Encore post: Around the block

Almost eleven years ago to the day, I put up this post about writer's block. In that time, not a lot has changed.

It's still an urban struggle for me to get my ever widening derriere in the chair and crank out a post. Fortunately I can always fall back on Encore Posts, re-posting an old article and prefacing it with a little introductory paragraph. That way I feel like I've written something, you feel like you're reading something new (except for the fact I've already told you it's not), and I can put off the real writing for another day.

It's what I like to call a win-win.

Anyway, the wife is back with the egg sausage sandwich from Dunkin' so I have to go, uh, "write" some more. Please to enjoy.

It's not hard to tell I'm not the world's most prolific writer/blogger. I'm also not the world's thinnest, but hey, who the f#&@ asked you?

I'd like to blame it on writer's block, but that would be too easy an out. Let's just call it for what it is: I've been a slug for the last couple of weeks.

In the time since I last posted, my friend Rich posted eight times to his blog. I'm constantly amazed at not just the quantity, but the quality of his posts. A prolific, thoughtful, humorous writer saying the many things that need to be said. That or a desperate cry for attention. You make the call.

Whichever, I should probably take a page from his book (I'd have to take a page from his book cause obviously I'm not writing any books of my own). I need to post more regularly.

I think if you start a blog, there's a responsibility to keep it fresh and interesting. Give the readers something new almost every time they visit. Of course, that pre-supposes I have readers. And now that I think about it, no one but me seems particularly upset there hasn't been a post in two weeks. Crap. That's motivating.

And the pisser is it's not like there aren't things to talk about. Penn State. Ashton and Demi. Iranian nuclear facilities that Israel is going to take out. Herman "No that's not a cigar, I am happy to see you" Cain. iPad 3. iPhone 5. Chinese spacecraft (launch one capsule and in a half hour you want to launch another one). The reopened Natalie Wood death investigation. That guy who took a shot at the White House. Justin Bieber.

Okay. Maybe not Justin Bieber.

Anyway, even if it's just for my own well-being, even if supply exceeds demand, I'm going to post more often.

It's like Lawrence Kasdan said, "Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life."

I was never very good at homework either.

Life unsubscribed

If you're anything like me—smart, talented, funny and...what's the word...oh yeah, humble—you can remember there was a time when opening email was something to look forward to. Most of those emails in the past came from friends that, because they're my friends, were funny, insightful, enlightening, thought-provoking and worth the time they took to read them.

But like cheap gas, my 32-inch waist and Springsteen tickets under five-thousand dollars, it was a long time ago.

The good emails gradually got overtaken by offers from Nigerian princes, barristers in London with multi-million dollar inheritances waiting for me, hot Ukranian girls who wanted to meet me (can you blame them?) and an assortment of enhancement, diet, prostate, muscle-building and relaxation pill offers.

I never opened them. I'd see the subject line, block the sender and mark it as junk mail.

In the same way baseball, leaves changing and pumpkin spice latte are seasonal, so is email. And in case you haven't noticed, right now we're in the heart of election season.

I've always been the kind of person to put my money where my mouth is, especially when it comes to electing democratic progressives and making sure we defeat all the nazi-lovin', election-denyin', vaccine-fearin', propaganda-spreadin', fear-mongerin', insurrection-incitin', trump-followin', top secret document-sellin', fascist-lovin', cult-obsessin', crazy-lyin' candidates and their base that make up today's GQP.

And if you're not getting the picture, let me make it a little clearer by bringing it down to a personal, one-on-one level in a way you can understand: if you support, identify with, condone, contribute to, defend or in any other way align your political, spiritual or social views with those of Cadet Bone Spurs, Gym Jordan, Marjorie Traitor Greene, Moscow Mitch, Snake Oil Dr. Mehmet Oz, "Little" Marco Rubio, Lauren Bobert, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz or any one of the other cowardly, traitorous, brainwashed Republicans trying to take down democracy, then fuck you.

Twice.

Anyway, because I've donated to people and causes I believe in, my email address has found it's way onto lists for virtually every democratic candidate running in any race anywhere in the country this season. As a result, my inbox is being flamed with political messages all with subject lines like:

"It's not looking good"

"We're short of our goal"

"Respectfully asking"

"I need your help to defeat..."

"Have you seen our TV ad"

"Your contribution will help to..."

You get the idea.

I understand money is the lifeblood of politics. And while I've gladly and enthusiastically contributed several times to Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Val Demmings in Florida, AOC in NYC, Beto in Texas, Mark Kelly in Arizona and John Fetterman in Pennsylvania among others—and will continue to whenever I'm able—I just can't keep getting 75-80 emails a day asking me to pony up. Sometimes up to ten or more from the same candidate.

"Care to make that a recurring monthly donation?" No I do not.

So I've hit my limit and hit the unsubscribe link. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of daily political hat-in-hand posts that clog my inbox and take up far too much time deleting. I know who I want to donate to and the candidates I want to win, and I'll give as much as I can and do everything I can to make sure they do.

In the meantime, they'll have to trust that I'm thinking of them even if they're not hearing back from me. Ten times a day.

What did I miss

Did you miss me? Just kidding. It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer.

I missed you too. What I didn’t miss was any of the social media I’ve been on a cleanse from for the last three weeks.

Alright, maybe I missed it a little.

But you'll be glad to hear I went against all my only child instincts, the ones that scream I can do what I want because the world revolves around me, and stayed strong. I didn’t cave to temptation. I kept my scrolling thumbs otherwise engaged with chores like typing, turning pages on actual books (I’ll never use an e-reader, don’t get me started) and of course the remote since I used some of my reclaimed time to binge The Sopranos, start The Rehearsal and finish the latest season of For All Mankind.

Now that I've tried this little experiment, I’ve learned I can live quite well without Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Having said that, there are events in the world I do want to comment on in real time. Like the can't-happen-fast-enough inevitable indictment of Cadet Bone Spurs.

So I’m moving on to what I like to call the second phase of my cleanse. Behavior modification.

While moderation and I have never made good roommates—Breaking Bad sixteen times, Springsteen over 70 times, The Godfather a gazillion times, the craps tables at the Venetian more times than I remember, Disney's Tower of Terror fourteen times in a row—I’m going to give it another go.

My new regimen, like brushing my teeth and walking the dogs, will be twice a day. Once in the morning, and again in the early evening, a few hours before bedtime to make sure I'm still not seeing the iPhone screen on the inside of my eyelids when I close my eyes to hitch a ride to dreamland (another thing I can use my thumbs for).

I’ll also be challenging myself to limit my two daily scrolls to fifteen minutes each, which to my new way of thinking gives me more than enough time to read through new posts, wish everyone happy birthday and anniversary, reply to all with the clever snark, razor-sharp wit, keen insight and borrowed memes you’ve come to expect from me. Then I'll sign off.

That’s right. To make it just a little less appealing, I'll be logging in and out each and every time I go online. No point in leaving the apps open and tempting temptation.

And if I'm bored during the hours in between—say waiting in a doctor's office, standing in line or wondering why curbside service is taking so damn long to bring my burger out to the car—I'll just find something else to occupy my time.

So it's official. Starting today, I’m back baby. Go ahead, hit the smiley emoji, read the hashtags and AMA.

Family unties

In his most recent Ad Contrarian newsletter (which you can and should subscribe to here), the great Bob Hoffman says, “Anytime you see the word journey you know you’re in for some massive bullshit.”

The same can be said anytime your employer calls a town hall meeting—inevitably at the most inconvenient time—either in the lobby or on Zoom to tell the underpaid, overworked staff they’re more than just employees working for the man: they’re family.

While this point of view occurs at client side companies I've worked at, I've heard it from literally every agency I've ever been at. For some reason, the commeraderie and casual environment, combined with the rapid-fire wit and intelligence that pervades agency hallways and open office seating is frequently mistaken by leadership for a bond and allegiance that extends beyond the paycheck.

Clearly family means different things to leadership than it does to say Merriam Webster, who defines it as a group of people who live together, or one that is similar to another related by blood, marriage, law, custom or members of one’s intimate social group.

Some greeting card companies and inspirational posters (with and without kittens) define family as people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. Love you no matter what, and would do anything to see you smile.

When was the last time an agency gave a rat’s ass about you smiling?

The truth is when agencies and companies talk about family, it’s more along the lines of the Sopranos. As long as you’re making them money, you’re part of the family. But the minute you’re not, or decide to leave, you're dead to them.

I worked for a company for two years. A lot of that time was spent writing about their core values, with emphasis on how they cared for their employees and considered them *checks notes* family. When I gave notice, I wanted to meet with the VP of Marketing to thank him for everything. Two meetings were scheduled, two meetings were cancelled. I wrote him a nice, personal email afterwards. Never heard back.

From the minute he heard I was going, as far as he was concerned I was gone. And it was a really nice email. Oh well.

When I worked at an agency that shall go nameless—as all agencies within walking distance of the beach, Sancho's Tacos and Pacific City should—they unexpectedly and unceremoniously let a group creative director go who, unlike the executive creative director that tied the can to him, was extremely popular and well liked. True to form, it happened Sopranos style: he went out to lunch and never came back. The next day, the executive creative director sent out a bullshit email condescendingly explaining how these things happen, and we're all still family and we'll get past this sad day together.

He didn't even work up a sweat shoveling that hard.

All this is to give you an important safety tip—don't cross the streams. Work is work, and family is family.

It's easy to tell the difference. Real family doesn't need a town hall to tell you who they are.

Thumbs down

A lot of people have been asking how my social media cleanse is going. At least I think they have. I can’t go online so I don’t actually know.

I’ve been at it, or not at it, for five days now and I have to say it’s going pretty well. But it’s a lot harder than I thought it’d be.

Clearly I was much more addicted to making snarky comments, pithy observations, endless and endlessly deserved Cadet Bone Spurs bashing, posting Tweets I thought were funny, clever memes, pictures of Ace and Lucy (world's greatest dogs), being the first to break news about recently departed public figures and celebrities, and racking up the likes than I thought I was.

It is nice to give the old scrolling thumb a rest. It’s also nice to reclaim time in the mornings and evenings to make a dent on that stack of new books piling up on my nightstand, continue bingeing The Sopranos and getting to bed earlier so there’s more night to wake up in the middle of.

At least now when I’m up in the night I’m not reaching for the phone.

The other frustrating thing is, to paraphrase Steve McCroskey, it looks like I picked the wrong week to quit social media.

What with the search at Mar-A-Lago, Cadet Bone Spurs taking the fifth over four-hundred times in his New York trial, Republicans losing what little was left of their conspiracy-theorin', propaganda-believin', election-denyin', Nazi-lovin', cult-joinin' minds over everything even more than usual, I can only imagine the cleverness, wit and belly laughs I'd be contributing as well as appreciating on social media right now.

I did make a minor modification in my program. Originally I was going to delete the social media apps from my phone. But I've discovered it's easier to reload the apps than it is to log back on once I've logged out. So the apps remain, but I'm logged out of all of them. And honestly, with my fat fingers and bad eyesight, logging in is much more of a challenge than I'm looking for right now.

Of course I am getting a low level thrill from the fact that, as promised, I’ll at least get to do a quick breaking and entering to put up my Rotation and Balance posts. Don’t worry, there’ll be no cheating.

Log in. Post. Log out. No one gets hurt. I won't even stick around or check back to see if anyone gives me any likes.

At least there’s light at the end of the tunnel. This trial run is only going to be somewhere between three weeks and a month, and then I’ll reassess my scrolling ways.

Like losing weight, exercising more and paying for an upcoming wedding, I’m sure this will get easier.

On second thought, those might not be the best examples.

Reclaiming my time

If you know anything about me, and if you don’t by now you have no one but yourself to blame, you know that for the most part, in life and online, I'm a social butterfly. I comment, I post, I joke, I engage.

What I also do is scroll, sometimes doomscroll, first thing when I get up and last thing before I go to bed. If I'm up in the middle of the night—did I say if? I meant when—I also take a look at what I might’ve missed since I went to bed.

I’ve spent too many hours, way too many hours, going down a YouTube rabbit hole. And even though I’ve now seen every version in existence of Springsteen singing Twist & Shout, all the Breaking Bad and Friends blooper reels and discovered some of my favorite artists I wouldn’t have known about otherwise (Paul Thorn, John Moreland), I’m not getting those hours back.

So I’m reclaiming my time. I’m going on a social media cleanse for a bit, and see if I can’t put that reclaimed time to better use. SPOILER ALERT: I know I can.

I have close friends who've found themselves in Facebook jail for thirty days, and at first it sounded awful. But right now, honestly, no Facebook for thirty days sounds like heaven.

My friend and great writer Kathy Hepinstall, who's probably written another book in the time it's taken you to read this sentence, signed off of Facebook for good awhile ago. I didn't get it then, but now I recognize that, as usual, she was ahead of her time.

The first step will be to delete the Facebook, Messenger, Twitter and Instagram apps from my phone. I'm all about easy, but if I want back on I'm going to make myself work for it. And I'm not looking for more work.

As much as I'd like it to be, it won’t be an entirely cold turkey withdrawal. I'll still post the occasional link to my Rotation and Balance blogpost, but only because my seven readers demand it. What I won't do is sneak back on to see how many people liked it, cause seriously, where's the percentage in that?

Because I do what I do for a living, I’m expected to maintain a certain level of social media awareness. So occasionally I'll look but not comment. I’ll be stealthy, ninja-like and silent—just like you wish I was in real life.

You won’t even know I’m there. And I won’t be unless my job absolutely requires me to take a look.

I realize this is going to put a big dent in my wishing you a happy birthday/happy anniversary game, but it's the price I'll have to pay. And just to make sure I don't miss yours, happy birthday and happy anniversary in advance.

One of my best friends since elementary school has never been on Facebook. Never had an account, never logged on. I asked him about it one time, and he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be your friend in real life.”

So, if you need to get hold of me, you can always text or email. We can even set up a time to have a meal, face-to-face. I realize you'll have to change out of pajamas to meet me, but that's just the price of being my friend.

Anyway, not a total goodbye to social media, just so long for now.

And of course, like a wise man once told me, I'll still be your friend in real life.

Say no to NOPE

Here’s the obligatory SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie NOPE, there are things in this post that will spoil some of the surprises in the film. Consider yourself warned.

I’m a great audience. Really, the kind filmmakers dream about. I go into comedies wanting to laugh, I go into suspense and horror films wanting to be nervous and scared—even more so than I am in real life—and I go into love stories wanting to fall in love all over again.

I’m easy that way. And other ways. For another post.

The point is when I went to see NOPE, I was ready to be scared and surprised. After all, I loved Jordan Peele’s directorial debut GET OUT, liked but less so his follow up US, and was ready to enjoy his latest offering.

Come to find out the biggest surprise was how disappointing the movie is.

It’s hard to write about it because even though I said SPOILER ALERT at the top—remember way back then—I don’t want to spoil too much if you’re planning to see it even after this review.

Jordan Peele is a massively skilled writer, director and visual artist. There are sequences stunning in their staging, and for the most part he doesn’t fall into horror film tropes like jump scares—for example the bathroom mirror being closed revealing someone, or something, behind it.

For the most part.

I understand Peele is going for symbolism and using the premise as metaphor for a broader message. But the screenplay is unfortunately so jumbled, and trying to convey several messages, it's unclear exactly what the story is supposed to represent or add up to at the end of it all. For me, there was absolutely no emotional attachement to any of the characters, with the possible exception of being afraid for the actors in the scenes with a chimpanzee that I'll talk about in a minute.

I know I like Daniel Kaluuya, who also starred in Peele's GET OUT. But here, he appears to be sleepwalking through most of the film, especially in his scenes with Keke Palmer who single handedly provides the jolt of energy, humor and liveliness missing from the other performances. You can even see it in the trailer:

The main story revolves around the first black Hollywood horse wrangling family, and a flying saucer that visits them to maybe devour them? Take them to the planet from whence it came? Stop by for a spot of tea? Never really clear where it's from or why it’s there other than to hide in a cloud that doesn’t move, and come roaring out once in awhile so the sound design department has something to do.

Steven Yuen is also in the movie, and there’s a backstory to him about being a child star on a sitcom with a chimpanzee as his co-star. There are flashbacks to this, and a horrific incident with the chimp that's without a doubt the genuinely truly scariest thing in the whole film. But sadly the entire sequence is only about five minutes total of a two-hour, eleven-minute film.

And as long as I’m picking at the bones, I know I said Peele is a great visual artist. Which is why it’s so baffling near the end of the movie, the flying sauce which had looked like a solid object earlier transforms into something like a king-size sheet caught in the wind, rippling through the sky trying to be scary.

NOPE has been getting mixed reviews, with an 81% Fresh from critics and 69% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. My feeling is Jordan Peele is experiencing what I like to call the M. Night Shyamalan effect. That is to say he's the recipient of a great deal of residual goodwill from his awesome first film, making people show more restraint when it comes to being as honest about his follow up efforts as they might want to be.

It’s probably worth a viewing once it comes on the streamer of your choice, if only for the two horrifying scenes with the chimpanzee. In the comfort of your home, with some Ruffles and onion dip at the ready, and the ability to stand up every once in a while.

But as far as spending money to see it in the theater, paying the concession stand and parking tax, and not be able to stand up for over two hours?

I can sum up my answer in one word.