The Jumping of Sharks

Today, a couple of sharks got jumped. For one, TV Land aired the episode of "Happy Days" that inspired the now-famous gauge of sitcom quality. That the show became the emblem of decline is evident. By the fourth season, producers seemed to be either phoning it in from Catalina Island or spiking their amyl-nitrate with bongwater. Most of the characters had 70s-style haircuts, though narratively it was still 1958 or so. The Fonz had evolved from a juvenile delinquent into a combination Nietzschean Ubermensch, Jersey Shore guido, and Marxist warrior. I can't decide which element of that episode is more assinine: that a midwestern gearhead could out-waterski a bunch of blond rich kids from Malibu, that he would do so in a leather MC jacket, or that writers would wrap the whole, retarded mess in a classist moral imperative. Personally, i've never waterskied, but I did once take a turn on a wake board on Candlewood Lake. It consisted mostly of my being dragged by an ankle while getting fondled by ten knots of rushing water like Angie Dickenson at a rat pack afterparty.

Metaphorically, my recent employment limbo also jumped the shark.

Being literally "between jobs," two cost-center editorial positions of dubious benefit to society, has taught me a few things about leisure and work. Giving up my daily routine (i.e., commute, work, commute), has been more like spinning out of orbit than liberation from oppression. Slacking, as it turns out, is defined by the parameters of the workplace. Without the shackles of a day job, messing with Craig's List for more than a few minutes at a time, checking Gawker for a link to your blog (ahem) every six minutes, reading Page Six, or writing dopey lists of questionable comedic value seems, well, frivolous.

Without his job as a file clerk, what would Harvey Pekar have been? I'll bet he would he have been stumped at six panels' worth of ruminations on cereal and what kinds of illicit drugs the writers of "Electric Company" were doing. Without my day job, I'm stuck at one, relatively obvious rant about "Happy Days." How could this be? I seemed a veritable churning urn of ideas, hunched bleary-eyed over six or seven manuscripts touting some ill-considered "business strategy" or other, three meetings on my Outlook scheduler, and several deadlines looming.

Now, going on three weeks without anywhere to be, things have been getting a shade out of hand. Consuming an entire Whitman's Sampler for lunch (a sobering look in the mirror, I can tell you), watching a three-fer of "Bewitched," and walking slack-jawed around retail stores of questionable need (are you listening The Container Store?) makes for the kind of afternoon that repells thought. Add 75 channels of media to the mix, and we're talking about a black hole for the undisciplined mind. The sad truth is that stealing from oneself is not nearly as fun as stealing from someone who pays you. For me, this realization came in the unchecked hours between "Regis and Kelly" and Roger Lodge's monologue after the second segment on "Blind Date." Few remember that, in addition to calling TV a "vast wasteland," former FCC chairman Newton N. Minow also said, "When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better." Easy for him to say, not having watched "Mama's Family" for five days in a row.

Sure, I've made some observations that may be of interest. For one, Gliad, the swarthy fitness guru, who's on TV more often than the late Dick York, can be kind of a tool; Viki Lawrence, in a couple of years, won't have to wear makeup to play Mama in "Mama's Family"; when it comes to hot women, the Spanish channels are leagues ahead of English-language TV, even Spike; Metallica sucks now; and the public library is skeevy. See? It hasn't been a total waste.

So with the shark thus jumped, and that I'm starting a new job next week, I'll be back in form. I can't wait for a new boss, a new routine, and some real, productive slacking.

Watch out. Diatribe.

US magazine is passive aggressive. It repeatedly shows a sick and anorexic Lara Flynn Boyle but fails to comment on how ill she is. Instead we are shown pictures of a woman who is probably going to die if she doesn't get help.

But US would probably just say that it is just giving the people what they want. But by acting in this passive aggressive manner, they are failing to take a stand; they are having their cake and eating it too. When Boyle is finally committed to a hospital or dies, US will be able to say it was the first to show how ill she was although it never stated that opinion. Along with the (un)pithy captions the pictures, US believes it in fact did tell the story, to anyone willing to look. But by taking no stand on this, US is acting irresponsibly. It's fine when it turns its cheek over some marital infidelity or other celebrity transgression, but Boyle is sick.

There is no way US will stop running pictures of her, so I wouldn't ask them to do that. It should, however, provide a meaningful caption, something that shows that an understanding that there is a problem with a woman this thin – to acknowledge what is being shown.

Tabloid magazines of this kind are good. They serve a definite and probably important service, much like any other wind-down exercise does. US is clearly not afraid of poking fun or pointing out the foibles of celebrities, except apparently when they are anorexic. Thin women, even too thin women, would be too close to their own bread and butter, I suppose. But they'll point out an ugly haircut or outfit of J. Lo that week, or the bad facial hair of Brad Pitt, so clearly they have no problem editorializing. On the serious issues, however, they give in and ignore it.

By US saying, and I admit it's conjecture, that it is only giving the people what they want they are effectively saying that it is only reporting straight news. Not editorializing or exploiting. But even they must admit that they are editorializing, otherwise they'd have to scrap all those fashion faux pas pieces. Perhaps, then, they are just providing entertainment? Okay, that is reasonable. But if they're both reporting (taking a no-opinion stance) and providing entertainment (giving the people what they want and editorializing) they have completely shirked any culpability, which is probably just what they would want. It saves them from having to answer the question, can US be sued for not stepping in if Boyle dies?

I would argue, though, that US is not reporting at all, at least not in any meaningful way or by any real definitions-- certainly not in the way a newspaper "reports." News is either teaches something or makes an example of something or someone (like much community-section pieces in local newspapers) or it delivers information that you need in order to be safer, better your situation, make decisions, or otherwise be a knowing and informed member of society. I don't see that in US's pages or in anything they cover. It's a splatter-fest of bubbleheads and gossip.

Should an entity, like a person, take a stand on something? Can it even do so? The entertainment media is in many ways more powerful in regard to shaping, manipulating, and forming public opinion than the government. But the government is held responsible for its actions and the stances it takes. Why isn't the media? Even though it is not one large entity, that is, even though US is just on aspect of "the media," that shouldn't be an argument for it not being held responsible. The US Post Office has to uphold the same morality as the executive branch of the government, though it is only one piece of the larger entity. And Enron and its ilk were taken to task, legally and in the public's opinion, by being unethical. But the media raises the free-speech banner and claims not to have to be held responsible.

I like gratuitous nudity and wanton violence in my films, so this isn't about fictional pieces of entertainment. Go ahead and show the pictures of Boyle, I wouldn't want to stop them, but display some decorum for the woman after all.

INTERVIEW WITH A YOUNG MANHATTANITE WITH NOTHING TO LOSE

It may seem odd to conduct an interview with a man who has never once been paid for anything he's ever written. But perhaps that is what makes this guy an interesting subject. His droll (at least some might use that word; I find incoherent or idiot to work better) ramblings and . . . competent production work, all of which he has executed for others free, have helped him climb one rung up on the ladder of the literary elite. Unfortunately, that still puts him only one rung from the ground. He was kind enough to not charge for the following interview, which was conducted on a rare day off, one where he wasn't working for someone else and not getting paid.

I frequently see your name in very small print in the frontmatter of diverse small-press publishing ventures. Tell me about yourself.

I am known to haunt the fringes of polite, hip literary society like a disfigured George Plimpton (as if that's not an oxymoron) relying on my stunning wits and passable imitations of David Carson designs. If the literary darlings were a Friendster entry, beginning with Eggers and the Baffler kids and ending with a vegetarian-recipe proofreader in Duluth, Minnesota, I would be somewhere in the bottom fifth, just below Sarah Vowel's limo driver and right above the intern who polishes Ira Glass' silverware.

In what capacity do you freelance? It seems from my research that you do a multitude of things.

Though having just the other day handed in my resignation in through a veil of tears, I laid out four issues of the impenetrable Fence magazine, which is, judging from the injury the English language sustains in its pages on a quarterly basis, is a literary journal for those suffering from Tourrette's Syndrome.

I also pen frequent correspondences for mediabistro.com, an online site that affords me no fame, glory, or pay, though I have received one marriage proposal from a headhunter in Decator, Illinois (whose e-mail signature contained the aphorism "Your job shouldn't make you feel like Job"), and a stress ball from a vice president of HR at an IBM branch office, who believed my frequent use of four-letter words could be deterred if I squeezed the shit out of some stupid Nerf construct.

Additionally, and only very recently, I was contacted by Small Beer Press to design a series of "chapbooks," a term I am unfamiliar with, though I assume it to refer to gay porn.

And all those jobs you do for free? Correct?

Yes. There's a reason "free" makes up the first four letters of "freedom"; see liberation, absolved, and not guilty. Also, I crave attention, but only the equivalent of fourth from left, back row, in a Little League group photo that runs in your hometown newspaper.

Of your writing, what work are you the most proud of?

I am most proud of any of my work that helps others. Specifically, my customer comments on Amazon.com, which are written with a certain Joseph Conrad word flair, although with more exclamation points and smiley faces. Currently, I am collecting and putting them into book form to be self-published through CaféPress.com's print-on-demand service.

Other than those, I would have to say the interviews I have conducted with mid-tier authors. Because I have no use for no-names and because I lack the panache, insider knowledge, and appropriately waspy hairstyle, I am unable to speak with even the handlers of top-tier folks. I find interviewing mid-tier authors just right: you should hear them struggle to pontificate on even the most banal subjects. Once I polish their prose, they are more indebted to me than George Foreman is to fat Americans who love to indoor grill. I just hate the "you misquoted me, you uneducated prick" 3 a.m. phone messages and the attacks on my dog.

Why do you continue to freelance for free? Doesn't that hurt your brand? And does it not, also, degrade those freelancers who work for pay?

My brand was forever set in stone when an interview I conducted with Neal Pollock received attention in an e-mail newsletter sent by USA Today. An honor such as that only comes once in a lifetime and only to those of us who have worked long and hard. How I received this honor, I have no idea. However, it did set off a chain of events benefiting me personally that, like Vonnegut's old-man afro, has yet to completely die down. In one click of the Send button, my thought-provoking questions were brought to the attention of a million illiterates staying in a cheap hotels, where said paper is placed outside their room doors for free like it was an unwanted child left in a basket at the doorstep of the Magdelene sisters' convent.

As for taking work from—or degrading, as you say—freelancers who charge for services rendered, I can only hope that one day they learn the meaning of "I am a solipsistic monster, a Grendel of greed, a Nessie of narcissism. I truly don't care." I also hope they learn the meaning of "Please don't kill me." And "lay off my dog."

Out of necessity, you also hold a day job, do you not?

Of course. The rent must get paid, or the landlord, a frumpy gentleman with no discernable age or moral spine, comes after me with the ire of a famished Ignatius Reilly. Naturally, my cable is siphoned from the neighbor's line and my electricity, from a wind and solar farm I cultivate on my building's roof in the P.M. My food is pilfered from a food co-op where it's easy to steal from stoned 26-year-olds wearing "bandizis." Thus I am able to sustain an existence from working in publishing.

That said, it is what one does in the afterhours, when the evening light spreads quietly across the city's street like a pillow laid over a sleeping child's head, that I come alive and fulfill my promises I made to myself and mankind to make the world a tougher place for bad design and poor grammar. Not on my watch, chumps, will these atrocities be allowed. I am the Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul of accuracy and proper aesthetics.

Isn't it true that you work for free because you couldn't get paid for your work?

One more punch below the belt like that, Mr., and I'm going to . . . oh heck. Thank God for the Internet and literary journals. Their standards are lower than Herve Villiches winning a limbo contest.

Don't you think this interview oneself is a bit more than just a tad self-serving?

Yes. Certainly. And it will get more eyeballs than if I just posted it on my blog.

Rejected Tabloid Shorthand Tags for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, Not That it Matters Anymore

B-Jen
J-Fleck
Ben-Lo
Bo-Pez
Afflez
En-bay Opez-lay
Ben-ana Fanna Fo-Pez
Lo-sama Ben-Laden
Bye-Bye-Benji