Sometimes we don't all make it. That's just life. And when you hang around with artists, you lose people. It's not uncommon to find artists dealing with intense highs and frightening lows. Addiction gets hold. Despair becomes a way of life. We lose the ability to hear anything other than the Editors in our head. And sometimes, some of us decide not waking up tomorrow would be better than facing another day of pain.
The Buddhist says life is pain and if you can accept that, everything becomes a little more peaceful. The Marine says life is pain and should be because who wants it to be easy anyway?
Losing is one thing. You're outnumbered, outgunned, outsmarted. That's how it goes.
Giving up is something else entirely.
If the Golden Rule is "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you," then maybe the Iron Rule should be simply: Don't Give Up.
Don't. Give. Up.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
What They Thought We (Should Have) Cared About: April 29, 2013
The news industry is interesting these days.
News has always had an editorial side. When a reporter says "I think people should know" and an editor says "It's not news," that's an editorial decision. That's why editors are called editors. They edit. It's why reporters and editors have fundamentally different jobs. Reporters go out into the world and dig, ask questions, try to find the story. Editors decide whether that pile of words over there is A) actually a story and B) does the paper (or newscast) have room for it. In other words, is this story important / interesting enough to beat out the next story in line. (Also, how much heat will the story produce for the publisher, the adverstisors, the letter writers, etc and will it be wortth it). But editors, traditionally, have been the gatekeepers of news space. Get it past the editor and chances are it's in.
But that's a system based on scarcity. Scarcity of time, space, and resources. Which is why you always had to ask yourself "Why this story? Why now?" and "What isn't being reported?" I often wondered why I was reading about pet issues or local football stories. Surely there was more going on.
Of course, in the cyberworld, space is no longer an issue. One more story isn't going to knock the Food Circus Coupons off of page five. Money is still an issue (it always will be when trying to sell something people can generally get for free), and there's always the chance you'll print something and piss somebody off. But the real issue these days on line is the scarcity of attention. People are losing their ability to concentrate for more than a few moments at a time. I think it's pointless to argue cause or effect on this. The first things people did with movie cameras was film naked people and invent special effects. And it's been that way ever since. The deciding factor of Beta vs VHS, VHS vs. dvd, dvd vs. blu ray, etc has been porn. Whichever way the porn industry goes, s goes the world. We are led by porn, in that sense. People respond to what's there. People who put it out there respond to what people respond to. It's a cycle. Where it started can be historically documented. We can see how (and maybe even why) things went the way they did. Each new chapter of human interaction with the printed word, for instance, is pretty interesting. Hand copies, print copies, mass printing, digital printing, the fall of ink and paper printing, etc.
By the way, one thing I think about a lot is the digital vs. the analogue. When you affix ink to page, it's there permanently. Any change would have to be a later edition, a re-write, a follow up explanation. But digitally, you could change it any time. Which is why going back to old internet stories is always weird for me. Was this this re-edited to reflect what has happened since? I'm thinking of our boy Winston in 1984. Seems to me, we could all Winston it up if we wanted to.
News has always had an editorial side. When a reporter says "I think people should know" and an editor says "It's not news," that's an editorial decision. That's why editors are called editors. They edit. It's why reporters and editors have fundamentally different jobs. Reporters go out into the world and dig, ask questions, try to find the story. Editors decide whether that pile of words over there is A) actually a story and B) does the paper (or newscast) have room for it. In other words, is this story important / interesting enough to beat out the next story in line. (Also, how much heat will the story produce for the publisher, the adverstisors, the letter writers, etc and will it be wortth it). But editors, traditionally, have been the gatekeepers of news space. Get it past the editor and chances are it's in.
But that's a system based on scarcity. Scarcity of time, space, and resources. Which is why you always had to ask yourself "Why this story? Why now?" and "What isn't being reported?" I often wondered why I was reading about pet issues or local football stories. Surely there was more going on.
Of course, in the cyberworld, space is no longer an issue. One more story isn't going to knock the Food Circus Coupons off of page five. Money is still an issue (it always will be when trying to sell something people can generally get for free), and there's always the chance you'll print something and piss somebody off. But the real issue these days on line is the scarcity of attention. People are losing their ability to concentrate for more than a few moments at a time. I think it's pointless to argue cause or effect on this. The first things people did with movie cameras was film naked people and invent special effects. And it's been that way ever since. The deciding factor of Beta vs VHS, VHS vs. dvd, dvd vs. blu ray, etc has been porn. Whichever way the porn industry goes, s goes the world. We are led by porn, in that sense. People respond to what's there. People who put it out there respond to what people respond to. It's a cycle. Where it started can be historically documented. We can see how (and maybe even why) things went the way they did. Each new chapter of human interaction with the printed word, for instance, is pretty interesting. Hand copies, print copies, mass printing, digital printing, the fall of ink and paper printing, etc.
By the way, one thing I think about a lot is the digital vs. the analogue. When you affix ink to page, it's there permanently. Any change would have to be a later edition, a re-write, a follow up explanation. But digitally, you could change it any time. Which is why going back to old internet stories is always weird for me. Was this this re-edited to reflect what has happened since? I'm thinking of our boy Winston in 1984. Seems to me, we could all Winston it up if we wanted to.
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