January 2008 Archives

We are trained, in theory, that we have a duty to care about our jobs -- but in the practice of the everyday, few people genuinely work to care about the jobs they produce in the workplace.

Why is there a disconnect between caring and duty?

Some feel too much is asked of them when it comes to doing a job.  They are hired to connect "A" to "B" to create "C" and nothing more.  To care about those connections is to drain the emotion necessary to deal with the rest of a rotting world. Or so they say.

When you have a special person that actually cares about the job they are doing and its effectiveness in making the world a brighter place, they are not celebrated by their co-workers or management.  They are mocked and asked to do even more work to cover for those who fail to care.

It is a difficult task to ask the box deliverer to care about the boxes they carry; it is hard to beg a fireman to care about those saved from the flames; it is impossible to urge the surgeon to care about the flesh being cut -- but we must begin to demand caring from every niche of the workspace so we will be more than just our jobs -- and so together we shall rise above common duty and into the sublime of human morality.

Pepsi will air a "Deaf" television commercial during the pre-game show for the Super Bowl.

I have watched the advertisement and -- as a Hearing Man married to a Deaf Woman for many years, as well as being the author of two books on American Sign Language -- I cringe at the silliness and the ineptitude of the commercial. 

The entire idea is so precious one can't stand its lightness pretending to be importance.

I understand why many in the Deaf Community are celebrating the ad -- they are so marginalized and ignored by mainstream society that any little bit of looking toward them -- any little bone of attention -- is gratefully ingested as a confirmation of life and as a recognition of being.

However, that doesn't mean what Pepsi has done is admirable or groundbreaking.  The ad is, sadly, neither. 

The Deaf Pepsi ad merely confirms old stereotypes and banishes the Deaf into their current perceived ghetto of selfishness and entitlements. 

The ad is based on an old Deaf Joke.  Two Deaf friends are looking for another Deaf friend and they can't find him.  So, in the middle of the night, the two friends honk their car horn and the one house that doesn't "wake up" and turn on their lights is the home of their unable-to-hear-the-car-horn Deaf friend.

So.  Not.  Funny.

The commercial is also filmed in the dead of night so we can't see the sign language very well and the actors are using PSE (Pidgin Signed English) and not pure, hardcore, ASL.

We who know better are left to wonder and yearn for what could have been.  Pepsi had the money, access, and power to take us directly into the Deaf experience:  How the Deaf watch and enjoy a Super Bowl from within the sight of their eyes and minds. 

Pepsi could have created a beautiful and ethereal moment for the Deaf that shined light on the joy of their culture instead of mocking it with a tired and old joke that was never really funny.

Even though Pepsi failed with their Deaf Pepsi advertisement, that doesn't mean they aren't hawking their work as a sublime and innovative honor for the Deaf Community.  Pepsi even created a two minute promo telling us how special they are for creating the advertisement.  You can view it on YouTube.

Telling someone how great you are does not create greatness. 

Greatness is found in the subtle transmission of hope and yearning that is successfully connected to clear achievement of the spirit -- and Pepsi failed the Deaf, and their own company, in missing the greatness mark.

Unfortunately, it is the Deaf Community who are now left to suffer alone in the aftermath of a subtle public mocking that was intended to be a cultural homily by those who never earned the greatness to know any better.

The actor plays a unique role in society by bringing light and meaning to the relationship between the human and the ethereal.

The actor's role is not to define life, but to interpret it through the blood and muscle of their bodies.

The actor is the heart of us, the beating of us, the rhythm of life within us all.

Without the actor in society, we crumble into our selfish selves and whine away the opportunities for insight into what made us thrive in the past while decaying in the now.

The ongoing Writers Guild Strike in Hollywood took a reflective pause last week in the hopeful glow of a "done deal" with the Directors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Authors should not yet rejoice -- the Directors Guild is notorious for rolling over and playing dead when it comes to hard-nosed negotiations with the producers -- and any hoped-for "contract template" the Writers can use as a cudgel with producers based on the Directors deal will not even achieve most favored nation status. 

The producers are angry and they need to -- and feel they must -- punish the Writers for their disobedience in some formidable and permanent manner in order to save face and propagate their power.

There may be some easing of the tension between the Writers and the producers to get through the Academy Awards together -- but that goodwill cannot last unless and until the Writers not only bend, but break, to the producers' whims.

Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

He was a man that saw a mountain and climbed it.

He was a man that found the mountaintop and touched it.

He was the creator of a light that lives beyond the common man and lights the valley of our ways.

Steve Jobs is a cranky genius. 

After this year's Macworld Expo failed to ignite the Apple stock price upward or to recreate the same sort of feverish buzz of last year's Macworld introduction of the iPhone, Jobs decided to strike back against reading to salve his wounds:

Today he [Jobs] had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

As a lad, I was raised on radio and later on I worked in radio.

Radio is the life of the imagination magnified by the heat of a hundred suns.  Television and film do all the cold thinking for you as you merely sit there and allow the experience to wash over you.  Radiophiles are the new active intellectuals of world.

I always admired the idea of the radio "Make Good" which is sort of related to the matter previously addressed here in -- You Cannot Push a Shove -- and a Make Good consisted of the re-airing of a commercial that was missed, had technical trouble, or was not fully played.

As the on-air announcer, you had total control over the Make Good.  You'd fill out a sheet of paper explaining what happened to the spot and you'd re-air the commercial as soon as you could within the same day part in which the original spot was supposed to run.

The ability to own the error and to instantly "make up for" a mistake -- that may or may not have been your fault -- was a tremendous and appreciated power given to the individual for the greater goodness of the company.

Make Goods are the free bottle of wine when your dinner is late.  The effort is appreciated, it adds value to your day, and a Make Good presumes the fault is not in the consumer, but in the business.

When people make mistakes, there is a certain art in "making it up" to those that were wronged.

The easiest way to do this is to "shove something their way" like a gift or money or something else that will not just make them whole again, but add a special pizzazz to the experience that makes forgiveness in the face of an oversight easier to take.

The problem with "making it up to you" is that people under 40 do not comprehend the concept.  They believe a simple "Oopsy!" is enough of an emollient to sooth the hurt feelings and the betrayal.

How can you get the under 40 crowd to learn how to shove?  You can't.  They don't have it in them because they were raised in a generation where they are precious and can do no wrong.

The hard lesson is you cannot push a shove because it cannot be taught or requested: A shove must be a part of the person from the start and that is why "making it up to you" is a dying art.

In my article -- Writing Advice for Authors -- I implore all authors to demand, and get, Copyright in their name from their publishers.

Agents and publishers will tell you Copyright in your name doesn't matter -- yet many publishers will fight you to the death to keep the Copyright in their name and not yours.

Why do publishers demand to own your Copyright when you do the writing?

Why do authors allow publishers to own their Copyright?

It is impossible to be at the top of your game as an educator, movie star, author or car mechanic or whatever without being mean.

Truly famous people who are known the world over by their name and image have fought tough and tacky to get to that pinnacle and they will not give up their fame for anything -- and that inevitably means they have to be mean to others in order to stay on top.

This mean phenomenon must be expected -- because there is always someone out there trying to take your game and replace your fame -- and that is the major pitfall of becoming well-known:  In order to maintain your position of strength and power you must never be kind or understanding; you must always and forever be ruthless and mean.

I recently wrote a WordPunk article called -- Show Business Not Show Show -- and the meat of that article argued Show Business is about making money and not creating art.

That said, we need to realize many professionally trained television writers -- many are member of the Writers Guild -- believe everything they write is on the quality level of Shakespeare... even if they are writing for situation comedies or reality shows.

That need to feel important and to lift the ordinary writing to higher level by historic association is vital to the author ego because it is a form of protection from the dual reality of their job:  Dreck passing for earnest entertainment.

Most television writing is pretty awful.  It lacks structure.  It has no substance, conflict, or dramatic core. 

Of course, no television author reading this thinks I'm writing about them -- and we'd have it no other way.

Many artists in the entertainment field who were trained in Master of Fine Arts programs often mistake show business for higher art.

Show business is not art.  It is not creative.  It has no soul.  It is not everlasting.

"It's show business, not show show" as one middling director instructed me in a correction of my expectation that spectacle must not triumph over plot in a dramatic performance.

"People want to make money, not a show," he went on to say, "This isn't about being smart or even interesting.  It's about paying investors."

That lesson was hard to learn because you always want to do your best and try to win not only the bottom line but the day of the mind as well. 

It was made clear to me the mind and soul do not play a role in show business -- only profit matters -- and that's why I always prefer to make my own show show so I can fight the want for a bottom line that won't ruin the greater intentions of humanity while the rescuing of the spirit of the people with the craft of the art and not the want for the dollar.

We are thrilled to learn of the final demise and ultimate death of Netscape -- even though it is only in browser form and not a company any longer.

Netscape, as a company, was one of the most arrogant entities in the mid-90's as it professed its superiority while sitting on its elegance.  As a browser, Netscape did some good things.  As the company behind the browser -- Netscape stink, stank, stunk!