not as a child. There was no better to person to ask. They could have said no, nope, not going to happen and I would not have thought any less of them.

I waited months, since it was no pressure and I thought they respected me enough to come through. 

 

They had not died, I checked and waited more. Why could they not say something? I had said to them that even if they thought it was terrible or they hated it to please let me know. I warned them that it was not a lighthearted novel and could be upsetting. I also said that it was a true story about how I grew up. 

 

I never heard another word from that person since they received the manuscript in early 2020, not even a hello. I assumed they were shocked by what was written and wanted nothing more from me. It stung, but I never contacted them to ask what happened. They rejected that boy version of me without even a wave of the hand or reply to sender. So much for all that shared history. 

 

I was twelve again.

I went ahead with the book without their feedback and I am glad that I did, but I knew it was the end of that friendship. It did not make sense, but not everything does and no one ever needs to remind me of that. Friendships, even the genuine ones that span years and are cultivated, are mysteries to me. It was good to know that I was free of the obligation to reply to their future email, phone call or request for a connection on the digital map. They can leave a message and at my discretion I will wave it off without a second thought.

 

As for the request to father a child with them, well... I said...

 

You will have to read my next novel set in the 1990s to find out that answer. If you have not read either of my first two books, give them a try. You might be surprised where they go and what you did not know. Let your mind be free of the constant connection and get lost with me off the digital map before it existed.

 

Beep.

 

 

RENT Voicemail #1

The Pretty Flowers

 

Savannah 2016. Photo by me.

I  know the type, the busy body high on their own fumes that radiate faux positivity and involve themselves in activism as a hobby to make themselves feel better about... themselves. What is a bored person, who believes they know everything, are so hip and down with it, to do in their spare time than try to save the world? I recently met one and it was the most unpleasant and condescending experience that I have encountered in recent memory. These types have no real skin in the game, there is no personal risk to them and they can walk away when they become bored again. But gosh they want to help the little people a few hours here and there to feed their own ego. It might look good on their Facebook and Instagram pages! They say, "see! I'm working to make the world a better place." It's the "look at me, I am so good syndrome." They care as long as it is easy and then they go home to their comfortable world with silver spoons awaiting their mouths. Or they put their phone down and think they have accomplished something after a few clicks and typing in a few buzzwords that might include empathy, justice, uplift or hope - sometimes they become so proud of themselves they add a few exclamation points and hashtags (#geeain'tIthebest!) for good measure. Whatever word salad they can produce that is like the sun breaking through the clouds, peace doves flying,  unicorns smiling like there is no tomorrow and rainbows sparkling just so perfectly that you want to cry, wet your skinny jeans and buy the world a Coke.

The Power Dynamics Of How These People Operate

When these types are confronted or found out, they are armed to throw around apologies like candy from a parade float. They think you cannot see through all the glitter and their filtered shining aura. It is a countermeasure like chaff dispensed from an aircraft to overwhelm radar. Press them further and you will find they have no deep understanding of any of their hobbyhorse issues or any genuine qualifications. Maybe they resort to gaslighting and apologize for triggering some trauma in you. They put the onus of the problem on the offended, they deflect and say the offended is suffering some mental issue. After all, these types are so perfect, how could they truly have an issue themselves or intend to offend? These shallow ray of sunshine types would not know what trauma was if it bit them on the ass and swallowed both of their legs. They have devalued that word just as they have the apology. When you make everything trauma, then nothing is trauma. Trauma for them is having to wait for a parking space outside Starbucks for longer than two minutes or speak to their landscaper about the bill.  Another tactic this type of person will attempt to evade responsibility is the minimization tactic. They will present some minor issue or problem they suffered and try to equate it to a much more significant problem in an attempt to minimize it. See I suffered too, isn't it awful? Imagine a person trying to do that to a person that has endured a violent rape. If pressed further, they try the ultimate trick, they claim they are the victim. These types have no limits, they are a net without a bottom. If the real victim is not sharp enough they fall for this trap and watch the offender wrap themselves in the untouchable cloak of victimhood. That is the golden robe that is akin to the get out of jail free card in Monopoly.

What's an apology to a person when none of the words mean anything?

These types are shameless manipulative hacks and masters of the inauthentic apology. Words have no meaning to them, an apology is like a pretty flower gifted to you and you are supposed to accept with graciousness. Thank you is the expected response and they walk away feeling so much bigger and better about themselves. Yet, nothing changes and the offended is supposed to take it on the chin. They further marginalize the already marginalized.

 

It is dishonesty at a level that is worse than the upfront asshole or bigot. You at least know where that kind of person stands from the beginning and you can interact accordingly. The manipulative hack will smile to your face and stab you in the back the first chance they can or need when you are  no longer useful. It is their purpose to climb over the marginalized and stand atop them like a champion for the accolades. "Love me. Thank me. Can't you see? I've helped you," they bellow as they push your head down into the muck. Get back where you belong! Know your place! I have watched this unfold in street protests and on social media. It is more and more common in the age of social media to encounter these types where people crave attention and meaning in their own lives. They believe the struggles of others are like trying on costumes and role playing in a game. They will know all the right chants, never have an original thought, deviate from the accepted in-group opinion and their cell phone will always be in selfie mode. Unfortunately, enough people are gullible enough to slurp it down.

 

The marginalized person will remain marginalized. Call the bluff on a person like this and you will be the one to get the cold shoulder from others or told you do not know what you are talking about. Dissent is never easy or as Kermit sang, "it's not easy being green." It is very high school and groupthink is the rule of the day.

Thank you for the pretty flowers, I have rooms of them.

 

Coming soon, maybe in the next week, I will write about more serious issues that I touched on a few days ago on Facebook. Though my account sits there, I do not believe I will return to that service even in a limited capacity. People have managed to ruin that for me. For those that are interested I may be reached at chrisvise at gmail dot com. I reply to all emails and for now and the foreseeable future it is the only method I can be reached.

 

Maybe the best concert I attended, it was my first anyway. I saw Duran Duran at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta in 1989. I still love them.