Soles'n'Bowls

• There's some TallShip™ thing in Boston this weekend. You people never get tired of the pirate crap do you?
• AHA!, New Bedford's monthly jollification of one more month in New Bedford, went off last night, and its theme was "KIDS RULE." As the World's Youngest Curmudgeon™, I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't say, "NO THEY DON'T."
• But, I do understand that it's never too early to hoodwink a demographic into thinking that merchants are freely handing them the reins for a limited time in order to whisk them into an all-consuming frenzy of uh, consuming. Something.
• On the other hand -- suggested by a comment in this article -- if so-called "working age" people took part in anything in New Bedford, maybe somebody will sponsor a "CHEAPASS XENOPHOBIC DOPES RULE" night.
• I did not, however, notice any presence of the 2008 SouthCoast Youth of the Year, who shared some sick rhymes with the readers of the Standard-Times, yo. Won't be postin' his "letter" here, cuz the wack commenters will only jeer, so click the link to check the think of the SouthCoast Yooth o' tha YEAR!
• But I couldn't find the gangsta term for "cliché" anywhere.
• I don't know if anybody remembers that WHTB 1400-AM signed on the air twenty years ago this month. Ask Marc Lemay about turning off the transmitter as WALE and then turning on as WHTB. New owners, new era in broadcasting for Fall River. "Your Hometown Radio," they called it.
• Of course, 1400's an ethnic ghetto now, but back then, your Home Town's Best ('HTB getit?)radio was a force to be reckoned with on the SouthCoast. Even though nothing had been christened "SouthCoast" yet.
• Fall River was a sleepy but not slumbering little hamlet, a quiet city with a few distractions and several inflated egos who thought that they ran everything, and mostly everyone quietly assented, because it was easier to just let the delusional stomp about than point out their shortcomings. That was a mistake.
• On the verge of becoming a city that might aspire to have a verge. A few restaurants started to open or to find that their lunch crowds were becoming actual regulars, which is good for a city that really feels like a small town. Because everyone's related to someone either by birth, marriage, or team affiliation.
• Funny that I most remember storming out of the Rock Street studios one fine day, taking a right after the big Ruskinian gothic Central Congregational Church and seeing a pal from grammar school (GRAMMAR SCHOOL!) working on the counter of what would eventually become Swede's Cafe.
• Dave and Karin, and (if I thought really hard for a long while over a cup full of their strong black coffee and a bearclaw) I wish that I could remember everyone else's name. I was there every day for a while, twenty years ago, and now that's closed. Sure, John Brandt (who owns everything else around there) says "temporarily," and he might open it up as something else.
• But it was gone a long time ago.

I Hate The Beach

I loathe the advertising/public relations/marketing/feces & graffiti sodality and I further despise how often I complain about it. Throughout The Beach, as we saw just recently, it's a writhing pit of salacious serpents bent on eating itself in an ouroboros orgy.
Give thanks that none of the snotty-nosed "new wizards" of the industry around the SouthCoast even know what any of that means.
As everyone knows, a bad environment is the result of poor stewardship. The "stewards" of the SouthCoast have so neglected their own business that there is nothing to suggest to its next generation of attendants. This next generation -- with its inability to operate spellcheck or grasp the subtler distinctions of "plural" or "possessive" with respect to apostrophes -- should be busing tables. So that someone with some sense of institutional integrity and responsible authority will clap them sharply on the back of the head when they deposit plates upside down or put the fork on the right because they "think it would be cute" or it's the way that they "want to do it."
Without any guidance, benevolent or otherwise, they will go on, oblivious to standards and increasingly resentful of criticism.
Not that I blame them that their mentors suck.
As a youth last century I was advised, by a well-known figure in South Eastern Massachusetts marketing, "I wanted to illustrate children's books. I had to find out all this (gesturing at wooden filing cabinet and small Rolodex) by myself. You're smart. You'll figure it out. (patronizing pat on shoulder directing me toward door)"
That was the extent of mentoring I received and luckily I came to no good in the end. I can't imagine not wanting to pass along helpful advice. It's why I write in this Journal. So that perhaps, when it all collapses around us, we can look upon this electronic record and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.
One person I'll always laugh at is a certain "marketingadvertisinggraphicdesign and publicrelations consultant." Who is not, nor ever has been, a nurturing guardian of the SouthCoast's imaging scene. When I was unemployed a "freelance copywriter" -- who thought very highly of his own copywriting skills and portfolio -- the Sovereign Overseer (who had eaten all other contenders, I guess) informed me that "any monkey can write copy."
But it takes a very special kind of monkey to edit themselves, I should have added at the time.
I have since -- cleverly and very lucratively -- been employed in situations where I was asked to cull a few lively or pithy quotations from a speech delivered by a President or CEO and create a concise letter to send to stockholders or absent (*sigh*) board members. I was assured that this was a common practice in the public relations realm, and I enjoyed the opportunity to share the company's leaders' wisdom while helping him (or her) seem just a little more wise.
But such onerous conventions are not the concern of they who decide to e-mail all ten paragraphs of AT THE HELM The Strategic Vision for the Future of the ODHS/NBWM, adapted from a speech given by President James Russell at the Annual Meeting held on May 29, 2009.
As delivered live by the author to its intended audience, I'm sure that it's a charming and pragmatic portrayal of the currently well-matched museum's fiscal and fiduciary state. Oddly though, the full text is unavailable on the museum's website, which is overseen by the same outfit that sent said big-e-mail. I dunno. I maybe would have summarized it a tad, linking to it directly from a teaser e-mail, thereby ensuring piqued interest and at least a few more site visitors. And why not put some text-heavy current leadership position statements on your own website? Unless the lack of linkage depicts a subconscious discomfort with the cluttered and clunky layout of the museum's website. I'm pretty sure that there's some way to communicate its message with much less hand-wringing:

I would like to talk with you about a new direction for the Museum in the coming years. I do not want to dwell on the hard economic impact of the past nine months other than to make the occasional reference. However it should be noted that our relatively strong financial position at year-end is a clear demonstration of how blest we are to have a remarkable board, staff, and membership who are devoted to this museum's mission and cherish its place in our community. From board and committee level guidance and policy setting, to the tactical and hands-on support of docents, the heart of this institution is stronger than ever...(and this goes on for nine more paragraphs. Actually, it's a nice brief speech, but is it necessary to e-mail this to me in toto? They do, however, handle their Twitter and Facebook accounts inhouse very very well. Shout out to Bob!)

Here's my Tweet attempt:

Looking good during bad times. Great board, great staff, great mission, fundraising good. In the black. Crisp boat metaphors, not belabored.

140 characters.

Advertising the Impocalypse

Mayhaps you've seen their overlong and ineptly-edited ads in which some fabulously airbrushed walking eating disorder is lounging in an unlikely exotic spot munching away at a 3800-calorie ground cattle-herd sliding around some gooey free gluten sauce. We're asked to believe that the model either doesn't know or doesn't care that she's being mistreated in any way. The company wants to give -- their words -- "hot women $1,000 and a trip to Vegas." According to a very official beg that everybody's been incredulously linking to, all you do is film yourself looking "hot" while eating a burger. This is what they're calling the ad campaign: This is what used to be known in the desperate and crowded advertising world as "the sex sell."
Another term sometimes used is "sleaze." But when you toss in a frankly grotesque image -- languorous closeups of ingestion -- you really hit the jackpot. The more sensitive adwatchers and other people who are offended by this concept are slapping this story on their "blogs" and exposing people who would never have heard of it. (Which is what the Intertubes are here for, come to think of it.)
Not only are the regular customers of Carl's Jr (or whatever) grateful and encouraged by the near-nudidity provided for free by their favorite sloptrough, but other people (like those of us in the Northeast who've never heard of the enterprise) are being bombarded with advertising for it, apparently to urge us to knock the doors of those community-minded "developers" who periodically ask, "Hey, what chain restaurant that we don't already have adding to the local area's type-2 diabetes and heart disease would you like me to squeeze into a cinderblock building on Route Six next?"
I don't frequent fast-food "restaurants." I haven't been to a McDonald's in six or seven years. Haven't been to Taco Bell since the hospital stay. Even the plethora of enthusiastic reviews of the local Five Guys burgers leaves me uninterested. Out of desperation one night, I was forced into a Wendy's -- since I was assured that it was the healthiest of the fastfood sties -- and regret that decision to this day. I don't like chains anyway, and am lucky to have my choice of any number of excellent limited production food facilities in my immmediate environs. Some owned and run by people that I know and with whom I might have gone to school. I also don't like bussing my own table. Look at it the way that Nicols Fox does, or at least how she put it in this essay for the NYTimes. She says, among other fine things:

Ordinary people, it seemed, could operate gas pumps without causing explosions.They could check their own oil. They could fill their tires. They could then be persuaded to complete their purchases with the swipe of a card and be quickly out of the way with no help from any human being at all. And some of them even seemed to prefer to do the work themselves -- or, curiously in a country so adamantly anti-Socialist, people began to take pride in doing it,and to look down upon those who still wanted to be served.

And now you can even advertise to yourself by making your own exhibitionistic display of food fetishry that can be ogled and critiqued. The company wins anyway, since you'll probably have to buy a few of their burgers for the rehearsing, set-up, and filming. I wonder, though, if the company (created, incidentally, by an opponent of gays in the teaching profession) will blame you if revenues go down for the quarter when you're gracing the the Mixed Martial Arts Extravaganza :20 and :40 breaks.
Then you'll be hated and blacklisted and everybody will talk about you and you'll get your own reality teevee show. Success!