Author: J Cleveland Payne

Hating On “Pretty Woman”

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While I did date two strippers while in my early twenties (a long story that is definitely for another time) I have little knowledge of what life would be like dating a stripper. Correction, I absolutely have no knowledge of this. But from what I can gather, it would be pretty hard to pluck the one in town with a heart of gold randomly off the street with my inability to drive a stick shift (and I can drive a stick shift).

Why did I choose this morning to throw hate at the “Pretty Woman,” an almost 25-year old movie? For three reasons.

First, this morning, I gave my wife a compliment. She smiled and said thank you. I gave her another compliment ten minutes later, and she gave me the usual frowny face she gives when I give her a compliment (which makes me hesitant to give her compliments). Whom did she blame? “Pretty Woman.”

Second, while in the shower thinking of what I was going to do with my conversation with my wife, I remembered a throw-away conversation between a news anchor and an entertainment reporter at the end of a story about Julia Roberts. This is where the movie and her role as the ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ mentioned at the beginning of this piece was mentioned. The entertainment reported gushed about it being one of her favorite movies for all the romance and some-such. The anchor basically stated that the some-such was just a hooker getting lucky. There is a reason the film sits at 62% on the Rotten Tomatoes website after almost a quarter century.

Third, and most important, is my daughter. At just under two, I don’t want her to grow up being brainwashed by popular culture and peer pressure, led to believe in really stupid things like not being able to take compliments is accepted, as in that is in the script of your live that you were handed, with no chance of rewrites. There are thousands of other tropes that I have been trying to figure out how to deflect from her, but this one struck a nerve this morning (I haven’t quite given up on the fight against wearing pink, but I did concede by just mixing in a lot of grey and black).

I get that the messages the media broadcasts are supposed to sell ideas and physical stuff. I work in broadcast radio and produce many forms of content for consumption on the internet. I even write motivational and self –help literature. I so get it.

The power of a powerful message, even if the source is a silly romantic comedy, can be overwhelming. I just hope Johanna Jasmine falls more in line with Erin Brockovich (from 2000 with an 84% rating). And I hate both movies.

Therapy Week from J Cleveland Payne, February 10-14 2014

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Setting up February 10-14, the week of love leading up to Valentine’s Day, as Therapy Week from J Cleveland Payne. Ask me a question or give me a situation, as serious or as silly as you want it to be, and somewhere between myself and a few friends and colleagues I call experts, we’ll get you an answer. We can’t guarantee the outcome from that answer, but we will give you somewhere to start.

Want in? Start submitting your questions here, or send them confidentially via email at jclevelandpayne@gmail.com.

This Riff On Religion Is A Rambling Mess

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I watched most of the 2 1/2 hour debate with Bill Nye and Ken Ham. I read over a dozen reviews and skimmed through the transcripts for the final pieces I did not watch (cuz I gots a real job, yo). It was dull and non-confrontational and answered no questions and offered no real reason to end the evolution versus creationism debate other than the fact there are other issues that we can actually solve right now. I think it’s a little wonky when Pat Robertson calls out the guy defending creationism.

Pardon me as I rant for a bit. This whole thing began as then intention to just post the preceding link to my Facebook NewsFeed (and then getting back to my real job, yo). What we really have is an argument that is turning into Yankees versus Red Sox rivalry where you are supposed to hate the other because they exist. Even thought if they did not exist, there would be one less team to play against. (for football fans, think Cowboys versus every other team in the NFL). Christians believe the Bible is the word of God, and it is truth, therefore the poor non-believers are stuck trying to come up with ideas to justify their non-belief. Non-believers don’t believe the Bible is truth, but a nice not-so-little book of historic metaphors, and therefore the sucker Christians are stuck living up to a belief perpetrated by a cabal of long dead political wonks.

Oddly enough, this isn’t the greatest God-related internet thing to bother me in the past 24-hours. That honor goes to Donald Miller. In a current more-than-a-little-bit-of-hate-the-player-and-the-game session that lives only in my head, I’m at a loss at why the guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz (this one is an affiliate link, no other links are) and from what I can tell makes a profit from being a symbol of the weird hipster-Jesus movement (which I don’t have a problem with) tells his fans that church, what most people deem as a necessary part of the Christian walk, is not really his thing anymore. And then not having the foresight to think that people would make a big deal out of it.

It’s a good thing that the over 20 years I’ve spent trying to get a following in my writing has gone nowhere and that no one will read this because this rambling mess is not what I want to be remembered for. But I have to say in this rambling mess that I’m tired as a person of hearing all the non-sensual hype and as a Christian of hearing a lot of God talk that is less personal testimony and more product testimonial. Apparently, I might be a little touched in the head to believe that followers of the Jesus Christ as described into book series that we call the New Testament of the Bible are supposed to conduct themselves in a manner that is less pandering of petty personal agenda points and more selling of the big ticket items of eternal salvation and loving each other (or at least some civil toleration).

I have no great way to end this, so I will just close with these last few observations, since no one is paying attention anyway. I get that the real culprit is using the word religion as a semantic to cover all sorts of spirituality when it mostly covers just the rituals of a certain sect. And there are too many different sects of Christianity, let alone all the other religions praying to various other beings and creatures. There are real issues that keep us divided, so there will never be a time we can all get along. But when the Yankees and the Rex Sox take the field, the spirit of the game comes alive for all fans, even the ones who wish they were watching the Cowboys instead.

I will apologize for any not so great choices in grammar are spelling errors missed in a quick spell check. I wanted this rambling mess to keep whatever meaning it was going to have without the help of editing for clarity, punctuation, or second thoughts. But what does it matter. No one is really reading this.

For Billionaires, Business Decisions Should Be No ‘Joke’

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How would you classify Facebook?

I would classify it as having origins as a pseudo-stalking application that became a great collective time-suck that has designs on becoming a dominate source of connection and conversation. While I will attest to hating to have to be on Facebook (and having to be on it so much during my day), I love the idea of what it is, and accept my fate as a Facebook user as a person who works in the ‘talking to people all day’ industry.

But I do not like Mark Zuckerberg’s inability to convey a message to multiple communities.

The headline from an article published today at Business Insider reads “Mark Zuckerberg Says That Facebook’s Failed Snapchat Competitor Poke Was ‘More Of A Joke.’” But the implication just isn’t funny to me. Or multiple me’s.

News reporter me would have rather heard, “Poke was an app that we didn’t put a lot of resources behind as we waited to see how competitive it really was.”

Tech follower me would have rather heard, “Poke was not a quick clone of a competitor, but it was a project quickly put together that we couldn’t justify sustaining.”

Business investor me would have rather heard, “Poke was not a viable product as it was originally produced and would not become viable by tweaking the original product.”

What I heard from all versions of the story that I read today was Zuckerberg saying, “There is this thing called Snapchat. We had nothing like it, and we were a little worried. So some guys hacked together a Shapchat-like-thing over a few days to see if it could be done. It could, so we threw it out there to see if anyone would jump at a Facebook-branded-Shapchat-like-thing so we could gauge if we should actually build a Facebook-branded-Shapchat-like-thing with some serious intent.”

I know that some of the best selling and easiest spread commentary follows a simple hate the player and the game. And I often fall into that trap with my commentary. But this interview to me is just another example of a person winning the cosmic lottery and thinking they have no need to every change. I get that he’s a billionaire and not even 30. Most sub-30-year-olds have the privilege of spouting one-offs without care, and no one pays them any mind. I even had that right as a sub-30-year-old talk radio producer.

I didn’t have that right as a sub-30-year-old Air Force Captain. Lay people assumed my words and actions had some meaning, or I wouldn’t have been given the authority I possessed.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to be the hoodie-wearing fun guy for as long as he wants. He can do whatever he likes. But being the hoodie-wearing fun guy is not why he had to pay a $2 billion tax bill for 2013. Its the whole ‘running a business that aims at becoming a dominate source of connection and conversation-thing. If I sound like I’m hating the player, well, maybe I am. If I were a billionaire (and I am far from it), I would have billions of reasons not to care as well.