(In addition, Pol Pot, of Khmer Rouge infamy, favored words beginning with “E” and though E is not a consonant, who was going to disagree, let alone point out to the dictator that his initials PP, consonants connoting the word “pee pee,” were in fact hilarious? So maybe consonants can be funny, maybe the idea is not a canard, and maybe, just maybe, this introduction was a cheap way with which to repeatedly use the word “canard,” itself a funny word. I’m not sure.) 

 

So we’ve established, words and the writer are two peas in a pod and, apropos to this essay, I was speaking recently with someone in the print business (and for those of you younger than, say, 18 years of age, the “print business” is that business wherein someone, more than likely a group of human beings [and for those of you younger than, say, 14 years of age, a “human being” is a non-virtual living, breathing entity that resides on that globe-shaped mass you see on Google Earth] assemble to publish a series of pages made of congealed dried pulp or “paper” that, with a great degree of effort, metamorphose into a newspaper, magazine, or book. The print category also includes something called a graphic novel which, to borrow liberally from Mark Twain, is simply a comic book with a college education. 

This person, let’s call him G., works as an editor for a high-profile magazine, and in the course of his duties began to realize that his compensation package, initially used to lure him and his fellow workers into the lair of his particular publication, was in the process of undergoing “voluntary rollbacks.” In simple terms, he was getting hosed. Voluntarily. Oh we laughed and laughed about the “voluntarily” of it all, our laughter masking the abject horror of the economic haunted house through which we all gently tip-toe. Lest anyone roll out the cliché about there being very little difference between laughter and tears, well, let them get voluntarily rolled-back. 

In any event, we spoke of his various employment options in the global economy. (The “global economy,” a term contextualized to suggest economic freedom, fairness in the trade and exchange of commodities, a syntactical symbol of what we as a nation stand for, is in fact a colloquialism meaning “my sneakers were made in the South Pacific by a 6 year-old child who eats once a week.") We spoke of how absolutely and utterly starved most major print organizations are for people who are even half as experienced as G., and then forthrightly determined that his choices were as follows: a) get hosed, voluntarily, b) make sneakers in the South Pacific and ingest food every seven days or so, or c) move to Thailand. I’m not precisely sure why these days so many men my age (let’s call it 40-something) view Thailand as a real-life Xanadu, however my research indicates it has something to do with the fact that, in certain parts of Thailand, one can actually own a woman, much like one owns a pair of jeans or sneakers (oh the irony!), thus obviating the need for the qualified psychotherapist that most of these men, horrifyingly weighted down with mommy issues, so desperately need. 

Of course, we settled on choice “a,” as my friend enjoys a regular eating schedule and does not have a mentally disturbed attitude toward the female gender.

There was, of course, for G., a fourth option. However I dared not speak its name. No it wasn’t purveying pornography, selling narcotics, or even stock-brokering. It was ... I really can’t describe it. Rather I can describe it, I can’t define it. It involves the Internet. And like most things Internet, one can describe, however, one can’t define. For example, try to define the color “red.” Go ahead. I’ll wait. And while I’m waiting, let me ask you this: Have you ever seen an acai berry? No, you haven’t. Even in the exotic-fruit section of your supermarket. If the juice is so damn good for you, why can’t they produce the berry for display and sale? Could it be that the acai berry is the crazed lone gunman of berries? The Loch Ness Monster of vine fruit? 

Time.

Okay, let’s see what you’ve got. Just as I suspected: a whole lot of nada. Red is red. You can’t define it. Nor can I. Accordingly, I have an appropriate story that illustrates this dilemma, which in fact is G.’s dilemma, your dilemma and mine, too. Frankly, it is more than a dilemma, it is a peculiar phenomenon.

We’ve sat around for years as a nation, lounging on a soft pile of free-trade bullshit, while media proprietors garnered good ol' fashioned, early 20th century-type trusts ... the media barons of today’s world are akin to the robber barons of the late 1800s-early 1900s; and the carnage left in their wake was and is stunning. We have newspapers in major American cities filing for bankruptcy (eg., talk of San Francisco being without a daily newspaper for the first time in almost 150 years). However we’re to take comfort in the notion that newspapers and weekly magazines and books for that matter, are relics of an old, antiquated way of life and that our intellectual sustenance ought to and in fact is provided by a high-tech virtual world.

 

That being said, many of us fight the good fight ... to little avail. (And I must, at this juncture, point out a trend among certain compatriots of mine, the false prophets; these are the group who feel it necessary at every mention of this topic to pronounce with great relish that they “just enjoy the feel, the smell of a real book.” Said mantra is always accompanied by the movement of hands opening a book, like the pantomime of a drunk, French clown. Always, their rant begins: “There’s something about the smell,” followed by a haunted far-off gaze. I often think to myself: “What’s the mystery and why do all their books stink?” Word to the wise: These people don’t read. At best they mime reading and smell books.)

In any event, the peculiar phenomenon is NOT the fragmented, almost schizophrenic way we ingest and deliver information to both our friends and family but also the public at large. That, of course, is neither new nor is any longer peculiar. However, what I've found to be new and peculiar and thus amusing, is the inability of people employed in these various online media outlets to even marginally describe what the hell it is that they do. 

By way of example (and I’m going to have to change the names and employer for the obvious reasons), I sat down with my cousin who I hadn’t seen in quite some time and listened to her as she attempted to explain in detail how she earned a living. After nearly 45 minutes and a brief Q & A session, followed by a round of light refreshments, I realized she was for all intent and purpose unable to define how she made a living. Simply put, she just couldn’t define her job. So, I ask you to imagine someone blathering on for 45 minutes ... and imagine me earnestly trying my best to understand. Hell, I was even rooting for her.

I cherry-picked these highlights:

- She works for an actual incorporated entity. Her job involves turning on her computer to perform said employment. This I know for certain.

- This company does work for, or serves as a client of, or contracts work out to (I don’t know which), a major Hollywood studio. Exclusively.

- That studio also owns a television network, which hosts a website. Let’s call it TVnetwork.com. TVnetwork.com seems, and I say this with the shakiest of confidence, to be involved in her employment. She's unclear on that point, I'm unclear on that point.

- She lives in Los Angeles, but twice a week has to fly to San Francisco to perform said job, even though neither is her employer located in San Francisco nor is the major Hollywood studio. The latter of course located in Hollywood. Sort of.

- Her employer has no brick-and-mortar walk-thru-the-door location. There's no commissary or soda machine, no water cooler gossip around an actual water cooler, no trip-over-the-carpet-that-Lester-down-in-maintenance-keeps-forgetting-to-fix. Why? 

Because:

- Her company has a "virtual headquarter" (which must really blow, in that it utterly eliminates the “traffic was hell” or “tire got a flat” tardiness excuse).

- Her chief competition, known as "those assholes," appears to be linked in some fashion to an online media service called Hulu. That is true. I didn’t change the name. I’m sure they’re not assholes.

- She uses Twitter everyday, though this seems far from essential to the performance of her job. However, it keeps her abreast of "those assholes." (I took the liberty of investigating/signing up for Twitter and recently learned my close friend from college days Chris Baker just ate a cupcake. You think you know someone and one day BAM!!! They’re eating cupcakes ... and the world, well, it just makes a little bit less sense.)

- Hubs and ports seem to permeate her job in some fashion. Much is made of "hub portals."

- Though neither she nor her company create or edit "Web content," the idea of "Web content" is crucial to her company's survival.

- There is definitely NO money to be made in Web content. Make no mistake, she says. "If anyone thinks they're going to make a killing in Web content, forget it."

- "Web content," through its various portals and hubs, serves primarily as a cross-platform means, by which servers actuate the cross promotional needs of said servers and/or media outlets using in many cases the outlet’s own creative content to promote ... something else ... at another ... location.

- Cross your fingers, she's on track to take the title of “Project Director” next year, thus transcending the title of “Project Manager,” the latter being a title, in her words, “which no one takes seriously.”

So what did I do with all this information? After rejecting my initial urge to buy a bottle of bourbon, apply for hand-gun permit and cash my check, I chopped it all apart and reassembled it as a scene in a feature I’m currently working on.

The lesson to be learned here is simple: One can mine gold from the confusion of others. Or put another way: Comedy is tragedy plus time ... plus portals and Web cross-promotional hublets.

Keep thy faith.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Faber is, with Bob Fisher, the writer of Wedding Crashers and other comedies. 

 

Photo courtesy: Wedding Crashers, Universal Home Entertainment 

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