The 9 Commandments of Highly Effective Reality-TV Contestants

Best quote from this Slate feature by Troy Patterson? “I’m like the love child of Fran Drescher and Ricky Ricardo.” But the article got me thinking — actually, it reminded me of a train of thought I’ve entertained before. Namely that someday soon, appearing on reality TV will be the means by which a significant portion of the American middle and lower classes pay their Costco bills. In exchange for not making a fuss about growing income disparities, the have-nots can trade their personal dignity for financial security! Entertainment is made along the way!

It’s a special kind of genius. I mean, Tila Tequila has already used reality TV as an upward-mobility rocket-booster, and maybe I’ve done too much reading on the subject, but now, every time I see her show promoed, Horatio Alger comes to mind. (He was also short. And often described as “elfin.”)

PS. HTBU has a chapter that’s basically about me watching Season 1 of The Apprentice, and trying — hard — to say something nice about Donald Trump. I think I succeeded.

Intern or Die

Now this may only be of interest to a fraction of the folks who stumble onto this site, but Adelle Waldman has a smart piece — typical for her! — on journalism internships and the impoverishment of our media industry. You can read it here in The New Republic.

the fourth reading

Tonight at a Barnes & Noble in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Highland store on Ford Parkway, where I worked a long, long time ago. 7:00 p.m.

All those other Q&As left you unsatisfied? Well, here’s another one.

I spent many an afternoon reading the City Pages back in the day. It went well with coffee and bitterness. Can anyone tell me what happened to the Twin Cities Reader?

(Here’s the last, perhaps best, line of the interview, if only for how it does that “ripped from the headlines” thing right: ”Ironic detachment is a carefree — or seemingly carefree — posture that only works in boom times.” i.e. My book =  Timely!)

at the cleaners

If you have a close and supportive relationship with your laundry lady, she’ll show you the place on the computer screen where it says how many U.S. dollars you’ve spent on cleaning clothes since February 2004, when you first moved into the neighborhood.* True. The software most dry cleaners (and your more advanced drop-off laundries) use keeps a running tally for each customer profile. Check it out.

My number? $1390.50. I’m not going to comment further because I haven’t yet decided how having spent $1390.50 at Reliable Laundry & Cleaners makes me feel. A little sands through the hourglass, honestly.

*Before anyone starts to think I’m some sort of swell, I live in a big city. There’s no washer and dryer in my apartment building. (If there were. . . eh. Anyone who’s read the epilogue to HTBU will understand my reluctance to explore the basement.)

I’m sorry you typed that way

I’m starting a series. I’ve been fascinated by cruddy emails lately. Emails like the one below, sent to a good friend of mine:

XXXXXXXX, I was stumbling around the internet and just read your little article about XXXXX. Every single one of your points were simply nit picking and most of the time you kept pointing out that many miss the humor, well perhaps it is only YOU who misses the humor because you are a stupid, uncultured, picky oaf who can’t simply enjoy a movie, but must pick apart all of the very, very insignificant problems with it. So XXXXX thinks that improv is a more real and funnier way to get the humor out, it worked in XX! . . . And some movies turn out much better when the humor is improvised. . . . I’m just wondering why you can’t just enjoy things and why you have such a problem with unimportant things.

You’re a cock wrench!
-XXXXXX

Would this sender — a stranger, I’ll add — have written this sentiment longhand, signed and stamped it? No. But email brings out the indignant seventh-grader in people.

So I’m seeking examples of cruddy emails. Any missive that made your eyes widen, I’d love to see. (I had to Google “cock wrench,” incidentally. It’s really a very, very interesting choice of words.)

Please x-out names and details. We’re not looking to invade anyone’s privacy; we just want to see what themes develop.

On a related note, yesterday I was reading letters by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo and came across this line: “Admire as much as you can, most people don’t admire enough.”

Bankrupt

An eerie photo series depicting abandoned offices, by photographer Phillip Toledano. The first one is harrowing for anyone who’s authored a book. But the garbage-strewn kitchenette also hits hard. Any place vacated in such haste — it’s obvious something went very, very wrong.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.

Dodging the Great Failure Army

The most enjoyable aspect of book publicity is that each interviewer picks up a different thread of your argument. Sometimes your answer involves making explicit a point the book only implies. And sometimes you’re led to say something you were entirely too squeamish to state before. As in the interview below, in which I essentially admit that what prompted HTBU was the fact that some of my friends were on the dusty road to loserdom:

“Megan Hustad, a native Minnesotan and University of Minnesota alumna, first turned to ’success literature’ (self-help books on jobs and business leadership) when she noticed diverging career trajectories among her peers: Some had plateaued, some had switched industries and others were thriving. ‘It wasn’t a matter of intelligence or capability at all,’ Hustad said. ‘I really started trying to dissect where are things going wrong for people.’ So she launched her own investigation, eventually publishing . . . a sharp, witty book brimming with advice for young people on how to manage the demands of the modern workplace.”

Needless to say, I was gripped by the fear that I was the biggest loser of them all. Full feature by the lovely and talented Megan Doll, in Minneapolis’s Star Tribune, here.

Sellevision

The UK is not going to allow product placement on TV.

Take a sip every time you hear a cliche

I love the Freelancers Union, I do. They provide me with health insurance. On the other hand, when they use inane language like the below, I have to think they are, to borrow a phrase, “hurting America.”

Generate an Endless Stream of Business Through Networking

How do you prospect for new clients without feeling like you’re networking 24/7? Join Freelancers U and [redacted] for an online seminar to learn about a goal-driven process for networking. You’ll learn how to focus on the highest-impact activities, including how to:

• Craft an elevator pitch that brings you business
• Make the most of networking groups and events
• Stay top of mind with easy stay-in-touch strategies
• Leverage online communities to expand your reach
• Get others to bring opportunities to you

Register now so that you spend less time networking and more time doing the work you love (or at least that pays!).

Wouldn’t a simple, direct “We’ll tell you how to network faster, and more creatively” do? If organizations insist on continuing to use mealy-mouthed business-ese, fine. I think — hope — it’s on the way out. In the meantime, perhaps they can Hello Kitty it up, and promise a “super happy fun goal-driven process.” I’d prefer that, actually.