June 1967

Beatles release “Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the US, goes on to spend 15 weeks at number one, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” reaches #1, Monkees take home an Emmy for their Outstanding comedy Series, 6-day war between Israel & Arab neighbors begins, Race riot in Tampa Florida, Race riot in Buffalo NY, Race riot in Cincinnati Ohio, National Guard mobilizes, US Supreme Court unanimously ends laws against interracial marriages, 50,000 attend Monterey International Pop Festival, China becomes world’s 4th thermonuclear (H-bomb) power, 400 million watch Beatles “Our World” TV special, Mohammed Ali (Cassius Clay) sentenced to 5 years convicted of refusing induction into armed services, Keith Richards is sentenced to 1 year in jail on drugs charge and I graduated from high school.

Now 50 years later there is all this talk about the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band” album and how it changed the world. Sure it was somewhat revolutionary with the cover of faces but the tunes were still sing-a-long ditties we expected from the Fab Four. Several other pop cultural artist cloned the new wave of tunes about girls, drugs, girls, more drugs and more girls but it was the original everyone referenced as being ‘mind blowing’.

A few years later with hundred of listens and a few experiences under my belt I decided to do my own take on this iconic vinyl. I expected Frank Zappa to ballyhoo with his outrageous cover copy but he went in a different direction.

Not to mock the original but to take a different twist on reality I listened and copied lyrics and strum my guitar to get the rhythms and chord changes. With a 4-track tape-recorded I sat in the basement making my own spin on what was to become the incredibility difficult to find in any record store version of Mop Top’s classic.

The title and song list matched everyone of the original Abbey Road recording but with a few up-dated features.

‘Private Salt’s’ starts by telling the audience not to listen to the album, and then turns to Silly Peels who says he will hate to sing the song for it will be out-of-tune in ‘Sing It Again’. ‘Burning A Mole’, a take off of the tattoo culture, speaks of longs nights, masturbation and gay bars. Death is described in ‘Juicy In Your Eye with Grapefruit’ as a wasted body is thrown in a garbage disposal. ‘Getting Worse’ takes a journey into necrophilia, LGBTQ, breaking rules, family depravity and a reminder that this terrible music will continue. The next cut is a turn to strippers/prostitutes who give ‘Mister Blight’ their dough while voyeurism their obscenity. Bigotry rises up in ‘Without Them’ removing unwanted neighbors.

Since there isn’t a pause to catch your breath before flipping the vinyl over, the punishment continues with child abuse in ‘Almost 4’. The anger of civil servants doing their jobs is detailed in ‘Ugly Greta’. ‘Baby Too-night’ presents male degradation of relationships and consequences. Another take is the femme fatale who never leaves home turning tricks at seedy bars as her parents grow older in ‘She’s Coming Back’. Nothing like a rousing ending of watching a policeman murdered on television on ‘Turn You Off’.

So for a nominal investment you too can listen to the entire musical experience without tangerine trees and marmalade skies or marshmallow pies. Close your kaleidoscope eyes and get a jolt of the real world for only a penance. 

https://soundcloud.com/pvtsalts

You can order the lyrics separately but you must be 18 or older.

Build The Wall

If the date on the video is correct, I had the wall built in the mid-90s. At the time property lines and privacy seem to become imperative. As with any large project cost was also essential and funds were not available so instead of applying for another bank loan, Sears, who was our best friend at the time for appliances and tools, offered a payment plan to cover our project. Plans were drawn and a sub-contractor hired from North Carolina. A truck with a trailer full of timber arrived and I went to work.

Picket fence around the front and wooden privacy fence around the back was the plan. Additional gates on both sides and an indention for the trash cans in back was mapped out even with the spray markers to give the placement of the underground power line.

The two tar heels didn’t anticipate was my wife standing next to them inspecting every move and approving or disapproving every board. Even I knew the basics of installing a fence, but I never saw any sand, gravel or concrete.

After a week, my wall was assembled and it eased the crisis of the moment. It was the first on the block but not the last.

After a few storms and fierce winds the boards swayed but didn’t not buckle. Barn new shiny pine turned dark but kept peering eyes out.

One Saturday after work I came home to find my wife taking every other board off the privacy fence. When asked she explained she needed some wood for a project she was doing upstairs. That turned the privacy fence into a tall picket fence which was unacceptable to my neighbor. After some legal threats and some shouting my wife cut a 5’ fence down to a 3’ picket fence filling in the gaps. It is always an adventure.

The upset neighbor installed a privacy fence and then moved. On the other side the neighbor with the property line problem installed a 6’ chain linked fence. After she died the next neighbor decided to install a privacy fence so I had both sides covered again.

The back held up but the gates were a bit ornery and started bothering me in my later years. Half of the back had been cut down to the picket fence and was obviously easy for the folks who came by and saw my bikes in the yard to procure them. Privacy does have awards.

So I decided to stop being frustrated with something I had to deal with everyday and bite the bullet. Replacing the back fence was on my ‘to-do’ list. The obligatory research on the Internet and an email got me an inspector and an estimate.

The old decrepit fence was removed and a bright shiny wooden wall properly installed to my specifications. After a few monsoons and questions a week went by and another ‘to-do’ check off. One check and a six-pack and now I’ve got a new wall.

Am I fencing myself in or keeping others out? Time will tell.

I did pay for it with pesos.

Cruelty Is Not Entertainment

I saw this today and it struck a chord. It was an NPR story about Peta celebrating the closing of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

I am not an animal activist or a vegan or even a peacenik but I do try and treat others with some respect and care, including our furry neighbors. I’ve had a few critters in my life and have tried to understand and provide the best for their lives shared with me. I’ve been a hardy beef lover but the taste just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I find myself shopping the natural aisle and by passing the butcher. I have my own political thoughts but believe others have their own opinions.

I don’t believe in what I see as a basis for entertainment today.

Beyond the cruelty to our animal friends, who on one hand treat kindly as pets and then abuse as sport or murder them for sustenance or trophies, we entertain ourselves with our obsession to treat each other so badly.

The past election and reactions of social media has confirmed we are not a very nice species. In reflection we have always enjoyed being cruel to each other. Through our history we have entertained ourselves with the suffering of others.

Maybe a lack of empathy or education or just outright anger we tend to make movies and write books and perform physical feats that may and often provide harm to others.

At the end of the day we wipe the blood off and walk away appreciated that it didn’t happen to us. There is no thought of the affects of our words or actions against another.

I went to the circus once. I remember sitting on folding bleachers with the smell of sawdust, stale popcorn and animal waste filling the air. Barkers kept distracting the action with promises of thrills but I found it boring. Why would any sensible person want to walk across on a thin wire? Why would anyone but an idiotic person want to walk into a cage of wild cats that were large enough and powerful enough to kill and eat you while we all watched? Why would small people be so humiliated to wear crazy outfits and do stupid slapstick to the laughter of the crowd? Why would people pay to see animals perform unnatural acts to amaze the observer?

Not a saint, I’ve been on both sides of the subject but perhaps with age I’ve decided to avoid acts of cruelty and try to restrain from responding to stupidity or bigotry or whatever kind of ‘try’ that comes along.

So the Ringling Brothers Circus is gone but there are other events that pitch animals and humans against each other and the humans will always win. 

Hello? Hello??

Well it happened? My phone died?

Sorry, I can’t take your calls because my phone died.

It wasn’t a horrible death of dropping into a toilet or smashing it under the wheel of an 18-wheeler, but it just gave up a long and faithful life.

Back in 2009 I had two cell phones and wanted to consolidate and eliminate, as was the mood of the time.

So since there was no long AT&T, I went into a Verizon store and stated my problem. Get rid of one line and update the other to a new number. Much computer clicking and telephone calls and paperwork and I walked out with one flip cell phone, two old obsolete phones and a pile of paperwork and a huge bill.

I found a barbershop that said they recycled old phones to military so I donated.

Now I had to figure out this new phone. Seemed simple enough but there was a book, in several languages, about the size of the Bible that did step by step plans of programming in contacts, pictures, games, sounds, etc. Luckily the type was small so I skipped most of it and just learned how to turn it on and turn it off.

And when contractors would ask for my phone number I had to think because I never called myself.

The landline had been gone for years but the wire still connected to the house, like the abandoned Continental Cable line.

So this little flip phone became a constant companion. One of the three things I carried everyday. I realized a cell phone was handy since I was out and about on my bike and could be reached if needed.

A few years in I realized I didn’t get that many calls and I didn’t call anyone so the cell phone became a balance weight that was slipped into my pocket every morning and taken out before sleep. The phone would stay on until I heard that beep that the battery was low.

Recent years I’ve shut down the phone at night and start it up in the morning for the battery kept showing signs of weakness. After three calls the battery would quit. Sometimes the battery would quit in the middle of a call. Sorry.

Though the phone had several options of a camera, video, Internet connection, music storage, texting and whatever other toys included; I never used them. I did take one photo of a tree cut down but it had to be downloaded to a removable card then placed into another device to plug in a USB so the computer could recognize it and download it. It was old technology.

Back to the story after the back-story, I walk into the same store I went to years ago and declared “I have a dead phone.”

Naturally I’d done my Internet homework to look at options and made my decision on what I wanted. Could I be swayed by all the glitz and the glamour? Did I need a GPS to know where I was or where I was going? Did I need to capture every event and send it out to the world hoping someone would comment? Did I need to carry around music that was better than what was floating around in my head?

After scraping of the hieroglyphs from the old phone the two Indian (PC, I assume by their accent and appearance so not profiling) employees found a piece of hardware similar to what I had and started making phone calls and computer connections to the master company of V to get me readjusted and upgraded to the new decade.

A pleasant and productive and fairly fast transaction I left with a brand spanking new phone that was just like my ole warhorse with similar features and the same pad layout. Now it is time to reprogram in contacts and delete trash already loaded on it. It did pick up my messaging and call waiting with only minor changes.

“Hello? Hello?? No, I don’t need any auto insurance unless you buy me a car, thank you.”

Accused

You see them everyday; on your local or national television news or on the social media. Someone is accused of committing a no-no and their picture is posted for all to see.

Some of these people have been indicted and proven guilty by the legal system and their image will help citizens to be on alert of these villains among us.

Others maybe accused of doing a bad thing and this image will label them as a criminal.

Might be your coach accused of being a pedophile or your co-worker accused of embezzling or your priest accused of domestic violence, the image and the charge will stick with them.

A suspect of a crime maybe charged without any existence of evidence.

To be accused is to be charge with an offense or a crime.

An accusation is: charge, indict, arraign, summons, cite, impeach, condemn, criticize, denounce, blame, inculpate, hold accountable, blame, censure, reproach, criminate, charge, indict, impeach, arraign etc.

Alleged accusations are suspicions without proof.

To confirm a connection with a crime there is need for evidence, proof, confirmation, verification, collaboration, and affirmation.

During investigation into the matter it maybe that this person is involved in complicity or vicarious but did not instigate the crime.

And if, after due process, the accused is found ‘no guilty’ do we forget? Legally false accusations can be absolved or exonerated.

Then what?

The coach will have to move because parents will always be suspicious. The co-worker will have lost their job and benefits. The priest will lose the congregation and have to move to a missionary if not defrocking.

While it is easy to accuse, there are consequences.

Branded

How do you identify yourself?

Tall or short?

White or black?

Man or woman?

Red or blue?

Do you use a title or label given to you by employment to define your identify?

Do you state your identify as an association with another person?

Do you define your indentify by what organizations or groups you pay dues to?

Do you indentify yourself by your faith?

Your identity is your ‘brand’.

Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression in the minds of customers. The key components that form a brand’s toolbox include a brand’s identity, brand communication (such as by logos and trademarks), brand awareness, brand loyalty, and various branding (brand management) strategies.

Brand equity is the measurable totality of a brand’s worth and is validated by assessing the effectiveness of these branding components. As markets become increasingly dynamic and fluctuating, brand equity is a marketing technique to increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, with side effects like reduced price sensitivity. A brand is in essence a promise to its customers of they can expect from their products, as well as emotional benefits. When a customer is familiar with a brand, or favors it incomparably to its competitors, this is when a corporation has reached a high level of brand equity.

Many companies believe that there is often little to differentiate between several types of products in the 21st century, and therefore branding is one of a few remaining forms of product differentiation.

In accounting, a brand defined as an intangible asset is often the most valuable asset on a corporation’s balance sheet. Brand owners manage their brands carefully to create shareholder value, and brand valuation is an important management technique that ascribes a money value to a brand, and allows marketing investment to be managed to maximize shareholder value. Although only acquired brands appear on a company’s balance sheet, the notion of putting a value on a brand forces marketing leaders to be focused on long term stewardship of the brand and managing for value.

A concept brand is a brand that is associated with an abstract concept, like breast cancer awareness or environmentalism, rather than a specific product, service, or business.

You name is your first brand. Your name introduces your family as a legacy of your forefathers and a unique identifier of gender. Your name is not a tattoo and can be changed like companies that rebrand.

Your outer appearance (packaging) identifies without knowing a name. Hairstyle, fashion, transportation and even physical positioning can categorize your identity to others who make assumptions on your aura. Your appearance immediately projects a brand that can create presumptions including wealth, romance, intelligence or even danger.

The best thing about life is you can change your brand. It is as simple as a new suit and a haircut. You can upgrade your brand. You can downgrade your brand.

It may depend on your audience or experiences in life itself.

If you want to logo your brand, you can get a monogram. It is very stylish and highly popular on signet rings, letterheads and yachting jackets. You can put your monogram on your silverware, napkins, and your car or even get a tattoo but you might want to change your initials later.

Your brand will stick with you over time but old friends might not understand it has changed. They will remember you by your old brand and have to be introduced to the new you.

What is your brand (identity) worth to you?

Maybe your identity is misunderstood or misrepresented to other’s preconceived perceptions? As simple as a profile can be hacked, an identity can become gossip, bullying, graffiti or manipulated without your permission.

Search the Internet and see how many of ‘You’ are out there. Maybe you are not there? You better check your résumé and see if you really exist.

With the flood of information (true or fake) a comment or suggestion or third-hand comment could alter an identity. The possibility of (but not proven) criminal activity or divisive thought could change your brand without a chance for a debate or rebuttal. Our microwave mentality is quick to judge.

If you identity is stolen, what will you do? Become another person?

Change names, locations, credit cards, social security, appearance, jobs, transportation, children?, eating habits, sleeping schedules are all possibilities but your essence will not. Unlike the witness protection program there is only one ‘You’.

Doppelgangers can sound like you or have a similar appearance or even act more like you and you do, but in the morning you make your decisions, you reap the rewards and pay the consequences for your actions and at night have no excuses.

Others can carry your brand like merchandise. Your brand, no matter how misconstrued or convoluted, can turn dreams into nightmares.

Warning: Your brand will not wash off.

Reboot

What would happen if it all went off?

No telephones, no Internet, no television, no nothing.

What will you do?

Turn on the microwave and nothing. Throw the light switch and nothing. Turn up the air conditioner and nothing.

What will you do?

Somehow we have this false faith that after we were presented with wonders like electricity and Internet and satellite phones that they will always be there at our beckoned call.

We have the belief we are entitled to power and air and transportation and abundance of food and water and sunshine and rain and yet we have no control over any of it.

If we go to the grocery and the shelves are empty?

What will you do?

If we go to the filling station and the pumps are dry?

What will you do?

If the rain doesn’t come and the forests start to burn?

What will you do?

Our previous society will fall apart. Mayhem will become panic, which will become anarchy.

Perhaps recent events teach us how quickly life could change.

And there is no insurance clause for a global disaster.

Politicians and lawyers and governmental rules won’t matter when medical care has vanished.

Hold tight to your family for when tribes struggle for the last remaining scraps of hope, family might be the only support you have.

Or it is time to reboot?

New Shoes

Shoes seem to be the most important article of clothing. Those things you wear everyday, just like your underwear, have become a ‘fashion statement’. And the old Buster Browns have gotten expensive.

It seems the fine tooling of leather and laces have gone across the waters and now those mammoth container ships bring boxes and boxes of rubber bottomed shoes that slip on or lace up with minimum expertise and maximum price tag.

Well let me tell you about shoes. I’ve done a lot of walking in my years and I’ve worn out a bunch of different styles and sizes and know a thing or two about shoes.

When I say ‘walking’ I mean while the rest of you were learning and the relying on driving to deliver you from place to place, I was hoofing it. Yes, I tried the mobile machines but that didn’t work out for me.

Luckily I lived within the boundaries of a neighborhood that had sidewalks and was open all night. I walked to school. I walked to work. I walked my dates and always had a distance requirement. Miles and miles and miles of pounding cement without a thought of my poor little feet, but it was the way to wander.

After the motor vehicle fiasco, I turned to the two-wheel transportation to rest my toes. I had learned that walking five miles barefoot on summer sidewalks was not good for the feet, so I had to wear shoes.

Shoes went from every style of army boots, penny loafers, Beatle boots, tennis shoes, earth shoes, slippers and dress polished shoes. Whatever the style of tie or suit coat or trouser changed with the fads, the shoes were just what were available.

Where they comfortable for long walks? Not exactly but I did find some of the soles that worked for walking long distances as apposed to playing basketball or walking on a sailboat or dancing.

And as the story goes, I went out today to buy new shoes.

Now I must admit I am not much of a shopper but I walked in and started to look at the styles and the soles and the sizes. Most of all the sizes mattered.

It seems my footsies have grown bigger than I had remembered. That means I used to stuff my feet into smaller shoes because I thought that was the size I was suppose to wear. Ouch! Yeah, but you get use to it.

Ask any woman who wears heels.

So getting back to the story of searching for new shoes, I wandered into that 2 for 1 shoe places but tried to stay with the ‘famous’ brands and checked the soles and also the arch support. Remember to check the arch support.

Find some right sizes, check the weight (summer is coming) and hopefully the soles will last at least through the summer I walked to the counter and presented my choices.

The shoe lady opened the boxes and checked to see that both shoes were the same size and there was a left shoe and a right shoe. Who knew?

No I didn’t try them on before purchase (Miller & Rhoades nightmares) and I waited for the guy to get off the phone while standing in front of what I was looking at (just like the grocery store) and worried about the old dude who was just wandering around (just like the grocery store) yet I walked out with my big cardboard boxes of rubber soled freshness for my tootsies.

Now to throw away old worn out friends and fill the recycle can.

It’s All About The Sex

People always wonder what life is about?

It is easy.

It’s all about the sex.

Forget all that stuff about the meaning of life and the meaningful accomplishments and educational teachings and scientific surprises and cultural wonders; we are all here for the sex.

There must be some reason why we have different plumbing?

Procreation?

We are placed on this blue marble in space to make more of us.

It is all we are good at and it feels good.

It is all we are interested in.

Don’t think so? Take a look around you.

Advertising is based on sex. Television and movies are based around sex. Books are read for sex. Even the Bible is titillated with sex.

Fashion? Sex. Celebrities? Sex. Scantily clad girls at sporting events? Sex. Motels? Sex. Bars? Sex. Porn? Sex obviously and very popular.

From the beginning our different bodies were kept apart until we found the sex. It was never the purpose of procreation but expanding the population was just a consequence of sex.

Deviations to the accepted morals have always been part of our sex. All the gender swapping and transitions and whatever else we do with our bodies has been in the shadows not discussed in polite company but enjoyed by all.

Sex can shame or be used as a weapon. Sex is a rite of passage but has emotional and physical repercussions.

Relax. It is inevitable.

Born Again

In some Christian movements to be born again is to undergo a “spiritual rebirth”, or a regeneration of the human spirit from the Holy Spirit. This is contrasted with the physical birth everyone experiences.

In contemporary Christian usage, the term is distinct from similar terms used to refer to being or becoming Christian, linked to baptism.

The phrase “born again” is also used as an adjective to describe individual members of the movement who espouse this belief, as well as the movement itself (“born-again Christian” and the “born-again movement”).

Understand having a term for a life-changing event like ‘married’ or ‘pregnant’ or ‘arrested’ but to be born-again? Being born the first time is a long difficult experience but to be born-again? Better ask your mom first.

So if a junkie can kick the habit, are they ‘born-again’. If an alcoholic stays on the wagon, are they ‘born-again’. If a domestic abuser can learn to play nice, are they ‘born-again’?

If the term ‘born-again’ is a start-over, how many times can you be born-again?

If a ‘born-again’ is a do-over, do you start all over again and repeat events and try to correct your previous mistakes until you get it right or reach nirvana? Do you just continue with society and make new decisions and possible worst mistakes? Is ‘born-again’ a rebirth or a renewal? Maybe it really is eternal life?

And can you die-again?

I F**ked A Beatle

No, not me personally but I can only assume there are many women among us who can say this phrase with conviction of a by-gone time.

Some may call them ‘groupies’ but it was the time of the mania and electricity was in the air. Young English lads with long hair and dry wit captured the hearts of girls around the globe.

In the hurried pace of promotion, travel, performance, recording the musicians and their entourage had to be fed, clothed, moved, medicated and properly relaxed to keep up with the demands.

While the paparazzi photographed young attractive models associating them as ‘girlfriends’ this increase the frenzied demand to share in the mythical culture of fame. “Who is your favorite Beatle” lead to fans becoming hysterical and who could blame the news media from flaming the lust.

The poor lads had to practice, write, perform for 15 minutes to an hour without hearing their hard work, escape, and then do it all over again in another town for another screaming mass of teeny boppers. It must have been lonely being away from home and no time to get to know anyone long enough before leaving again.

Those who did get into the inner circle became part of the here today gone tomorrow hotel life. Whether treated like room service or having an intimate emotional connection these girls would become mothers and carrying on with life remembering a brief moment in time.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll became the mantra for a wandering lifestyle and consensual or not, boys and girls do what boys and girls do. Dreams were broken and expectations crushed in city after city but the memory will linger.

If not a Beatle, a Rolling Stone, or a Kink, or a Who, or a never ending parade of flash-in-the-pan one-hit wonders young girls offered themselves just to be in the company of an idol.

And the English Invasion didn’t start the trend. Musical stars from Frank Sinatra to Chuck Berry partook of the adulation given to them. Stars in any field (sports, politics, science, education, military, etc.) had their followers, fans and groupies.

Carried and displayed as a badge of courage or a rite of passage the phrase “I f**ked a Beatle” is worth a book or a column in the NYT or at least a 3-minute interview on the ‘Today’ show. No one will care if there was a love child or necessity to contact a medical clinic but want to know about the experience. “Was it orgasmic?” “Who was better Ringo or John?” “Who was better ‘a Beatle’ or ‘Jim Morrison’?”

I salute all your ladies out there who have a certain glint in your eye when “I Want To Hold Your Hand” comes on the radio and a certain smile your partner will never understand.

FoMO

There was a time, not that long ago, where you say “I’ll call you when I get there.” It seems like such a simple statement but is put in the lexicon of historical relics for now we must stay in touch no matter where we are or whom we are with.

Technology has produced wonders of 24-hour news, weather, sports, entertainment and most important communication. Our microwave mentality must have immediate gratification or be frustrated.

Yet there was a time when everyone didn’t need to know where you were or what you were eating or even who you were with. If the car broke down you’d have to search for a pay phone or ask to use someone’s landline. If there were several choices of tomato sauce, the personal decision of which brand was made without consultation. If an artist performance was being observed; it could be appreciated without constant interruptions and annoying distractions.

These devices are helpful to make last minute business decisions or record breaking news but what happened before when you had to wait for the mail to arrive or the evening newscast? Newspaper gave up verified documentation of events and happenings from previous days but it was the best there was. Conversations with friends caught us up on what they have been doing since the last conversations.

Now we have FoMO.

Fear of missing out or FoMO is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”.

This social angst is characterized by “a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing”.

FoMO is also defined as a fear of regret, which may lead to a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, profitable investment or other satisfying events.

In other words, FoMO perpetuates the fear of having made the wrong decision on how to spend time, as “you can imagine how things could be different”.

Self-determination theory (SDT) asserts that the feeling of relatedness or connectedness with others is a legitimate psychological need that influences people’s psychological health. In this theoretical framework, FoMO can be understood as a self-regulatory state arising from situational or long-term perception that one's needs are not being met.

With the development of technology, people’s social and communicative experiences have been expanded from face-to-face to online. On one hand, modern technologies (e.g., mobile phones, smartphones) and social networking services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) provide a unique opportunity for people to be socially engaged with a reduced “cost of admission”. On the other hand, mediated communication perpetuates an increased reliance on the Internet. A psychological dependence to being online could result in anxiety when one feels disconnected, thereby leading to a fear of missing out or even pathological Internet use.

As a consequence, FoMO is perceived to have negative influences on people’s psychological health and well-being, because it could contribute to people’s negative mood and depressed feelings.

Are we better off today helping Sally pick out her prom dress or the latest picture of Fido or that silly video of grandpa playing games with little Billy? Could we put them into a scrapbook or journal to enjoy later?

Test your FoMO.

1.    Gather some friends for drinks (Wi-Fi available of course)

2.    Have all your friends put their phones on the table

3.    First one who picks up a message, tweet, call, text, email, etc. PAYS THE BILL!

Are they checking their phones?