Monday, February 23, 2004

nicer From time to time I get to meet rich people and talk to them a bit.  Usually, I think to myself: why does this person make so much more damn money than me?  I mean, he doesn't seem any smarter than me. This happened one time when I was up checking out Atlanta with some artist friends.  My buddy Frank Strunk had a friend up there with a really, really nice house.  The guy was no older than me or Frank and he didn't seem much smarter than us, so when we all got drunk together I asked him what he did to make so much money. "I do marketing," Frank's friend said. "Really?" I said.  "I hear about that all the time.  But what exactly does that mean?" "Well, it means we help companies market themselves better.  That is, we tell the companies how to promote themselves to make the most possible money." "Can you give me an example?" I said as I popped the top off another Heineken. "Sure," Frank's friend said.  "Our biggest client last year was this ski resort in Aspen, Colorado.  They're one of a hundred ski resorts in that town, and they needed to figure out how to make people come to their ski resort instead of the other ski resorts." "Sounds simple enough," I said. "Not really," Frank's friend said.  "This ski resort cost about the same or a little more than the other ski resorts and it had all the same features and services.  We spent the better part of a year and a million of this ski resorts' dollars to figure out why people should ski there instead of somewhere else." "And what did you find out?" I said. "Their ski resort is nicer," Frank's friend said. "Nicer?" I said. "Yes, nicer," Frank's friend said. "And did you make them tv commercials about how much nicer they were?" I said. "No, we don't do any of that.  That's a whole different business," Frank's friend said, popping the top off another Heineken. "You just told them they were nicer," I  said. "Yes, nicer," Frank's friend said. I contemplated Frank's friend's beautiful half-million dollar home in the suburbs of Atlanta: his supremely landscaped yard, the gleaming, black Mercedes in his driveway and the big, glittering diamond on his wife's dainty finger.  Then I pictured my squalid little apartment in Gulport with my bare mattress thrown in the corner and the toilet that was barely six feet from my  rusty refrigerator. "Nicer?" I said again. "Yes, Nicer," Frank's friend said. 8:36:48 PM    comment []

faith I was going out to my car to get my little notepad that has all my story ideas in it when I ran into my neighbor, Ken.  Ken was waiting for a friend to go for a walk with and in the meantime we got into a bit of small talk about what's been going on in the neighborhood. Ken mentioned the fact that our Russian neighbor to the East has been parking a massive tractor trailer in his back yard the last couple of days. "Yeah, he cranked it up this morning and idled the thing for quite a while," Ken said.  "The next thing I knew, my apartment was filled up with diesel smoke." "Man," I said. "I think that's probably some kind of zoning violation," Ken said. I figured it was probably a zoning violation too.  But it reminded me back when I used to have my own dump truck and I kept it parked in my back yard in a quiet, little neighborhood just a few blocks from here.  I used rev up the engine to that monster every morning.  I was amazed that no one like Ken ever complained to the city. Having said that, I have no special love of people who keep heavy machinery in their back yard and will probably complain to the city myself if Ken doesn't. "Then I had somebody hit my car out here the other day," Ken said.  "This lady drove by and knocked my mirror right off." "Oh no," I said. "Yeah, Susan over here saw it happen.  She saw the lady get out and write down some info an a card  and leave it under my windshield wiper before taking off.  I figured it had her insurance info and stuff, but when I went to read the card it said, you can overcome all problems and adversities through faith in Jesus." "Damn," I said.  "And there was no insurance info?" "None." I had forgotten why it was that I had come out to my car so I just grabbed some trash out of the back seat and took it inside.  Then I peeked out my front blinds and saw Ken and his friend start their walk.   6:01:47 PM    comment []

yet another unloved cartoon   8:09:00 AM    comment []

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