Words: Apparently Dumb, Stupid, and Easily Misused

Words are apparently stupid, because when you attempt to write many of them on the internet for any purpose you are missing the point. The internet is all about ADD, ADHD, and Twitter. Twitter's got it right and I've got it wrong. And I've had it wrong all this time. Paragraphs, sentences, and long-term writing are stuff of the 20th century and earlier.

I am not savvy enough. Don't believe me? My smartphone doesn't have apps or even a data plan (which makes it a part-time computer with built-in phone capabilities), my Twitter account has no followers (because I don't tweet and forget [my password constantly] to check Twitter unless some really hilarious hashtag is imploding),  and my blog is full of words and skimpy about pictures, videos, and excitement. What a fool I must be to keep at it: like it's some kind of book ebook that I'll never finish and that nobody cares about anyway. Like one of the stories Machine of Death rejected.

This blog is like an Angelfire crap page except not written by a child, no stupid .gifs or burning text, and no annoying MIDI covers of Limp Bizkit songs. So maybe it's not like an Angelfire/Geocities abomination... but why in the hell can't I figure out a way to capitalize on A) putting effort into making a way cooler blog [is this even possible] B) marketing this blog since I care so much. I can't have one without the other and, to be honest, I'd rather skip both.

Making a blog cool, even with idiot-proof software/front-ends [sorry Blogger], isn't as easy as I think it is. I'd have to scrap Publicato and try something new, losing probably everything that I struggled to build. But, honestly, if all I'm going to do is write stuff, link to stuff, and occasionally drop a screengrab, then I might as well go with a less tacky layout.

I will take a look, and feel the pain of what I imagine are actual human readers (unless even this is a delusion, and I've just attracted a lot of search-engine crawlers). Wood grain accent – like an 80's station wagon – black text on white background within it (ugly, amateur) in a non-offensive font at the very least. Flawless punctuation, occasional misspellings and typos despite a clear pro-professional writing bias. Nothing cool at all. High concept in words, not execution. Nothing hand-coded or done lovingly. Lodged in the belly of a content farm.

So that's why I don't always update. I always think that I am fooling my fool self with a fool blog on the internet. I play blues records and drink, and I hate that I ever started a blog at all. People make money off of facebook pages and twitter accounts, the odd blogger goes on to get published by an actual website, and almost everything I write is instantly drowned in the deep, still waters of the internet. It seems to me a hopeless case of building with sand on sand. Holding water. Fooling an eagle. Being angry at a dolphin.

That is to say: impossible. Writing is like smoking cigarettes: it stinks, it's bad for you, you end up making the wrong friends and distancing the right ones. Writing on the internet with more than 500 words at any one time is like being Henry James (or Theodore Drieser) at a post-modern microfiction literature convention. You can practically feel the cold shoulder given you by anything cool or contemporary. Who gives even the slightest shit?

Danielle Steel's Poetry, via Tina Fey

For today I thought I'd keep it simple and uncontroversial, but above all entertaining. I also wanted it tinged with nostalgia and ridiculousness. The research did not take long, but it was conclusive and the results are high-quality and thorough. Let's take a trip to the unrecoverable past, and weep.

This is what happened before Twitter. Now this kind of awesome transmission of hilarity is less constrained but even more inaccessible. It has grown from the constrained television/early-internet arena into a lawless continent. You might term it the twitterverse, or twitter galaxy. Late night TV isn't the most accessible thing, but goddamn if it didn't serve up some great times.

I remember the happy times on this very blog, when it seemed all I could do was watch late night TV and then post on this blog about it. I should've kept on with that business. I could've had an audience, but I choked. There aren't enough commentators and content-generators on the internet already, right? Any smart person could see how late-night TV commentary is an untapped market and how I could –

But I wasn't that smart person. The Jesse Navarro episode was a sign that Conan's show has the same kind of potential to be awesome. There is interest and potential discussion, refreshed each night, totally different each week, yet comfortingly similar and routine. There was so much to write about: Jimmy Fallon's meteoric but dubious rise (and amazing musical guests and the Roots!!!), Craig Ferguson's amazing cold opens, Conan's uninhibited but too-clever hilarity, and of course the underrated genius of Jimmy Kimmel.

If I could go back, this would've been a niche blog with a design document. Look around at the lack of progress, at the wreck of a blog.

(The book in question)

User Comment Rodeo: Pot Still a Huge Deal

It's downright unhealthy. It'll drive you crazy and ruin your life. It's a gateway to worse things. The User Comment Rodeo is, in fact, all of the above – and more!

Marijuana, for God knows what reason, is still something people get riled up about. Despite being illegal, it is found everywhere, in most countries. In certain places it is policy to execute or imprison people for marijuana crime: the stakes get higher than the high. Its legal status in free countries, and surrounding discussion, is one of the most indicative dramas of our epoch. 

Every time legalization fumbles, the same crowd comes out to jeer. Many consider it the finest part – the choicest cut of commentary – but in many ways it is a joyless spectacle.

Sensationalism is never where the show's at. There are finer tastes (even though it is understandable to ignore them). Consider the above: a beautiful and puzzling moment in the blizzard of opinion – another beautiful snowflake. A natural, logically formed moment in time, among all the rest. Arguments are always made noticeably better by:
1. Organization
2. Rhythm and Repetition
3. Dope

You can't be afraid of the deep end in this business. The shallow end is easier to understand, but what you miss out on is nuance. Don't fear the deep end:
1. It's Deeper
2. Paying Attention
3. Digression: Creates Perspective

Morality is key, because let's face it: user comment boards are highly influential and very important for public discourse. The picture they paint will always be a masterpiece. But to paint a masterful picture, the artist must reach into the soul of the audience – pulling on the heaviest of heartstrings and reading unthinkable terrors

Advertiser's Bowl: 2013 Edition ft. Existential Ennui

I don't have anything against the Super Bowl. It's a good reason to drink and eat too much and a great excuse for feeling like shit on Monday. What always puzzles me about it is how the Super Bowl Ad has become this huge event. Over the next week there will be Superbowl Ad Top 10s, reviews, and news segments. Most media output about the Super Bowl Ads will have the self-awareness of a gnat. I haven't been paying enough attention to say anything with certainty, but I think it's not really a high mark for society if the high-priced overpowering sports event of the year gets spectators who care more about the high-priced commercials and overpowering half time show. Ravens fans get to feel good, but then again: Baltimore's still going to have its problems, as will we all.

Each year, lately, people get psyched up for the Super Bowl's pricey, overblown, ridiculous commercials. Newscasts neglect problematic, boring stories for the innocent pleasures of the advertisement adventure. Meanwhile grown men have been sacrificing their bodies for... shit tons of money and a good start at fame. The themes seem to run together. There are always some 'innovative' ads, in the loosest sense of the word, but getting excited about innovative advertisement is like getting excited about a new model of taser. It's like getting excited about being in pro sports, but realizing that you may go to shit in the process: we should be so lucky to waste ourselves for such a prize.

For all their expense, commercials are generally devoid of value, promote unhealthy ideas, reinforce stereotypes, lie, cheat, flatter (in the basest sense) and bully the populace. Innovation? Most don't even have the good grace to be entertaining. This year Dodge released a high-quality, high-concept pro-farmer commercial so exceptionalist and baldly desperate that it almost touched the heart – but then again: Dodge is only another part of the dust bowl. What do farmers even matter when the whole proceedings only preach dust bowls?

In spite of all that craziness, I think by far the worst Super Bowl memory I have isn't an advertisement or the spectacular failure of a deserving team. No, my personal darkest moment is when Undercover Boss premiered after Super Bowl XLIV. It was stunning. What a brilliant PR move, but how absolutely disgusting to see something like that and then the uncritical, even positive response. This evil show was embraced. People were and still are enthusiastic about it. Advertainment, another slick evasion of issues such as predatory zero-sum business practices, income inequality, and the Recession. The smug laughter that inevitably results.

I think it's the kind of show that is okay to hate. I don't use the term evil lightly. Evil is a shared burden and all that, but it is okay to despise this goddamn show. It's  toxic, terrible, manipulative and the lack of popular critical response is a sad fact. It showed that soft power knew no bounds: it could take criminals, crooks, bullies and turn them into angelic, benevolent, personable superiors. I have no doubt the executive class is generally not evil, but their culture is not a healthy or positive one. I'm not an idealist to the point where I will deny the fundamental importance of business or industry, but the mere plight of the average modern person unsettles me. The way the earth – life – is used has gone far beyond the point where we can be unthinking and proud about it.

I don't get how such a transparently biased, exploitative show can still be on the air two years later. It is readily apparent that nobody has learned anything in the meantime, and that executives are just as wealthy and powerful as ever, what with the labor market wheezing and slumping like a dying hobo while the screaming middle class sinks. All you have to do to mask the dark side of capitalism is: videotape your choice of 'boss' talking about or doing awkward unsatisfactory work, in a sanitized and tightly scripted environment, edit to taste, pick some compelling underprivileged or overworked employees, wrap it up with a heartwarming situation, some cash prizes, and a teachable moment or two. Because the bosses do care: and no drudge's futile trudge through wage-slavery goes unnoticed and unrewarded.

Like any commercial, Undercover Boss delivers bias and sells misinformation. It meets minimum thresholds for propaganda. It portrays one point of view faithfully, and damn the rest – like the Simpsons, and many other fictional television shows. For instance: I joked some years ago about the five thousand dollar suit. Oh, hell. This is likely show money, which the boss gets to give out in order to humanize them (via #rotecharity). Sometimes an additional prize of changed terms of employment are entered into the bargain. Then tears. Let me tell you something about pathos: dollars alone don't make it convincing. The bosses cry crocodile tears, and the employees cry about the smug charity that will hopefully better their lives by some obscure fraction. 

I tell you of such scenes, not because I follow the show religiously but because I earnestly believe that that sort of indoctrinating pablum should be reserved for what are explicitly aired as advertisements. Undercover Boss contains enough slick reality-TV features to pass as a show, but that's a mask for what is really an advertisement for the same broad attitudes which have time and time again put the majority in the corner and the minority in comfort. At the end of each episode money changes hands, and nothing significant changes. The landscape of exploitation remains the same, and objecting to it still results in a defensive reaction from the world's largest, wealthiest, most powerful guilty party.

We keep worshiping opulence, and when it inevitably fails and bankrupts us, we find that consumerism is a sweetened abyss anyway. Everyone is sick with it. The rational mind knows* it is madness to overproduce, to hoard, and to waste – nevertheless: it's a race to the bottom and nobody can afford to miss out. There is only one way down.

(*or ought to, if it is at all thoughtful)