Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

The next stage of primate evolution is bound to be called Homo Multi-taskus.

My twelve year old cultural consultant is at this moment downloading songs from the internet with earphones on one ear and on the other ear talking in a three way conversation with two of her friends on the telephone and eating goldfish crackers and doing her toenails. She is bound for success in this world.

If you can't do three or four things at once, then your genes are bound to die out in several generations or at least be doomed to an underclass existence like the thousands that were stranded in New Orleans. Prospects for survival: not good.

Yes, multi-tasking is going to be the factor that determines success or failure and even survival or extinction in the human species. Already in New York City, in order to survive you have to be able to navigate a crowded street and talk on your cell phone and do a little shopping and eat a slice of pizza all at the same time. If you can't drive and talk on a cell or type on your Blueberry or Blackberry or whatever berry you have and listen to your iPod at the same time, then your chances of reproduction are slim. You will be either hopelessly out of the social loop or you will be dead in a car accident due to lack of multi-attention. A.D.D. could be an evolutionary asset.

When I was a kid they called it hyper-activity. I like to call it hyper-creativity. It's when this uncontrollable energy builds up inside of you and you know that if you don't express it somehow that it will consume you. So you stack task upon task in a frantic attempt to avoid ultimate boredom with constant activity and stimulation and you watch tv while you cook and chat on the internet and feed the cat and water the plants, all the while mentally writing your doctoral thesis when you don't even have a master's degree.

As part of my stage act, I used to demonstrate that I could smoke, chew gum, sing and play the flute all at the same time. It was a theatrical expression of multi-tasking. Most of us can rub our tummy and pat our head or walk and chew gum but the fragmentation of attention is more serious in today's world.

You have to be able to decipher flashing, changing pop-up ads and MTV quick-cut editing while considering your mortgage interest rate or your cleverly encrypted phone bill and deal with your email and remember what movies you ordered from Netflix and where the cheapest gas is and a hurricane bombardment of other information or non-information. If you can't do this, then you are doomed to extinction. Your genes will fizzle out in a downward spiral.

In the future, if you don't have a split personality, you will be considered to be personality challenged. Gone will be the days of the specialist. The Renaissance Man will return. Homo Multi-taskus.

There are a few things that the average teenager absolutely must have in 21st century America -- a license to drive is one, a cell phone is another. But police officers, parents, and, increasingly, lawmakers are coming to the conclusion that those essentials are a dangerous mix when combined with inexperience on the road

Oh yes, steering with my elbows while rolling a joint, talking on the CB. I was a multitasking fool inexperience driver that I was.

Four years until she drives. Nothing to worry about now. But sometimes it is best to do one thing at a time. Like sitting down and reading a book once it a while. just a worry wart. Clay I don't know how many people passed me on the road with tunnel vision. So wrapped up in a conversation on the cell phone, staring straight ahead. Oblivious to what was happening all around them. I have seen truckers do it too.
There is a book called Zen And The Art of Driving. I think it should be handed to every new driver.

Great stuff as usual Clay. Just a worry wart, don't pay me no mind.

Jack, I don't think anybody could accuse you of being personality challenged. (hand puppets)

Yeah but the dam hand puppets get in the way when I work on my models

maybe you should try the inflatable models instead of the hand puppets

Does drinking beer while posting on the internet and watching TV count?

mnaz wrote:Does drinking beer while posting on the internet and watching TV count?

only if you are talking on the phone and dealing with the landlady at the same time.....and oh yeah, shaving and booking a flight to albeqwirk

Man, you've really got to want it, this evolution thing.

Maybe I'll take a page outta Devo's book.... de-evolution.... might be a more sensible way to go at this point, lest we "out-evolve" ourselves....


"Freedom of choice,
is what you got.
Freedom from choice,
is what you want".....


or something like that....

Just imagining doing all of those tasks at
once gave me a head hache. I'm going out for
a walk.

i can do multitasking to a good degree. i heard that women are better addapting to doing more things at once and thats why eventually we'll be doing really well in this world. where as men have a harder time doing multiple things at once...genetics have made women able to do more things at once because our standard roles early on involved multi tasking where the man only had one...hunting and shit like that.

what else was i going to say, i was going to say something else...god damnit.

writting on the internet, doing homework, writting Instant messages, changing music, eating PB&J...mine seem so much more childish then drinking a bear and rolling a joint. but then again, i have qualms about that, i mean if your going to do those sort of things, you should do them right. right? i mean enjoy them thats what there there for, multi tasking isnn't what i would consider the most enjoyable thing. its like me, if i'm going to eat something good, i'm going to sit and eat something and enjoy it. you can't really live in the momment multitaksing, even though technically your doing more things at once.