sitting at an open-air place, rumble of the subway, ella fitzgerald on the laptop/jukebox, i am making myself conscious of every soundso to compare my memory with the playback i will hear later. recording all sounds onto a sony field recorder. is the music really being drowned by the subway roars and car noises or is it only an aural illusion caused by mental weights on some sounds an less on others? i recorded the roar of the 59th street bridge and the din of the seating area at the rockefeller center concourse. people here talking about vacations. planning. i am nostalgic for a soundcrap recording i made in a small florida town, at a package lounge/bar in Parry. i listen to it once in a while and wish i had made more such recordings over the last few years.

i fear that this bp oil volcano is the apocalypse for the gulf of mexico, and maybe all of florida. i don‘t see how it can be stopped. the horrible junk is going to haunt those waters for generations.

i was joking with a friend about pundits. i was saying that i couldn‘t decide if i should accomplish something in life and then move on to punditry, or just skip the accomplishment drlil and go straight to punditry. if ever a talking-head role was designed to accomlish nothing then punditry is the calling. virtually always staged as a point/counterpoint where one point of view is negated by the other the both voices calmed by the moderator who often seems to have no point of view whatsoever but actually does have a point of view which guided the procedings all along.

i thought of punditry today when i ignored/refused an interview request from NPR. who benefits from these appearances? certainly not the talking head, the chucklehead pundit called upon to fill the coffers/column inches/airtime of other entities for no discernable benefit to himself. are there even bragging rights any more? i got a similar request from someone writing a disseration on communications. a request for a quote. sorry, folks, no more quotes. scrape what you want from my public ramblings [citation needed, please] but dont ask me to fill your column inches with any more custom quotes. it benefits no one but you.

ahem… sorry for the self-indulgent hocker of anti-punditry. sobsorry.

…..

last night i was remembering the “kickin‘ ass“ guy from my first corporate job. a paper-pusher, but a very spirited and buoyant individual, probably 50-something years old, graying and looking older than his years but still spry, bouncy. i don‘t know his role, i don‘t remember it, but he relayed stacks of papers to product managers and marketeers in the business units. i saw him probably twice a week, his surly but child-like countenance bobbling atop his classically corporate-dressed body.

one day he came bounding into our work area for to deliver a stack of papers just in time, right before the deadline, right down to the wire, and in iresponse to this the marketeers hollered variatoins on “whoot“ and “hell yeah“ and “niiiice“, punctuating their ebulliations with “keep doin‘ what you‘re doin‘, Jack!“ Jack turned to leave and he passed my office, idly casting his glance toward me as he snarled, clenched his left fist, and mumblegutted “that‘s what i‘m doin‘…. Kickin‘ Ass!“ yes, the paper pusher was KICKING ASS and i imagined him returning home, taking the stage at the dnner table, regaling family with tales of his conquering heroics. “The deadline was at 5 and I got the stuff there at 4:59! They couldn‘t believe it! No one could believe it. They had lost hope, just like the time I got the papers in at 3 minutes before deadline. It was awesome!“ (Round of applause)

even in those days, when the mysteries of corporate seemed to spread before me like a wet, clueless virgin, i found that guy‘s remarks hilarious. soooo corporate.