LIVE PERFORMANCE! (Recorded Earlier)

It has come to my attention that the word "Live" doesn't really have the same meaning that it used to have. It has gone the way of the word FREE. You remember when things were free? Free book markers at the library come to mind. But now, the word Free is usually followed by the small print that tells us just how much it's going to cost us if we accept the free offer.
Free with a 30 day money back guarantee...Buy one get one Free at twice the price! Free with Purchase. Free when you sign up for $14.95 a month. Free when you mail in the rebate offer. Free when you sign your life away.

Live used to mean Real and In this Moment Happening. Now it just means loosely, "originally performed by live beings not robots". For instance, in the case of American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, two 'live' television broadcasts, the shows are 'taped live' in front of a 'live' audience and then edited for content, camera angles and language/obscenity slip-ups. None of us are fooled, however. WE know that Live doesn't mean Live. We own TiVo's, after all. We can watch a 'live' broadcast a week after it was 'live' and it will still be 'live' to us!

I just wonder how this translates down into how we view our Real Lives. Do we live our lives in the current, real moment or are we always on some kind of delayed-play-back loop? When I see someone walking down the street with a cell phone glued to their head, desperate to stay hooked up to whoever is on the other end so they don't have to be alone and vulnerable in 'real time', I just shudder. Wolves should eat those people, or coyotes. That would wake them up to the real, live moment all righty!

I recently had a conversation with a friend who is going through a rough spot. He said he does as much as he can do and then he just quits and watches television, because there are some things that just can't be done. Stretching one Happy Meal to last 3 months or filling your empty gas tank on 20 bucks, for instance.

I don't have those answers, either, but I somehow still want my live performances to be live. I'm not ready to give up and eat stale TV. Unless it's free.