My other reason, because you need two (otherwise you are just a weirdo), is Lady Gaga winning a Grammy. Ok, she didn't win, but she was showcased and that's bad enough. It's half way cave worthy and Cheetos induction evoking, just on its own.
This is no hollow threat, I assure you. I have eaten Cheetos in a cave once before. Perhaps not a cave, per se, but a cave-like area. About twenty years ago I was prompted to stop writing and just live like the rest of those folks out there, whomever they are. I was at a loss as to what non-writer types actually did. How did they occupy their time? What does one do when one is not writing or thinking about writing? I was fairly sure that it was empty, but I didn't actually know what it was. My best guess was 'eat Cheetos and watch TV.' The net result: a love of the NFL and yellow fingers. Eventually I wandered back to writing, but I was forever CHANGED. If I drop out of society again, who knows what I will be if and when I do return. You have been warned!
To be honest, Lady Gaga was given the Kid Rock treatment at the Grammys. Here's the freak of the week teamed with Elton John (whose only known current talent is being a freak.) Everybody take a nice gawk. Now take your computer created voice, funny hat and go home to count your money. I hope that's the last of her, that she heads off to the intersection of Las Vegas and Liberace Land, to warble 'Gaga' and become Wayne Newton-like; something to pass in a hurry while I am on my way to Slots-O-Fun. Any other fate and I am headed to Cheetos! I mean it.
As for the National Enquirer, they may actually have a point. The Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer as much as the New York Times does. By the New York times, I am referring to the newspaper and its entire staff and I am referring to the last twenty years. If we really were forced to live without one of these papers, I fear we would be better off without the Times. That's not saying that the Enquirer is wonderful, but rather that compared to other national papers, it does lead the pack. Sad thing to say.
The National Enquirer is being specifically lauded for breaking the John Edwards story. Lest we forget, if it wasn't for ballot stuffing in Florida, Edwards could have been one heartbeat from the presidency. And, word to the wise, he didn't just start cheating on his wife--and he wasn't all that good at it. What we have here is more clear evidence that other supposed news sources just looked the other way--decided that the public did not have the right to know. (Because they are buddy buddy liberal suck ups.) The National Enquirer, bless its black heart, with no advertising to speak of nor friends in high places that it wouldn't sell down the toilet for the prospect of a cheeto, got wind of the story and charged ahead. (Unlike other newspapers, if the Enquirer does not have stories people want to read, the Enquirer does not eat.) Thanks to their efforts the American Public has been forever spared at least one fraud posing as a public servant.
Mind you, the national Enquirer actually getting a Pulitzer will send me into a cave, cuddling a giant bag of imitation cheese crusts. That they do deserve the prize just makes reality all that much more dismal and worthy of resigning participation from.
That said, they won't get it. AND I AM GOING ON RECORD AS SAYING THAT THEY SHOULD. In a perfect world, they would get it. If they were a part of any other media empire, they would have it without a blink or a blush. If they were a publisher of comic books plus the Enquirer, they wouldn't have a problem. If they also published cook books, yoga magazines, produced porn or were the outgrowth of a cult, the Pulitzer committee would mint them up a medal and not bat an eye.
The problem the Enquirer uniquely has is that they are almost exclusively in the newspaper business. Although the Enquirer is rather grounded and not prone to spreading falsehoods, its sister newspapers (which share the same staff, presentation and presses) are compulsive liars. Let us take a brief overview...
The Globe: Has spent the better part of a year claiming President Obama is a drunken homosexual. Prior to the Obama theme, spent the entire Bush Administration detailing the first couple's impending divorce. And Bush's drinking binges while in office. These are all demonstrable fictions, reported only in the Globe.
The Star: Brad and Jenny. Jenny's plans to win back Brad. How Jenny won Brad back. How Jenny broke up Brad's... Both silly and, if we check, mostly not true.
National Examiner: First Lady hissy fits. Dead movie star communications from beyond the grave.
The Sun (Combined with Weekly World News): The World Will End Next Tuesday. Numerous psychic predictions, none of which have ever come close to being true.
Frankly, the Pulitzer people would have to swallow too much pride in the journalistic profession goo in order to reward an organization with such a double vested take on the truth.
The real shame of it is that checkbook journalism has a ton of potential. If they scoped out politicians the way they go after z grade movie stars, either we would: (a) have a continual parade of perp walking politicos; (b) start attracting a more clean living type to the ruling class or (c) wind up with the same press restrictions that they have in England. My guess is (c), but either of the other two options would be an improvement. If they paid for stories about corruption in business or government the way they do stray bits of gossip, who knows what massive frauds they might uncover. It's all a matter of priorities. Cops pay snitches. Why not the newspapers? Hell knows it works.
It won't happen. But it could.
Project Stall: My Alex Hillman project has reached a stall in an improbable place. This is going to take a little longer than I anticipated. Need to hike butt to research library.
Product Review: Wonka's New Kazoozles Delickoricious Chewy Candy Pink Lemonade (Nestle).
From the appearance on the wrapper, this seems to be a filled licorice tube. The tube is yellow and the filling is pink. One might assume this is similar in concept to the filled pretzels which have become popular of late. The tube strongly resembles the sugar encrusted Slurpee Straws that have been sold at 7-11. No mention is made of the filling's actual flavor. All we really have to go on is the presentation that this entire confection is somehow pink lemonade like.
It is not. In fact, it is completely deceptive. There is no real distinction in terms of flavor or texture between the tube and whatever the filling is. They are actually the same thing, only colored and shaped differently. This is our first clue that the Nestle Chemists have cleanly missed whatever it was they were shooting for. Having failed so miserably, our boys in white decided to cram as much sugar as the surface area will hold. Perhaps this is in hopes of killing the taste, which is in no way lemonade, pink or otherwise. All sweet in a cheap sugar way and not a hint of tart.
It's not projectile vomit producing awful, but it is badly bungled. Not recommended. Score: Two on a five point scale.
Newsweek Does Flippy Book (Newsweek RIP)
It's a flippy book! It's a flippy book! Looky, looky, looky, it's a flippy book!
OOOH, I haven't seen a flippy book in years. Unless you count the Marvel Comics color magazines. They do flippy books all the time, because the thought of printing on slick magazine stock makes their brains freeze up. In real flippy books what you do is print up two front covers. You then put the back cover on upside down. That way, if you flip the book over, it looks like another magazine. For good measure you then print half of the magazine facing the opposite way as the first. And if you are coordinated (not always a given) the text inside will match the orientation of the cover.
Flippy books were never really all the rage. For your average magazine publisher, it's just too cheap of a trick to pull off. It makes the buyer think that you are trying to deceive him into buying the same magazine twice by accident. Really bad porn publishers do it, sometimes. (English or Spanish imports from the 1960s come to mind.) Even pulp publishers shied away from it. The only current practitioners of the fine flippy book art are dollar store coloring book producers... and now Newsweek.
The general pattern for flippy books is that sometime in the past the publisher went a step too far with his theme. Let's say I publish muscle books. I have Muscle Girl, Muscle Boy, Muscle Competition and Muscle Lifestyle, all fine vehicles for my vitamin and gadget advertisers. One day I take it too far and release Muscle Nutrition, which is less of a distinction without a difference than my other titles. It goes for four issues before I get the returns in. In the mean time, I've sold a few subscriptions and one long form advertising section for it. Then I get the returns and my new Muscle Nutrition is selling even more crappo than Muscle Girl. As opposed to killing it outright, I decide to 'tandem' it for a few issues with Muscle Girl. That way I keep the subscriptions and ad money for a few more issues. Eventually I drop the tandem idea and call the thing Muscle Couple with small print saying 'combined with Muscle Girl and Muscle Nutrition.' This way everyone involved (especially my advertisers) think they are getting a new thing which is somehow additive to an old thing. In this case, which is the general case, the flippy book is just a phase.
Now to take you to the deep dark universe of the dollar store coloring book manufacturer, a place dominated by middle aged middle eastern men who deal in skids of pulp and folios of recycled art. Here in the mildew of an office with an air conditioner over the transom sits Mister Big looking over his order from Dollar General. His pudgy hands claw across a desk packed with folders in various states of pregnancy. He plucks up the one marked 'Must Be licensed! Hot' and starts ruffling through the galleys of thickly drawn twenty year old paste boards. His voice erupts out of a grumble "What by the name of all that is holy is this?"
Another thinner, balder, less well dressed near-Arab man appears out of the gloom. "There you go. Licensed twenty-six pages. Watch your hands. Where are the color separations?"
"Gumby!" the first man says, as if spitting.
"Yeah. Gumby. What?" the second man says.
"You bought Gumby! Gumby! I want your blood all over me!"
"What? People like Gumby. It's Gumby. What's not to like about Gumby?"
"You're violating the Geneva Convention with what you're doing with my money here! What kind of people like Gumby? Name an eight year old that's heard of Gumby! Gumby!"
"Eight year olds don't really buy the coloring books you know."
"They ask to buy them. Because they see something that they know. What's an eight year old going to know from Gumby. You using my money for maxi pads, you idiot! If you hadn't donated me that bone marrow and married my warty old maid sister and rescued my son from Turkish prison by hiding a zip gun up your ass, I would sand paper your eyeballs out and make you snort Comet and glass, you brains for grass clippings waste of groceries. Find me an eight year old that knows Gumby!"
"I don't know any eight year olds."
"Find me an eighteen year old that knows Gumby! Find me a woman of child baring age that knows Gumby! We're sending these on spec. You're killing me here!"
"Hang on. Hang on. We got another thing with it. Another green guy. We can do a flippy book. You see, I was thinking. I got another green guy here. I was thinking we could do the cover green and red, two color spot process. You see, I was thinking about your money here. That's all I think about," the thin man says, shuffling through the folder's page boards.
"I'm not seeing another guy here. Green you say?"
"There he is," the thin man says, pulling a board out. "There's some pictures of trains here, too. I got Toonerville Folks* with it. It's like three licenses, all in one."
"What is that, a potato?"
The thin man turns the drawing. "It says 'The Great Gazoo!' There. He's an alien. Or an ant. He's green. I remember he's green, like the other guy. We do a flippy book. Put one on each cover. Grandma or someone will recognize it. Boom. We make our quarter."
"What are these. They look like street cars."
"It's a train with a face. I'll have the art on it. We'll do a flippy book. It will be fine."
Now if they really wanted to be cheap, they would take the Toonerville Trolley and make it the center of the drawing. If you look at it one way, Gumby is hanging out of the Trolley as if he were the engineer (or conductor). When you turn it upside down, The Great Gazoo is the conductor. The key is the placement of the trolley's second set of eyes. This is essentially the same composition used as our Newsweek cover.
Basically its a sign that you don't know what you are trying to market. And that you won't be doing it for long.
As for this week's contents of Newsweek, I won't comment. I don't review flippy books, only mock them. But the writing is on the wall for Newsweek.
Per the publisher, Jon Meacham, he is deliberately out to cut the magazine's circulation in half. "It's hugely counterintuitive," the magazine's editor says. "The staff doesn't understand it."
Newsweek, whose circulation was as high as 3.1 million in recent years, plans to cut that to 1.5 million by the beginning of 2010, in part by discouraging renewals. The magazine will begin charging the average subscriber about 90 cents an issue, nearly double the current rate.
"If we can't convince a million and a half people we're worth less than a dollar a week, the market will have spoken," Meacham says. The newsstand price will also jump from $4.95 to $5.95, a buck more than Time.
Time, with a circulation of 3.25 million, will sell more than twice as many copies. Meacham says he wants to get away from the "Cold War metaphor" of Time vs. Newsweek, insisting that "we live in an age of asymmetrical warfare."
Here I thought Newsweek was going pulp. It seems they have chosen suicide instead. I guess we know which side of the flippy cover they mean: looks like the meds aren't working.
*Although my illustration of the coloring book industry is fictional, I did find a Toonerville Folks Coloring Book in a dollar store about twenty years ago. I was sort of astounded, inasmuch as Toonerville Folks had ceased publication in 1955. It was a new printing, too. So I picked it up and went to the cashier. While the pretty woman was ringing me up, she asked if I was buying it for a young one at home. I then explained, at length, that my interest was actually historical. It was a very nice chat, I thought, lasting through several other customers being wrung up. She seemed to have an interest in the subject. After a time, I had to go. And I heard her whisper, as I wound out of sight, "I thought he was cute until he started talking."
My cheetos. All mine.
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