Digital Ink Los Angeles

“All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”
~~ Mark Twain, in Harper’s Magazine, September 1899

Mark Twain is a man of American letters who spoke to the profound paradox of man — at once a brave beast, divine and brutal, with ugly virtue and graceful depravity.

There’s a video circulating the internet with naked images of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, taken surreptitiously by a voyeuristic video-maker with access to Erin Andrews’ hotel-room peep-hole.

All dorm-room humor aside, and after the initial lure to search “Erin Andrews Naked Video” for the best-quality posting on the internet, there arises a moment of pause…

What kind of sick freak has the audacity to put his video camera to a door’s peep-hole and video a young woman in the privacy of her hotel? Not casting any stones, just wondering what this person does for fun? Is there an extreme likelihood that this voyeuristic freak wouldn’t know what to do with Erin Andrews if she invitingly opened her door and offered her uninvited guest to come in for a nitecap?

Quite simply, Erin Andrews is a beautiful woman living in an ugly world. She deserves better. Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, and Colin Farrell somehow found their sex videos on the internet because they had intentions from the beginning to capture these compromising images.

Maybe Erin Andrews can call up some of her NFL buddies with gangster friends and criminal histories — Michael Vick, Pacman Jones, Ray Lewis, Travis Henry, and Steve Smith — to exact some violent justice on this peep-hole pervert? That would be a nice professional courtesy, considering the way Erin Andrews has always been an absolutely professional and courteous reporter since she began with ESPN in 2004.

Facebook is an interesting phenomena because it calls into question the dilemma of “Who was I then? Who am I now? Are they the same people?“

What would someone like Dick Cheney present to a potential Facebook buddy from years gone by? “Hey there! Long time no speak. Wanna go quail hunting sometime?”

Or, how about the ever-so-humbling experience of requesting a “friend” on Facebook, only to have them “ignore” your cordial advances. How could they? Don’t they know who I am? The horror and humility…

Or the Facebook gurus who seem to somehow track your every movement through posts and photos — the all-encompassing “Mobile Uploads” feature of Facebook, which allows the user to share every digitally captured moment with their Facebook “friends.”

Then, there’s a notion that Facebook is a manner of self-expression, a way of assessing one’s self-identity and letting the world know who you really are — safely ensconced in your home or apartment, bent over a keyboard, squinting at a computer screen, clicking on things like, “What Wild Animal Are You?“

Oh, the wonders of the Digital Age. We live. We learn. We Facebook. Wanna be my friend?

(cartoon by Dave Walker)

Allison Anders‘ 1993 film, Mi Vida Loca, tells the story of two girls growing up as best friends, living the gang life in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. One of many films to speak of the Vida Loca, or “Crazy Life.”

The 2009 Webby Awards has selected “The Ten Commandments of La Vida Loca” as Best Drama Series. The series is produced by Filmaka, a new online conglomerate of creative web denizens looking to make their mark in the motion-picture industry of the 21st Century.

You can see all of Filmaka’s goodness at their website.

Making it happen online and offline.

The third stone from the Sun.

The green planet with one moon.

Birthplace of jazz, baseball, and the internet.

Happy Earth Day 2009!

– BJL