Game Theory

The other morning I was working out on the elliptical machine at Equinox. Like most modern gyms, it's rather difficult to avoid one of the dozens of TV screens facing every direction possible; at this point, I'm just thankful they don't have them inside the yoga studio when I teach. While I try to focus on the sounds emerging from my iPod, I did have the chance to notice something rather startling during my workout.

On the screen to my right MTV was playing their usual blend of really diverse artists - the series I took note of began with Danity Kane, Diddy's newest project, and then moved into the Pussycat Dolls featuring Big Snoop Dogg. What was amazing, since the videos were, to my eyes, being accompanied the Roots record, Game Theory, blasting in my ears, I thought it was the same video before realizing it was, in fact, two different acts (I was especially enjoying Snoop's new moniker). Beyonce, who could very well have started the Pussycat Dolls (what was the name of that devised group she was in to begin with? Oh well, doesn't matter, there's another dozen of them), was showing off her own strut. That one was special, with her jumping up and down on the bed screaming about something - I mean, what the hell could she possibly be pissed about? She's on the cover of half the major magazines this month, what's wrong girl? Pissed the other half didn't give you play? And the last, to get diversity in, was Justin Timberlake. "Don't Feel Right" blared in my iBuds, Black Thought proclaiming "If you ain’t speakin’ your life, your rhymes adopted. If you don’t feel right then stop it."

I was catching glimpses of that screen, for there was something on the left that seemed, strange as it sounds, a bit more important: clips of Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke. While the Pussycats got jiggy with Big Snoop, images of tear-filled mothers and broken dolls lying on top of cars lying on top of houses supported by fallen trees kept my attention. As the camera panned inside the homes - well, houses, a home is conceptual and these certainly no longer qualified - couches were still soaked, water stains coloring fallen archways, articles of the outside world now inside while televisions and sinks rested in the front yard. And as my eye caught a killer shot of Beyonce's thick ass Black Thought kept rapping it don't feel right, it just dont' feel right.

I am a huge fan of entertainment, and technology. Seeing the paradox of existence in such bright, alarming colors as this, I can only wonder what progress means. As someone that works in many facets of the entertainment industry, I know how cheaply things like videos can be created with a bit of ingenuity. Yet we still have musicians creating million dollar videos in which Times Square is recreated in a studio using billions of watts of lighting so their mascara looks pretty, and those thighs shine with redolent splendor. I'm in no way against entertainment, but when we call escapism such - what else would the material recreation of a utopia that never existed be called? - the result is simply disturbing. We create the illusion we live inside, and then become trapped by our own creation. Religious folllowers have done this for centuries in the name of god, thinking their translation the one tried and true Truth, and today we continue the process by believing that in order to be the best we need to waste resources other people can really benefit from. Belief is nothing but a lack of experience. When we have the experience, there is no need of belief. If we believe, then we haven't lived through it, and then beliefs become dangerous things.

In The Labryinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz writes "the modern masses are agglomerations of solitary individuals." He points out during American rituals, the few times we do meet on common ground (Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, etc), we do not form a "living community." Instead we become simply a collection of individuals or small groups being led to a destination because it is, essentially, the "thing to do." Because we do not form this community - he uses the instance of the Mexican Day of the Dead as an example, one which, while plagued with its own inconsistencies, does represent something living and vibrant - we don't really know how to interact with each other. When Reality smacks us in the face, as it did in Lee's documentary, we either feel guilty or, even easier, turn our attention to the screen on the right. It's easier to forget, anwyay, and damn if Danity don't got some fine ass legs on them. Justin's in some soulful pain, Beyonce's still pissed, and Big Snoop looks kinda high (at least some things don't change). Meanwhile a child's two-wheeler floats down Main St. and Black Thought sings on, it don't feel right, it just don't feel right...