I still like these even if Joe thinks they are passé. However, my life is a bit more boring than Joe's.
1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
Probably coming to terms with the fact that I'm more Buddhist than I am anything else in terms of religions. I've never been hellbent (pardon the expression) on religions and I seriously explored Judaism this year, but Buddhist is what I've always been, even when I didn't know it, or thought I had no religious slant. But I'm not in your face about it. It just is.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I've kind of given up for the most part. It's too hard for me to adhere to one single day to make a resolution. I need to ease into it. I did get a picture hung today which has sort of been a resolution off and on for 20+ years.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not that I know of.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Lost a Facebook friend in April. And I'm kind of glad we had never met because it's so much easier to deal with when you remove that personal dimension.
5. What places did you visit?
Like travel? I didn't leave town unless you count Round Rock for an IKEA trip.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
I would like to have a job for the entire year.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
(a) Election Day because I never get what I want and this time I got a bonanza on so many different levels.
(b) The day after Election Day, while I was enjoying my blissful state, I got a job offer which I accepted.
8. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?
Probably getting about 25 books read while I was unemployed. I got reconnected with Buddhism and Eastern philosophy which helped eradicate a lost of depression I routinely experience.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't stop smoking. I gave it the best run for the money ever, and for a few days I was down to 3 cigs a day. Then 3-5. This is the hardest thing to kick.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
None at all.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Really happy I decided to get a Nikon D7000 camera. That was a great gift to myself.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have to quote Joe verbatim on this one: Chief Justice John Roberts. I may never agree with another decision
he makes in my entire life, but by casting the swing vote to uphold
Obamacare he quite literally changed tens of millions of American lives
for the better. Good on him.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The leader of the NRA whose name I shall not speak. And pretty much anyone and everyone on the far right during the election year.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Beverages.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I was really excited about reading books! And when my stereo amplifier when on the fritz I had to hook up my mid-80s tube amp in the interim and was blown the hell away by how great vinyl records sounded. And Elizabeth Warren beating Scott Brown. And the marijuana vote in Colorado and Washington. Buying a box set of every Blur LP.
16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
This is always a tough one because music is pretty timeless for me. And just because a song reminds me of 2012 doesn't necessarily mean I like the song. But Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" caught my attention during the start of the year when I was being laid off AND feeling like shit. So definitely that one.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder?
Happier. Definitely.
b) thinner or fatter?
About the same. Thin with a beer gut that needs to go away.
c) richer or poorer?
Richer.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
For some reason I can only think of things I wish I'd done less of. Sorry!
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Oh fuck. I didn't see this coming. Just go back to #9.
20. How did you spend Christmas this year?
Lunch with my neighbors and their family. It was lovely. Then an evening at home.
21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
With more music.
22. How was work?
Considering I didn't work between 13th January and 8th November it was great! But it's been even better now that I've started back again. I'm getting my mojo back again.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Just whatever. Home improvement shows and cooking shows. (I am going to miss No Reservations.)
24. What did you do for your birthday in 2012?
Nothing much. Read a book. Probably went out for lunch.
25. What was the best book you read?
Mercy. I can't begin to tell you. I enjoyed the hell out of Alan Watts. And a D.T. Suzuki book called "Zen and Japanese Culture."
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Blur and Gorillaz. I totally fell in love with Gorillaz and then Damon Albarn and then started working my way back thru the Blur discography. Got their box set on vinyl and have had a blast with it. It takes me so many different directions and levels. So many great influences that sometimes come through the music in abundance. I've had whiplash on a number of occasions.
27. What did you want and get?
Lots of things. If I want something I usually find a way to get it. I guess the biggie was the camera.
28. What did you want and not get?
Toyed with the idea of a turntable upgrade and a newer model tube amp but that can wait. There ain't nothing wrong with what I've got.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Didn't see one that was released this year. Not one.
30. Did you make some new friends this year?
Surprisingly enough, yes. Mika and Jen who are living next door to us, renting rooms from our neighbors. We had lunch with them today!
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being 27 again.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Cargo shorts with hiking boots.
33. What kept you sane?
Walking when it was warm. Playing music when it wasn't, and sometimes playing music when it was.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I can't really disagree with Joe on this one either, so I quote: Guns. I could say the election or the bullshit around the fiscal
cliff, but no, guns. With each gun massacre it seems the fuckhead gun
apologists double down. People come out of the woodwork to explain how
guns aren't the problem, that gun control can't work, that guns have
nothing to do with gun massacres. FUCK guns.
Yeah, that's about it. I was so depressed about Sandy Hook I damn nearly deleted by Facebook page, and I felt the need to unfriend a couple of people just so I wouldn't see their incessant pro-gun posts.
35. What political issue stirred you the least?
Again Joe nailed this one: Benghazi. I wish a permanent case of herpes on each and every
Republican liar who tried to turn this unfortunate event into a
political scandal. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
Disgusting people.
36. Best sports moment?
Seeing the Razorbacks fire their good coach because of some infidelity and then go on to have a horrendous losing season, getting beaten by some embarrassing teams. There was a lesson to be learned here.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
I don't think I met any new people besides Mika and Jen. See #30. I don't get out much.
38. Burn any bridges?
I try not to. Some bridges do need to be burned though.
39. Best new restaurant you went to?
Cafe Malta for Sheldon's birthday. We just don't go to places like this often. It wasn't fancy. In fact it was rustic in a European way, and tucked inside a strip mall in south Austin. But I was so taken with the place that I ordered an appetizer AND a dessert, AND coffee. And it was divine.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
Easy. Don't allow work to rule your life. It's OK to do a good job and not allow it to consume you or extend into your personal life. There's no reason to feel guilt for that.
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
Rejoice! We're All Gonna Die And Most Of Us Won't Be Young Or Pretty
For the past two years or so I've been undergoing some
morbid grappling with mortality. Often I
am observing a family with children in a restaurant and I will begin to see the
children maturing and becoming adults and eventually old and dying after their
parents have long since passed on. Some
of this could be triggered by my own identification with the children. I have vivid memories of my parents taking me
to great restaurants -- particularly in New Orleans, and I wonder if anyone
then was observing me with the same realization that someday I'd be a man in my
fifties rather than a child of five.
Thirty years ago on December 30th my father ceased to be. It is really difficult to imagine
30 years passing so quickly given that it simply ticked away moment by moment
in a steady clip as time always does consistently and without fail. I think of everything I have done and
experienced in that time and it is mind-boggling to me. It is truly a lifetime ago. Sometimes I look at life as being comprised
of several lifetimes.
There's the lifetime as a baby and a toddler. I was here and alive but there's nothing much about it I remember. There was no concern for anything nor was there a concept of time ticking away. Then as memories started to gel into strings of events another lifetime began. From about 4 or 5 I became more aware of my environment, learning the meaning of more words, learning how not to choke on hard candy, realizing how much I really disliked church, always looking forward to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and a tooth falling out so I would be visited by the tooth fairy.
I don't remember my first day of kindergarten nor would my developing mind have understood the point of it. I don't recall any sense of anxiety about the new experience or being separated from my parents for a few hours a day. It was an important first step in learning how to behave and in the development of social skills (and look how THAT turned out!) I suppose. It was mostly just fun although I have absolutely no recollection of any other children there on a personal friendship level. It's almost as if they were abstractions. I was more fascinated by the mentally-challenged woman who was charged with placing out cookies for us to eat. I remember my towel I would roll out on the floor when it was quiet time and we were to stretch out and shut the fuck up for a few minutes. I think I enjoyed that part. Early developmental chillaxing.
The lifetime of being schooled was definitely a kicker. It is hard for me to fathom how 11 years from first grade to being a high school senior could seem to take so long to pass. Initially I wasn't even looking ahead to high school graduation. That might as well have been a century in the future. Starting out it was just one year at a time. Getting on the school bus in the morning, writing out ABCs and learning to count and whatever the hell else we did in first grade (for me it was drawing pictures of body parts), and then back on the school bus to come home. Get up the next morning and repeat.
By the time I was in third or fourth grade the reality was starting to settle in that this was going to be one slow slog getting finished with it. I can imagine having asked my mother when will I no longer have to go to school. If she had said after the 12th grade I at least had learned to count the different between 4th and 12th and it seemed like one hell of a duration. The older I got the longer it seemed.
Finally 9th grade rolled around and this was the home stretch: four to go. How in the hell four years could seem to pass so slowly is beyond my comprehension. (Contrast this with the last four which seem to have flown by in an instant.) High school was like a lifetime within a lifetime.
There's the lifetime as a baby and a toddler. I was here and alive but there's nothing much about it I remember. There was no concern for anything nor was there a concept of time ticking away. Then as memories started to gel into strings of events another lifetime began. From about 4 or 5 I became more aware of my environment, learning the meaning of more words, learning how not to choke on hard candy, realizing how much I really disliked church, always looking forward to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and a tooth falling out so I would be visited by the tooth fairy.
I don't remember my first day of kindergarten nor would my developing mind have understood the point of it. I don't recall any sense of anxiety about the new experience or being separated from my parents for a few hours a day. It was an important first step in learning how to behave and in the development of social skills (and look how THAT turned out!) I suppose. It was mostly just fun although I have absolutely no recollection of any other children there on a personal friendship level. It's almost as if they were abstractions. I was more fascinated by the mentally-challenged woman who was charged with placing out cookies for us to eat. I remember my towel I would roll out on the floor when it was quiet time and we were to stretch out and shut the fuck up for a few minutes. I think I enjoyed that part. Early developmental chillaxing.
The lifetime of being schooled was definitely a kicker. It is hard for me to fathom how 11 years from first grade to being a high school senior could seem to take so long to pass. Initially I wasn't even looking ahead to high school graduation. That might as well have been a century in the future. Starting out it was just one year at a time. Getting on the school bus in the morning, writing out ABCs and learning to count and whatever the hell else we did in first grade (for me it was drawing pictures of body parts), and then back on the school bus to come home. Get up the next morning and repeat.
By the time I was in third or fourth grade the reality was starting to settle in that this was going to be one slow slog getting finished with it. I can imagine having asked my mother when will I no longer have to go to school. If she had said after the 12th grade I at least had learned to count the different between 4th and 12th and it seemed like one hell of a duration. The older I got the longer it seemed.
Finally 9th grade rolled around and this was the home stretch: four to go. How in the hell four years could seem to pass so slowly is beyond my comprehension. (Contrast this with the last four which seem to have flown by in an instant.) High school was like a lifetime within a lifetime.
Somewhere in that mix was a realization that I was on the
verge of becoming an adult. Thoughts of
leaving home and starting a new life were forming. Choices of college and fields of study were
contemplated as well as career options.
Packing most of my treasured belongings into a car and heading off to college was probably another lifetime. Four years to be devoted to advanced study seemed as eternal as those four years of high school. But there was a big difference: I was now in control of the situation. I could take those four years and stretch them out to eight if I wanted. And apparently I wanted.
Fields of study were embarked upon and discarded, swapped out for something else, and discarded again. But hey, if you stay at it long enough you'll eventually get a degree in something just by default.
Packing most of my treasured belongings into a car and heading off to college was probably another lifetime. Four years to be devoted to advanced study seemed as eternal as those four years of high school. But there was a big difference: I was now in control of the situation. I could take those four years and stretch them out to eight if I wanted. And apparently I wanted.
Fields of study were embarked upon and discarded, swapped out for something else, and discarded again. But hey, if you stay at it long enough you'll eventually get a degree in something just by default.
I was only 22 years old on December 30, 1982 when I received
the phone call from a nurse at the hospital informing me that I needed to come
to the hospital. It never crossed my
mind to ask why. I knew. This was probably the first major lesson in
life I would learn. When I walked into
the hospital room there was this moment of intense clarity that only one other
living person was in the room. That was
my mother. The pile of flesh on the bed
was nothing but a corpse. There was no
life in it. And I will never forget that
odd vibe in the room. The man who had
been my father was no more. That
lifeless body was not him. I didn't know
where he was but he wasn't there.
It is startling to me to reflect back on that day as if it
happened a month ago and realize just how much time has passed. I had only recently become the owner of a
SONY Betamax video player/recorder. In
order to use it I had to go to a store and buy or rent media. It would never have occurred to me to take a
picture of it to share with friends because that would involve sending off the
film to be developed, and then sending photos through the mail to whomever I
wanted to see it. Yeah.
I was very much aware that the future held great promise and that technology would unfold in marvelous ways. There was already talk about these things called compact discs which would replace vinyl platters and turntables. (And much, much later there would be talk of replacing compact discs with vinyl records and turntables, but I digress.)
I was very much aware that the future held great promise and that technology would unfold in marvelous ways. There was already talk about these things called compact discs which would replace vinyl platters and turntables. (And much, much later there would be talk of replacing compact discs with vinyl records and turntables, but I digress.)
The year 2000 was something I pondered a lot ever since I
was a child. It was thrilling to
fantasize about that futuristic world even though I was always aware that I
would turn 40 that year. That fact was
disturbing. It meant I'd be old, and
probably too old to enjoy the marvels of the time.
There was a lot going on with me in the decade of the 80s. Even at 22 I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, what career I would pursue, whether or not I'd ever find love, or how I was going to cope with this persistent homosexuality lurking in my core. The following summer after my father died I packed my bags and moved to London. I never gave a thought to my widowed mother or whether she might need me. I was being called to my next lifetime.
Living alone on another continent with an ocean between me and my past was exactly what I needed. I came to terms with being gay. I scored a lot of music on vinyl and compact disc. I bought my first truly high-fidelity music system at the age of 24 and little did I know I would still find myself thrilled with it at the age of 52.
In 1985 I was back in the US and decided to wrap up this college education thing. I was still clueless about what I would do with my life but I at least wanted to put a degree in my pocket. I didn't care what degree it was. Finally, in the summer of 1987, I took my last college course in British history and made one of the very few A grades I'd ever earned. I was done. In January of 1988 I was handed a diploma. On with life, whatever that meant.
That was just a bit over six years after my father's body had been placed in the cold ground on December 31, 1982. That seemed like a lifetime and the future was as blurry as ever. For the first time in my life there were no guideposts for me, no benchmarks I could reach for, nor were there any job prospects; there was just me and the wide open future. Little did I know that another lifetime was right around the corner in less than two years.
I moved to Denver for a year and then moved to San Diego in 1990 where, within a few short weeks of my arrival, I'd meet a man and fall in love. Then I'd move to Los Angeles in search of some kind of job. That's where I landed in advertising at the ripe old age of thirty.
There was a lot going on with me in the decade of the 80s. Even at 22 I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, what career I would pursue, whether or not I'd ever find love, or how I was going to cope with this persistent homosexuality lurking in my core. The following summer after my father died I packed my bags and moved to London. I never gave a thought to my widowed mother or whether she might need me. I was being called to my next lifetime.
Living alone on another continent with an ocean between me and my past was exactly what I needed. I came to terms with being gay. I scored a lot of music on vinyl and compact disc. I bought my first truly high-fidelity music system at the age of 24 and little did I know I would still find myself thrilled with it at the age of 52.
In 1985 I was back in the US and decided to wrap up this college education thing. I was still clueless about what I would do with my life but I at least wanted to put a degree in my pocket. I didn't care what degree it was. Finally, in the summer of 1987, I took my last college course in British history and made one of the very few A grades I'd ever earned. I was done. In January of 1988 I was handed a diploma. On with life, whatever that meant.
That was just a bit over six years after my father's body had been placed in the cold ground on December 31, 1982. That seemed like a lifetime and the future was as blurry as ever. For the first time in my life there were no guideposts for me, no benchmarks I could reach for, nor were there any job prospects; there was just me and the wide open future. Little did I know that another lifetime was right around the corner in less than two years.
I moved to Denver for a year and then moved to San Diego in 1990 where, within a few short weeks of my arrival, I'd meet a man and fall in love. Then I'd move to Los Angeles in search of some kind of job. That's where I landed in advertising at the ripe old age of thirty.
This is the point where my concept of time took a bizarre
turn. I no longer seemed to have
one. I felt stable with a secure job and
a comfortable relationship. Had I
suddenly "arrived?"
Promotions and pay raises came quickly and I was totally focused on my career. There were some good upheavals along the way: buying our first home together, getting a cat, and then within a year or so, selling the house, packing everything up and moving to Austin after buying another house.
All that dread I had about being 40 in the year 2000 suddenly and abruptly became a reality. It was one thing being 25 and feeling old because I was at the quarter-century mark, and it was quite another being 40. It was horrendous for me. And thrown into that mix was a job layoff which would become a decade of instability. Job number 2 became job number 3, and then numbers 4, 5 and 6. And then it was 2010...another decade. And 50. 50. If there's anything that can make you feel a fondness for 40 it's 50.
Promotions and pay raises came quickly and I was totally focused on my career. There were some good upheavals along the way: buying our first home together, getting a cat, and then within a year or so, selling the house, packing everything up and moving to Austin after buying another house.
All that dread I had about being 40 in the year 2000 suddenly and abruptly became a reality. It was one thing being 25 and feeling old because I was at the quarter-century mark, and it was quite another being 40. It was horrendous for me. And thrown into that mix was a job layoff which would become a decade of instability. Job number 2 became job number 3, and then numbers 4, 5 and 6. And then it was 2010...another decade. And 50. 50. If there's anything that can make you feel a fondness for 40 it's 50.
And then came job #7 which wasn't an event out of my
control. It was a choice I made. I'm not sure whether getting laid off from #7 in January 2012 contributed to my current mentality or whether it's
just another element in a big pot of steaming soup called life. And I suppose that 10 months of unemployment
in 2012 probably did me a world of good on one level. It was the longest break in employment I'd
ever had since entering advertising in 1997.
It gave me time to think about life.
If my father dying when I was 22 and my realization that life can leave in an instant was a watershed moment for me, then my studies of Eastern philosophy this year were another. In all my years of life I had never once stopped to think seriously about the source of life. Where do babies come from? Not from a stork, of course. Men and women have sex and if everything is in good working order, a baby happens. A spark of life came from somewhere...God, the cosmos, maybe life is just a continuous strand and doesn't really spark or emerge suddenly. But what I had never contemplated before is that it comes from the earth. What you eat and drink -- and both of those are pulled from the earth in some capacity -- contribute to forming sperm and eggs, just as they are instrumental in growing your bones, muscles, skin, teeth, and hair. Something that was once alive, maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, went into the formation of sperm and eggs which then formed another life, and all of it pulled from this earth.
And this earth was pulled and formed in a similar manner (and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it was considerably longer than 6,000 years ago) by whatever shit was out there drifting around the universe looking for a purpose. Funny how that happens.
What I find so incredibly frustrating is how I have to stay focused on facts like these to keep from going totally insane about life and death and the crap in between. I am bitterly angry (and somewhat confused) by how my life has evolved. I'm not even sure I've been living between 1997 and now. It just seems like a bunch of shit involving career obsession, what kind of cars to buy, or appliances, gadgets, phones, radios, TVs, pods, pads, computers, wireless mice, sofas, chairs, tables, plants, weather stations, backup drives, cameras, records, CDs, printers, batteries, books, curling stones, shiva lingams, and a fucking shitload of software.
If my father dying when I was 22 and my realization that life can leave in an instant was a watershed moment for me, then my studies of Eastern philosophy this year were another. In all my years of life I had never once stopped to think seriously about the source of life. Where do babies come from? Not from a stork, of course. Men and women have sex and if everything is in good working order, a baby happens. A spark of life came from somewhere...God, the cosmos, maybe life is just a continuous strand and doesn't really spark or emerge suddenly. But what I had never contemplated before is that it comes from the earth. What you eat and drink -- and both of those are pulled from the earth in some capacity -- contribute to forming sperm and eggs, just as they are instrumental in growing your bones, muscles, skin, teeth, and hair. Something that was once alive, maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, went into the formation of sperm and eggs which then formed another life, and all of it pulled from this earth.
And this earth was pulled and formed in a similar manner (and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it was considerably longer than 6,000 years ago) by whatever shit was out there drifting around the universe looking for a purpose. Funny how that happens.
What I find so incredibly frustrating is how I have to stay focused on facts like these to keep from going totally insane about life and death and the crap in between. I am bitterly angry (and somewhat confused) by how my life has evolved. I'm not even sure I've been living between 1997 and now. It just seems like a bunch of shit involving career obsession, what kind of cars to buy, or appliances, gadgets, phones, radios, TVs, pods, pads, computers, wireless mice, sofas, chairs, tables, plants, weather stations, backup drives, cameras, records, CDs, printers, batteries, books, curling stones, shiva lingams, and a fucking shitload of software.
I get frustrated sometimes just looking at people and how
they have aged. It almost seems like
some cruel joke. Sometimes I feel as if
I have awakened from a long coma and I simultaneously marvel at the world and
curse it. Sometimes it's not even a coma feeling. I wake up from a nap and I'm not even sure
who or where I am. And then I hear
Sheldon snoring in the other room and I'm not sure who he is either even though
we have lived together for 20 years. Is
he the same person? Am I?
I see photos of people on Facebook -- people I went to school with, or people I've known since I was in my 20s, and I barely recognize them. Everyone is getting older. And the older we get the more crap will be thrown at us. Older people you've known your entire life suddenly start dying off. Then people your age start dying. Even a few younger people start dying. I don't have a clue how I got here or why this is happening. And that bitter anger serves no purpose either. I might as well bitch about the weather. Same difference.
Sometimes I just want to give up. Sometimes I want to try and recapture two
decades which seem lost in a haze of work and devotion to career. Of course, I can't recapture anything because
it's gone. What's left of it, or what's
to come, depending on how you view it, is here.
This is it. It should be
beautiful and right now I harbor contempt for it.
Somewhere along the way I lost my awe of life. I find myself increasingly disgusted by
it. I'm saddened that we can't stop all
the senseless killing and take a break just long enough to come together and
have a discussion about how magnificent our world could be if we could just
work on our potential.
How, in a life so short, can people be so hung up on
themselves, clinging to outdated beliefs, stockpiling weapons, being hell-bent
against helping out anyone less fortunate, spending lavishly on shit they won't
care about later, or eventually won't be alive to enjoy?
Most people act as if they have no clue how fleeting life is. They are absorbed in power games and greed. Are they really the ones in denial or is it just me who is fucked up?
For 2013 I need to figure some of this out and recapture the missing awe. Because in the time it took me to get a college degree I'll be the same age my father was when he ceased aging. I don't want to be bitter about it, and I sure as hell don't want to be looking back at 52 wishing I was here again. That ain't happening.
I try really hard sometimes to be a good Buddhist and live in the moment and only in the moment. I just can't sustain it for more than...a... moment. It pisses me off knowing that I could lose track of time again and another 25 years will pass and I'll be 77, if I'm so lucky.
Most people act as if they have no clue how fleeting life is. They are absorbed in power games and greed. Are they really the ones in denial or is it just me who is fucked up?
For 2013 I need to figure some of this out and recapture the missing awe. Because in the time it took me to get a college degree I'll be the same age my father was when he ceased aging. I don't want to be bitter about it, and I sure as hell don't want to be looking back at 52 wishing I was here again. That ain't happening.
I try really hard sometimes to be a good Buddhist and live in the moment and only in the moment. I just can't sustain it for more than...a... moment. It pisses me off knowing that I could lose track of time again and another 25 years will pass and I'll be 77, if I'm so lucky.
One of the things that grounds me is knowing that in 50 or 60 short years, everyone reading this will either be a dead and distant memory, or about to start banging on death's door. The latter are the lucky ones who are 20 now and think they are immortal.
Perhaps this is just a mid-life crisis. I wouldn't know for sure because I've never had one. If it is, why can't I be normal about it and just go buy a fucking Porsche?
OK, so who wants a cocktail? Happy New Year!
OK, so who wants a cocktail? Happy New Year!
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Two Zero One Two - Here We Go!
I have been in the television advertising industry for nearly 22 years. I have been a data entry clerk and a VP of Operations. I have supervised a staff of 12-15 at my peak.
Half of my career has been spent in a managerial capacity during which time I spearheaded efforts to streamline agency operations. I know how to find ways to greatly improve efficiency resulting in a more pleasant "user experience." I have been the liaison between IT programmers and other departments in helping develop systems which allow more work to be done, and with greater accuracy, with the same staffing levels, and at the risk of sounding Romneyesque, sometimes with less staffing levels. And yes, I derived pleasure from it.
When I started in this business the amount of paper being used was unbelievable. The business of getting a broadcast-quality tape of an advertisement out to a cable network and on the air, as well as the subsequent tracking of effectiveness and reporting data to the clients, required a mountain of paper.
Back in the early 90s, media buyers (those who negotiate rates and arrange a schedule with national networks and local broadcast affiliates) would write up the schedules on paper forms. In a large agency with 10-15 buyers, these schedules would quickly become stacks of paper.
Buyers or their assistants would fax these orders out and then place the paper in bins. Data entry people would come and gather these stacks, take them back to their workstations and begin inputting the data on their DOS-based computers.
Requests for tapes to be sent would also be written up on forms and given to the traffic department. The traffic people would prepare a request, on paper of course, and fax it to the tape duplication facility.
In my branch of the industry, we were more about selling products immediately (think food dehydrators, miracle knife sets, or inflatable beds) rather than merely providing brand awareness for a client. This involved a need for toll-free phone numbers to appear in the ads which involved a need for large telemarketing facilities to handle the call volume. This meant more paperwork.
Media schedules would be faxed to telemarketers so they could plan their staffing levels based on when they would anticipate an influx of calls. Every morning the telemarketing company would return the favor by faxing over a shitload of call activity from the previous day.
The agency also had a staff to comb through this data and accurately attribute the calls to a specific airing of an ad on a specific station or network. My first job in the industry was to manually input this call center data from faxed pages which had been marked up with a pen by analysts. Media buyers and account managers would then print out stacks of reports in order to analyze the effectiveness of the media and make adjustments to future media as needed. Some even had weekly scheduled meetings to sit around a desk and read through these books together.
The process evolved to a point where the telemarketers would begin sending over data files rather than faxing the data. I worked with the IT department to design an efficient flow which enabled our system to take these data files and match up with our own data to automatically assign clusters to calls to specific ad placements. This was pretty cool in an era when we didn't even have email in our company, and if a fax machine broke down you were well and truly screwed. Imagine 3 or 4 people waiting their turn to fax out a stack. I've seen it and lived it.
[My sincere apologies to all the folks in accounting who have had their own mountains of paperwork. I didn't intentionally leave you out of this; I just think people reading this get the idea by now.]
The availability of email and office software began to flip this world upside down. From 1995 until around 2003 -- mind you, that's just 8 short years -- I witnessed my paper usage decline by at least 98% while efficiency increased by the same rate. In recent years I realized that many times I was still printing documents which really didn't need to be printed at all. It was habit coupled with the comfort of holding something tangible in my hand which would quickly become clutter on my desk. This clutter necessitated making file labels to keep things organized and neat, and insure that I would never see those particularly pieces of paper ever again.
Since 2008 I've made a conscious effort to stop all that. Files can be organized and stored on a hard drive. They can be easily retrieved when needed and I've never seen a brown ring stain from a coffee mug on any of these documents.
In the latter half of my career I have transitioned away from all the operations and management responsibilities to focus on what I love most: media buying and campaign management. It is far more satisfying for me than having to supervise the work of others, performing the dreaded annual reviews, being handed resignation letters because the employee's music career was taking off, having to begin the arduous interview process, or reprimanding an employee for pulling out a knife threatening a pregnant co-worker. Thanks but no thanks!
I get incredible satisfaction from making a few keystrokes and a minute or two later I've placed a $100,000 ad buy on a cable network. No assistant needed. No paper used. (At least not by me; I cannot vouch for what happens on the receiving end.)
I am extremely versatile or I never would have made it as far as I have. My experience is wide and varied. My career has taken me to several agencies with vastly different environments. The smallest had 2 employees when I started; the largest had over 500. Technology has allowed me to leave the cubicle environment, drop the commute, and work from my home which I have done for 11 of the past 12 years.
Thanks to so many similarities between the agencies (let's face it: after 20 years everyone eventually settles in to a similar set of procedures for doing the same work) I've never had trouble adapting to a new job. The longest was about 5 weeks at the aforementioned 500+ employee agency. I absolutely hated it during those initial weeks and then everything started to click. It was the peak of my career in so many ways.
After 2 decades in this industry, I'm pretty good at seeing trends and knowing when the waters are about to get choppy. I saw it in 2007 at the 500-employee agency when a large client (if you had an iPhone, you were signed up with that telecommunications giant!) announced they would be "reviewing" the agency at the end of the year. I expected the worst and had 6 months to prepare myself financially. In the end it was the bloodbath I imagined.
By the summer of 2008 I was fortunate enough to be rehired by an agency where I had worked at the beginning of the decade. Going back there was so easy because I knew the people, the systems, and the procedures. I told myself going in that it would be the last job I'd have before retirement. Well, assuming a steady course of business without any drama. You know what they say about assumptions.
Things began to slow down. I could see the writing on the wall and I knew some kind of instability was on the horizon.
During my career I have obviously known a lot of people. Almost all of my close personal friendships developed with people from my work. So when I started being coaxed to bail out and join a Dallas-based agency, I was reluctant at first. Despite the fact that I knew and had worked with 5 current employees of that agency during the course of my career, a number representing about 25% of the entire staff, it still was a difficult decision to make. Another job change, particularly one initiated by me, was not my preference.
However, the warning signs at my agency continued to grow and my workload had diminished significantly. After several phone conversations over two months with the Dallas-based agency, I finally made the decision to take the leap and I started there on March 28, 2011.
It felt right, and I thought it was a pretty cool testament to my reputation that I was hired without ever having an in-person interview thanks in no small part to the word-of-mouth recommendations from other employees there who had personal knowledge of my work experience and ethics. I still haven't set a foot in the Dallas office.
After my first week, I had already been handed a number of projects, mainly building media proposals for perspective clients, in addition to my media buying responsibilities. Frankly, I was startled by the volume of work being throw my way. Suddenly I was feeling utilized and needed again, and I was being stretched professionally in ways I never thought possible. But I thrive on that and enjoy developing efficiency procedures for myself which enable me to turn projects around more quickly and hand them off upon completion.
It was not an easy transition though. Six weeks passed and my personal adjustments to this agency were still a work in progress. I had surpassed the previous record five weeks of love-hate squirming before the waters calmed. By the time 3 months had passed, I was seriously wondering if I hadn't made a huge mistake in leaving the prior agency. Maybe job insecurity was something I could have lived with in exchange for having clear workplace communication and logical, familiar procedures.
Shortly thereafter, Hurricane Reality hit the shoreline at the ex-agency and 16 people lost their jobs. My instinct was still intact apparently. Any fantasy I'd harbored of returning, or kicking myself for leaving in the first place, quickly evaporated. To be fair and honest, there is no such thing as the perfect job environment. When I would sit down and imagine everything I didn't like about the ex-agency, it suddenly made the current agency look pretty good. (Big perk: no electronic time sheets to fill out.)
I still struggled for months. At the end of August I had received a job offer with a more generous salary and compensation package, and I agonized over that decision for days before rejecting it. Despite the passing of 5 months and still feeling a sense of being blindfolded while working, I didn't feel right in giving up and moving on again to the perception of another greener pasture. This situation would either improve or I would figure out a way to adapt.
It seems ludicrous that I was even having this adjustment dilemma. I have always thrived best in a smaller agency environment. Being one of two media buyers in my department makes things pretty simple. Business was heavy and brisk. New clients were coming on board. What more could you ask for?
The volume of work was such that we needed a third buyer. It wasn't essential, in my opinion, but helpful. In the event that one of us was out, the entire burden fell on one person. It wasn't impossible but it was a load for sure.
For me, the idea of adding this 3rd buyer was equally important in that it would force the opening of communication a bit more in addition to spreading out the workload. After all, if two of us are raising the same issues, that has to get someone's attention!
Barely a week or two had passed before I started to see warning signs flying about like arrows on fire.
Communication did not improve. Basic standard operating procedures did not suddenly materialize. Questions and suggestions continued to vaporize into the electronic ether. My workload and responsibilities started to disappear. The almost daily calls with requests for media proposals just abruptly stopped. It wasn't because things had slowed down so much. The work simply shifted to the new buyer. For all my years of experience and highly developed intuition, I didn't need a shitload of perception to notice I was suddenly beingphased out passed over.
The rationale for adding a 3rd buyer was supposedly to lighten the load from the two of us doing the work. Another of those "arrows on fire" was when I realized the 60/40 workload split between the two of us evolved into more of a 60/30/10 split after the new addition. Gee, thanks! I no longer had an excuse for waiting until 5:30 to scoop cat shit out of the litter box.
It was quite clear that my issues and concerns were mine and mine alone. I could either drive myself crazy with the notion that maybe someday this agency would perform at the basic operational level as every other agency, providing clear directives, and create a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, or I could adapt and just learn to work within the framework of what was given.
As 2012 neared and finally rolled around, I made a conscious effort to stop feeling a sense of personal failure whenever I was given directive on a Friday to get something on-air or worse, off-air, the following Monday. Under such circumstances you do the best you can do and some factors are out of your control. But I was getting there. I had accepted the fact that suggestions at improving communication and streamlining processes were not likely to be entertained, that even basic minimal operational enhancements would be an uphill struggle, even if they made perfect sense in my mind. The lights would remain off and I could adapt to working in the dark, or not. So, darkness it was.
Earlier this week we finally got the long-awaited server upgrade. I was happy with any flicker of light at the end of any long tunnel. On Thursday I worked exclusively from my home PC while connected to their server -- checking email, managing my Excel documents, and placing media buys. I no longer needed the company-supplied PC to comfortably do my work efficiently.
I got all my work documents transferred from that PC to a public folder on the server and by Friday I never even needed to turn on the company-supplied PC. It was a rare breath of fresh air, a sense of moving forward into a new year with a newer way to work. Cleaner. Less clutter on my desk. I was even wondering whether I should box up the company PC and send it back or hang on to it as a backup just in case anything happened to my PC down the road.
I have boxed it up, along with the printer they supplied which I never have needed to use thanks to being 100% paperless in my work. What a contrast to the old days when I'd go through a friggin' case of paper every few months! This equipment sits in my kitchen ready to be carted off to Fed-Ex on Monday.
I marvel at the sleek and minimalist appearance of my workspace now. Emphasis on "space" rather than "work" because on Friday the 13th at around 5:05 in the afternoon, I was dismissed from my job.
At that moment, my access to the long-awaited awesome new server was permanently disabled. But hey, it was rockin' my world for a day!
The only reasons cited in my termination were "bad fit" and a "cultural" differences. Oh, the irony.
I can only hope when they sent out the email announcing my departure they utilized the industry-standard closing line of "we wish him well in his future endeavors."
Questions having immediate answers:
Do I need to toggle my monitor back and forth between work and personal PCs? No.
Should I de-clutter and send back the company equipment I don't need? Yes.
Do I need to use a personal day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday? No.
Do I need to worry if my lunch breaks run longer than an hour? No.
Should I alert someone in the office if I'm running late? No.
Do I need to scan my internet bill as a PDF and email to anyone for reimbursement? No.
Should I fret over dysfunctionality? Give that a rest.
Will I need to visit the Dallas office? Not in the foreseeable future.
Do I have any excuse for not resuming my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons? No.
When will I be able to take some extended vacation time? Now would be ideal.
Half of my career has been spent in a managerial capacity during which time I spearheaded efforts to streamline agency operations. I know how to find ways to greatly improve efficiency resulting in a more pleasant "user experience." I have been the liaison between IT programmers and other departments in helping develop systems which allow more work to be done, and with greater accuracy, with the same staffing levels, and at the risk of sounding Romneyesque, sometimes with less staffing levels. And yes, I derived pleasure from it.
When I started in this business the amount of paper being used was unbelievable. The business of getting a broadcast-quality tape of an advertisement out to a cable network and on the air, as well as the subsequent tracking of effectiveness and reporting data to the clients, required a mountain of paper.
Back in the early 90s, media buyers (those who negotiate rates and arrange a schedule with national networks and local broadcast affiliates) would write up the schedules on paper forms. In a large agency with 10-15 buyers, these schedules would quickly become stacks of paper.
Buyers or their assistants would fax these orders out and then place the paper in bins. Data entry people would come and gather these stacks, take them back to their workstations and begin inputting the data on their DOS-based computers.
Requests for tapes to be sent would also be written up on forms and given to the traffic department. The traffic people would prepare a request, on paper of course, and fax it to the tape duplication facility.
In my branch of the industry, we were more about selling products immediately (think food dehydrators, miracle knife sets, or inflatable beds) rather than merely providing brand awareness for a client. This involved a need for toll-free phone numbers to appear in the ads which involved a need for large telemarketing facilities to handle the call volume. This meant more paperwork.
Media schedules would be faxed to telemarketers so they could plan their staffing levels based on when they would anticipate an influx of calls. Every morning the telemarketing company would return the favor by faxing over a shitload of call activity from the previous day.
The agency also had a staff to comb through this data and accurately attribute the calls to a specific airing of an ad on a specific station or network. My first job in the industry was to manually input this call center data from faxed pages which had been marked up with a pen by analysts. Media buyers and account managers would then print out stacks of reports in order to analyze the effectiveness of the media and make adjustments to future media as needed. Some even had weekly scheduled meetings to sit around a desk and read through these books together.
The process evolved to a point where the telemarketers would begin sending over data files rather than faxing the data. I worked with the IT department to design an efficient flow which enabled our system to take these data files and match up with our own data to automatically assign clusters to calls to specific ad placements. This was pretty cool in an era when we didn't even have email in our company, and if a fax machine broke down you were well and truly screwed. Imagine 3 or 4 people waiting their turn to fax out a stack. I've seen it and lived it.
[My sincere apologies to all the folks in accounting who have had their own mountains of paperwork. I didn't intentionally leave you out of this; I just think people reading this get the idea by now.]
The availability of email and office software began to flip this world upside down. From 1995 until around 2003 -- mind you, that's just 8 short years -- I witnessed my paper usage decline by at least 98% while efficiency increased by the same rate. In recent years I realized that many times I was still printing documents which really didn't need to be printed at all. It was habit coupled with the comfort of holding something tangible in my hand which would quickly become clutter on my desk. This clutter necessitated making file labels to keep things organized and neat, and insure that I would never see those particularly pieces of paper ever again.
Since 2008 I've made a conscious effort to stop all that. Files can be organized and stored on a hard drive. They can be easily retrieved when needed and I've never seen a brown ring stain from a coffee mug on any of these documents.
In the latter half of my career I have transitioned away from all the operations and management responsibilities to focus on what I love most: media buying and campaign management. It is far more satisfying for me than having to supervise the work of others, performing the dreaded annual reviews, being handed resignation letters because the employee's music career was taking off, having to begin the arduous interview process, or reprimanding an employee for pulling out a knife threatening a pregnant co-worker. Thanks but no thanks!
I get incredible satisfaction from making a few keystrokes and a minute or two later I've placed a $100,000 ad buy on a cable network. No assistant needed. No paper used. (At least not by me; I cannot vouch for what happens on the receiving end.)
I am extremely versatile or I never would have made it as far as I have. My experience is wide and varied. My career has taken me to several agencies with vastly different environments. The smallest had 2 employees when I started; the largest had over 500. Technology has allowed me to leave the cubicle environment, drop the commute, and work from my home which I have done for 11 of the past 12 years.
Thanks to so many similarities between the agencies (let's face it: after 20 years everyone eventually settles in to a similar set of procedures for doing the same work) I've never had trouble adapting to a new job. The longest was about 5 weeks at the aforementioned 500+ employee agency. I absolutely hated it during those initial weeks and then everything started to click. It was the peak of my career in so many ways.
After 2 decades in this industry, I'm pretty good at seeing trends and knowing when the waters are about to get choppy. I saw it in 2007 at the 500-employee agency when a large client (if you had an iPhone, you were signed up with that telecommunications giant!) announced they would be "reviewing" the agency at the end of the year. I expected the worst and had 6 months to prepare myself financially. In the end it was the bloodbath I imagined.
By the summer of 2008 I was fortunate enough to be rehired by an agency where I had worked at the beginning of the decade. Going back there was so easy because I knew the people, the systems, and the procedures. I told myself going in that it would be the last job I'd have before retirement. Well, assuming a steady course of business without any drama. You know what they say about assumptions.
Things began to slow down. I could see the writing on the wall and I knew some kind of instability was on the horizon.
During my career I have obviously known a lot of people. Almost all of my close personal friendships developed with people from my work. So when I started being coaxed to bail out and join a Dallas-based agency, I was reluctant at first. Despite the fact that I knew and had worked with 5 current employees of that agency during the course of my career, a number representing about 25% of the entire staff, it still was a difficult decision to make. Another job change, particularly one initiated by me, was not my preference.
However, the warning signs at my agency continued to grow and my workload had diminished significantly. After several phone conversations over two months with the Dallas-based agency, I finally made the decision to take the leap and I started there on March 28, 2011.
It felt right, and I thought it was a pretty cool testament to my reputation that I was hired without ever having an in-person interview thanks in no small part to the word-of-mouth recommendations from other employees there who had personal knowledge of my work experience and ethics. I still haven't set a foot in the Dallas office.
After my first week, I had already been handed a number of projects, mainly building media proposals for perspective clients, in addition to my media buying responsibilities. Frankly, I was startled by the volume of work being throw my way. Suddenly I was feeling utilized and needed again, and I was being stretched professionally in ways I never thought possible. But I thrive on that and enjoy developing efficiency procedures for myself which enable me to turn projects around more quickly and hand them off upon completion.
It was not an easy transition though. Six weeks passed and my personal adjustments to this agency were still a work in progress. I had surpassed the previous record five weeks of love-hate squirming before the waters calmed. By the time 3 months had passed, I was seriously wondering if I hadn't made a huge mistake in leaving the prior agency. Maybe job insecurity was something I could have lived with in exchange for having clear workplace communication and logical, familiar procedures.
Shortly thereafter, Hurricane Reality hit the shoreline at the ex-agency and 16 people lost their jobs. My instinct was still intact apparently. Any fantasy I'd harbored of returning, or kicking myself for leaving in the first place, quickly evaporated. To be fair and honest, there is no such thing as the perfect job environment. When I would sit down and imagine everything I didn't like about the ex-agency, it suddenly made the current agency look pretty good. (Big perk: no electronic time sheets to fill out.)
I still struggled for months. At the end of August I had received a job offer with a more generous salary and compensation package, and I agonized over that decision for days before rejecting it. Despite the passing of 5 months and still feeling a sense of being blindfolded while working, I didn't feel right in giving up and moving on again to the perception of another greener pasture. This situation would either improve or I would figure out a way to adapt.
It seems ludicrous that I was even having this adjustment dilemma. I have always thrived best in a smaller agency environment. Being one of two media buyers in my department makes things pretty simple. Business was heavy and brisk. New clients were coming on board. What more could you ask for?
The volume of work was such that we needed a third buyer. It wasn't essential, in my opinion, but helpful. In the event that one of us was out, the entire burden fell on one person. It wasn't impossible but it was a load for sure.
For me, the idea of adding this 3rd buyer was equally important in that it would force the opening of communication a bit more in addition to spreading out the workload. After all, if two of us are raising the same issues, that has to get someone's attention!
Barely a week or two had passed before I started to see warning signs flying about like arrows on fire.
Communication did not improve. Basic standard operating procedures did not suddenly materialize. Questions and suggestions continued to vaporize into the electronic ether. My workload and responsibilities started to disappear. The almost daily calls with requests for media proposals just abruptly stopped. It wasn't because things had slowed down so much. The work simply shifted to the new buyer. For all my years of experience and highly developed intuition, I didn't need a shitload of perception to notice I was suddenly being
The rationale for adding a 3rd buyer was supposedly to lighten the load from the two of us doing the work. Another of those "arrows on fire" was when I realized the 60/40 workload split between the two of us evolved into more of a 60/30/10 split after the new addition. Gee, thanks! I no longer had an excuse for waiting until 5:30 to scoop cat shit out of the litter box.
It was quite clear that my issues and concerns were mine and mine alone. I could either drive myself crazy with the notion that maybe someday this agency would perform at the basic operational level as every other agency, providing clear directives, and create a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, or I could adapt and just learn to work within the framework of what was given.
As 2012 neared and finally rolled around, I made a conscious effort to stop feeling a sense of personal failure whenever I was given directive on a Friday to get something on-air or worse, off-air, the following Monday. Under such circumstances you do the best you can do and some factors are out of your control. But I was getting there. I had accepted the fact that suggestions at improving communication and streamlining processes were not likely to be entertained, that even basic minimal operational enhancements would be an uphill struggle, even if they made perfect sense in my mind. The lights would remain off and I could adapt to working in the dark, or not. So, darkness it was.
Earlier this week we finally got the long-awaited server upgrade. I was happy with any flicker of light at the end of any long tunnel. On Thursday I worked exclusively from my home PC while connected to their server -- checking email, managing my Excel documents, and placing media buys. I no longer needed the company-supplied PC to comfortably do my work efficiently.
I got all my work documents transferred from that PC to a public folder on the server and by Friday I never even needed to turn on the company-supplied PC. It was a rare breath of fresh air, a sense of moving forward into a new year with a newer way to work. Cleaner. Less clutter on my desk. I was even wondering whether I should box up the company PC and send it back or hang on to it as a backup just in case anything happened to my PC down the road.
I have boxed it up, along with the printer they supplied which I never have needed to use thanks to being 100% paperless in my work. What a contrast to the old days when I'd go through a friggin' case of paper every few months! This equipment sits in my kitchen ready to be carted off to Fed-Ex on Monday.
I marvel at the sleek and minimalist appearance of my workspace now. Emphasis on "space" rather than "work" because on Friday the 13th at around 5:05 in the afternoon, I was dismissed from my job.
At that moment, my access to the long-awaited awesome new server was permanently disabled. But hey, it was rockin' my world for a day!
The only reasons cited in my termination were "bad fit" and a "cultural" differences. Oh, the irony.
I can only hope when they sent out the email announcing my departure they utilized the industry-standard closing line of "we wish him well in his future endeavors."
Work used to happen here.
Questions having immediate answers:
Do I need to toggle my monitor back and forth between work and personal PCs? No.
Should I de-clutter and send back the company equipment I don't need? Yes.
Do I need to use a personal day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday? No.
Do I need to worry if my lunch breaks run longer than an hour? No.
Should I alert someone in the office if I'm running late? No.
Do I need to scan my internet bill as a PDF and email to anyone for reimbursement? No.
Should I fret over dysfunctionality? Give that a rest.
Will I need to visit the Dallas office? Not in the foreseeable future.
Do I have any excuse for not resuming my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons? No.
When will I be able to take some extended vacation time? Now would be ideal.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Happy New Year!
As usual, Hong Kong gets my gold medal award for best fireworks display thanks to another appearance by the french tickler!
Runner-up goes to Sydney:
I'm expecting 2012 to be some kind of wild ride, politically, economically, and climatologically. Buckle up! We're in it now and there's no turning back!
Runner-up goes to Sydney:
I'm expecting 2012 to be some kind of wild ride, politically, economically, and climatologically. Buckle up! We're in it now and there's no turning back!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
2012 (As Opposed to 2112)
While watching Keith Olbermann tonight I had a revelation. The Republican Party has a surprise in store for the 2012 elections. Forget Huckabee, forget Romney. Texas Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry appears to be positioning himself as well as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (literally and figuratively at the Republican Governors meeting in Miami) as the surprise "leader" for the next (s)election cycle.
The big question is, who will be down ticket? My guess is: Palin.
Perry seems to have a handle on things.
Perry/Palin
Palin/Perry
Both sort of have a ring to them. But I can't for the life of me imagine Perry dealing with a Palin/Perry ticket, nor can I imagine Palin dealing with a Perry/Palin ticket.
Bring it on.
Let the brutish pouts begin.
No, dear Google, I didn't. British poets will be covered in a later post.
The big question is, who will be down ticket? My guess is: Palin.
Perry seems to have a handle on things.
Perry/Palin
Palin/Perry
Both sort of have a ring to them. But I can't for the life of me imagine Perry dealing with a Palin/Perry ticket, nor can I imagine Palin dealing with a Perry/Palin ticket.
Bring it on.
Let the brutish pouts begin.
No, dear Google, I didn't. British poets will be covered in a later post.
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