Tony Hendriks - JAMAICAN PALEFACE WHEN YOU stop to think about it, the technological revolution we are in is mind-boggling. Do you remember when Batman, Dick Tracy, and Flash Gordon's space ships, mini-spy-cameras, videophones, radio-watches, GPS tracking, and computers were so futuristic we all thought they were simply silly fantasies? Today most of them are on my desk, wrist, or shopping list.
When I was at Knox College we were years ahead of our time with a reading lab. Words flashed on-screen at increasing speeds, teaching us to read and comprehend faster. Now kids comprehend computer games and move their thumbs at speeds I can't even see and books are near redundant. The school I went to in England had one computer and when the teacher rolled the telly trolley in we all cheered knowing we were about to watch the latest sex ed. cartoon. Now kids watch sex on cable or a computer in their room.
George Orwell's 1984 looked into the future and saw the end of privacy and freedom. Today CCTV allows the authorities to track our every move and the credit cards we use leave a trail clear enough for Hansel & Gretel to follow while there are enough cookies left on your computer to allow you to make a gingerbread house, and advertisers, e-criminals and Big Brother can find out plenty of information about you without you even knowing.
CRIMINALS ON ID PARADE
Even criminals on ID parade are digital these days. When I identified the girl who 'put the boot in Buhtoo' (The Gleaner 23/1/04) it was on screen. Many of the UK police stations don't do old-fashioned line-ups any more. No mirrored glass divides a darkened room from a line of desparate hoodlums, overnight drunks and off duty cops. Not anymore. I got digitally imaged look-a-likes of the perpetrator alongside she herself. I guess agencies supply look-a-likes for the infamous as well as for the famous.
Still, I identified the Buhtoo. The police had tracked her down because of a digital photograph I'd taken at the scene of the brick-through-windscreen-road-rage-crime as she fled to her car, the licence plate easily identifiable.
The digital camera can be your friend as well as your foe. To Rodney King the handy-cam is a friend; to the LAPD it's a foe. It's a friend of Michael Essany but a foe to Marion Barry and John DeLorean.
As well as providing incriminating evidence you can also digitally record the cherished moments of holidays, weddings and births then post your album on-line and bore your friends and family to death on-line instead in your home.
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee made love in front of one then lost the tape and Paris Hilton and her 'jolly green giant' were bathed in night-vision green and digitally exposed across the world wide web. Some people use cameras to entrap while others use them to enwrap. Either way it pays to have a camera handy in case you're in the right place at the right time. For crime or grime.
Nowadays the availability of digital technology makes DIY porn accessible to all. Most people have been exposed to some form of pornography, on cable or in magazine form and many feel it's naughty but nice to film a bit of slap and tickle for their own private use. The temptation's always there.
Tony Hendriks is a comedian. He can be e-mailed at palefaceuk@aol.com and you can find out where he is playing live at www.jamaicanpaleface.com
