Dear Og:
Here's my biggest problem: nobody does anything original anymore. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but everywhere you turn, it's true. It's like the brain of the world has shut down. Look at music, entertainment, movies, books, politics, religion, technology, it doesn't matter. Everything is either a rehash or replay or improvement of something that happened a couple decades or millennia ago, or a clever repackaging of said material. Spend ten minutes listening to the radio or look at any recent top ten movies or DVDs, and you'll see what I'm saying. It's like the world's mind got trapped somewhere between 1980 and 1994 and refuses to move forward.
Blu-Ray discs? Pfft. HDTV? Who gives a shit - where's my VR headset hologram living room? The Iron Man movie? We've officially run out of ideas. Christianity? Should've been eliminated with the invention of the printing press and discovery of the Earth revolving around the sun.
The world is not crying out for any of this stuff, which seems to be not going away. Why haven't we seen or heard of ANYTHING even remotely related to an original, forward-thinking thought in ANY area, creatively, spiritually, technologically, culturally?
I don't need a cell phone that can play music and tell me where the closest plumbing supply store is. What I need is some inkling that the mind of the world isn't dead. Can you help me?
Fist-Shaking in Hoboken, NJ
Dear Shaking Fist Man,
Og have very different viewpoint, being unfrozen in late 1990s after 40,000 years in glacier. However, me sick too of hearing "Rooster" by Alice In Chains on local rock station. Band dead, scene dead, song pretty boring in first place, yet station keep playing. And it not just that song, Stone Temple Pilots pretty not relevant either and they played every ten minutes, but me digress. Me hear you loud clear.
It seem culture itself still dealing with paranoid year-2000 changover, and people unwilling to make jump from decade-long navel-gazing to truly thinking new and free-like. Plus, tons of material to make tons of money off nostalgia. However, me wonder, where MY Sirius satellite radio station? Where my "Sounds of Ice Age" playlist? Me digress again, but maybe you see point. After time, even Og time fade away. Eventually, Seventies Rock Station fade away too.
Just like in Pangea, Thak and me constantly asking tribemates, "Why use same bone to bash mammoth head in, same time every spring hunting season? Why not use new pointy rock tied to end of stick, seem to work much better? Or even, why not you come up with something else? Pointy rock probably not only way. Bet string tied between ends of bendy stick make pretty okay throwing weapon."
But Thak and me always see furrowed brows and series of grunts. 40,000 years later, things more change, things more stay exactly same, if you follow Og. Trust Og, we go through same thing with advent of fire.
Like me say previously, fortunately we had glacier to wipe out that sort of thing. Probably same type thing happen soon again, so really nothing to worry about. We just do it all over again for another 40,000 years. It be way of world.
Okay, got space for quick one more question:
Dear Og,
Can you sum up why everyone does what they do, and where this is all going?
Joey Menensala, Fat Millionaire
Dear Millionaire Fat Man,
Life for most seem to be a beating down of other viewpoints, plus desire to not upset herd and go with flow. Pop culture nowadays overwhelm everyone with subtle, dual message of conformity and fear, mix with dash of consumerism-paranoia. Example: Me like shopping at Restoration Hardware, but me not sure why.
It all depend on sense of humor and intelligence to carry us through to next level. Og do not fear anything, but Og apprehensive slightly about us not having sense of humor about everything. Other example good: even Og and Thak know how to pronounce properly the word "nuclear." Me not sure lot of America knows how. Not sure even President knows how. Probably this not good sign for lot of America or future. Thak and Og owe everything we gain to education. About it think.
Next week see all!
