5/7/12
"My secret love's no secret any more ... ."
This is private, just for me (though I'm sure I'm being keystroked -- call me paranoid, but it actually helps to think that way sometimes, if you can set your emotions aside).
Around 1986, when I was in the shape I'm in financially now -- just the first time --, I was obsessed with having a 'career' as a playwright. Nothing could have been more ridiculous, but that's what obsessions are for, are they not? I took as one idea my experience (noted here several times) as a record store clerk during the height of the 'hardcore' phenomenon two years earlier. I don't think I even got as far as a title for the thing, but I did knock out a few early scenes.
The concept (and, just in case, this is copyright (C) 2012 William Mark Gabriel) was to set some hardcore punk characters against their (presumably) more materialistic "mallrat" adversaries in a Restoration comedy setting. I could knock out some dialogue between a mallrat Lady Teazle and a punk Sir Fopling Flutter, but that was about all. The project froze.
A year after my mallrat vs hardcore fiasco, I tried again -- this time with a story about a goofy nebbish (if I may use the term), his romantic failures and his attempts to market a witch's love potion 80s style. Called "To Each His Own", the playlet was brought to completion - but, without a subplot, it was far too short for a full production. The goofy guy's flubs and his love's fashion-conscious hauteur made for most of the jokes. They, as I recall, resolved the dilemma with the goofy guy going off to Vegas with, I think, another character.
A year or two later, a third playlet -- this time a true one-act --- featured two punkers called Goof and Spike pitted against two idealistic ingenues (I forget their names) trying to rescue washed-up starfishes on the beach.
Years after my first effort fizzled, someone apparently (also) realized Restoration comedy was not that easily adapted outside its historical setting. It (also apparently) was decided by him or her or them that adapting a Jane Austen story instead would be much easier and more in keeping with movie audiences' expectations. This brilliant idea became (in my opinion) "Clueless" -- a very successful effort.
About the same time as "Clueless" made its debut, a young TV writer (and third generation, no less) brought out a movie about a mallrat who becomes imbued with supernatural powers, finds an outsider ally and ends up running away with him to Vegas. A few years later, the story continued to become a successful TV dramedy that began (in its un-aired pilot episode) with the heroine coming back from Vegas as a punker. Two supporting characters in the early episodes reminded me powerfully of two I'd created ten years before. (However, as I mention in an untitled mercurius-21 post from Nov. 17, 2006, I did not see the episodes until after 2002 -- well after, in fact.)
As I mentioned in that 2006 post, I became obsessed with this series post 9/11. I had become socially isolated (a familiar story) in the political town I was living in then, despite my best Dale Carnegie impressions, and I used the characters in the series (then, as I mentioned, airing in repeats) as "friends" I could not have had in real life. (I imagine more than one someone knocking out a treatment of this situation as I write it now. However, have they met me? Do they realize how unlikely this situation would be for an accomplished man then in his late 40s unless there was "something else" going on? Do they?) However, the "eerie similarities" between this series and my own creative frustrations I compartmentalized -- preferring my Walter Mitty existence in my off hours to the hell that was going on in my working life at the time.
I have since been more successful in my creative life, though still unpublished and un-produced (given the preceding, hardly a surprise). So, my attitude now toward my fragmentary efforts of a quarter-century ago is this -- I am glad someone somewhere somehow got those characters into something people could enjoy and remember. Left to my situation (I'll call it that), these characters would have languished in the cardboard box those efforts at scripts sit in now.
But let me also emphasize that all this simply could have been coincidental, or just the imaginary projections of a frustrated writer. After all, the successful productions I'm referring to here were part of the same Zeitgeist as my fractured efforts, and their creators could have used (and likely did use) completely different sources for them.
For the record, I am in no way claiming there was even an iota of plagiarism anywhere. If by chance any did hear or see copies of what I wrote (I did not mail or send any to anyone, and I only showed To Each His Own to my girlfriend at the time, who to my knowledge had no show-business contacts), part of their greater skill, in the broadest and narrowest senses, is in obvious evidence.
Now that one of those creators has experienced breakthrough success, my emotions are those that follow good tidings.
But there's a lesson here, my secret friends (if you're out there): stick with your ideas, no matter what. See them through, no matter how long it takes. And don't be afraid to take credit (or give it) when it's due.
5/10/12
"And the winner is ... ."
What I've written below won't stop me from watching The Avengers someday -- maybe soon, I can't say for sure. I owe Marvel Comics and Stan Lee (and Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko and Gene Colan and ...) much for awakening a dormant creative gift when I was but a lad.
It also won't make me throw out my Buffy DVDs (all but S's4+5 -- be awhile before that lacuna is filled) or comics (S8 {first half plus all one-shots}, TotV, TotS, Fray, Angel-After the Fall). These are results of many collaborative talents, including one (some of) whose ideas may or may not have come from a source I know intimately.
Plus, I don't resent Hollywood screenwriters, etc. for doing what they have always done -- take ideas already out there somewhere and rework or recycle 'em in a race for a gold-plated statuette. It's an industry, and that's what industry workers do. (So American industry -- if you want to make a comeback, bring back the gold watch! {Yeah, sure -- take that one on me. You're going to anyway.})
But, my secret friends, keep this in mind -- these multbilliondollar6D+extravaganzas were once 12 cents per Wertham-spin-a-rack in my day and a nickel a flick-odeon in my granddad's. This is America, and cheese rules. I merely implore you to remember where it came from.
Milk.
5/17/12
The Sitch
I remember when it all started. (This is the second try on this post, BTW. The first one, well, just up and disappeared.)
Here I was, trying to earn a living, living as I was taught to live, at my Second Chance at a Career. Pretty much the day-to-day thing.
Then, some Big Changes at Work were announced. Then, they started. Then, some Big Changes All Around were announced. Then, they started.
Then, there was a Big Crime. And its judicial aftermath. Then, there were these Big Things That Are Now Sensational that happened. And the Wake After the Shock of Those Big Things That Happened.
And here I was, working on all this in a really crappy trailer with gear somebody's thrown out their back door (The Big Changes at Work guys had thrown out our antiques, but this "new" stuff I wouldn't take home if you'd given it to me.).
And then my coworkers at the office just up and all Moved On to Their New Roles in Life. You see, I had missed The Meeting (It was an Optional After-Work Social Gathering in a place and space and town where there were no After Work Social Gatherings. In public. Deep South, baby. Deep Deep South. BTW, there was no memo. And there was no e-mail as we know it today at this time, at least for most people. Not that it would have helped me any.) where my soon-to-be former colleagues were handed Their New Roles in Life. So, I got to do their work as well as mine after that.
Then, it started. Professional colleagues whom I'd known for years started either pointedly ignoring me in public (like, theatrically and abruptly turning their backs on me as if they needed to be seen doing that. Really badly.) or suddenly snapping their heads in my direction like a cuckoo in a wooden Swiss clock and smirking broadly and expectantly. And talking to me like I was a block away when I was standing right next to them. With their heads held high and that blasted smirk still thoroughly pasted on their faces. Complete with arching eyebrows. Like I was trapped in a 60's era Saturday cartoon (think cartoon Boris and Natasha without the accents), live-action version.
I went around feeling really sad and isolated, like I was carrying a really heavy knapsack everywhere I went. I'd been kind of a quiet loner before, but now -- I had unintentionally gone Loner Pro.
There was this thing in the Sunday supplement around this time that got me stabilized (Started me reading, actually. I'll post the list someday.) along with some counseling (after The Axe That Was Long In Coming had finally fallen) that basically told me I was no crazier than anyone else (and needed no Pills or Chems To Get Through This, either. JSYK, that's still the case.).
Still, all the stuff I've been describing kept happening. Everywhere I went. Up and Down The Dial. As I've posted here years ago, I've known since I was a teen what true alienation feels like ("I guess I just wasn't made ..." for real) but this s&*t was ridiculous. This wasn't Life on Mars -- this was more like Exile on Main Street, Pluto. And the Plutonians on Main Street were f^&*king nuts!
It happened as if someone had just thrown a switch and set some gears in motion. On everybody but me. Then, I went to the movies for the first time in years. (See a much earlier post for a clue.) I remember thinking, as the closing credits rolled, "Oh, so that's what happened."
I guess I'd be paranoid only if it scared me. No, it was truly a relief. A really eerie form of relief, but a relief nonetheless. The movie was a parable. I got that. It just concerned what -- in real life -- I'd read about before, but dismissed as crazy. (It was in Penthouse magazine. Seriously. One of those articles in the rough green paper section sort of toward the middle of the mag. But not the actual middle, if you know what I mean.)
No privacy. Ever. For anybody. Except For Them: "But let's experiment on that really dumb guy who's over 40 and acts like he's 20 first!"
Those 20th Century novels this "situation" calls to mind for all of us were also parables. About their day and time.
My horoscopes all say I'm supposed to be positive about The Sitch right now. Spread goodness, not badness. (The first version of this Hidden, Secret Post that Just Up and Disappeared had more than its share of the latter. This is not the first time one that was a little too frank Up and Disappeared after I'd half-struck an odd key. And was not saved or the auto-save thing just didn't happen. Just like the one a few minutes ago did not do.)
So I'll wind up with goodness.
Last night, a very brave young man with a religious background sang a song that is usually associated with atheism on live world television. Afterward, he patiently explained to some clearly dumbfounded ... um, stuck for a word for them at this point ... "associates" that he sang it because he was moved by the song's message.
The song is not about atheism. The song is about bringing heaven to Earth by practicing the Golden Rule as a daily norm. As in "thy kingdom come, thy will be done ... ." This is obvious. It is obvious to me, anyway. It was also to him, apparently.
As I've mentioned before, I do not hate atheists. I do not necessarily hate atheism, either. I have known very good people who were atheists. I have known very bad people who were atheists. I have known very good people who were practicing Christians. I have, sadly, known the opposite who were also ... yes.
My reading of the Gospels tells me that Jesus had no problem consorting with "sinners and tax collectors" -- but he had a real issue with hypocrites. I know a hypocrite. I see him in the mirror every morning. I do not hate myself; I simply know I need salvation. I am not afraid of being an outsider anymore. I am terrified of disappointing my Savior by ignoring his offer of grace for free.
Smirk at me all you want. Train your spyglass on me, too. Pretend to like me to get something out of me, or pretend to hate me to get something out of someone else. You are smirking at and spying on and trying to use a dead man. Who has no certainty of what's next. Who does not assume he's bound hither or thither. (Assurances and assumptions share their first three letters, but they differ in meaning. You are offered one, you make the other.)
But don't waste my time pointing out your petty obsessions. However, if you need help getting out --
Thank you, autosave.
5/31/12
"All along the water tank | Waiting for a train ... ."
There he was, grinning and nodding at me. I must have returned my typical "Who, me?" look.
Clueless, as usual. This time, in Spartanburg, SC.
I had no idea the man on his rickety bicycle with some sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and loaded in the handlebar basket was a latter-day apostle of a musical form everyone knows and (almost) no one cares about.
His name was Walter Hyatt.
His job at the time was delivering sandwiches to office workers downtown in a town that, at the time, had only one downtown luncheonette. (Forget the name. The Beacon, by the way, was not exactly downtown. It was past The Varsity. Which was west of downtown. For a walker like me, anyway.)
Wiki's article on Hyatt -- which crowns him, probably with justice, as the Godfather of Americana Music -- says this period in his life was "never a commercial success". You could say that. Again, if you want to. But in the few times I saw him delivering those heartburn specials to whomever ordered them, he was always cheerful.
The article goes on to say that his music -- despite the title -- is "never easily pegged". Well, I can.
Hyatt was an apostle of Carolina Swing.
H'wha?
The Carolinas, North and South, have been home to a smooth, gentle form of swing for a very long time. I may have the timeline wrong, but I believe they were giving beat-up band instruments in Charleston, SC, to young black youth well before Louis Armstrong got his in New Orleans. Maybe even before King Oliver got his. I don't know.
I could, and may someday -- who knows? -- go on all day about the number of musicians, black and white, who picked up some form of Carolina Swing and changed the face of American popular music forever with it. But it would be a tough one to write because of the research involved. Many of these influential artists are not household names, and those that are may not seem to be associated with the movement that was no mere movement.
Carolina Swing? No big deal, right?
I'm not going to contest that, at least not now. Because, my secret friends, it may be that this music needs to remain a secret, for now. Just between us. That's right, you and me. Shhhhhh ... .
Hyatt continued to struggle, recording the Little-Known But Well-Regarded albums called King Tears (low key, but worth seeking out) and Music Town, and he was Touring In Support Of, when he boarded a doomed jetliner to attend his daughter's college graduation in Florida. King Tears, indeed.
This post is not about him, though. It's about someone else. Not another apostle of Carolina Swing, but its philosopher-king.
His name was Doc. His nickname, anyway.
Folks know this man's name around the world. His uncanny ability to play and sing ANYTHING remotely related to American roots music of virtually any genre was a large part of his legend. And anyone who came to hear him pick, sing and grin of a Saturday night during the annual fund-raiser in his son's memory can testify that it was indeed legendary, but no myth. Arthel Lane Watson was simply a legend in his own time.
The immense personal respect virtually everyone performing in the American music industry he commanded during a lifetime that ended earlier this week came, I'm sure, in part from his own sincerely affable personality and his genuine respect, in turn, for them.
But I think part of it was also awe. He could literally do it better than any of them. {Electronic} Dance, pop, reggae, stuff like that -- OK, probably not. I'm really talking about actual folk music here. And its roots in jazz, blues, country and singer/songwriter-type folk-rock.
The secret to his versatility was this -- he could make Carolina Swing do whatever he wanted it to do. Jimmy Rogers to Jimmie Dickens to Jim Whoever. The only man who could sing and play beside Bill Monroe at the funeral for Monroe's brother, Charlie. Singing and playing Charlie's part. Who, during the Folk Revival of the early 60s, shared billing with Odetta. And, the stage. Among many other legendary musical feats.
Carolina Swing is one of the currents swirling under much that is American mainstream music. Porgy and Bess. Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. Earl Scruggs. Elizabeth Cotten. Dizzy Gillespie. The Rev. Gary Davis. And so many more. Including many modern performers who probably don't want to be associated with me at this point. (I'm bad for giving away secrets.)
And it's been a secret undercurrent, until now. But if you're one of its long-time secret fans (especially you Carolina outcasts, outsiders, marginal loose screws and bastard devils like me) of this music, well, too bad.
Our secret love's no secret any more.
(Rest in peace, Doc. You've earned it.)
6/11/12
You Do the Math (er, Code)
Some of you (secret as you are) may recall a post I made here way on back in the 2007 archive, in which ol' merc-21 (my old LJ handle, sort of, for newcomers) lamented his perceived lack of home-office organization and reminisced (as he loved to do) about how, when his life was going better (?), his workplace organization was the envy of the newsroom -- so much so that the truly jealous used to filch his desktop calendar every time his back was turned. (This was in early 80s, so I'm talking about a big piece of blotter paper ["what paper?"] filled with nice big legible monthly calendar sheets you tore off when you got done with one [the company used to give us this for free -- no, I did not make that up!])
What I didn't say then was what happened next. I decided at one point I was fed up and wanted to get off that beat, because with it came the politics (of the electoral kind), which was driving me nuts and chewing giant holes in my weekends. The last day I was on the beat, I told my deskmate (as you may recall from a post in 2006, we shared a mainframe terminal mounted to a lazy susan type table that both desks were connected to) what the joke had been the whole time.
The calendar itself wasn't all that valuable. In fact, I could have lived without it. I was just using it to identify, track and divert The Jealous Ones (she wasn't one of them -- or didn't need to be, because all she had to do was watch me like a hawk, wait for me to go for coffee or the men's room, and then pretend to drop some paper on the floor next to my desk).
I actually used the desk calendar for other things (i.e., backup for my time sheet and a handy key for the true organization system), as well. But it served its purpose best as a diversionary tactic. Living without it would have been a pain, but it would have been possible. The true organization system was inside the desk.
Back then, we had to do our own filing. We were given manila folders and a drawer on each side of the aforementioned lazy susan desk that fit the folders exactly (no hanging files needed then). Thanks to a tip from my predecessor (who also got me started on forward organization -- see that 2007 post), I used other means inside the filer drawer to organize this complicated beat I had stupidly requested (following what passed for "well-meaning advice," meant perhaps to do me harm. I should have used my savvy instead and let them offer it to me.).
The cabinet drawer was the true backbone of the system, but it looked no different than any one else's in the newsroom (except it was neater). It contained an indexing system that I had memorized. It could be consulted easily and information retrieved from it with such speed it left the requesting party (I got that a lot) with mouth agape. It had to be serviced (gone through, file by file) once every month to keep it in good working order. And it was mine -- all mine.
Which brings me to my subject today. File systems.
That's all I need to say, right? Right.
____
OK, all right -- hint: The desk calendar was my OS {more precisely, 'my directory'}.
7/3/12
Notes on things I have learned the hard hard hard hard way
O my secret friends thinking about becoming an "entrepreneur":
If you have to use your own money, you have already failed.
If you have to go to the bank yourself, you have already failed.
If you have to rely on a partner for anything, you have already failed.
If you do not have a solid business plan in place before you start, you have already failed.
Expect to be plagiarized*. Do not fear it. Plan for it.
Expect to adjust. Many times. Over.
Expect to fail. Plan for it, many times.
Hope to succeed. In ways you do not expect.
____
I believe in paper. (I know, you'd think, but ... .) So these above probably aren't working in the 'tweety' economy (unless your project involves microblogging). It's when the CEO realizes After The Fact what all those emails really meant ... yeah, that's where Trouble Turns To Handcuffs.
Look up "entrepreneur" in an older dictionary. Maybe, 1970's or earlier. (Eye-opener, huh?)
Nothing wrong with going to the bank. It's just not the entrepreneur's job, that's all. Unless its an emergency. A Really Big One.
Notice I wrote "rely" -- "depend on with full trust and confidence", according to OED (the latest, online). So "to rely" means a lot more than merely "to depend". You should be able to depend (or be depended upon by) a partner on to rescue the effort in the Really Big Emergency, for instance.
"Solid" business plan. As in "rock".
The "expectations" above are not meant to be sarcastic or ironic. I mean them.
____
*It may not be actual 'plagliarism', but it will likely feel that way, at first. 'Now and Zen' is the move, to me.
7/23/12
"And the committee's vote, by unanimous consent, is ... ."
A co-worker on my first job ever was the book reviewer. And she loaned me this book (long ago, my secret friends, long ago) she got for review. It was called Scribble, Scribble.
Nora Ephron was a funny, informative and engaging writer on just about any topic that occurred to her. At this time, she was a columnist (I think), and she'd either just married Carl Bernstein (my then-hero) or was engaged to him. So, this was before Hollywood, but just before.
Nora was a mentor to me, though, in many ways. I did not read her as a "sensitive guy" (or whatever the phrase was back then for a pro-feminist male), but as a junior colleague who needed some sage career advice from someone who'd Been There And Back.
One of the things that stuck with me (ironically, as you're about to learn), was her view on journalistic writing. In this one essay, I learned why reporters in those days wrote news stories that always seemed to make a point of evading the point.
The common journalistic style for hard news then was so turgid and elliptical that, unless you pretty much had the previous story in that particular news chain memorized, it was abominably cryptic.
Ephron's then-husband or then-fiancee and his famous partner were two of the worst offenders. I remember trying, really trying, to figure out those early Watergate stories (not the very first, but the first to be picked up from the wire by the local morning paper) while in high school. They were indecipherable. And I wrote for the high school paper!
Ephron, without (as best I recall) directly referencing the famous Watergate stories, let the cat out of the bag -- reporters then feared being "co-opted" if they wrote the way E.B. White said you were supposed to write.
That stumped me. I had my college dictionary (second ed American Heritage -- the linguist's favorite), which told me what "co-opted" literally meant. And Ephron's usage in that case made no sense.
You see (as I later learned), "co-opted" was then the editorial writer's euphemism for "stole" -- as when a politician "co-opted" a rival's speeches or campaign style or something like that.
But, if a you were "co-opted", this was more personal. In that case, someone would have used some political machinations to secretly or at least tacitly divert your work to some other purpose, which was (usually) the opposite of what you had intended.
In other words, if a reporter just wrote the plain truth plainly, he or she would likely soon find themselves undermined by the unscrupulous, who would use some of the details inevitably glossed over in straightforward news writing to spin the journalist's story and eventually their career all out of whack.
That's why the top pros back then avoided the fastball and just pitched sliders, or even knuckleballs, when they wrote news.
Not my style. No, not me. But, it didn't really burn me until my second job, when a political revolution was trickling down to the grass roots. That's where I lived, and that's where my first career died. It was dead and buried a good year before I finally gave my two-week notice after spending five years there and took a job selling LPs and cassettes at the local mall. On the seven-year anniversary of my entering the profession.
I'm leaving out the details, primarily because political stuff is the stuff you just can't take to court and prove. Not without a lot of help, and what was done to me was not really a crime, anyway. The story on the street was that I had done it to myself.
In short, co-opted all the way down river and out to sea.
My second act a few years later in That Other Medium ran the same way -- but, this time, I was waiting. And I took my lumps. And I hung tough. And I waited for karma to bring it back. And it did. Twice over.
Life didn't get suddenly a lot easier at that point, but things did pick up some. And then ... . Well, let's just say Lady Karma has a few curveballs of her own in This Ever-Changing World We Live In.
It's OK. The hits I took I took for a reason. I'm proud I wrote news the way I did. It's why I didn't take the News Writing 101 in college in the first place, it's why wrote my own how-to book (in a manner of speaking) on the subject, and maybe it's (in its own little way) one of the reasons why you can understand your newspaper today, what few remain (see what I mean?).
I was a maverick, too, on interviewing, but that's another post for another day.
My resume's a mess. I admit it. And my list of references is short. Really short.
But I wouldn't trade my so-called career.
Because it's mine.
"Co-opt" that.
7/24/12
" ... not to invite ... . "
The one story with my name on the top that was written the way "you were supposed to" was actually co-written with the executive editor. The one who'd hired me, and the one who could ... yeah, that other thing.
It seems a local tire provider had been supplying the county government's fleet with blemished tires but at the price for unblemished tires. It went on for almost a year before anybody'd noticed. Everybody wanted to do a tap dance on this one, and I recall getting tap-danced on for about a day and a half over it.
My editor kept going around and around with me as I developed the story and started double-checking facts, hammering me with one the-editor's-in-your-face-question after another, continually using the word 'shorting' for what the tire provider was doing, as if this were a particular kind of practice that was apart from what someone does when they "short-change" somebody else.
In short, 'shorting' was tacitly thought to be different than "short-changing" someone. "Short-changing" someone is a deliberate act, 'shorting' is making a mistake. "Short-changing" is wrong, 'shorting' is an "ooops!"
I was so confused over the details of this story that the "-changing" part never even entered my mind. I had to sort all that out for myself the weekend after the story had run, as my head began to stop spinning. I'd taken the paper home and read my story over and over again, slowly realizing that the final version had been re-written by the editor to sound so convoluted even I couldn't figure it out. And my name was on it!
For the record, I eventually got county officials to use the term "short-changed" in follow-up stories, because that's what they'd gotten.
All this happened thirty years ago, but it dawns on me now (as I'm sure it has on you, my secret friends) that I really never really learned, did I?
8/2/12
" ... YOU!!!"
"Dear (insert name of mega defense-industrial-research-institute-corporate-complex deal of your choice):
"As a reporter with 25 years experience in both print and broadcast media, I have developed a variety of editing skills to accompany the writing and reporting ability necessary for the jobs I've held.
"Editing requires not only high sensitivity to language, but also strong knowledge of grammar, spelling and style -- all needed for professional presentation and reader comprehension. My previous experience has led me to 'self-edit' my copy, which allowed me to beat deadlines in some cases, and, in others, allowed me to avoid misunderstanding by colleagues who would need to re-use those materials.
"A good editor also needs to ask the right questions of writers. That's a blend of professional discipline and
sensitivity to what the writer wants to say, as well as his or her ability to say it. As much as anything, a good editor is a good teacher.
"I've been looking for an opportunity like this one for some time now, and I would very much like to discuss
with you in person what I could bring to the position of (insert whatever meaningless job description you like).
"Sincerely,
"Will I. Getfooledagain."
Could I have 'reached' any more pathetically? I am not qualified for the above job, and I know it. I have never been an editor. I have never even sought, much less earned any credits toward, an advanced degree past the frequently-mentioned ars baccawhatevah in English Useless-ture that would make me look even remotely qualified to write, much less edit, any material of any technical nature whatsoever.
To make matters even worse, all HR has to do is glance at my college transcript and see the shining 'C' in Expository Writing sitting there -- the lowest grade in English Litter-manure I ever got. (The other two were both for introductory science courses.) 'Expository writing' is what the above letter (which I changed somewhat to protect just how stupid I really am) begging for a job is what the job is for doing.
tht last sentence makes no cense but you know whut I ment rite ?
In any event, this is what job hunting for a five-years-from-s-s-and-getting-greyer-by-the-day ex-journal with a pinhead degree in English Liter-manure is like. Has been. For years. And years. And ... .
I know I'm never working again, at least not for a salary. I know the scrounging I've done thus far is going to look like Bonanza to Hoss compared to what I'm going to have to face from now on. And I know it's all my own fault.
But, alas, hope springs eternal.
If I'd ... If I'd ... If I'd ... only ... .
It's my guess that you ask yourself that a lot in times like these. My latest is ... "If only I'd kept writing creatively and put that stuff in my rickety desk's bottom drawer in my dinky apartment and just went to work and wrote them obfuscatin', hard-to-figger-out-in', backspinners like the editor was trying to get me to write way back when, then I'd be OK now."
You see, when I got that second-ever job back then, I just was totally convinced it was the front door to the Big Career. So I made the conscious decision to quit jottin' down those little free-verse scribble-scrabbles and Get Down to Brass Tacks with Making It Big.
And five years later, I'd fallen flat on my face. Dead-ended. And just about had kind-of half-subconsciously decided letting the local "4-19 scratch my back" (sorry, Robbie) would be a good idea. Then, I had what I guess you'd call a 'vision' (really just a little head movie, 'round about midnight [Sorry, Monk] that lost summer in Knittinmillville). And, without going into detail, let's just say that little head movie told me what Nora Ephron meant by 'co-opted' -- with a cast of characters, to boot!
The mockingbird singing me those midnight mockeries that night kept at it till dawn. I finally rolled over, napped till breakfast, then took a shower. With the water fallin' over me, I (hand-over-where-my-heart used to be) pretended I was stringing a quill 'cross my longbow -- a lifetime before the fashion came in. I released the imaginary bolt with a vow never to let what some old guy named Milton said "'twas death to hide" ever get hidden again.
I got my old po' books out and started re-learning rhyme and meter. Got my old Manly Hopkins out and started trying to remember the Really Hard Stuff I scanned way back when. And started writing. It was frustrating. I didn't start seeing results for another fifteen years. And I took to the Free-V-Scribble-Scrabble when I hoped no one was looking, about half-way through that fifteen-year creative drought.
The rest of the story I've set down elsewhere. Let me just say I have no regrets whatsoever. Which gives me an attitude, I admit. Sometimes I wonder where I get the gall to act the way I do. (Sometimes I don't. A recent article in a Well-Known Magazine pointed out some of the late Steve Jobs's more public shenanigans. Never having met the man [and with no disrespect to his memory intended], I can nonetheless tell you I can easily guess the reasons behind every single one of them. Telling? No, that would spoil it, wouldn't you say? And no, Jobs's behavior does not give me my excuse nor did it give me a pattern. I have my own for both, trust me.)
Sure. Make me eat my words.
They're worth it.
8/13/12
Time for a Change
I can read text on this theme more easily. The advisory at the bottom is especially clear in this format, I think.
If anyone thinks or tries to get anyone else to think I have been idle or unproductive during the last two years ( or four years, or six), I offer this private blog to you, my secret friends, as proof of the opposite.
I have changed the world. I did it for you. You are all I have, my secret friends, and your friendship is all I really need.
8/25/12
"Say be wha'?" "FRUS-trit."
"... he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem ... .”*
In other words, you must become whatever it is you want to accomplish. (That's assuming you want to do it right.) How Zen of that "Areopagitica" guy!
Had a certain Korean electronics king's men (whose products I admire untouched at the local Big Box while fingering my now-useless plastic rectangle) read ol' Johnny M first, their own wallets might be heavier today.
You have a right, I think, to make sure your well-designed innovations (once they have become 'iconic' -- that means, in This Our Modern ... [sorry, Earl Nightingale] they make a lot of money at sight) continue to make money for you and your Authorized Re's -- and if you have to go before a judge to do that, well ... .
Only in America? Well ... .
I know I "make frustrate" a lot of people who want herein some plain-n-simple, Good Ol' American, Norman (first typed 'Normal') Rockwell dinner-table-place-setting-style linear thinking in clean and simple, properly outlined, step-by-step prose of which E.B. White would have approved. (Wow. I did learn my lesson, didn't I?)
All this reading those inside the brackets inside the parentheses off-center digressions in the middle of the sentence without so much as a winkie little emoticon to clue you that it's the joke you have to get to get the point gets tiring to the camp followers of true progress.
Which is my point: stop following and start leading!
D' y' 'member my old post 'My Dream Machine' ... ? Some got all. Some got part. And some others got none. Here it is, Normal Rockwell fans ... .
What if your keyboard was a computer? What if your mouse was one, too? (Remember, I prefer a trackball.) What if your flatscreen was one, too too? What if your CPU was one, also too too? (I know -- that's too too much.)
But what if that CPU of yours was a portable media server, instead also? One that could be dedicated (by you) to link your keyboard (or keypad), mouse (or trackball) and flatscreen (or tube) into one fairly responsible facsimile of a supercomputer?
Would all that supercomputer be supercomputer enough to run Hypertext (TM) raw? (BTW -- look up Hypertext on that online Americana and then scroll down to the photo. Look at what the student with the LindaBird 'do is doing. Look at the date of the photo.)
Would we then finally have our renascence? (Spell it French and you'll have it, my secret friends. My point's point, that is?)
Please also know that all the Mypads and smartwalkie-talkies from China do not prompt envy from me. But a newsclip showing that big silver Pro sitting right next to that big silver Cinema sitting on that sweet big roomy desk in sunny design Heaven in new ol' Byjingo sent me straight to NV Hell-0. (Hint: it was actually the desk. Back in the day when I wrote "My Dream Machine" I hated kicking poor Laila [my name for the garden variety Dello I had to sit on the floor] so much that I stuck her atop my 20-dollar presswood screw-it-together-yourself file cabinet and started kicking that lead-heavy Melamine {TM} triangle desk's sideprop instead and changed the world. Together with Laila. You're welcome.
(But even then with a P4 and a 19-inch tube on dialup, I was a pygmy at world-changing compared to a tru-beleeving coder with a P1 and a 14-incher on low-baud.)
Remember how I said the late Dennis Ritchie said he taught C to the father of UNIX with a game? That he invented for the purpose?
We can do better than pout-then-NV a smartwalkie you can wave at a poster in a coffee shop to get a free song (No disrespect intended in any way, shape or form to the product, the advertisement or the actors referred to here. They excelled in creating, promoting and portraying what we say we want. I would not have found it memorable enough to include here if they had not.).
Why do we say we want those things?
Next time.
___
*from "Apology for Smectymnuus" by John Milton in The Portable Milton, Douglas Bush, ed. New York: Viking Press, 1977.
8/28/12
Skip a Rope
I'm tempted to apologize for the (apparently) frivolous prose I posted below {in this format, 'above'}. But, because my seeming frivolity was a mask for all the frustration I was releasing therein, I won't. I'm also tempted to post a "part deux" to complete my "next time" promise. But, because I don't think that's necessary, I won't.
Just this ...
We want what we say want in part because we're allowed to want it. Our desires stay rooted in the possible, if not always probable, future.
We rarely, I think, find ourselves wanting things that can never be. That's because it's too frustrating.
But what if we imagine our own practical wants, without whatever Powers That first allowing it? What if those wants held within them their own useful logic?
Someone could (and more than a few lately have) taken the above notion to wreak Havoc on the peaceable-minded.
But what if, instead, you or I could imagine something a little more practical than whirled peas forever? (I like me some split pea soup in winter ... . "Peas porridge cold ... !"?)
9/7/12
"Stop your whining! Have some mustard relish."
Time for a little diluted mustardy ... .
There are easy ways to do things, and there are hard ways to do things. The easy ways are the frauds meant to tell you there are no easy ways to do things. It may be the people (who de-person themselves in the process) that become frauds in life are those who either can not or will not learn this simple lesson.
I wasn't really whining in that last post (that somehow got clicked into nevah-nevah land [I can hear Mary Martin right now in that awful kinescope that I had to watch over and over again in my youth, as required viewing. If there was ever any whimsy in that production, the forced viewing of the kinescope sucked it right out.]), I was indicating something.
Everybody's Got One.
An inner two-year-old, that is. You need one, I need one, we all need one. To function. In This Our Modern or any other world.
But if that's all you've got ... well, look around you, my secret friends. Just look around you.
My big mistakes in '03 that I was pretending to whine over in the post-that-somehow-never-was were (1) not believing in my idea enough to carry it through and (2) not seeing just how big it was. (Those are in reverse order, by the way.)
But somebody (just as in that other big mistake in that other whiney post that somehow was ...) had the sense to see and do both things instead of me, and I'm talking to you now because of their success. That other mistake made me reflect, and eventually made me a writer, in spite of myself. (*In James Brown voice* "Hey!")
(I had no idea you could full-screen this thing till just now. Whoa! Pays to look around, now, doesn't it?)
I needed to get the Nevah Nevah post out of my system to move ahead. I see that now, and (in retrospect) I saw it through a glass darkly then.
Most people are like that, inner two-year-old and all.
What pays is what we do next.
9/18/12
Crunch, Crunch
As I've been re-reading the last few posts, my not-so-secret friends, it's clear that the 'pontiff's tiara' I used to kid myself about (as mercurius-21 on LJ) has found its way back onto my noggin.
It was a little joke about my (and any blogger's) temptation to 'pontificate' when writing. And it's clear I get muddled when that thing cuts off circulation upstairs.
Still, there may be helpful things there, so I'll leave them up for now.
A year ago, I got hung on the idea of the human as 'mechanism' -- 'a natural or established process by which something takes place or is brought about' (online OED, US Eng). But, of course, that idea only goes so far.
The human is an 'organism' -- 'the material structure of an individual life form' (ditto). But is that all? What about the human "psychological" structure? That's what I've been fretting over in the most recent posts.
You see, I wasn't really hammering recent smartphone ads, the American entertainment 'cheese factory', or the current economy that leaves most 50-somethings like me 'frustrate'. Those are all themes I have used from the beginning of this blog, but they have been a diversion (*sings* 'from the beginning ...').
As a mirror log, I've used this to explain my self to the world (or attempt to, at any rate). As a verbal-snapshot log, I've used it to suggest what I think 'self' is (try, just try, to get square-format photos that tight on a cellphone with no viewfinder -- what they get for taking 'take a walk'! I actually like the product!) And, as a stream-of-consciousness log, I've tried to outline what I think the 'not-self' is.
I have no idea whether I have succeeded or failed. It really depends on you, my secret friends. You may need to fill in where I've fallen short.
Back when I was in 'that other medium', almost twenty years ago now, corporate moved us out of our ancient HQ downtown (shed one nostagic tear for me, dear secret ones) and into a 'merger' with That Other Other Medium.
We actually shared an improvised studio for a time while theirs was being renovated, and the improvised one was to be 'ours' once it was renovated. (Well, the back-room 'closet' was ours, anyway. As the three of us who remained a year later learned. It was a nice closet, actually. Room enough for two. As I learned soon after that 'year later'.)
But, while we were temporarily 'merged', the Other Others let us use their computer system. It was what I suppose was an early Ethernet deal. On it, we could write our news stories, send messages to each other, or even post a note to all on a sort of bulletin board.
So, my first-ever 'netblog' entry was a Christmas greeting, comparing the holiday to the ancient Greek festival of 'halcyon days' (My history reading tells me many Christian holidays have pagan forebears.), explaining to them what a 'halcyon' is. (It's a kingfisher, who nests on the Aegean during the apparently calm and easily fished waters around winter solstice.)
People gave me strange looks at the water cooler after that wistful note.
But writing it helped me, because this 'merger' transition was anything but smooth, and it occurred during what was probably the hottest news cycle that state had seen since World War Two. At times, I literally announced news that every audience member was vitally interested in with pneumatic hammers and power saws going off 25 feet from my head. (They'd stop if I asked.)
I had to get my act together in a serious way during this period. However, instead of getting worse at my trade, as resources and staff dwindled during this downsizing, I somehow got better. Which also somehow failed to endear me to my colleagues in That Other Other thing. I recall what remained of those true colleagues in my own medium staring at me, mouths agape, as I passed them on the way to the aforementioned water cooler, the bathroom or the central printing station. (One waitress at a veggie burger joint around that time told me I looked like DeNiro. In "Mean Streets". I thought she meant it as a compliment, and I thanked her. But that really wasn't the look on her face ... .)
The experience was weird, in a literal way: I covered news as if I were writing tragedy; I seemed to know, at times, what to do and where to go without some supervisor telling me; events and comments just 'snapped together' somehow. I have no idea why or how, and it has not happened to me since.
Somewhere around this time, that 'switch' I mentioned a few posts back appeared to have been thrown. Life has been strange, ever since.
But, there was something else going on with me internally I kept secret: I took that 'halcyon' post as a promise to myself that someday I would do more of that kind of thing. Maybe the crucible that had melted away the person I had been also left its lead monster some gold hidden in his molten palm.
I have tried to offer it to you. I hope it's worth something.
You are its assay.
9/21/12
Cafe Lingo, By Jingo
How to Keep from Being Plagiarized:
1- You can't. So forget about it.
How to Handle a Good Idea:
1- Give it to somebody else.
2- Hope they screw it up.
How to Wreck a Good Idea:
1- You can't. So forget about it.
How to Give Away a Good Idea:
1- Act secretive.
2- Hide your idea.
3- Oooops! Do #2 first.
4- Pretend you don't know anything about that hidden thing sitting over there in the corner.
5- Do everything in you can think of to protect it.
6- Act desperate when parts of your idea start leaking out.
7- Act withdrawn and sullen when those leaked-out parts start working for somebody else.
8- Turn your back and act unconcerned when the rest of your idea begins disappearing out the door.
9- Wave goodbye.
How to Protect a Good Idea --
1- Offer it to someone else.
2- Tell him or her you will explain the whole thing.
3- Offer to teach them its inner secrets.
4- Tell them you will demonstrate its complexities.
5- Cover your mouth to keep from laughing as they run from you like scared rabbits.
6- Do all the above as sincerely as possible.
Why does this work? People assume you're trying to sell them something with #1. People assume with #2 you're going to bore them, which you confirm with #'s 3 and 4. If you don't do #5, you will give away the game. If you do #6, you'll eventually realize there are some people willing to listen. They become partners, possibly.
Partners will ask tough questions sometimes. They will critique your plan. They will express skepticism for its weak points. So ...
1- Answer their questions honestly. Don't make up stuff.
2- Listen to their critiques. Don't get defensive.
3- Make note of their skeptical comments. Don't dismiss them out of hand.
4- Avoid trying to 'rope them in'. Explore what they mean with their questions and comments, and see if they offer any help or support.
If they do that, move forward, but try to make note of exactly what it is they're offering and when you can expect delivery (actually, exchange) of those services. But take it slowly. Avoid trying to 'nail it down' at first. Leave room for growth -- or pull back.
Realize this 'partner' CAN STILL SCREW YOU OVER. You've gotten nothing but promises, and even if you do get some initial help -- THAT PERSON COULD BE PLAYING YOU. If some of the expected 'help' suddenly starts to evaporate, get ignored, or generally find its way out of future discussions, you need to realize you are dealing with a sharp operator and that you must map out an exit strategy. The sooner and simpler, the better.
How to Get Yourself Plagiarized --
- Get a good idea
- Do all the work yourself
- Claim full responsibility for it
- Make sure you give 100% effort in full public view
- Take the responsibility for being innovative
- Be as different as possible in both method and result
Plagiarists are looking for people like that. They know two things --
1 Most people want the familiar
2 The innovative person will have a restricted audience -- at least at first.
Plagiarists need innovative work to plagiarize from, because just ripping off the same old thing gets boring, both to produce and consume. Besides, stealing stale stuff is a dead giveaway.
So, though the good idea and its product are done to the effect of maximum exposure -- the doer is the most likely to get plagiarized, his or her own originality and public effort doing them in.
The only thing to do, if you get stuck with a good idea and the passion to execute it, is to create a false identity and rip yourself off.
However, if you are too well-known and/or unemployed (the two often go hand-in-hand) to pull the false ID thing off, there are some things you can do instead. I'd love to tell them to you, but I'm afraid I'll get plagiarized.
The Anatomy of a Successful Idea --
1- It fills a need (whether perceived or real)
2- It supplies a promise of 'more'
3- It connects to an edge of perceived ignorance
4- It conforms to certain preconceptions
5- It contains a self-protecting mechanism that promotes curiosity but adds mystery ('How does it work, again?")
6- It is simple.
7- It is disposable
8- It is durable (but requires regular service by an expert)
How a Successful Idea Differs from a Good Idea --
1- A good idea is ahead of its time; a successful one is on time.
2- A good idea is unfamiliar; a successful idea has something familiar about it.
3- A good idea strikes at the heart of a problem; a successful idea creates a new problem while supplying a familiar need (or satisfying it temporarily).
4- A good idea is easy to copy; a successful idea requires a 'secret' ingredient to complete.
5- A good idea requires energy to launch; a successful idea propels itself once started.
6- A good idea contains several complex elements to create; a successful idea has a simple base.
7- A good idea inspires a memorial; a successful one inspires imitators.
8- A good idea vanishes without its creator (though its easily-made copies may continue in another form -- perhaps as a 'successful' idea); a successful idea requires only the maintenance of the 'secret' ingredient to endure.
A businessperson needs a successful idea to make a profit; the world needs good ideas to survive.
The above I wrote in a cafe over lunch plus coffee (three lunches in a row) to help me recover from the aftershock of My First Thing in the nice part of Gov'menttown nine years ago last May, all in block hand with a gel pen on a blue-rule-on-white-paper legal pad. I've sat on it that long. Hope you liked it.
10/23/12
Don't Ask Why
The fun I'm having now is Feedback Mode.
I could go on all day and night (despite the time limitations here), but I'll give you just a sample.
That job opening I wrote about some posts ago I actually got a 'phoner' for. It was a group effort, at that. The gang's Q's focused on me defending myself against charges that I had no previous experience editing anything. About halfway through, I realized (while I was doing an A, actually!) what a beautiful set-up this whole thing was.
After I hung up, I got an idea.
A few weeks later, I exported one of my old blogs to one of those 'make a blog a book' services and started adapting it, post by post. Just doing some touch-ups, really. Let's call that 'the bait'.
As I made progress, week-by-week, I started noticing something: that old blog started getting hits. It was only on weekdays, and it was always (roughly) the same number. Though various tracking sites were 'hit'listed, each usually came up as some sort of no-names-please ''aggregator' site.
So I focused on some of those old posts while working on the 'make a book' thing. This involved more thorough editing, and even rewriting, some of those posts, which were now 'chapters'.
And, as I thought it might, when I checked back on the old blog, the 'most popular' list started changing -- after years of having listed the same three or four posts that were obviously being used to help students in a particular subject with some 'work-arounds'. (With which I have no problem.)
Yes -- the 'suddenly most popular' posts on the old blog were the same ones I was thoroughly editing as book chapters on the 'make a book' service.
What was happening, you ask? Why, of course, those dozen or so somebodies were suddenly interested in finding out how This Loser With No Editing Experience Whatsoever was editing his own work.
Let's call those 'nibbles'.
Now, just who are these Dozen or So Somebodies?
I started re-sequencing some of those posts in my new 'book', trying to make the ideas in them more cohesive and less rambling. This re-sequencing involved still more rewriting to maintain the cohesive flow.
Now, the pull to deepen the hook.
There is a site I do not put on a reader or aggregator but visit daily here at the ... oh, you know where it is, don't you? (Actually, there are three or four I visit daily here -- just to keep things interesting.)
This particular site, however, has its own internal 'blog' (that, oddly, has featured posts of late about how Certain Types of Writers Who Have Enormous Egos Just Can't Be Bothered To Be Nice).
And sure enough, the 'blog' on this site is now featuring a discussion (from another 'blog' on another site it frequently links) on How Certain Types of Much More Humble Kinds of Writers Can Now Teach Their Workshop Secrets Through New Books On Sale Soon at a KinNook Near You (yes, you -- You Who Wish Oh So Hard You Could Be Just Like Those More Humble Kinds of Writers Who Love to Sing Each Others' Praises Provided The Quid Fits The Quo With a Pro).
Gotcha.
Reel ... reel ... reel ... . Land.
Now, what do I do with you?
What are you worth?
___
For you, my secret friends, use that gold I gave you to sort the wheat from the chaff (Yes, I just mixed a metaphor. See if that's a clue.).
I've been editing this post as I go, just for you.
10/24/12
"Lines form on my face and my hands |Lines form on the left and right ..."
The fun I'm having now is Feedback Mode.
I could go on all day and night (despite the time limitations here), but I'll give you just a sample.
That job opening I wrote about some posts ago I actually got a 'phoner' for. It was a group effort, at that. The gang's Q's focused on me defending myself against charges that I had no previous experience editing anything. About halfway through, I realized (while I was doing an A, actually!) what a beautiful set-up this whole thing was.
After I hung up, I got an idea.
A few weeks later, I exported one of my old blogs to one of those 'make a blog a book' services and started adapting it, post by post. Just doing some touch-ups, really. Let's call that 'the bait'.
As I made progress, week-by-week, I started noticing something: that old blog started getting hits. It was only on weekdays, and it was always (roughly) the same number. Though various tracking sites were 'hit'listed, each usually came up as some sort of no-names-please ''aggregator' site.
So I focused on some of those old posts while working on the 'make a book' thing. This involved more thorough editing, and even rewriting, some of those posts, which were now 'chapters'.
And, as I thought it might, when I checked back on the old blog, the 'most popular' list started changing -- after years of having listed the same three or four posts that were obviously being used to help students in a particular subject with some 'work-arounds'. (With which I have no problem.)
Yes -- the 'suddenly most popular' posts on the old blog were the same ones I was thoroughly editing as book chapters on the 'make a book' service.
What was happening, you ask? Why, of course, those dozen or so somebodies were suddenly interested in finding out how This Loser With No Editing Experience Whatsoever was editing his own work.
Let's call those 'nibbles'.
Now, just who are these Dozen or So Somebodies?
I started re-sequencing some of those posts in my new 'book', trying to make the ideas in them more cohesive and less rambling. This re-sequencing involved still more rewriting to maintain the cohesive flow.
Now, the pull to deepen the hook.
There is a site I do not put on a reader or aggregator but visit daily here at the ... oh, you know where it is, don't you? (Actually, there are three or four I visit daily here -- just to keep things interesting.)
This particular site, however, has its own internal 'blog' (that, oddly, has featured posts of late about how Certain Types of Writers Who Have Enormous Egos Just Can't Be Bothered To Be Nice).
And sure enough, the 'blog' on this site is now featuring a discussion (from another 'blog' on another site it frequently links) on How Certain Types of Much More Humble Kinds of Writers Can Now Teach Their Workshop Secrets Through New Books On Sale Soon at a KinNook Near You (yes, you -- You Who Wish Oh So Hard You Could Be Just Like Those More Humble Kinds of Writers Who Love to Sing Each Others' Praises Provided The Quid Fits The Quo With a Pro).
Gotcha.
Reel ... reel ... reel ... . Land.
Now, what do I do with you?
What are you worth?
___
For you, my secret friends, use that gold I gave you to sort the wheat from the chaff (Yes, I just mixed a metaphor. See if that's a clue.).
I've been editing this post as I go, just for you.
10/29/12
"You Gotta Have Friends ... ."
My favorite of Cousin Bette's (she's not my cousin and I heard "From a Distance" done by Nanci Griffith first.).
You may have noticed that there were people I called "somebodies" in both of the last two posts.
I seemed to have it in for the "somebodies" in the earlier one, only to have it for the "somebodies" in the latter.
Of course, in most (if not all) cases, they're the same group. Or at least two groups with a lot of intersecting members (they're embracing each other, so they're inter ... never mind.).
There was a guy I was buds with in grade school. One day as we were 'tween classes in the upper grades (I forget which one) a pair of bullies was really working him over. A tough but 'nice' guy intervened, and then they started in on him.
It took several men on the custodial staff to rescue the pair from these bullies. (Actually, calling them 'bullies' is misleading and an insult to bullies.)
There was a hint in the discussion (there was very little, BTW) in the aftermath of this quite serious melee that somehow I was brought up and somehow this was part of what got the fight (if you could call it that) started. In short, my friend was drubbed (if you could call it something that innocent-sounding) in part for sticking up for me.
He later denied it, and we remained friends. But from a distance. He hung with a "tougher" crowd in high school (Back then, we used the word 'tough' to mean 'cool'. It was the 70s. Early 70s.).
He went to a prestigious school well to the North and a life of success thereabouts afterward. I stayed down hea'h and proceeded to a life of meaningless drudgery followed by utter penury.
It could be dangerous to be my friend. So I got it: the rules for friendship didn't apply to friendship with me. Use me, mock me, drop me, stop me. And as long as you said you liked me we were still good.
But when I hit the Utter Penury phase as a Middle Aged Man, I decided (after much Blank Wall Staring) those rules didn't apply any more. Because if I was worth insulting in what passed down hea'h fo' Junior High, I was worth dropping as a bud to keep your teeth (He kept his but needed work done. The defender of the defender wasn't so lucky. I remember seeing a bloody molar on the scene afterward, and it took a couple days of inquiries on my part to get someone to admit whose it was. The defender's defender acted like I stunk for the rest of our academic careers together. Smart.).
Call me cynical. Call me crazy. Call me whateva'h. (Just don't call me maybe. Name's not 'Maybe'.) I don't recall the Son of God ever denouncing anyone for cynicism. It's just one variety of that particular attitude that got you denounced by Him. The one that said "Everybody's just out for themselves, except me."
He often hung out with what were likely the most cynical people in the Holy Land of His day -- "sinners and tax collectors" is the euphemistic term the Holy Book uses for hookers and crooked tax preparers. And He got denounced for doing it by those who really were just out for themselves but wouldn't or couldn't admit it.
In the Years Approaching Penury, my co-worker one election year kept telling me how she used to be for this one political party but then she got cynical. And then she'd give me The Long Look. (It wasn't of Love, I can tell you.)
I puzzled back then over her use of the word "cynical". Was it a deliberate euphemism for something else, or was that the best she could do in terming her Change of Heart Political? I never figured it out.
Again, I'm not making this a soapbox. I've just been recently trying to explain how complicated friendship can get (especially around anyone who can express themselves) these days. And how the definition of 'friend' is still how you choose to define it.
Yes, my secret friends.
You.
12/15/12
" ... muddle through somehow ... !"
I used to run to the radio when I was a teen just to hear (usually the tail end of) it.
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was rarity otherwise in those days of carefully groomed upbeat Christmas music heard on national broadcast outlets. Had any of the Vegas standouts in those days of the Big Three Networks dared ask to put it on, "Have Yourself ... " likely would have been discarded from the production as a minor-key miscue.
And it wasn't just the tube: Wiki says no less than Frank Sinatra wanted the lyrics changed before he'd put it to tape, and even Meet Me in St. Louis director Vincent Minnelli thought the song was too depressing for his movie. So, I can't remember where or when I first heard this classic. I just know that when and where I did, it hit me in a way I've never forgotten.
Oddly, in my parents' small collection of seasonal music, I found it on an album of popular Christmas songs recorded by a classically trained boy's choir. I used to wait until I was alone (or nearly so) in the home to play just that one song. My teenage pride didn't want to be teased over liking such a downbeat number.
However, Streisand recorded the standard in her inimitable style in the late 60s, and that's the one I ran to the loudspeaker to hear when I worked the department store floor on Christmas break in years after that. The song, as best I recall, remained near forbidden in the 80's but made a comeback in the 90's. After 9/11, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" has become so enshrined that it is now one of the most-played Christmas songs we hear every year.
Recent versions I have heard laid on the schmaltz a little too heavy for my taste, until this year. I won't name names, but there are at least two standout versions by young performers you can get today. Simple, plaintive and precise, these renditions (IMHO) replace the empty calories with substance that's a lot more musically nutritive.
In light (or the lack) of recent events nationally, this song may take on a more important dimension. Here's my take: if we allow tragic circumstances like these to destroy the holiday spirit nearly everyone looks forward to all year, we reward the bringers of mayhem. (The news gurus likely wailing ['likely', because I don't watch] over "how could this happen" need not look any further. We call it "senseless violence" for a reason.)
Yet, it would be impossible to keep horrors like this from tempering that spirit. Which might be a good thing, despite cowards' malevolent attempts to destroy all of it in us. A commonly accepted Christian calendar puts the commemoration of the first Christian martyr the day after Christmas. And the 28th sees one of young martyrs that all of us should probably remember, especially this year.
I mention this not to emphasize the bloodshed that came with the birth of a movement, but to remind us that very movement still memorializes the cost of discipleship.
Have yourself a merry one, my secret friends. May I recommend you also make it a mindful one, as well?
12/17/12
Hang a Shining Star
The song Hollywood musical stalwarts Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane wrote as part of a three-song Advent garland for Judy has taken on a life of its own, and I think that's appropriate.
Her requested changes to the lyrics {the movie's lyrics are standard} did lighten the mood considerably, yet the original melody and lyric sensibility remain, and that's possibly what I found so significant in my salad days ("when I was green in judgment, cold in blood ..." just like Cleo).
It's just nice when something like that sticks with you.
I've made a few ('ever' so) corrections and re-phrasings in the previous post from the original text.
Happy holidays to one and all.