Mr. Potato Head

Mr. Potato Head


Take a good look at me, at my picture I mean: the one just above this line of text showing me smiling, looking out at an imaginary crowd of worshipful fans.
Would you believe, that’s not really me.
The only part that I can really claim to be 100% me in the picture, is my right ear lobe.
I’ve always loved my ear lobes: they’re plump, yet no overly so; they dangle a bit, but don’t sway in the wind; they’re fleshy without being lewd or suggestive.
The rest of me though – to put it carefully, has been borrowed from other sources.
The eyes are Tom Cruises: my own are not nearly so inviting.
The nose is Karl Malden’s.
The moustache is from Tom Selleck’s Magnum P.I. period, obviously.
And the chin is, I am sure you know by now – Winston Churchill’s.
You didn’t really think that the picture they show every week in the paper, is actually me, did you?
It was not a hard decision.
When they told me that I could provide the picture that goes with my column, I looked at it this way: if I was going to allow them to print my honest, unvarnished opinion about politics, friends and family, every week, where anybody could read it, I’d be crazy to let anyone know what I really look like.
I have to live in this town.
I have to shop in this town.
I have to be able to mouth certain profanities directly into my rear view mirror, at the guy tailgating me on the highway, without him knowing who I am and where I live.
Besides, who I am is, well – from a visual perspective, rather lumpy.
I have a kind of Mr. Potato face.
Some say I am Mr. Potato all over.
So why not take advantage of the latest technology, I reasoned, and at least for those two or three people who read my column regularly – besides my therapist, present a more appealing image.
Am I wrong or am I wrong?
No, you’re right: I’m wrong.
There is nothing more dangerous in the world today, than the fact that no one feels that they can trust what they see anymore.
It used to be an issue of trusting what you read. But now, to paraphrase a famous old saying, there are three kinds of lies:
Lies,
Damned Lies,
and Photography.
It doesn’t matter what end of the political spectrum you are on.
In the last few weeks the conservative blogosphere has expressed outraged at the revelation that respected news photographers have staged pictures of bomb destruction in Beirut, or ‘enhanced’ scenes of destruction in Lebanon by darkening clouds of dust and smoke.
Liberal pundits have been equally incensed by the strange tale of the YouTube.com animation that lampoons former Vice President Al Gore’s book and film, “An Inconvenient Truth”.
At first that video was applauded for its droll satire of Gore, which pictures him as an animated, oversized penguin, ambling about the world spouting eco-platitudes.
But then, when the generally conservative Wall Street Journal went looking for the creator of the video – ostensibly to pat him on the back, they found he was not who, or what, he was supposed to be.
Instead of a 29-year old citizen who had expressed his opinion in a creative way, HE, it turned out, was a large Public Relations firm with ties to the Republican party and a corporate client list that includes that well-known friend of the environment, Exxon-Mobil.
Get the picture?
No, of course you don’t.
And that’s the problem.
The problem is that the pictures you are allowed to see have been tampered with, modified, enhanced, Photoshopped, irradiated, trimmed, modified to fit, edited for content, shortened and otherwise adjusted for an audience who cares more about ‘Mike Boogie’ on Big Brother than the Hezbollah in Beirut.
The world is complicated enough already, without having to second guess your eyes.
But cynicism may be our best defense.
It’s not just a question of the corporate world maximizing profits however.
It’s also a matter of individuals making adjustments to their personal ‘reality’.
There are cameras that can be set to produce thinner images for the weight-conscious.
You can automatically eliminate red-eye, straighten teeth, add inches to your bust and take inches from your butt with a click of your mouse.
In a society that spends more and more of its time indoors, talking to strangers, it’s easy to be somebody else.
It’s easy to put other people’s words in your ‘mouth’.
No one is who they were, or are.
No where is where it is supposed to be.
Even the setting sun can be put on pause or fast-forwarded..
And the moon is not all that it’s chalked up to be.
And the stars up above… (sorry, I slipped into an old song there)
But I’m serious.
Or, rather this is serious.
And I am living proof.
Look at me.
No, really, at me (up there!).
Mr. Potato Head.
Would you buy a car – or an argument, from someone who looks like Mr. Potato Head?
Would you elect a guy who looks like a Penguin?
It may go against everything you’ve been taught to believe but you may have to.
Making the right decision has become like a game of pin the tail on the donkey (get it, ‘donkey”).
You’re already working in the dark, so just wait for your head to stop spinning, and trust your instincts.
Besides, ear lobes like mine don’t lie.