Bill Cammack

Rox Darling & Mir Kamin, originally uploaded by Bill C..

Rox Darling = BeachWalks.TV
Mir Kamin = WouldaShoulda.com

billcammack roxannedarling mirkamin reelsolidtv blogherbiz blogher

Roxanne Darling & Elise Bauer, originally uploaded by Bill C..

Rox = BeachWalks.TV
Elise = Simply Recipes

billcammack roxannedarling elisebauer reelsolidtv blogherbiz blogher

Roxanne Darling & Secret Cameraman have put together and posted their video entitled “Voices of Optimism”, the collaboration I threw my two cents into the other day. :D

If you enjoyed the video, you can digg it by clicking here. :)

Rox said in a reply to “Hollaback Girls 02″:

I’m all for some consciousness raising Bill and you’re to be lauded by jumping in here. I draw a distinction between “boys being boys” and actual harassment and assault. Women who are waiting for men to change will wait forever to feel at ease on the street. Girls, it’s an inside job! Let’s start building up our “ignoring muscles” and stop letting them get to us. “Aura In” and they’ll either notice you less or you’ll notice it less, or both! Vent as necessary to get back on center. And to those slime balls who cross the line to actual assault, haul ‘em into court.

Thanks Rox. I agree with making distinctions in these situations. A lot of what I read was egregious behavior that should be reprimanded, and some of it prosecuted. There were other cases where the women were upset that a guy was looking at them from far, far away or that he added “baby” or “sweetheart” to his verbal greeting to them. They were upset by ANY indication that a guy wanted them, sexually. Unfortunately, except for test-tube-babies and sperm banks, that’s what we’re all doing here…. SOME guy wanted to have sex with SOME girl, and they did it and someone raised that baby and now that baby is YOU. I think those women that are hoping that guys are going to stop being sexually attracted to them could use your “Aura In” suggestion. :D

OTOH, there’s tons of incorrect behavior that goes on that should be stopped. Again, I have the benefit of being a guy, so I can walk past construction sites without incident. I can order food or a beer without someone asking me personal questions. I can walk down the street and think without random people interrupting my train of thought because they want something from me. I can walk past a group of guys that I KNOW are going to harass the next attractive female they see without them saying anything to me. It’s easy to not be able to empathize with women in these cases, because A) men don’t get sexually harassed in the street, and B) our reaction to harassment is going to be the buildup of adrenaline and aggression as opposed to fear and just HOPING nothing happens to us or counting on words to get us out of the situation instead of physical action.

There really isn’t a reverse equivalent. Women can’t sexually harass men in the same way. As long as the woman is attractive to the guy, he’s going to be glad she’s kicking it to him. He’s still going to choose whether he has sex with her or not (because he’s married, because he thinks she’s “too easy”, whatever), but it’s a POSITIVE thing that she’s interested in getting with him. From what I read, a lot of women just hate the fact that guys want to have sex with them without knowing anything about them other than what they look like, or in the cases where their bodies are covered, just the fact that they’re females. I’m not talking about the guys that clearly have no chance of getting on and are just saying things to the women in order to be jerks. I’m talking about the guys that have a certain percentage chance that a woman’s going to like how they look and accept their rap and take things from there. They say the same things to women all day and all night, and most of them don’t go for it, but some of them do.

If the woman ISN’T physically attractive to the guy, hahaha, that’s STILL not the same thing, because the element of intimidation isn’t there. If he’s not attracted to her, he’s not having sex with her, regardless of what she says, so it’s more like an annoying fly buzzing around. If she presses him, it’s the same situation as the bum in front of McDonalds. She’s going to have to back off, or there will be “consequences & repercussions”! :D (Eddie Murphy, “Life“)

The point is that many of the things that make women feel harassed, like a guy saying “hey baby” can’t really be understood by guys, because there’s no equivalent. Any pressure put on a guy is going to lead to self-defense. It all falls under the umbrella of ‘disrespect’, and will be dealt with accordingly. Women have too many examples of their own and from other women where a situation started out “just like this” and ended up in a really bad situation for them. The only way around this, IMO, is to increase male awareness about the intimidation aspect that women perceive in what they’re doing. I know guys that will go “hey ma” and “hey beautiful” and “you look good” etc etc ALL DAY, up and down the block… but if they see some guy actually harassing one of these women, they’ll beat the living tar out of him. This is because what they’re doing is SOCIALIZING. They’re making it known to the women in whatever style they use that they’re interested in them, and they’d like to spend some time with them. If the women aren’t interested, they keep going and that’s that. The guys doing it have ZERO bad intentions towards the women, but I’m sure a lot of them don’t connect their socialization style to the women feeling intimidated at all.

OTOH, there are lots of guys that act like jerks just because they can, to guys & girls alike, and they enjoy and abuse the advantages they have over women, so all you can do is “fight the good fight” of education, awareness and rarely, legislation.

A gazillion mahalos to Secret Cameraman from Beach Walks With Rox & Bare Feet Studios LLC for helping me out with my site design! :D

So I’m browsing around my uni-directional friends list on ems.blip.tv, and I decided to check out David Kowarsky’s show, PulverTV’s “Focus”.

David reviews internet shows in his video blog. I had seen an episode of “Focus” while browsing blip.tv’s list of recent (at the time) uploads. Some time later, I met David @ the Pulver / Network2 party I blogged a while back.

Once I realized I had seen David’s show, I just HAAAAAAD to find out from him why he pulled out a watergun uzi, and when he squeezed the trigger, they only used the sound effect of one bullet coming out! :D He responded that it was a Mac-11, and not an uzi… which, of course….. cleared everything up for me! :D

Anyway…

So I’m looking at the list of “Focus” shows, and I see an episode with Roxanne Darling from BeachWalks.TV. I’m always interested in what Rox has to say, so I decided to check it out.

About the third thing she mentions in the interview is that she and I did a beachwalks episode together, and I see b-roll that we shot for the intro and a section of us chatting. :) Our BeachWalk #258 was posted November 9th and Rox said on “Focus” that we did it ‘yesterday’, and the Pulver party was on November 15th. Assuming David actually watched that episode, either because he actually watches BeachWalks With Rox or just preparing for his show, that means that he saw an episode of mine the same way I had seen an episode of his. :)

The term “small world” applies here, somewhere. :D

Click To Play

Roxanne Darling of beachwalks.tv was in town today. I had a great time this afternoon. :D

Here’s the “BeachWalk” we did together: Beach Walk #258 OTR

initially, we were going to meet up with Jan… another videoblogger, but it turned out that she had to work alllllllllllll day, so Rox and I decided to meet up @ 3pm. I had had a bunch of ideas where we could have gone to shoot near water, but it was raining AND foggy, so we decided on South Street Seaport, since it’s by the water, but the upper levels provide cover from the rain. Rox ended up taking a cab instead of the subway, so I headed west to meet her @ the West Side Highway. It would have taken her A LONG TIME to get to the east side with mid-day traffic, so I passed the WTC and checked out Battery Park City for potential locations.

When the cab showed up, I noticed that Rox was filming the driver. It turns out that he’s a musician and makes CDs that are right up beachwalks.tv’s alley. From there, we headed west to the Hudson river, but it was really too foggy to see Jersey on the other side, and I thought I could BARELY make out the Statue of Liberty. We found a spot and did our BeachWalks episode.

Since we were running out of daylight, I suggested that we walk the two blocks over to the WTC. We were coming from the west, where there isn’t any public transportation, except cabs, and maybe one bus line if it runs down the W.S.H. Everyone else approaches from the east (unless they live in Battery Park City). Because of that, the tourist-y information booth and photo gallery is set up to accommodate people coming from the east, and it was completely on the other side of the site from where we were. We stopped at a section where you can see in without fanfare, lights, colors, tourists or pictures. I was in NYC on the day-of, but Rox had mentioned that she probably hadn’t been here in eight years, so I figured she hadn’t seen the location with her own eyes… Actually, probably more important than SEEING is BEING so close to where the towers used to stand and seeing how far down it is to the construction from ground level, and seeing how wide the missing area is, compared to the buildings that surround that area…. as well as understanding that so many people died right.over.there. I could tell Rox was having a moment… she decided not to tape…….

From there, we checked out the tourist setup, complete with bright colors, poignant pictures and captions that said something like “time to move on”, which was REALLY funny/interesting, because after experiencing the site, when we started walking, Rox was talking about people’s reactions to things and how people try to say how someone should or should not react. It was as if someone rushed up and painted that AFTER listening to what we were talking about on the way there. :D

After that, we found a cafe and had a really interesting conversation, mostly about videoblogging, with a minor in psychology. Eventually, it was time for Rox to head out, so we hopped on the train and got out of dodge.

I had a great afternoon. Rox is a really fun and intelligent person, and as a ‘hardcore’ New Yorker, I got to enjoy a non-New-Yorker’s reactions to things like the WTC and crowded sidewalks. :D

The Saga Continues……..

In “Beach Walk #175 – People talkin’? Who cares!”, we get to hear about someone so caught up in her own idea of what’s important in life that she tries to project this onto someone else. She’s so busy thinking about what SHE perceives to be the right way to live life that she totally ignores what the leader told the new paddler and gives contradictory instructions.

First of all, she’s not authorized to tell the new paddler what to do. Nobody put her in charge. The leader was IN THE BOAT, giving the orders, so there was no “lack of leadership”.

When asked why she said what she said, her reply was that if the new paddler stopped paddling, the other paddlers would talk about her behind her back, to the effect of “I can’t believe she stopped paddling! :O”. Now we have a reference point to weigh the values of this advice being given. On the one hand, the paddler could keep paddling, though she feels that her body needs a break, and she could avoid being gossiped about over lunch. OTOH, she could stop paddling, NOT risk her physical health, and perhaps be talked about behind her back by people that probably wouldn’t say anything to her face in the first place. If the tree falls in the woods… and you’re in the city, you don’t hear the sound… so… if people are going to gossip behind your back…..

WHO CARES?

What difference does it make? None, because you never hear about it, so, effectively, it doesn’t exist to you. Let’s say you actually hear about this gossip or they tell you to your face that they think less of you as a paddler because you didn’t keep paddling…..

WHO CARES?

What difference does it make? Do they pay your bills? Do they decide whether you get to come out paddling tomorrow morning? :D Do they decide where you sit in the boat?

The ‘advice-giver’ was saying more about herself than she was about the new paddler. She was letting people know what fantasies dictate her actions in life. She won’t do something if she perceives that she might be talked about for it. She won’t do something if she thinks she’ll “look bad”, even perhaps at the cost of her own physical health. That has nothing to do with the new paddler at all. ALSO, the ‘advice-giver’ informs us that she’s willing to attempt to override statements of the person in charge to forward the agenda of her own personal brainwashing. “Don’t do what the leader said, because we’ll talk about you”. What’s that?

Unfortunately, peer pressure is an incredible influence. Without the proper grounding, the new paddler might think the advice is good for her to follow, without having the ability to actually assess it properly, according to what SHE thinks is important in life. Often, people come into a new situation or it could even be a situation they’ve been in for a long time and they don’t have concrete ideas about what’s good for them and what isn’t. Those people are often susceptible to accepting and adapting other people’s ideas. Just because that way of being works for one person doesn’t mean it works for YOU. A lot of people have taken the wrong path following suggestions from people with their own personal agendas.

How about if the advice-giver channeled her energy into STOPPING the other paddlers from talking behind the new paddler’s back? How about THAT? How about praising the new paddler for being a part of keeping their heavier, 5-man boat alongside the lighter 6-man boat? How about THAT? How about if she focuses on what she can do that’s positive instead of “helping the new paddler avoid the negative”… the negative that she’s DEFINITELY going to be a part of if the newjack doesn’t take her advice and get back to work.

Rox says “gossip’s never killed anyone”. While that’s not actually true, :D I see her point. It’s not the ACTUAL gossip that has ever killed anyone. OTOH, people HAVE died from pushing their bodies past limits that they feel they have approached.

What’s it worth to you? What’s it worth to keep people from talking about you? Your health? Your money? Your family? Who ARE these people, anyway?

Who cares?

Beach Walk #255: Beachwalks.TV wins three well-deserved Vloggies @ last night’s Vloggie Awards! :D