In a university graduation speech this year, President Obama railed about media technology’s growing influence on society as a theft of time and creativity.  In reporting the story, The Economist noted that Obama now joins a long list of prominent citizens warning about the dangers accompanying our steady march into the future.  The magazine cited Socrates’ lashing out at this new thing called ‘writing’ when he voiced his fears that written history would remove people from the immediate lessons of oral rendition.  Innovations that would also garner criticism in the centuries to follow were publishing, the cinema, rock & roll, video games, right on up to the current YouTube and iPad.  Of course while delivering this prophetic invocation, President Obama had his BlackBerry secure in its holster on his hip.  A fellow prisoner of the encroaching future, to be sure.

The article coincided with my recent observation that there is very little for me on the radio these days.  Having grown up with the constant driving companions of music and disc jockey patter since getting my license at sixteen, realizing that none of the stations speak to me anymore was jarring.  Even Madonna songs are now moving into the oldies range and I barely know many of the new singers and groups.  Satellite radio, with its prepared sets of song genres, sounds faux and vacuum-packed.  I used to love the Grammy Awards, until I stopped watching a few years ago when breasts started falling out of dresses and obscene gestures littered acceptance speeches.  It makes sense that I feel on the fringe.  Age-wise, Madonna is my peer.

I think we all harbor a fear that we will someday not feel relevant to the time we live in, similar to the Happy Days phenomenon of Jumping the Shark.  In fact, to avoid that one-season-too-many decay, NBC recently pulled its most successful ever television franchise, Law & Order.  Which means a generation of TV viewers will eventually be born who view Lennie Briscoe as an early prototype for police detectives.  That prospect reminded me of an incident from my teen years back in the ‘70s.  My best friend’s father traveled frequently for business, and he related this story one night when I ate dinner over at their house.

He had just been on a flight back to New York from California, and his seat mate was a pleasant young man who seemed to enjoy engaging in small talk with Hal, my friend’s father.  Hal said every flight attendant repeatedly asked them if there was anything at all they wanted.  Other passengers smiled as they passed their row, and those seated nearby kept looking over at them as they chatted.

Finally, Hal remarked to his travel mate that he wondered why they were receiving so much attention.  The young man said perhaps people recognized him from a character he was currently portraying on TV.  Hal asked what character that would be.  Here he paused and looked at us quizzically.  Holding a  forkful of meatloaf, he shrugged his shoulders and asked his daughter and me, “Have either of you ever heard of ‘The Fonz’?


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