Special Post-Apocalyptic Double Issue
Dear Millennibums:
I am continually bemused by the uniquely human phenomenon
of parcelling time up into little arbitrary pieces, as if
time were a river -- of bricks. And then investing those
parcels with great emotional significance. What’s the
deal? According to some crazy old arbitrary numbering system
which only a small fraction of us humans subscribes to,
we just reached the end of some chunk of 1000 units of time,
or, according to many, we’re one chunk early. And we
will now embark on the next chunk of 1000 units. Unless
we aren’t really embarking until about this time one
chunk from now.
Did you feel a shift? A fundamental change of some kind?
Or did you just decide to play along with this fabricated
event, content to join with the media and all the people
you know, pretending that something significant has just
taken place? Me, I didn’t feel a thing. I was sleeping.
And this 2000 thing feels exactly like the 1999 thing did,
only it’s a couple of days later now. Big deal.
Almost seven bricks into my freelance career, it occurs
to me that I’ve never given thanks or credit to the
man who designed my “corporate identity package”.
That man is designer/art director/scubafishianado El Supremo
Dani Dudovick. When I commissioned him to do this stuff,
I gave him a VW bus rubber stamp, a bunch of Chairman Jimmy’s
proFUNditties and charged him with capturing me in business
card, stationery, etc. He nailed it the first time. He didn’t
show me options, because he knew he’d nailed it. His
creations have worked very hard in my behalf ever since,
and so, belatedly, I thank you, Dani.
I thought you should know about my most recent ruminations
regarding my day rate and related matters. I’ve been
struggling recently with the issue of giving myself another
raise. It’s been quite some time -- three bricks, give
or take. How much of an increase, I wondered, can my day
rate tolerate?
As I was ringing my hands over this matter, I happened to
read in one of our beloved advertising journals about some
high-powered freelancers out there, the ones you’ve
probably heard of because they used to be ECDs at big New
York Agencies and so forth. In this article, these freelancers
are bandying about figures for day rates like $2200, $2500,
large numbers like that.
Now mind you, I’m constantly bumping up against the
absurdity of making a living at all in this business, being
paid to sit around and think of interesting combinations
of words and images. I get paid very well to do that, and
I think I do it very well. But how well would a person have
to do it in order to earn $2500 a day? In the words of my
mentor, “Thewe’s something vewwy scwuwy going
on awound hea.”
Anyway, after I read that article, I stopped sweating the
day rate. I simply decided to charge as much as I could
stand to. And then I figure I’ll just point out to
any prospective client who brings it up, that I’m saving
them a couple grand a day over what they could be paying
some fancy east coast hotshot with half the talent I wish
I had.
Cleaning out the closet of my mind recently, I came across
these two items which I hope to discard by the act of sharing
them with you.
ITEM ONE: Driving to work a couple of months ago, I was
on that stretch between Peterson and Lake Shore Drive, which
is either Hollywood or Ridge. Heading East, I approached
Clark (or is it Ashland? Why so much street ambiguity right
in that area, anyway?) As I awaited the change of light,
I noticed the guy in front of me roll his electric window
down and, oh so casually, stick his hand out the window,
where, between thumb and index finger of that hand was a
banana peel, which he, with all due arrogance and disdain,
released to the street.
This wasn’t a simple act of littering. The entire picture
unfolded for me in the time it took that banana to hit the
ground. This arrognat was working his way from some North
Shore ‘burb to his fancy job downtown. Being in too
much of a hurry to have breakfast with his family, he grabbed
a banana as he hopped into his green BMW 525i, license plate
number C 281 600. He consumed said banana immediately but,
not wanting to soil any of the nice suburban landscape close
to home, he waited to dump the trash until he reached the
big garbage dump called Chicago. Once safely inside the
city limits, all that was left was to pick his spot. On
this day, that spot was just west of Clark or Ashland on
Hollywood or Ridge. All I could do was take consolation
in the thought that his Karmic debt just got compounded,
and he would get his some day.
Funny thing. The last driver I consoled myself about in
that way committed his crime within a half a block of that
exact spot. I was waiting for a bus during the morning rush
hour when I noticed a big car straddling both eastbound
lanes, weaving first a little more into one lane, and then
the other, but always sufficiently in the middle to keep
those behind him at bay. He was going maybe 20 mph at most.
As he got closer I could tell it was a Cadillac he was driving
-- of course. As he passed by, I could further discern that
he was, yes, gabbing on his cell phone, but not just that.
He was, simultaneously, gnawing away on a big, fat, vile
turd of a stogie. It was a convergence from the dark side.
I only wished I had the command of my body to commit an
act of projectile vomiting right at that moment, right at
that car.
ITEM TWO: It’s about people who sit in bookstores
for hours with a cup of fancy-shmancy coffee, reading entire
books and magazines. I know bookstores encourage this behavior.
That doesn’t make it okay. And frankly, it irritates
the crap out of me. What gripes me the most is the prospect
of buying a “brand new” book which is in no way
brand new, but rather thoroughly used by who knows how many
coffee-nursing, biscotti- chomping leeches. I don’t
want to pay the price of a new book for a used book. And
I consider it unethical for bookstores to do so. Any book
that’s been read cover to cover should be thrown in
the used book bin, and sold at a deep discount. It makes
me wonder whether, if I buy coffee at the little coffee
house inside the book store, I’m getting that coffee
in an uncirculated, new paper cup or a “new” cup
which was rinsed out and put back with the new cups. It’s
enough to drive me away from such bookstores, especially
since they all seem to welcome this oh-so-civilized form
of theft.
When I look at these upscale mooches sitting with their
books, I suspect these are the exact same scumholes who
zip down the right lane on city streets, only to “take
cuts” back into the line of cars waiting patiently
in the left lane. I’d like to think this is some new
aberrant form of humanity with a tragically stunted concept
of fairness, civility, common courtesy, right and wrong.
But I fear it is people like you and me. Except, not me,
of course.
Speaking of eradicating undesirables, what is it about white-out
that takes forever to dry on paper, yet, if you accidentally
flick some on your hand, it’s instantly completely
dry, and not just dry but permanently bonded to your skin,
so that it would take laser surgery to get it off?
Stoically,
ERRATUM: John Konrath, biologist, really old close friend
and argumentitian, gleefully pointed out to me that, in
my last newsletter, where I mentioned that it wasn’t
the helium in the Hindenburg that ignited, it was the paint
on the surface of that big blimp, well of course it wasn’t
the helium, since there was no helium in it , but rather,
hydrogen. So fine, it wasn’t the helium that didn’t
ignite. It was the hydrogen that didn’t ignite. I stand
corrected. Oh, the humility . . .
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything
else is opinion.” - Democritus
“They sample so much, I need a tetanus shot.”
- George Clinton
If a bear sh*ts in the woods and no one smells it, is the
Pope still Catholic? And what about a Papal Bull?There is
a “large blob” deep in the Earth, Southern Methodist
University geophysicists found. It is 80 miles wide and
380 miles high. It is 500 miles below the Caribbean. No
one knows what it is made of. [Chicago Sun-Times, 10/11/99]
“If you think there’s a solution, you’re
part of the problem.” - George Carlin
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next
morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” - Mahatma Gandhi
