Status Update

Hey guys - sorry I've been MIA. It's good though - I've been busy with work as I embark on the adventure of entrepreneurism. But that doesn't mean I'm reading less news - quite the contrary - and you KNOW it doesn't mean I'm any less opinionated. I think for the time being it's gonna have to be about posting links to stories you need to read; also thinking of starting a professional blog to shift my rants to marketing/advertising/PR/the general practice of brands trying to persuade you to do/buy/be.

Oh! Speaking of, please check out my posts at Fractured Atlas - I'm so proud to be their new marketing blogger:

Super Bowl Smackdown: What the Arts Could Stand to Learn from Sports

The Audience is Always Right: Why Your Work Must Be Marketable

Today in Black (People Would Like To Make Him) History

"Someone asked me the other day, "What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?" And by the way, it's sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, "I can't really have a hood pass. I've never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We're full.'

"What is being black? It's making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that's seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you'll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's."

- White Young Wealthy Famous Man from Connecticut

John Mayer: you have just ruined your music for me in the way that I can no longer watch Seinfeld because of Michael Richards. Thanks a bunch.

Brian Stuckey of Denver is an Idiot

And I hope he's the only Brian Stuckey so that this comes up in his Google results forevermore.

Here's his stupid letter to the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Re “Equality in the Military” (editorial, Feb. 3):

Your argument that “polls show that Americans broadly support repealing the law” that bars gays from openly serving in the military is hardly convincing. Even if the statistics are true, the moral conduct of America’s military forces should not be predicated on public polls. It is a matter of morality. And a nation’s morality is no stronger than the weakest link in the chain.

Your Jan. 29 editorial “Ending {lsquo}Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ ” spoke of the legislation as “the relic of a bygone era.” But morality is not confined to a particular era. If the laws of God proscribed specific kinds of immoral conduct in biblical times, there is little evidence to suggest that such laws do not apply today.

A repeal of the ban would be catastrophic for both the military and the nation — especially in a time of war.

Brian Stuckey
Denver, Feb. 3, 2010

Now, Brian, you get an A for composition, spelling, and grammar, but an F- for understanding that we're talking about the laws of A COUNTRY THAT IS A WESTERN INDUSTRIALIZED DEMOCRACY, not your conservative fundamentalist church. Seriously, dude, plus your rhetoric as our entire country only being as morally strong as its weakest member is pretty dismal, not to mention entirely unevidenced. Keep your morality inside your home and your church, mmkay?

And cheers to the wise, articulate souls that wrote the other four letters. Way to go.

AO Scott, You Are So Aughts

This is maybe the best blog post I have ever read. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to stop writing, because how dare I call myself a writer next to the divine Manohla Dargis:

Let's acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them. But they are important commercially... I've learned to never underestimate the academy's bad taste. Crash as best picture? What the fuck.

Full article - seriously, read it. And the comments too.

Ask; Tell

The Mayoress is hopping mad about this Don't Ask Don't Tell business. Overturning this policy is long overdue.

I can't even believe there's a debate around this. Give me one, ONE good reason why gay people shouldn't be allowed to have any job they choose. And if you don't like gay people, wouldn't you want them quarantined away on a military base, or risking their lives overseas?

Plus, we need troops right now. The marketing strategy is a no-brainer. Between the amount of time gay men spend at the gym and the proclivity of lesbians to be phys ed teachers, we're looking at thousands of potential soldiers, people.

Most of the bullshit arguments I'm hearing on the radio have to do with the armed forces being a conservative environment, or that most soldiers come from a conservative background and might be uncomfortable. Well, guess what, life is uncomfortable, and part of being an adult is living and working alongside people who are different from you. No public entity should institutionalize keeping adults insulated.

Which brings us to one of The Mayoress's rules for life:

You may dislike what people choose. You may not dislike what people are.

I cannot tolerate hate or discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation, and most of what happens before a person is 15 or so.

I will, however, question people's actions and beliefs based on things like politics, religion, occupation, home landscaping, and fashion sense.

That Ever-Elusive Emotion: Happiness

There's a great combo-review of some new happiness books on the market in today's Times. Lord knows I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating, pursuing, evaluating happiness. In other words, I sit luxuriously atop Maslow's pyramid. Love this excerpt:
We could canvass Gore, Rubin, Gilbert, the Dalai Lama and the many authors on the happier.com Web site and produce the Fundamentally Sound, Sure-Fire Top Five Components of Happiness:

(1) Be in possession of the basics — food, shelter, good health, safety.
(2) Get enough sleep.
(3) Have relationships that matter to you.
(4) Take compassionate care of others and of yourself.
(5) Have work or an interest that engages you.

I don’t see how even the most high-minded, cynical or curmudgeonly person could argue with that.

The real problem with happiness is neither its pursuers nor their books; it’s happiness itself. Happiness is like beauty: part of its glory lies in its transience. It is deep but often brief (as Frost would have it), and much great prose and poetry make note of this. Frank Kermode wrote, “It seems there is a sort of calamity built into the texture of life.” To hold happiness is to hold the understanding that the world passes away from us, that the petals fall and the beloved dies. No amount of mockery, no amount of fashionable scowling will keep any of us from knowing and savoring the pleasure of the sun on our faces or save us from the adult understanding that it cannot last forever.