Overheard recently – you supply the context:
"She really likes karaoke, so let's not go there."
"No honey, walking behind you is an endless parade of joy."
"You could go in there, drop a pennie, and fart, and it wouldn't matter."
"It's not like you wanna bite the head off."
-------------------------
TMI + Vaudeville:
Powder blue, XL too,
Caught some accidental poo –
Some dumpster diver gets my drawers!
Can't go play, it's laundry day,
These doo-doo undies cannot stay –
Some dumpster diver gets my drawers!
-------------------------
Only a tattoo-sleeved war vet in a wheelchair can get away with saying at Denny's:
"How does a one-eyed turd sniper with false teeth and three toes missing go about getting an order of bacon & pancakes from one of you clap-magnets?"
-------------------------
From the Banana Split Room high atop the fine Hotel Crystal, it's Red Cherry and his Rainbow Sprinkles, whipping up the cream of yesterday's hits – sweet music with taste! Featuring the treacly vocals of Miss Vanilla Scoops, and laying it on thick is the 'Old Ladler' himself, Sir Upchoc O'Latt! Also singing second layer is Cara Mell, and Pia Nutz!
-------------------------
It took me 45 years to realize I'm nobody, and the world was dropping hints all along!
You just realized you're an aloof over-acheiver? Well, now you've GONE and DONE IT!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
No, You're Not Just Like The Rest Of Us, Mr./Ms. Politician...
Just like the rest of us, huh?
You have guaranteed travel accommodations, that we pay for. We have self-funded travel that we must budget, or even severely limit in order to make our finances stretch the month.
Your paycheck and personal security are locked in for a definite time period, regardless of what the economy does.
You have stipends and monetary allowances above and beyond your salary for additional mundane expenses. We must make one monthly sum suffice for every expenditure that arrises.
You can intentionally abstain from your job without being docked pay, much less dismissed for non-attendance.
You don't have an Employee Union because you don't need one; your "employee rights" and huge benefits are guaranteed, and irrevocable, and should you come under scrutiny for abusing them, you have a guaranteed opportunity to address matters publicly in a national forum, and then vote on them too.
You're paid to argue: to speak out and act on agendas based on your philosophies and opinions – that you can safely claim reflect the views of those who elected you. We form our opinions based on the potential consequences of your actions, speak and argue them in public at risk of alienation or even reprisal, and have to make our living doing something else perhaps unrelated, even possibly contrary to our hopes and ideals.
If your "views" parrot those of middle-management (The House Speaker or Majority Chair) you are granted unspoken permission to bend the company rules, to sabotage accomplishment.
We get the opportunity to affect your future once every two, four or six years. You get to affect our future every day.
You can vote yourself a raise, not just when you need one, but when you think it would be nice – regardless of the cost of living.
You have large, sometimes non-gratis volunteer, staffs to help you accomplish daily mundane tasks.
You have access to networks of contacts to aid you in securing your future once your employment has been terminated, in case you aren't set for life via the diligent efforts of action committees working in your best interests.
You can exempt yourself from the laws you mandate upon the rest of us.
You are given waivers, sometimes mysteriously so, from the so-called "beneficial" government programs you shill.
You get away with accumulating massive debt, then pass the burden onto a non-blood related successor. We're stuck with ours, to the grave if we can't even the balance. Then it's our children's problem.
Corporations seek out mutually beneficial relationships with you. We get sent to collections.
You enjoy guaranteed deferment from any type of duty that would place you in personal danger.
You can successfully argue that your responsibilities are merely symbolic.
The press allows you a broad forum whenever you want to speak out on something that concerns you, and proactively seeks out your opinions on current affairs. And you are taken seriously, no matter how disconnected from reality your views are.
You're the one making our country a hated enemy among the nations, and a laughing stock among their leaders. We're the ones getting shot at.
You have guaranteed travel accommodations, that we pay for. We have self-funded travel that we must budget, or even severely limit in order to make our finances stretch the month.
Your paycheck and personal security are locked in for a definite time period, regardless of what the economy does.
You have stipends and monetary allowances above and beyond your salary for additional mundane expenses. We must make one monthly sum suffice for every expenditure that arrises.
You can intentionally abstain from your job without being docked pay, much less dismissed for non-attendance.
You don't have an Employee Union because you don't need one; your "employee rights" and huge benefits are guaranteed, and irrevocable, and should you come under scrutiny for abusing them, you have a guaranteed opportunity to address matters publicly in a national forum, and then vote on them too.
You're paid to argue: to speak out and act on agendas based on your philosophies and opinions – that you can safely claim reflect the views of those who elected you. We form our opinions based on the potential consequences of your actions, speak and argue them in public at risk of alienation or even reprisal, and have to make our living doing something else perhaps unrelated, even possibly contrary to our hopes and ideals.
If your "views" parrot those of middle-management (The House Speaker or Majority Chair) you are granted unspoken permission to bend the company rules, to sabotage accomplishment.
We get the opportunity to affect your future once every two, four or six years. You get to affect our future every day.
You can vote yourself a raise, not just when you need one, but when you think it would be nice – regardless of the cost of living.
You have large, sometimes non-gratis volunteer, staffs to help you accomplish daily mundane tasks.
You have access to networks of contacts to aid you in securing your future once your employment has been terminated, in case you aren't set for life via the diligent efforts of action committees working in your best interests.
You can exempt yourself from the laws you mandate upon the rest of us.
You are given waivers, sometimes mysteriously so, from the so-called "beneficial" government programs you shill.
You get away with accumulating massive debt, then pass the burden onto a non-blood related successor. We're stuck with ours, to the grave if we can't even the balance. Then it's our children's problem.
Corporations seek out mutually beneficial relationships with you. We get sent to collections.
You enjoy guaranteed deferment from any type of duty that would place you in personal danger.
You can successfully argue that your responsibilities are merely symbolic.
The press allows you a broad forum whenever you want to speak out on something that concerns you, and proactively seeks out your opinions on current affairs. And you are taken seriously, no matter how disconnected from reality your views are.
You're the one making our country a hated enemy among the nations, and a laughing stock among their leaders. We're the ones getting shot at.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Just in time for March: April!
If Denny's gave out fortune cookies, there'd be one that says "You again?"
Enlightenment should never venture out unaccompanied by self-awareness.
You aren't crazy. I'm not crazy. We just buy different brands of Normal.
________________________________
Up next on Country Station WISC:
She went back to the party and made me independent.
He took up with a Walker, now our union's on the curb.
She's right, I'm left, it's wrong.
South of the border, down Illinois way.
She's Keepin' Madison Honest, I'm Keepin' Milwaukee Famous.
________________________________
FUN AT THE DOCTOR'S
I went recently to see my nutritionist. Every visit, they have me take off my shoes and socks, and stand on an electronic scale – a metal plate – connected to a computer, that also apparently can tally up such exotic measurements as body fat, muscle mass, pulse rate and such, while it mundanely records weight too. I hopped on, in what has become a routine, and the nurse monitoring my numbers on-screen casually danced her fingers on the keyboard with a chirpy "all done!" I put my shoes back on and followed her to the examination room, where I'd wait for my doctor.
While I sat in yawny meditation, staring at the back issues of "Shape" and "Self" magazines, my ears caught what sounded like a sudden commotion outside the door of the exam room – something a little out of the norm for a sedately efficient doctor's office. I leaned in the chair, toward the door, nudged it open a slight crack, and peeked out. Apparently, from what I heard, there was a woman wandering around the medical complex somewhere, whose numbers were so out of whack, that she was a walking emergency... and no one could find her.
Several nurses hustled about – that double-fast clip that indicates their next step is to whip out cell phones and alert security. At every turn of the corner: "Did you find her?" "No, they're looking down the hall, in the restroom..." Etc. Etc. Etc.
At once, one of them said something like, "hold it..." I think I was the only one who heard this, because nobody else sounded like they were "holding it." The nurse who had weighed me, entered the room where I was. "Robert...?"
"That's me," I said, "long time, no see." I grinned, in my usual, habitually annoying, just-made-a-funny custom.
She was looking at my scale print-out. "Oh good gawd..." This didn't sound good. "I marked you down as female." She then turned and addressed the rest of the office. "Hold up, everyone." The mysterious wandering woman about to explode, had been located. It was me. The numbers were perfectly fine, for a man. A man my size.
For the next five minutes, as she took me back to the electronic broiler plate to re-weigh me as the correct gender, I was the center of attention amid an entire office of 20- and 30-something females carrying clipboards and thermometers. I'll take what I can get.
Enlightenment should never venture out unaccompanied by self-awareness.
You aren't crazy. I'm not crazy. We just buy different brands of Normal.
________________________________
Up next on Country Station WISC:
She went back to the party and made me independent.
He took up with a Walker, now our union's on the curb.
She's right, I'm left, it's wrong.
South of the border, down Illinois way.
She's Keepin' Madison Honest, I'm Keepin' Milwaukee Famous.
________________________________
FUN AT THE DOCTOR'S
I went recently to see my nutritionist. Every visit, they have me take off my shoes and socks, and stand on an electronic scale – a metal plate – connected to a computer, that also apparently can tally up such exotic measurements as body fat, muscle mass, pulse rate and such, while it mundanely records weight too. I hopped on, in what has become a routine, and the nurse monitoring my numbers on-screen casually danced her fingers on the keyboard with a chirpy "all done!" I put my shoes back on and followed her to the examination room, where I'd wait for my doctor.
While I sat in yawny meditation, staring at the back issues of "Shape" and "Self" magazines, my ears caught what sounded like a sudden commotion outside the door of the exam room – something a little out of the norm for a sedately efficient doctor's office. I leaned in the chair, toward the door, nudged it open a slight crack, and peeked out. Apparently, from what I heard, there was a woman wandering around the medical complex somewhere, whose numbers were so out of whack, that she was a walking emergency... and no one could find her.
Several nurses hustled about – that double-fast clip that indicates their next step is to whip out cell phones and alert security. At every turn of the corner: "Did you find her?" "No, they're looking down the hall, in the restroom..." Etc. Etc. Etc.
At once, one of them said something like, "hold it..." I think I was the only one who heard this, because nobody else sounded like they were "holding it." The nurse who had weighed me, entered the room where I was. "Robert...?"
"That's me," I said, "long time, no see." I grinned, in my usual, habitually annoying, just-made-a-funny custom.
She was looking at my scale print-out. "Oh good gawd..." This didn't sound good. "I marked you down as female." She then turned and addressed the rest of the office. "Hold up, everyone." The mysterious wandering woman about to explode, had been located. It was me. The numbers were perfectly fine, for a man. A man my size.
For the next five minutes, as she took me back to the electronic broiler plate to re-weigh me as the correct gender, I was the center of attention amid an entire office of 20- and 30-something females carrying clipboards and thermometers. I'll take what I can get.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Februarandumb
I'll go Confucius one better... If a tree falls in the forest, how does it know whether anyone is listening? If you're alone in a sealed room, how do you know you're anywhere?
I was out on the sidewalk in town recently, and four men passed by me in a line; two of them were identical twins, the type who trouble themselves to dress identically as well. Only, the twins were the first and fourth men in line, respectively, as they passed – like human bookends. The experience was just a tad unnerving.
I've made this comment before, but it never ceases to amaze me how bicyclists wear all this trendy streamlined protective gear, and literally brandish their physical fitness at the rest of the non-bicycling world they navigate through... then habitually run stop signs, something no conscientiously life-savoring individual would ever do, on foot or in a vehicle. Proof that arrogance is actually an evolutionary safety valve to help keep the population down.
Whenever I go somewhere to browse, like at a bookstore, I find either beautiful women congregating, or spaced out wanderers. Never an even mixture. It makes me wonder which group I belong to – and I'm definitely not a woman.
I have about five different versions of "Clair de Lune" on my iTunes list. I enjoy listening to them in succession, like a great debate where I agree fully with all points of view.
A mental exercise I do – that I think probably places me among a very small group of human beings indeed, if I'm not in fact the only one, or certifiable – is making up lists of comically outrageous words. A few past examples would be like, "glittertwit," "rectalooza" and "crotchurion." I was a little distracted one afternoon, at a coffeeshop, engaged in this little writing warm-up... coming up with some real groaners and eye-ball rollers. I felt a presence behind me, and turned my head to look. An elderly woman with a five-or-six year old granddaughter were reading over my shoulder. "You see," said the woman to the girl, "how important it is to practice your spelling." I could only grin, like an enterbuttual.
I was out on the sidewalk in town recently, and four men passed by me in a line; two of them were identical twins, the type who trouble themselves to dress identically as well. Only, the twins were the first and fourth men in line, respectively, as they passed – like human bookends. The experience was just a tad unnerving.
I've made this comment before, but it never ceases to amaze me how bicyclists wear all this trendy streamlined protective gear, and literally brandish their physical fitness at the rest of the non-bicycling world they navigate through... then habitually run stop signs, something no conscientiously life-savoring individual would ever do, on foot or in a vehicle. Proof that arrogance is actually an evolutionary safety valve to help keep the population down.
Whenever I go somewhere to browse, like at a bookstore, I find either beautiful women congregating, or spaced out wanderers. Never an even mixture. It makes me wonder which group I belong to – and I'm definitely not a woman.
I have about five different versions of "Clair de Lune" on my iTunes list. I enjoy listening to them in succession, like a great debate where I agree fully with all points of view.
A mental exercise I do – that I think probably places me among a very small group of human beings indeed, if I'm not in fact the only one, or certifiable – is making up lists of comically outrageous words. A few past examples would be like, "glittertwit," "rectalooza" and "crotchurion." I was a little distracted one afternoon, at a coffeeshop, engaged in this little writing warm-up... coming up with some real groaners and eye-ball rollers. I felt a presence behind me, and turned my head to look. An elderly woman with a five-or-six year old granddaughter were reading over my shoulder. "You see," said the woman to the girl, "how important it is to practice your spelling." I could only grin, like an enterbuttual.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Ranuary Jandomness
Why doesn't Victoria's Secret offer senior discounts? Just curious.
I need to find a cold remedy stronger than M&Ms.
Diabetes means you must greatly reduce or eliminate most great tasting food. Neuropathy means you are now a slapstick comedian below the waist, and impotent. So basically, all I can do with a prostitute is take her to Safeway and buy her groceries.
Just thinking... if Charles Lindbergh had flown backwards from Paris to New York, and naked, he'd still have the record.
-------------------
I went with my nearsighted, partially deaf uncle, to stroll a Farmers' Market, and we came to a BBQ Rotisserie with some tasty looking chickens on the spit. "Let's get lunch," I said.
My uncle looked and said, "just a minute, I need to tell this guy something." He stepped up to the man running the rotisserie and said, "buddy, I hate to break this to you, but not only is your crank organ not making any music, but I think your monkeys are on fire."
-------------------
I did something today that very soon the DHS may consider an act of terrorism: I sat in public, writing. Not on a computer, but with a pen and paper notebook. In our new culture of instant incrimination, writing in longhand may be interpreted as subversive behavior. Because I may be... what? Taking names? Drawing a diagram for a plot? Casing the joint and taking notes? Question: wouldn't it seem more nefarious if I were typing on a laptop computer, instantaneously transmitting what I typed somewhere else via a wireless connection? Apparently no. Why is writing on paper so potentially evil? Because I'm not generating income to some third party by doing it. The pen and the paper are already mine. My thoughts are mine and remain so, even though I am releasing them into reality by writing them down. No internet portal is being accessed, no application process utilized – I'm not even draining a battery. I don't owe anyone money... that's why it must be demonized. Frowned upon. Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit over the top, but at the growing rate of technology, the top is closer all the time.
I need to find a cold remedy stronger than M&Ms.
Diabetes means you must greatly reduce or eliminate most great tasting food. Neuropathy means you are now a slapstick comedian below the waist, and impotent. So basically, all I can do with a prostitute is take her to Safeway and buy her groceries.
Just thinking... if Charles Lindbergh had flown backwards from Paris to New York, and naked, he'd still have the record.
-------------------
I went with my nearsighted, partially deaf uncle, to stroll a Farmers' Market, and we came to a BBQ Rotisserie with some tasty looking chickens on the spit. "Let's get lunch," I said.
My uncle looked and said, "just a minute, I need to tell this guy something." He stepped up to the man running the rotisserie and said, "buddy, I hate to break this to you, but not only is your crank organ not making any music, but I think your monkeys are on fire."
-------------------
I did something today that very soon the DHS may consider an act of terrorism: I sat in public, writing. Not on a computer, but with a pen and paper notebook. In our new culture of instant incrimination, writing in longhand may be interpreted as subversive behavior. Because I may be... what? Taking names? Drawing a diagram for a plot? Casing the joint and taking notes? Question: wouldn't it seem more nefarious if I were typing on a laptop computer, instantaneously transmitting what I typed somewhere else via a wireless connection? Apparently no. Why is writing on paper so potentially evil? Because I'm not generating income to some third party by doing it. The pen and the paper are already mine. My thoughts are mine and remain so, even though I am releasing them into reality by writing them down. No internet portal is being accessed, no application process utilized – I'm not even draining a battery. I don't owe anyone money... that's why it must be demonized. Frowned upon. Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit over the top, but at the growing rate of technology, the top is closer all the time.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Last Randoms for 2010!
Sometimes the message your inner voice is shouting is "shut up and listen."
I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to write here, and all that came out was this.
You haven't truly experienced the post-modern professional business model, until you've stood between two executives having a staring contest – each hoping the other will suddenly become competent.
A flash of tit can turn even the crappiest day around.
There are days when I'm just out of tune, like an old guitar in cold weather.
I own about thirty blank notebooks – each one I purchased, thinking "I wonder what I'll write in this one." Then I blogged.
------------------------------
A few things you'll never read on a tombstone:
"I wish I'd spent more time at work."
"Jogging was totally worth it."
"I ate all my veggies."
"He knew every knock-knock joke."
------------------------------
RETURN OF THE DAMN POETRY CORNER
Little Johnny Harmon, he went to town,
loaded up with water balloons, to make folks frown.
That night Johnny Harmon lay in his little bed,
Next morn, police found Johnny with concave head.
The meat wagon pulled up to carry him away,
The cops asked his parents had they anything to say.
"When was the last time you saw the little sport?"
"Hopefully just now," was their thoughtful retort.
I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to write here, and all that came out was this.
You haven't truly experienced the post-modern professional business model, until you've stood between two executives having a staring contest – each hoping the other will suddenly become competent.
A flash of tit can turn even the crappiest day around.
There are days when I'm just out of tune, like an old guitar in cold weather.
I own about thirty blank notebooks – each one I purchased, thinking "I wonder what I'll write in this one." Then I blogged.
------------------------------
A few things you'll never read on a tombstone:
"I wish I'd spent more time at work."
"Jogging was totally worth it."
"I ate all my veggies."
"He knew every knock-knock joke."
------------------------------
RETURN OF THE DAMN POETRY CORNER
Little Johnny Harmon, he went to town,
loaded up with water balloons, to make folks frown.
That night Johnny Harmon lay in his little bed,
Next morn, police found Johnny with concave head.
The meat wagon pulled up to carry him away,
The cops asked his parents had they anything to say.
"When was the last time you saw the little sport?"
"Hopefully just now," was their thoughtful retort.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
One Thing I Like About The Media: Nothing
I'm not sure if this ranks a "coming of age" story, or merely one of waking up. I can say for certain that a paradigm shift has taken place in the last fifteen years, between me and the newspaper business.
Part of this tale is truly sad, for as I've become more aware, others in the print industry have only increased their denial – arrogantly so, in some cases. Arrogance, as a defense mechanism, is not that surprising if you've been around the various personality types who populate this self-gratified media world as long as I have.
First, a reality check – if you've paid attention to business news at all lately, you know that the newspaper industry is currently trudging through shit. It held its own against its chief rival, television, when the two believed they were the only dogs in the fight. They scuffled, routinely, like pro-wrestlers re-fighting the same match night after night along a tour circuit, to an entertaining but intentional draw. They shared the mass audience to mutual benefit, under the guise of competing for it.
Just as the big three terrestrial networks fought a naive ratings game with cable only to become subservient to it, the news-pulp empire has too become an Alamo, fending off the ever proliferating Internet – like survivors holed up in a barricaded shopping mall against the growing zombie horde.
The immense torrents of misinformation, rumor and jabbering opinion that masquerade as "news" online, combined with journalism's own inner decay, have resulted in an intellectually barren media landscape. Viral video-casts and ethics-free satellite broadcasting, where it's more important to work an F-bomb into a sentence than a truthful noun or adjective, have opened the bombay doors beneath us. Self-abandonment is the new "freedom" – a free-fall that looks just like flying, until the nasty old ground rises up and spoils it.
What I've encountered – and kept a running mental tab of for nearly two decades – has been astonishing, and not in a good way.
When I first got into newspapers many years ago as a young compositor – what graphic artists were called then, and when I was genuinely young – I was put through the standard gauntlet of passive-aggression. I took my turn in Intimidation-101, which I learned each newspaper had its own spin on. There is no official "paying of one's dues" in the paper business. When you move to a different job at another newspaper, there is no acknowledgement of anything you endured at the offices of your former one. You are expected to run the gauntlet once more – be fresh meat again and prove yourself against another pack of cronying, self-distracted little-bigshots.
The only rule that all newspapers have in common is that they have each established their own constantly evolving – if improvised habituation can be classified somehow under 'evolution' – "system" for getting a new edition out every morning. And squeezing as much work out of their staffs for as little compensation as can be gotten away with – even when labor knows it's over a barrel because of the strapped economy, and management knows that labor knows, and proceeds to pump the dildo harder anyway.
There are very few businesses where so many disparately tasked departments work side-by-side under one roof, and care less about each other's welfare. Each faction does its job with as little regard, or more and more, with as little competence as necessary, and escapes home to leave someone else holding the bag.
A surefire trick to going home on time is to con another department's workers into believing that some of your duties actually belong to them instead. I've never had the privilege, but it must be sweet.
Management are the people who've mastered the art. They talk all day, and little else. They unctuously discuss what "needs" to be done, until the subject bores them, or the phone interrupts – another discussion concerning some other unctuous "need." The urgent business is ushered out the door with a wave, for the drones to worry about, with a vague notion that their meager livelihoods are at risk.
Some quick definitions.
Management: The ones who get to go home early, even at the outset of apocalypse.
The crisis: Your problem, not theirs. The only upside is that it only lasts until tomorrow, to be replaced by another crisis even more dire. If it isn't taken care of, they get to complain about YOUR incompetence. You get to complain about the length of the unemployment line.
If your faith already wanes regarding our journalism media, you probably don't want to be a fly on the wall for a meeting of your local paper's editorial board. You'll come away looking for either a razor for your wrists, or the nearest gun shop to get on the waiting list.
A quick revelation, in case you were still wondering: Media people hate you.
Once a day they gather around a conference table to discuss which of us on the outside world is most deserving of their everything-but-objective spotlight. If they deem you foolish enough, you'll be tomorrow's featured player at the circus.
The generic, categoric reference to those of us toiling to survive in the real world boils down to "Looks like old Shit-for-brains is at it again."
They decide each afternoon how to repackage a product that we civilians will pay to have thrown at our doors, one more time, tomorrow morning. In short, newspaper people are celebrities. Their names, after all, appear in print regularly.
What today's journalists and media people practice is more accurately the progressive spin of elitism, which balances out the elitism of the corporate right. Haven't you noticed? We, bound to lives of day-to-day survival, are the ideological "middle class." The corporate moneychangers and media trendsetters are the ones enjoying actual "options" in life. The ones whose incomes are not completely consumed by monthly bills and playing by the rules. Journalists used to report what's happening, but now "review" it. Many young journalists enter the industry precisely because they've been taught it is salaried activism. Activism for their own shit. Political. Trendy. Cool. Whether or not it's relevant.
So too is advertising a collusion of loose cannons presented to resemble a disciplined business. Some of the reasons modern advertising gnaws at most people's sanity are actually not too sublime. The ad industry doesn't try to bombard your id with hidden messages in ice cubes anymore – it has adopted the sledge hammer approach. Relentless, repetitive, aggressive behavior modification.
By simple contemplation, nearly anyone who reads a print ad, watches a TV commercial, or pays vague attention to a car radio will perceive a brazen con being pitched. The era of an earnest business "getting its message out," is long over.
Some might label it all an indictment of capitalism, but it's more accurately the sublime triumph of greed. The cure is not socialism – the system where private sector greed is outlawed so that government greed can enjoy impunity. The only thing worse than the maddening caterwaul of advertising, would be an enslaving federal mandate that you MUST buy a bigscreen TV and a smartphone with a government surveillance chip – which is likely coming.
So smoke 'em while you got 'em. You're already surrounded by folks who think you don't deserve 'em – even though you planted 'em, grew 'em, rolled 'em and then paid for 'em, too.
Part of this tale is truly sad, for as I've become more aware, others in the print industry have only increased their denial – arrogantly so, in some cases. Arrogance, as a defense mechanism, is not that surprising if you've been around the various personality types who populate this self-gratified media world as long as I have.
First, a reality check – if you've paid attention to business news at all lately, you know that the newspaper industry is currently trudging through shit. It held its own against its chief rival, television, when the two believed they were the only dogs in the fight. They scuffled, routinely, like pro-wrestlers re-fighting the same match night after night along a tour circuit, to an entertaining but intentional draw. They shared the mass audience to mutual benefit, under the guise of competing for it.
Just as the big three terrestrial networks fought a naive ratings game with cable only to become subservient to it, the news-pulp empire has too become an Alamo, fending off the ever proliferating Internet – like survivors holed up in a barricaded shopping mall against the growing zombie horde.
The immense torrents of misinformation, rumor and jabbering opinion that masquerade as "news" online, combined with journalism's own inner decay, have resulted in an intellectually barren media landscape. Viral video-casts and ethics-free satellite broadcasting, where it's more important to work an F-bomb into a sentence than a truthful noun or adjective, have opened the bombay doors beneath us. Self-abandonment is the new "freedom" – a free-fall that looks just like flying, until the nasty old ground rises up and spoils it.
What I've encountered – and kept a running mental tab of for nearly two decades – has been astonishing, and not in a good way.
When I first got into newspapers many years ago as a young compositor – what graphic artists were called then, and when I was genuinely young – I was put through the standard gauntlet of passive-aggression. I took my turn in Intimidation-101, which I learned each newspaper had its own spin on. There is no official "paying of one's dues" in the paper business. When you move to a different job at another newspaper, there is no acknowledgement of anything you endured at the offices of your former one. You are expected to run the gauntlet once more – be fresh meat again and prove yourself against another pack of cronying, self-distracted little-bigshots.
The only rule that all newspapers have in common is that they have each established their own constantly evolving – if improvised habituation can be classified somehow under 'evolution' – "system" for getting a new edition out every morning. And squeezing as much work out of their staffs for as little compensation as can be gotten away with – even when labor knows it's over a barrel because of the strapped economy, and management knows that labor knows, and proceeds to pump the dildo harder anyway.
There are very few businesses where so many disparately tasked departments work side-by-side under one roof, and care less about each other's welfare. Each faction does its job with as little regard, or more and more, with as little competence as necessary, and escapes home to leave someone else holding the bag.
A surefire trick to going home on time is to con another department's workers into believing that some of your duties actually belong to them instead. I've never had the privilege, but it must be sweet.
Management are the people who've mastered the art. They talk all day, and little else. They unctuously discuss what "needs" to be done, until the subject bores them, or the phone interrupts – another discussion concerning some other unctuous "need." The urgent business is ushered out the door with a wave, for the drones to worry about, with a vague notion that their meager livelihoods are at risk.
Some quick definitions.
Management: The ones who get to go home early, even at the outset of apocalypse.
The crisis: Your problem, not theirs. The only upside is that it only lasts until tomorrow, to be replaced by another crisis even more dire. If it isn't taken care of, they get to complain about YOUR incompetence. You get to complain about the length of the unemployment line.
If your faith already wanes regarding our journalism media, you probably don't want to be a fly on the wall for a meeting of your local paper's editorial board. You'll come away looking for either a razor for your wrists, or the nearest gun shop to get on the waiting list.
A quick revelation, in case you were still wondering: Media people hate you.
Once a day they gather around a conference table to discuss which of us on the outside world is most deserving of their everything-but-objective spotlight. If they deem you foolish enough, you'll be tomorrow's featured player at the circus.
The generic, categoric reference to those of us toiling to survive in the real world boils down to "Looks like old Shit-for-brains is at it again."
They decide each afternoon how to repackage a product that we civilians will pay to have thrown at our doors, one more time, tomorrow morning. In short, newspaper people are celebrities. Their names, after all, appear in print regularly.
What today's journalists and media people practice is more accurately the progressive spin of elitism, which balances out the elitism of the corporate right. Haven't you noticed? We, bound to lives of day-to-day survival, are the ideological "middle class." The corporate moneychangers and media trendsetters are the ones enjoying actual "options" in life. The ones whose incomes are not completely consumed by monthly bills and playing by the rules. Journalists used to report what's happening, but now "review" it. Many young journalists enter the industry precisely because they've been taught it is salaried activism. Activism for their own shit. Political. Trendy. Cool. Whether or not it's relevant.
So too is advertising a collusion of loose cannons presented to resemble a disciplined business. Some of the reasons modern advertising gnaws at most people's sanity are actually not too sublime. The ad industry doesn't try to bombard your id with hidden messages in ice cubes anymore – it has adopted the sledge hammer approach. Relentless, repetitive, aggressive behavior modification.
By simple contemplation, nearly anyone who reads a print ad, watches a TV commercial, or pays vague attention to a car radio will perceive a brazen con being pitched. The era of an earnest business "getting its message out," is long over.
Some might label it all an indictment of capitalism, but it's more accurately the sublime triumph of greed. The cure is not socialism – the system where private sector greed is outlawed so that government greed can enjoy impunity. The only thing worse than the maddening caterwaul of advertising, would be an enslaving federal mandate that you MUST buy a bigscreen TV and a smartphone with a government surveillance chip – which is likely coming.
So smoke 'em while you got 'em. You're already surrounded by folks who think you don't deserve 'em – even though you planted 'em, grew 'em, rolled 'em and then paid for 'em, too.
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