misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

I was just about done with a blog, when I took a break to check wired.com, which had this story about The Onion News Network, which is launching later this month. That was the thing I got to the third round of last summer, before getting cut. I had comforted myself by thinking maybe the program was on hold or killed or something, which is why I hadn't heard back. But apparantly no such luck. So then I started reading over my old blog with the added insecurity of learning that, and realized it sucked, so you won't be reading it until I have more time to put into a better blog.

In my pity, I next started digging deeper into The Onion, trying to learn who the writers were and how they got there. At first glance, it seemed to be the story of everything I learn about - right place, right time. Someone just happened to be in Wisconsin which just happened to be where The Onion started and who just happened to have a best friend on the staff which just happened to have an opening ... that sort of thing. The sort of thing people like me comfort ourselves with to feel better when confronted by truly successful people. Then I remembered some quote that was something to the extent of luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, which sucks because i am never prepared. Then I found a better quote about luck: "Success is simply a matter of luck. Just ask any failure." I'm not even really sure what it means, but probably has something to do with lazy people like me complaining that hard workers like them only succeed because of luck, which is a comforting thought to lazy fucks like me.

I kept reading, and learned that the writers of The Onion and Daily Show and Colbert Report always meet in a big room and talk about story ideas and headlines for seven or eight hours before deciding what moves forward. 99% of it is killed. That'd be like if 10 people helped write my blog over the course of a week, then it was edited, fact-checked, re-edited, then submitted. I'd like to think if I went through that process it'd be funnier. The problem here is that 99% of what I write moves forward, when in fact it should be killed. The other problem is that people like me sit back and bitch about successful people, but then don't do anything about it, such as, maybe for starters, actually going out there and trying. I'm sure all the people I went up against for The Onion had history as stand-up comics, publishing their own books, writing for TV shows - anything that showed they had true drive. Then you had me, who writes a mildy-entertaining blog once every couple of days that has three dedicated readers. And yet you think you can run with the big boys. Someone had to start The Onion at some point. Someone who had a whole lot more work ethic and motivation than I do. If I worked as hard as I complained, I'd be the fucking patron saint of the universe. So until I'm ready to actually try to do something instead of just talk doing something, I am going to suspend all bitching.

Ultimately, it all comes down to work. And true talent. Of which I have neither. So I shouldn't be complaining. So what should I be doing? Drinking. In odd numbers only, of course.

Let's see if I can't get past the third round of that.

I am currently working on an ad assignment for Cingular that is set to launch on Myspace.com. The target group I am supposed to try and "connect to" is between 13 and 24 (like any ad has ever "connected" to anyone beyond an intimate relationship of annoyance). As part of the project briefing, the account team provided a list and "adult translation" of the interests of this youth demographic: the music they listen to, the shows they watch, the words they use, the products they buy.

By the time I reached the names of today's popular bands and products, I realized just how far from these "youth" I am at this point in my life. It is painfully clear I understand 21 year-olds roughly as well as I understand 4th Century Visigoth women. These youth have become as a lost tribe of natives from Papua New Guinea, where I am the faggy western explorer with khaki shorts, wicker hat, and pale white calves furiously trying to communicate with them.

Not only had I never heard of any of the bands on the list, but upon returning to my desk, I realized my iTunes is exclusively filled with bands from the early and mid-90s, which is the last time I put any (unsuccessful) effort into being cool. I still consider Pearl Jam to be an emerging band. Artic Monkeys who? Mims what? Daughtry where? Granted, even in college, I was never into that whole "underground" band thing. People who ruled out music only because it was popular were in serious need of a physical realignment, courtesy of my fists. Those people took so much pride that the only stuff they listened to was shit most people had not heard of, like they were auditory explorers, delivering true music to ears of the special. They would fucking huff a little too much when you told them you had never heard of some band called "The Fingerlings", and derided you for listening to 2Pac. Dragonhair was a lot like that, come to think of it.

In any event, as a 31 year-old white out-of-touch purveyor of mass media, I officially have nothing to say to the youth of America. In practice, it takes well too much effort to stay cool. You basically have to research cool. These days, I'd rather read about politics than hot spring cashmere fashions. I'd rather watch Lost than take the subway up to Queens to find obscure new bands. And I'd rather eat carrots than drink AirForce NutriSoda (according to the brief, the hot drink for youth). But that's fine by me. The last thing i want to become is one of these alternadads, these married gayboys in their late 30's with a few kids who think they are severely cool cause they still wear Pumas, listen to StellaStar, and own lowrider bicycles. This is a movement I cannot support. If you are a 38 year-old dad, act like one. Accept your place in the pecking order. You are are old and pasty whether or not your wear Adicolor Shoes (another item on the "cool" list I was provided with. On a side note, this list of "what's hot" for kids was somewhat comical. Apparently, there are youth research agencies that hold focus groups to find out what is cool among youth, then sell their compiled lists to companies like ours for about 30 grand. But it is all a bunch of shit. Here are some items pulled from the list of what's hot: Assassin (?), Matisyahu, Experience as Currency, and Hydration Stations at Parties).

The truth is, though, all these things are cool precisely because people like me don't know about them. These things are designed to appeal to kids, which, I no longer happen to be. If I knew about these things, they wouldn't be cool, would they? Kids are always racing the older people to find new, cool shit. The very minute the old people find out about what the kids are doing, it stops being cool. It justifies the Observer Effect (not to be confused with the Uncertainty Principle). In other words: the exact second Mark Anderson hears of a cool youth band, is the exact second that band changes, and becomes uncool.

Ultimately, I will sell an old, white ad to the old, white people at Cingular that we all think is cool because it uses a product from the cool list (Borba Infused Cupcakes or Imogen Heaps). Then some kid on MySpace will see it and barf (or chunk up, which is how they say it today). But that's fine. I am serving my place in society. I accept my fate. Just as I'm not trying to be a 40 year-old right now, neither will I try to be a 20 year-old. Unlike the alternadads, I make my own list of cool these days rather than follow that of my children. And what's cool? That's right.

Pearl Jam.

I've never liked animated things. I don't mean animated meaning excitable or showy, as in "Wow, that homeless guy with an umbrella in his ass and a mandolin on his head sure is animated." I mean animated, as in the digitally illustrated films that are everywhere these days. Every time i take a look at movie trailers or coming attractions, it seems there are nine or ten new animated "family" films headed to the theaters. These films always have cute names like "Happy Feet" and "Finding Nemo". And no matter how many times people insist these films aren't just for kids, I'll go see the film in question, and, guess what? It's for kids. Here is what I define as a movie for kids:

1. Primarily staffed by animated, talking animals that sound surprisingly similar to Hollywood celebrities like Chris Rock or Tim Allen (as an aside, when did it become popular for celebrities to voice animated animals? Is this their way of "giving back"? Do you think a five-year-old boy who eats his boogers even knows who Tim Allen is, or, if he did, would give a fuck? Or is it just too make these movies more palatable to the parents? Either way, it sucks.) These animals are always friendly and cute, no matter what they are. As example, these movies suggest that a panther or polar bear can incredibly friendly, witty and selfless.

2. A storyline that follows some variant of the following: A cute animal wants to see the world, so he escapes his zoo/family/house and begins to travel with two other animals that are also cute. When gone, he learns the world isn't always a nice and safe place, but, when he sticks together with his friends, can conquer anything. He then returns home, happy. A kid movie will never have any sex, nudity, death, swear words, rim jobs, ejaculations, or generally negative outcomes, because all these things are, you know, evil.

3. All human characters have really big eyes, for some reason. Especially the kids.

4. An unnatural fascination with penguins.

Recently, for some reason, every kid movie involves penguins. What the fuck is it about penguins? I've recently formed a theory that the adults who make animated films do so out of a sense of guilt and self-loathing, as they are always indirectly tied to highly-charged political issues. Take, for instance, this aforementioned current fascination with penguins (March of the Penguins, Happy Feet). Is it just a coincidence that global warming is knocking out Antarctica, and thus penguins will probably all be dead in about twenty years? So now we pay homage to them in movies because the SUVs the animators drive are directly responsible for the death of the penguins they are animating? And four years ago, when all the ocean movies started coming out (Finding Nemo, Shark's Tale), I believe it was a direct result of the ice caps melting and changing the salinity of the oceans, which is killing all the Nemos. You need to find Nemo? Try looking on the beach, where he'll be washed up, dead. I think we should introduce children to these issues at the earliest age possible. When i was in 1st grade, my own goldfish, my Nemo if you will, died a horrific death at the blood-stained hands of my sister/murderess. Despite the pain this causes to this day, I believe the murder of my fish taught me an infinite amount about the world and myself. There needs to be more death and mayhem in these cartoons, to prepare children for the shit world we have left for them to fix. Like finding a place for all the happy-foot penguins to live once their home melts away forever.

And don't get me started on animated films made explicitly for adults, like anime. That's just some weird shit I can't get into. If you are over forty and still watching animated cartoons, you probably still eat Cracker Jacks and sleep in Superman sheets. I fully expect to see these guys on "To Catch a Predator" one day. Probably holding a blow-up penguin sex doll, to boot.

In today's New York Post (which I have taken to blatantly reading on the subway without regard to fellow New Yorker's opinions of my intellectual capabilities), there was a op-ed piece by Andrea Peyser about the results of Anna Nicole Smith's autopsy. Unhappy with the autopsy not assigning proper blame to Anna Nicole Smith's own reckless behavior, Peyser angrily titled the negative piece: "Her death a mishap? My butt!"

In writing or speaking, there is nothing worse than the use of a "soft" word used in place of the expected "hard" one. My butt? As any self-respecting swearer knows, the proper terminology is "My ass". Anything less than that sounds fucking gay. My butt? Why not just go all the way gay, and say My tush! or My behind! There's a whole list of soft swear words that are supposed to be more socially acceptable replacements to the real ones. Other culprits are: Darn, Dang, Heck, Shoot, Crap, Poop, or, my new personal favorite, Fetch (as in What the fetch?)

If you don't have the fucking balls to use the real swear word, than you have no business using a replacement. "My butt" is not an acceptable replacement to "My ass". If you are not allowed to use the word "ass" in the NY Post, then come up with a different headline, something soft, like "Anna Nicole has no one to blame". Don't feign anger with a fake word, because you just look like a pansy, or, even worse, a piece of poop.

The particularly irritating element to these fake words is that they are used in EXACTLY the same way as the real words. Oh Darn! and Oh Fuck! express the exact same sentiments, only they use a different combination of letters. That is the problem with our perception of curse words: the words themselves hold absolutely no value, it is simply our interpretation of these words. So someone, some day, decided that the four-letter combination of F U C K was bad, distasteful, and forbidden. K U C F? No problem there. But rearrange, and the trouble starts. Even worse, "butt" refers to the exact same part of the body as "ass". So how the fuck is one worse than the other? How come someone can say "breast" on TV, but not "titties"? Same fleshy part of a woman's body, just using different letters. Penis? No problem. Cock? Call the FCC, even though it invokes the same image. You can point to my 8-inch penis, and call it a cock, schlong, dick, pocket rocket, or pecker, and it never changes what you are pointing at. So how come some of the references are dirty, and not others? Sex? Acceptable. Fucking? Never.

If you are going to ban one word, you have to ban them all. If people want to ban the word "Fuck", then they are morally obligated to ban all incarnations of it. Crap, shoot, darn. All should be equally liable. In theory, it is the equivalent to say saying you can't smoke in restaurants, but you can "take a drag." Or maybe it is illegal to "spit" on a police officer, but what about "blowing saliva"? Is that ok? Different words, so one should be better than the other, right?

Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Tits. Cock. Ass. Memorize these words. They are the only ones to use at all times. If you don't want to use these words, than don't use the sentence that begs their use. No more oh darn! for you. Now it is, "boy, i'm just really disappointed in that outcome!"

Fuckers.