Tonight, for you, I've gathered two more of my favorite rock performances from the sixties...
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
Your Name Here, Part Two
The reaction to the announcement from DWC, Inc., of the upcoming launch of LifeCard* met the response we anticipated, so most of our staff took off today to play street b-ball.
Passes were passed, shots were shot, rebounds were rebounded.
Meanwhile, in our central offices, the marketing and technology executives were hard at work today, coming up with new messages to convert you, our target customer, to this revolutionary new tool.
As the sagest of our sage economists, Thyme Rosemary, explained, the only way to understand how profound our offering is, is to think about the underlying theory that has led to this wonderful innovation.
According to every projection we've studied, the best way our over-fed society can pull out of what is now widely recognized to be our next great depression is to come up with innovative methods to stimulate all Americans to spend even more than we are currently spending -- regardless of whether we have the cash resources to do so or not.
That's right. If your house looks more like a storage facility for all the junk you've been goaded into buying, you're just being a good citizen. For the good of our great America, you and I, dear friends, must consume more and more goods. Even though studies indicate that most of the stuff you buy will break, expire, or be otherwise outmoded within 8 months, you must just keep buying -- otherwise this capitalistic model will start teetering, and potentially even crash.
It all depends on us, the consumer class.
That is why DWC, Inc., has come up with LifeCard*. As all qualified cardholders are reduced essentially to One Great Consumer, the need for actual cash will vanish in this wonderful nation of ours.
Because, with LifeCard*, you never need pay off your balance -- until you are dead.
***
Remember Flat Julia? She went to Chile for her holiday vacation, and these photos are hot off the Shutterfly Express.
Looks like she was excited to be part of the action way down there in the Southern Hemisphere.
Our art gallery has a new piece: Dinosaur, the terrible lizard, in interpretive color...
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Friday, January 11, 2008
In the arms of the angel/ Will you remember me?
The most wonderful thing about all music is how it evokes memories and feelings that otherwise might remain suppressed.
These two performances capture a singer exploring two of my favorite themes -- the loneliness of every artist and the memory of every lover...
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Your Name Here
We here at David Weir Consulting, Inc., receive so many credit card offers that we've decided to develop a brand new kind of card that we intend to call the LifeCard*.
The idea behind this card is you can do anything and everything in your primary role as a consumer with it. It has a built-in microchip and a beeper that warns you when you are about to buy something that you'll regret later. How can we do this? Our embedded EKG technology monitors your heart rate, and notices that distinctive flutter when we consumers are about to make a financial move that will cause them distress tomorrow...
In addition, due to our patented built-in keyboard and wireless Internet access, you can search to ensure that that item you're about to purchase is indeed the cheapest one out there. With our GPS "store locator" feature, we'll redirect you to a competitive tienda nearby.
Yes, we also feature a special multi-lingual capability. Just press "L" and a pop-up menu gives you the ability to translate your offer into Spanish, Dari, Tagalog, and Uzbeki. (Okay, we're working on a few of the more popular ones.)
Finally, and this is such a cool thing it gives us the shivers, the LifeCard* makes it impossible for anyone to steal your identity. How do we do this?
Every card is exactly the same. It carries the number 123456789 and the holder is identified as "Your Name Here." So you see, we steal your identity just to make sure none of the bad guys can do it.
In a future post we will reveal the fine print. For now, just imagine one of those radio ads where drug companies are allowed to be speed up the part where they reveal all the side effects of their products. We're trying to get rid of the minor bug that by using LifeCard*, you automatically forfeit the right to your individuality, but hey, there ain't no free lunch, right?
* = If you agree to sign our NDA, we will give you access to our unique technology for a simple, one-time fee of $123,456,789. Trust us, it's the last true bargain.
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
A Star is Born
(Aidan, in the blur of an inside basketball court)
Every parent knows there are plenty of low moments, scary moments, anxious moments.
Then, there are the euphoric moments. Tonight, I had the gift of two. First, 11-year-old Dylan got to play seven of the 24 minutes in his JV basketball game. He grabbed a rebound, had a steal, and took a good shot! All of us on the sidelines, including his coach stood and hoped it would go in, but it just rolled out.
His team won 27-7.
Nevertheless, regular readers of this blog will recall that Dylan's decision to compete as a basketball player was a really big deal for our family. So, I was so proud of his effort tonight!
Then, for dessert, his big brother, Aidan, emerged as the star I've always known he could be. One of the goals he and I established for this season, his first of two on the school's varsity team, was a ten-point game.
For the first two-and-a-half quarters, he was scoreless (0 for 6) and pretty banged up by the bigger, stronger team he was playing against. Both his coach and I have been urging him to use his athletic ability and his speed to start driving to the basket. He's listened to us, but he is still so inexperienced at the game that he has found it hard to do what we want him to do.
Tonight, his team was behind the entire game until the fourth quarter, when Aidan suddenly started driving in for layups: one, two, three! He also started grabbing rebounds and stealing the ball. He was getting fouled regularly and sank two swishes on his first foul shots of the season. His third basket tied the game and we headed into overtime, 27-27!
The crowd, the players, the coaches, and the referees were all excited. This is what kids' sports is all about: Heart. In overtime, Aidan scored his team's only basket on yet another layup, and caused the two biggest players on the opposition to foul out, while never getting called for any fouls himself.
In the end, the ball rolled every so slightly the other way and his team lost 30-31. But he was the game's top scorer with ten points, plus 5 rebounds, 5 assists and four steals. None of these statistics capture the intensity with which he played. In one sequence, he saved an errant pass from a teammate by diving headlong out of bounds, crashing into the wall, but not before pushing the ball with his fingertips back to a teammate.
"I don't even believe that!" the referee said to me afterward. "I have never seen someone do that."
It's impossible to describe the excitement of watching your child emerge as a real star on a night like this. I've been blessed this way before; my oldest son, Peter, gave me many such thrills. But do you know the best part of tonight's game? Dylan came over and watched and rooted next to me at the scorer's table. He is such a loyal little brother, and somehow I think his presence helped Aidan.
Many of you, I know, are not sports fans, and many also are not parents. Yet, tonight, this story is one that I hope transcends those differences. We all yearn for excellence, no? Although some of us are not very competitive, we appreciate amazing performances, I hope.
I hope I do not sound like a bragging parent, though of course that is exactly what I am. Tonight my son Aidan became a star, and I was lucky enough to have been there and witnessed it.
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Writers and Editors
It is probably the result of suppressing painful memories, but I don't recall the first time someone rejected a piece of my writing. It probably happened when I was still in college and sent off an article to a national magazine. In any event, the life of every writer seems to include those awful, shocking moments when your work is rejected.
No matter how professionally the editor conducts him or herself, rejection hurts. As a long time editor, after a long time as a writer, I learned several lessons:
* Never reject a commissioned piece by email. It is an unforgivable insult. Have the courage to pick up the phone, at least, or ideally get together with the writer for a drink and have a chat. The cold language of rejection in email, whether in a creative situation or in a personal relationship, is cowardly.
* As an editor, you must admit your own role in the failure of the project. If you failed to give clear enough guidance, the writer can hardly be blamed. If you do not have sufficient authority (i.e., your boss or a collective group has the final say over an article's fate), the writer deserves to know that from the beginning.
* Do the right thing. Most magazines try to get off cheaply, and only pay a portion of the fee for rejected articles. But the writer still has devoted a lot of time and effort, regardless of the outcome, in faith that she will be paid her proper fee. I believe writers should always demand a 100% kill fee, but of course this is hard to do. Editors convince themselves that they are being fair and even generous if they pay 25, 33, or even 50% of the fee, but that is self-serving nonsense.
* Editors are custodians of their writers' feelings. It is difficult to write; you have to lay a bit of yourself on the line every time. The greatest editors have empathy. Weak editors do not.
* Protect your writers. If a piece falls short, you are obliged to say so at the earliest possible moment. Do not allow a manuscript to sit there, unread, when it is filed on deadline, and then reject it a month later! If I were to do that, I would feel a moral responsibility to save the writer's work (and her byline), by simply adding in whatever I deemed was lacking via an intern or an assistant or by my own labor.
* Never, ever, assign a failed piece to another writer! This is the ultimate insult, and completely unnecessary. If you are not talented enough yourself to edit/rewrite any particular piece, that is your problem, not the writer's!
If this sounds like a manifesto from the National Writers Union, I should mention that I was the negotiator on the very first contract gained by said union upon its emergence in the 1980s.
As I said, I do not recall my first rejection, but I do recall the pain. Each time I witness it for another vulnerable artist, I re-experience my own rejections. That happened today; thus this post, which comes straight from my heart.
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