Memo #4
3/5/03

Fellow Human Shields,

Absolutely nothing happened last week so I didn't write. I'll try to make this one twice as long to make up for it, and send it in the middle of the week just to confuse you.

Chairs! We've got chairs in our office! Now there's someplace to sit! A bit more stuff and, well, who knows what may happen. 

The primary hang-up right now is getting me and Truusje situated near the office. Many day-trips from the desert to the city have yielded nothing affordable and Dareworthy. If I weren't a single dad it would be a hell of a lot easier, so I'm accepting bids on one male 6'2" belligerent 15-year-old high school student and one male wise-ass 9-year-old elementary school student so I can move into a single. I hate to break up a pair but any offer will be considered.

Yeah, I know, I'm chomping at the bit too because there's NEWS happening. What if Bush starts this war without us? That would be fucked. Won't you FAX your congressman and ask them to please postpone the forthcoming invasion until we're in print? 

Okay, here's my latest idea. Let's pretend I've pulled all of you into my office and said something like... 

The calendar is two facing pages: "L.A. Underground" on the left, "L.A. Overground" on the right. Absolutely everything fits into those two categories. 

"L.A Underground" is counter-cultural and totally Tabloidsville. Brazen, splashy, gossipy, and ridiculous. Lots of pictures and LOTS of NAMES in BOLD. Trumpets the experimental and outrageous. Clubs and galleries and rock 'n' roll. Thinks Beethoven is a dog.

"L.A. Overground" is cultural and totally conservative. Stuffy, stuck-up, old-fashioned, formatted like the New York Review of Books or a Time Magazine that's been sitting in a dentist's office for a few decades. Art museums and ballet and classical music. Doesn't understand what all the fuss is about Springsteen.

Both sides focus equally on what the reader missed last week and what's coming up next week, so they function as a calendar. Look what you missed by not getting off your ass and doing something, oh, and by the way, here's something to do NOW. Also stuff that never really happened, or that we imagine happening. Two facing pages with completely different attitudes covering the exact same territory, one loving something, the other hating it, and vice versa. A fictitious battle between culture and sub-culture. 

Looseleaf and Baily and Rosenfeld and Mankin and Feeny and Schreiber and Grobel and Campbell spring to mind, with Kushner as drill sergeant, but maybe we want to split the duties between two fictional characters named Zelda and Moe. 

So by now we'd be discussing this and you'd all have your own ideas of how it could work, I can tell it's already improved beyond my pale concept, and I probably shouldn't have brought it up before an actual editorial conference but hey, I've got to fill these memos with something.

Like I'm thinking of using "The Checkout-Chick" who reviews supermarket food online.

Headlines I've been considering...

The History of Political Cartoons

AOL and Yahoo! - The Kings of Internet Pornography

Off Grid (Your Guide to Surviving the Great Whatever)

These are the Souls that Try Men's Ties

9/11 - Fact or Fiction?

Why They Hate Us 

Why I Hate Us 

Why I Like Them Even Though They Hate Me

Forget Iraq, Let's Invade Mexico and Kill the Chinese Massing on our Border
 

Did I point out that http://www.whitehouse.org has given us permission to use their graphics? Thunderous applause. They do those incredible Homeland Security posters that are now going to end up on our covers.

Stuff like this...

and this

Check out their site. It's amazing.

Okay, who wants to be our mid-east correspondent, "Warren Iraq?"

And think about this.

Satan's running for president in 2004. I want complete campaign coverage. In depth journalism covering every aspect of the campaign. We visit his hometown to examine his roots. We cover conditions in hell to see how he might rule the U.S. 

Hell turns out to be pretty much just like the United States.

We send Ann Coulter to interview Satan. It goes nicely until Satan roasts her over an open spit and eats her. Actually, not all of her. He hickory smokes her left buttock and sends it to the office with homemade honey mustard. 

"I didn't realize I was eating Ann Coulter," said San Fernando Valley Weekly columnist Paul Krassner. "Seemed more like chicken."

Then we send Robert Downey Jr. to interview Satan. His first question is "Why the hell did you send those cops to my hotel room?" Satan denies he had anything to do with it.

Satan's campaign page is already up at http://www.disinfotainmenttoday.com/hell/satan4pres.htm. Check it out. Give me more or there will be no ointment for the trident burns on your buttocks.

Toodles.

We are an experiment in the practice of journalism. We're not going to be different just to be different, we're going to be different because everything else is exactly the same.

MD

"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."
- Lotus Weinstock -

"Nothing is written."
- Lawrence of Arabia -