nuinca

Controlling the mystery

Despite all of the shitty things I say about newspapers and the industry, I have to admit – people still love having themselves in print. I haven’t convinced myself that it’s a permanence thing, but the effect is undeniable.

Examples? Of course.

Last night, after the taping of Urban Jacksonville Weekly, I had the paper put a big refer to our show, complete with a screen shot, on page A2. I didn’t tell the other UJW guys, because frankly, I didn’t think they would care. At 7:05pm, I received this text from friend and co-host Joey Marchy:

“We’re on A2 of the TU! I grabbed a paper and tweeted that.” And he did.

But hey, don’t worry, I’m not going all traditional MSM on you. I still know that newspapers are dying and that they often deserve that death. What I am saying is this- when appropriate, we need to control the mystery of print. There’s a power there and it can help.

Stop motion wtf

Stop motion from the 1930’s. WTF-tastic

Elitism as a solution?

Here’s a problem I’ve been dealing with more often as of late.

As a news organization we are constantly embracing fancy technologies to tell our stories and keep our business models in the black. If we want to increase circulation, we publish to the Kindle. When breaking news breaks, Twitter, Facebook and iPhone apps wait to instantly inform.

But what about the considerable percentage of people who barely understand computers, don’t want to understand Twitter and can’t afford an iPhone? It’s easy to assume that those people are so old or so poor that it doesn’t matter, but that’s not the case. There is always going to be poor people, and while it’s true that my generation and those below are born with a knowledge of texting abbreviations, that doesn’t always mean they want their news that way.

Mainstream media has always had a problem combating it’s own elitism – so can we really stake our future in developing for faster, flashier and more expensive technologies?

How about some thoughts from my audience.

A man and his monkey

Great drinking buddy and occasional friend, Ching, came up with the idea for a Jacksonville urban-core scavenger hunt a few months ago.

Now, there are lots of details to appreciate and background story to reveal, but as usual, I don’t want to spend the time necessary to tell the tale, so I’m going to skip right to our third clue.

There it is. One six-foot tall work of glorious wheatpaste. This clue is the simplest of the three so far. You find the poster above, take your picture with it, and e-mail it to the monkey. Only those people who e-mail in their pics w/the monkey will receive the third, and final, clue.

Since we’re still technically in the guessing stage for this clue, I can’t reveal much about the process, but I do want to thank one person in particular – Tommy Armageddon. Without him, the third clue wouldn’t be possible. There. There’s another part to the third clue. If you know Armageddon, you know where our wheat paste is.

Now go, children. Find our third clue, e-mail the monkey, and revel in the fourth, and final, clue.

Triumferant return!

Yes yes ya’ll.

Who knew that planning a wedding that’s just three months away would take so much of my free time? I mean, don’t get me wrong – Diana is doing all of the work, but damn, I get tired watching her do all of the work. I’ll have to talk to her about working without making me tired.

Plenty of things I’ve had on my mind to write about, so let’s get started. Most recent first

Excuses, part deux

I’m over working at thegingerandthegypsy.com, a totally bitchin’ wedding site for Diana (the gypsy) and me (the ginger) when I come up with this gem of a tale for our “About Us” page. Ten internets for the first person to tell me the inspiration for the tale. For sooth.
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Gather round, friends, for the story of Jonathan and Diana doth make an inspired tale.

Twas the year of our Lord 1193 (February 2002) in Barnsdale, South Yorkshire (Columbia, SC). Jonathan was but a simple yet strapping yeoman, cheerful and stout (in between majors and afraid of the sun), especially gifted in the art of the cudgel. Diana was a doting maid, daughter of the local Sheriff, known throughout the wood for her kind doings and she truly was fair in face and loin (that’s all true). The two met at a goodly fair (Math 113) organized by the brave Richard the Lionheart (some teaching aide who barely spoke english). True, thou hast never seen such colorful banners and even-handed archery matches as were met that day.

Whilst the fair progressed, under the cool shade of a mighty oaken tree, Jonathan and Diana first met over a cool pint of freshly-tapped ale at The Green Man pub. (they sat across from one another. assigned seats ftw!) For sooth, it was love at first sight. Diana immediately took Jonathan to be the most strapping man in the shire, tall in stature and daring in wits (he looked OK and was kinda mean). Jonathan considered her the fairest beast ever imagined by the Lord’s endless mind, and the perfect use of a rib (all that’s true).

Though they both knew their love to be a tainted love (way before that stupid song), and impossible by the common law dictating their every day, Jonathan and Diana met whenever possible, on the soft green mosses next to singing brooks and away in lofty boughs of tall birches (they studied together once or twice, it was pretty average for a while).

Eventually, once their love had been whispered from the lips and to the ears of every maidservant in the shire, and was known by every goodly resident of Barnsdale, the Sheriff caught wind of the lovers. Truly their had never been such a commotion in the shire! The kind Sheriff, however, took pity on the lovers and united them in a wedding that has since been immortalized in word and song, not to mention a few sculptures and busts.

Spending time wasting time

Here. This is why I’ve been away. Stop bothering me.

First up, the book 2666 by Roberto Bolano. Critics popped a collective boner (even the women, I heard it was weird) when this book was finally translated into English this year. Ya see, the Spaniard Bolano spent about 5 years writing 2666, and he had the proper marketing sense to die before it was published. So since 2004, this 1,000 page, 5-part book has been floating around molesting sensitive sensibilities since then, but only in Spanish.

I picked it up with a forgotten B&N gift card at the beginning of this month, and have been plowing through it ever since. Honestly, it’s a masterpiece, but I’m not finished with it, and I know there’s plenty left to discover before I can properly join the boner crowd. So that’s #3 time-consumer this month (we’re doing this in reverse-cronological, so tag along.)

Fallout 3. Oh, where to begin. Not since college has a video game so thoroughly robbed me of meaningful interaction with other real humans. LCD-screen-light poisoning might be a myth, but with the amount of time I’ve spent playing this god-damned game, I’m on the way to finding out.

I don’t feel like it’s fair to spend any more time talking about this game. Just please, don’t buy this. You will hate yourself.

No, it’s not my baby. Stop it.

Now, the final and most important item in April’s list goes here. The only people who read this thing already know what’s made this month truly one of the most meaningful of my life. Yes, I’m talking ’bout Luis/Lucas/Beth.

I am going to save the truly inspired reflections for an unpublished blog post, but let me assure you – I never understood the terrific precariousness of life until April 2009.

I have spent plenty of nights lying awake worrying about my own status in life – but almost never have I been unable to sleep for another person’s struggle. Maturity is weird, but strangely satisfying.

Life, etc

The more life I live, the more I like it.

Conversely, the more I like life, the less I understand it.

That’s your philosphy lesson for this week. Stay tuned for “More inebriated ramblings”

Why newspapers will die

There’s been a lot of talk lately in the newspaper industry about charging for the content online. It’s by no means a new idea – publishers around the country have been in favor of it exactly as long as they have been in favor of posting their content on Web sites.

Several newspaper Web sites have charged, or do still charge for their online content – the Wall Street Journal being the most notable among those still requiring people to trade dollars for pixels. The New York Times, who had a “premium” section of their site, reserved for paying customers, held on to that for a while before releasing everything. Even Slate did it, but that was a bit different from those last two, and any way, it didn’t work.

You see, most newspaper publishers today still think their content is worth something – that the days of creating and providing content are still with us, and that the public should be thankful that some benevolent force is willing to give them information at a relatively small price. Of course, that’s all utter shit. The internet was created to amass and distill information from anyone to anyone.

If newspaper are going to capitalize on anything online, it’s going to be the method of delivery.

That is, when I download a $1.99 iPhone app that lets me play Galaga, I’m not paying for the content – for hellz sake, I can play the game for free online at any time. I’m paying for the convenience and coolness factor of being able to play on my phone, whenever I want.

Newspaper needs to capitalize on that process, expand it well beyond iPhone apps, and then try to make some money. If you have to charge for anything (and I’m still not sure you do), charge for something that will make a deep and personal connection with your audience – something that goes far deeper than the latest city council brief.

7.5% down, 100% to go

I was told last week that our company would cut salaries 7.5%.

That doesn’t bother me so much, it really doesn’t. I don’t change my standard of living, I just don’t save that much per month. 

What bothers me is the absolutely disregard for change. If my bosses had come to me and said ‘Hey we’re cutting your salary by a few percent, but check out these wild fucking changes we have in store to save the media industry. We all have to suffer for a while, but we have out shit together and will eventually figure this out,’ I would have been pissed, but would have accepted, proud that I had a new direction and clear path to success.

Instead, they cut my pay to put the books back in the black. No change, no plans, no hope. Just cuts, death by a thousand slices. 

I remember a day very clearly – it was June, 2006 – the Chairman and CEO of our company said that businesses can’t cut their way to prosperity. It’s what we’re doing now, and even if my particular branch of the industry is doing better than others, we’re merely perched on the crow’s nest of a sinking ship – we’ll get there eventually.