I’m So Busy

I used to work for a crazy person.

He was a five and a half foot parolee who resembled, in a grotesque, hilarious kind of way, a perfect blend of Danny DeVito and Saddam Hussein. He stood below my shoulder, wore a thick, bushy mustache, and each morning sometime before noon would clod down the stairs to the office in ill-fitting gym shorts and a bedshirt that drooped over his swollen midsection like a dropcloth across an easel.

He had convinced each of us, his three employees, to commute across town to the home office in his basement. It was the recession, work was hard to come by.

Each day our routine was simple. We’d arrive around 9am and punch paper timecards in a mechanical clock. We would pour out yesterday’s cold pot of bad coffee and make another batch, and form a crooked semi-circle around the glowing orange dot as it crackled and hissed and filled the room with the acrid smell of weeks old pre-ground Yuban. We’d each fill a cup of sour coffee and slowly race to check the emails.

Email, by this time, was well established. It was firmly in place as the standard for general business correspondence, and most people could get it on their phones. But The Man Upstairs insisted on a permanent record, a hard copy for the file, and so each morning we sipped on burnt coffee and printed emails. Paper copies of the electric mail were then laid out, indexed by client, subject, and time-of-arrival, on a folding table that overlooked the office where they waited for our leader’s arrival.

He would arrive by 11 on most days, pounding dramatically down the steps to groan loudly about how late he had been up the night before, working diligently for our cause. “All I do is work,” he would lament, “I need a vacation.” Mornings, as a rule, were hard on the man.

But his spirits improved slowly as he quaffed Bailey’s and coffee and sat down to behold the analog mail (a-mails) before him. He worked his way through the list and scrawled hasty responses on each sheet of paper, and handed them off to each of us to be interpreted and transcribed. We were to type responses, print drafts for review, make necessary edits, receive secondary review approval, and send the missives into space.

We had games. One was to transcribe The Man Upstairs’ chicken scratch word for word, so that the draft reflected the real insanity that we bore witness to each day. “WRONG. Sharon ppty different section/zone. New prop revise now.” My preferred diversion was to sneak technically correct but lewd sounding words in and see if he would catch them. Intercourse. Erect. Turgid. You understand. Other times I just played Solitaire.

But so each of these games of course added another step to actually communicating, and by the time he made it through the list, new a-mails had appeared on his desk as replies came pouring in, ostensibly from laptops and iPhones as others were out to lunch.

Ours was not an efficient way to use email. So when The Man Upstairs would declare, “I’m so busy. Busy, busy, busy.” and strut around our damp basement office, it was hard to take him seriously. But then some time around two in the afternoon, the script would change. “I’m important,” he would say. He really said that, in a squawking, nasally voice, “I’m important.” And before long it was clear to us that of course he had not worked all night, and of course he was not busy (at least on billable things), but that he really was hard at work constructing a narrative in which he was relevant. Important. Irreplaceable.

I began to feel for him, to a point. And then, eventually, I began to notice that we’re all doing the same damn thing. That “busy” is, collectively, our canned response to “how’s it going?”. That “busy” insinuates productive, successful, essential. And that “busy” insulates us both from doing things we don’t want to do, as well as from telling the people who invite us to do those things the truth: that we’d really just rather not go do that thing.

Yeah, we’re all busy. There are stacks of emails and paperworks that aren’t about to do themselves. But it’s probably not really the default that it’s become. A closer look might show that you’re not all that busy, but have a pretty good idea of what you don’t want to do.

Next time you hear yourself saying, “ah, I’m busy,” maybe think about that. Do you really have things you need to do? Or do you just not want to do that thing that’s staring you down? Because if it’s the latter, it’s ok to just say “no,” and go spend your time on something worthwhile.

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Flash Fiction (from a 4 year old)

Once upon a time 8 gummy bears and some bad guys. All the gummy bears had gummy berry juice. They bounced up to the water fall. It wasn’t going because it broke. They fixed the water fall but it broke again. They fixed it for good. The bad guys came and the pet ogre came. The gummy bears fought the bad guys and lived happily ever after.

The End. (2/6/1991)

 

Once upon a time the black Bat Man, the gold Bat Man and the blue Batman and Joker and Cat Women and Bat Woman. All the Batmen and Bat Women were enemies. They all got into a fight. King Kong came and took apart the Joker’s hideout.

The End. (2/13/91)

 

Once upon a time there lived a creaky old witch in a house that could walk. Joorpedo Man came, then Batman came, then Superman came, then Swamp Thing came, then Paper Man came, then Bull’s Eye came (he’s a police). They fighted that creaky old witch so good they blew up her house.

The End. (undated)

 

Once upon a time there lived 100 mountain lions, infinity more, and once they got in a big fight. The infinity is good; the 100 is bad. One of the 100 died. One of the infinity died. And 100 more infinity died. And then Joorpedo Man came. And he said, “the 100 win and the infinity lose” and then Joorpedo Man got into a fight with the next of the infinity.

Then Batman came.

The End. (undated)

 

 

Once upon a time there lived a bad ghost and a good ghost. 5 bats who were bad. 6 good bats. 7 more bad bats and 7 more good bats. All the bats got in a fight. After the fight all the bad bats died. Some sea turtles came. Sea Man came.

The End. (3/19/91)

 

Once upon a time there was a big lion, about as big as a giant. then a big giant, as small as a troll. A dinosaur killed the giant. The dinosaur killed the lion.

The End. (3/20/1991)

 

Once upon a time a whale was good. A bad shark came. They got into a fight. The sea police came to see what was the racket. The bad guy and the police were in their PJs. There went back to their homes. The shark died. The whale didn’t die. G.I. airplane and tank came.

The End. (3/12/1991)

Once upon a time there was a lion, a fox, a coyote and a wolf and a cheetah and a snake and a hunter. The hunter didn’t have any weapons.

The End. (Winter ’91)

 

Once upon a time there was a wicked old witch and a giant.

The End. (Winter ’91)

 

Once upon a time there was a giant, a little boy and  wicked old witch.

The End. (Winter ’91)

 

Once there was a king and a queen and a prince and a princess. A dragon fired their castle. The castle burnt down. The 5 knights tried to fight the dragon. They forgot their armour. The dragon won. They went to the castle and found out what happened. They they put the castle back together.

The End. (2/5/1991)

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Dirty Jobs

You might think by the title that this post is going to be about cleaning out pit toilets by hand and roadkill taxidermy and stuff. But nope, just the opposite! I’d like to take a few moments to acknowledge the fact that armchair quarterbacking matters of national policy isn’t always quite fair, and that those rich white men in Washington really do have pretty dirty jobs.

Honestly, they’re the worst jobs. You have to be a special kind of crazy to sign up for that shit. I mean, you’d need the looks, wits, and charm to win over the electorate paired with the naivete to think that anyone even really wants you to change their life. You need to kiss babies in one arm and stab backs with the other. And all this while every aspect of your life, every stupid thing you did in college, is dredged up and put on TV for people to gawk at and condemn out of context. It’s crazy. Trust me, I’m an expert on this. I’ve seen Veep.

And so while being in high level politics is essentially the worst job I could imagine, like, in general, there are a few that really take the cake.

Senate Minority Leader – As far as elected Washington leadership goes, Senate minority leader is pretty cush. Usually this person has been around long enough to be fairly scandal proof, and they’re not really expected to get anything done. Just sit back, tell the other guy he’s an asshole, and watch the votes roll in.

House Minority Leader – A lot like the Senate minority leader, except where the Senate is mostly made up of adults, the House of Representatives is like a 435 child day-care with free Redbull and a puppy mill.

Senate Majority Leader – Ugh this guy actually has to do something. If you’ve got the majority you’re, like, expected to pursue an agenda. It’s the worst. Especially when the things voters wanted to hear in November like 2 years ago didn’t make any damn sense then and certainly doesn’t now. But so you beat on, boats against the current, and sort of try to get something done. Anything really. Like, if you control the Senate, and the House, and the White House, getting a bill or two passed should be easy, right?

Speaker of the House – Again, you’re dealing with real problems of governance, but doing it in a room full of shiny objects*.

POTUS – This is the worst job on earth. This person is ostensibly in charge of everything, but has like two actual tools: throwing a fit and signing Executive Orders, and the nuclear codes. Everything else is trying to build consensus among people who not only don’t work for you, but around half of whom actively work against you. Those peoples’ bosses/voters really only know you as “that dickhead in Washington,” and so regardless of the merit of any collaboration, the President is pretty much hosed. Of course sometimes the President finds himself with legislative majorities and still can’t find the light switches, which just goes to show that you really can do a bad job of a bad job.

White House Press Secretary – Ok I take it back this is the worst job on earth**.

 

 

*This doesn’t mean you should feel bad for Paul Ryan.

**It’s ok if you feel a little bad for Sean Spicer. As long as you don’t feel too bad.

 

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Small Town Vigil for Journalism

We all value the news. Even those of us who aren’t all that interested in wonky policy discussions or granular breakdowns of just how the new healthcare law is screwing us over, the news media is where we turn for the latest celebrity gossip, exciting pho recipes for a Friday night in, and which of our neighbors have been arrested for DUI.

We love it. We breathe it. Now more than ever, under the current administration, the line between news and entertainment can be incredibly difficult to find. For instance, if you Google ‘trump nuts’ you find a remarkably diverse first page of results. Amid a sea of clickbait from the right as well as the left we have a smattering of pseudonews from ostensibly reputable sources right next to legitimate news from someone with the Twitter handle @GayWonk.

Near the bottom of the page we have think pieces from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. The only thing notably missing is pornographic Photoshop work – even the images tab doesn’t yield anything more interesting than this:

which, in fairness, is pretty interesting

These truly are exciting times, and material support for national scale journalism is the highest in recent memory. The New York Times is on pace to add a precedent setting 500,000 new subscribers in the first half of 2017. The New Yorker and The Atlantic both grew their circulation by more than 200% in the first quarter of this year. Even regional players like the Boston Globe are setting subscription records, and public radio stations from coast to coast have seen contributions skyrocket.

And so when I tell you that journalism is under attack, and that it’s losing, you can be forgiven for your incredulity.

For starters, right now we’re seeing a deliberate assault on a free press by an autocratic Trump regime. His desire to weaken the First Amendment is well documented, and journalists are actively being jailed in the US in the course of their jobs.

And certainly, recent reports of ‘fake news’ influencing the 2016 election, anecdotes of waning attention spans, and Baby Boomers’ collective confusion about what the hell Buzzfeed is have contributed to the notion that the Cronkite Days are over. The Pew Research Center confirms that the perceived credibility of the news media dropped precipitously from 2002-2012, even while accounting for partisan divides. The sensation is real.

In spite of an actual, literal attack on reporting and waning credibility, a different study sheds light on the most pressing threat to a well informed electorate.

The report shows that newspaper circulation has remained essentially flat, albeit with a slight descending trend over the last decade or so, and in spite of rapidly decreasing ad revenue, parent companies have remained generally profitable. This has been possible through culling reporters.

Newsroom employment in the US was consistent, nationally, from 1984 through 2006. From 2006 to 2014 it decreased by 50%, through layoffs and buyouts. You may remember when a number of newspapers issued their reporters iPhones and fired all the photographers. Reporters have never been asked to do so much with so little.

But it goes deeper than that, and for this we need a case study. For that case study, I propose Montana, because I live here. In this state we have, like, 7 cities: Missoula, Bozeman, Helena, Billings, Great Falls, Butte, and “The Flathead” which is essentially 3 or 4 towns that have oozed together in the absence of any kind of zoning regulation. Each of those cities have a local daily newspaper.

These newspapers are the only real resource for local and regional issues. Anyone can turn to the New York Times to keep tabs on that knucklehead in office is up to or mass murder in the desert, but in order to stay informed on the very real issues playing out in state level elections, we have no place to turn but our local paper.

Transparency and accountability in our elected officials is, after all, essential to even a barely functioning democracy*. And both transparency and accountability rely on a news media that at least pretends to be actual journalism.

But in the face of waning ad revenue, newspapers have been consolidated to pool diminishing resources and increase value to advertisers. And it turns out that four of the 7 “actual” cities in Montana (Missoula, Helena, Butte, and Billings) are home to local daily newspapers that are owned by Lee Enterprises, a $760 million media conglomerate. And according to opensecrets.org, which tracks political contributions, Lee Enterprises has been a generous political donor – giving nearly 90% of its contributions to Republican candidates and causes.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Editorial oversight and the publisher’s duty to pay the bills are separate. That is sanctimonious. As a counter point I offer you the recent endorsement by three of the four (Lee owned) editorial boards in Montana’s “cities” of Greg Gianforte in the upcoming special election to fill Ryan Zinke’s newly vacant congressional seat.

And again, I’m pretty sure I know what’s going through your head. It’s probably something like, “That Gianforte? The one who’s running as a ‘science and technology’ candidate, but is on the record as believing that Jesus and the dinosaurs were contemporaries? The same dude who sued the State of Montana to challenge our unbelievably popular stream access law? The guy who keeps getting caught on tape selling us down the river to lobbyists? More than once? That guy? Really?” Right?

Nevermind that the Democratic candidate in this election is hardly a diamond in the rough. These papers are more than free to forego an endorsement. The Missoulian’s editorial on the issue hinged essentially on the idea that Gianforte is marginally better equipped to effect some policy, any policy at all, really, regardless of ideology, than his adversary Rob Quist. That was really it. Here’s a direct quote:

“When asked whether he agrees with the scientific consensus on evolution and the approximate age of the Earth, his answer was “I can’t honestly say because I wasn’t there.” That answer, coming from an engineer, is revealing – and deeply troubling. He absolutely must not allow his ideology to drive his public votes on things like science funding.
Gianforte’s views on women’s issues are similarly troubling. He would de-fund Planned Parenthood without any acknowledgement of the life-saving and quality-of-life-improving work done by this organization, or any plan to provide that care to women who would be left without a provider if Planned Parenthood were gone. He needs to understand that nearly half of Montanans are women, and he must represent their interests and not just his own.”

That’s from a fucking endorsement. Let that sink in.

Conservative dollars are consolidating the local and regional news media that are solely able to cover local, regional, and state candidates. These are the small, flyover races that have seen millions of dollars in campaign spending from centralized conservative groups like Americans For Prosperity, the Koch Brothers funding machine.

The journalists and reporters holding officials accountable are, by and and large, honest, hardworking men and women of integrity. But with corrupted leadership and spineless editorial oversight, we’re watching right now as the foxes move in to guard the hen house.

Readers and voters need to dig deep in order to find credible reporting, or turn to independent journalism. This can come from citizen journalists (some of whom have credibility issues of their own), or from independently funded news media. The Missoula Independent, for instance, is a free weekly paper known for high quality long form reporting on issues across Western Montana.

But limited resources means these smaller papers can’t get every scoop. Just two weeks ago reporters and staff at The Indie read in the cross town daily that they had just been purchased by Lee Enterprises.

 

 

*or republic, if you get off on pedantics. also if this is a distinction you feel strongly about I give it 60/40 odds you follow at least 2 men’s rights activists on twitter

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Things I Worry About

Am I doing this right?

What’s that guy’s problem?

When is that novel going to get written? Will it write itself? Shit. Will someone else write it?

Where do the leftover Cadbury Eggs go in May? The landfill? Or is there a warehouse somewhere?

Is it heroism or cowardice to eschew post-war values and retire/expatriate/flee to some third world beach community?

Was I rude to that barista? I didn’t mean to be, but maybe I was? Should I go apologize? What if I wasn’t rude? Then is it weird for me to go back? Maybe I’ll just tip extra? But what if she doesn’t see? If you tip extra by way of apology, but the extra tip goes unnoticed, does it count as apology?

What does the dog think of me, really?

Did I blow it?

What’s that sound?

In a decade what will I regret? What does it say that I’m motivated by hypothetical future-regret? Is that a Millennial thing? Did Instagram do that?

Are we all, unwittingly, together, careening toward a post-enlightenment serf society where wealth is concentrated not among those who own the means of production, but rather the means of automation? Where robot workers and a ballooning population conspire to render a human workforce obsolete, and in our lifetimes we see a worldwide Basic Minimum Income simply for the fact that we at least need some money to keep handing to Jeff Bezos? Or that eventually our (humanity, remember) utility to Captains of Industry will extend beyond their ability to profit from us, and that eventually, in the face of waning natural resources, our only value will be life itself? That our very life energy will be mined to keep the server banks running? And that to avoid a worldwide Socialist/Humanist uprising these Captains of Industry will derive a means to simulate the human experience itself and breed complacency? Or oh shit that that’s already happened? And hang on isn’t that kind of whatThe Matrix is about but even so wtf?

Is that a cavity?

Is the fact that everything has more or less worked out so far evidence that it will continue to do so?

How much is too much? Is enough enough?

What’s that smell?

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