I have learned how to make money at freelancing, finally. The secret is to work all the f—king time. This insight, by the way, is in lieu of the usual apologies for not blogging very often.
OK, so, first off, the cover of the March 2004 issue of Report on Business (here I am, commenting on last month’s issue, how lame) is blank white save for some tiny text that reads:
[the most important issue of the century … so far]
see page 45
Remind you of anything? How about the March/April 2003 cover of Shift, that featured a blank brown background with the 48-point proclamation:
THE MOST
IMPORTANT
ARTICLE
YOU’LL READ
IN ’03. PAGE 29
Quick. Five points and a chance to go to the bonus round if you can name the topic of that Shift article. Keep in mind that it was:
THE MOST
IMPORTANT
ARTICLE
YOU’LL READ
IN ’03. PAGE 29
For those of you who do remember, other than the author of the article (Chris Turner), congratulations. You could win fabulous prizes. The rest of us losers can instead contemplate the asinine decision on the part of those magazine editors to didactically inform readers that vital information is contained within. A better strategy is to commission and edit a brilliant article and let the readers decide its merit. When I see something as stupid as:
THE MOST
IMPORTANT
ARTICLE
YOU’LL READ
IN ’03. PAGE 29
hackles are immediately raised. My first instinct is to do everything in my power to find fault with said article. "You think you’re so important, eh," I think to myself. "We’ll just see about that."
That said, watch that Shift article get a NMAF nomination, forcing me to eat my entry.
* * *
Russell Smith discusses an anonymous dig at his upcoming novel that was printed in the Sunday Star. If Russell were smarter, he would not draw attention to one small paragraph announcing his new book in the Toronto Star. But Russell is not smart, and we know this because he does things like mention that he visits a shrink in his columns. Also, most infamously, he cried foul on Shinan Govani a few years ago and ended up on the cover of Frank for his misguided efforts. What was he thinking? I’ll assume he wasn’t. He keeps asking for it, that guy. He engages in passionate round-table discussions about aftershave and hair gel and then wonders why we love to hate him. I will now cite part of a letter to the editor written by George Case of Burnaby a few years ago:
Like Leah McLaren, Heather Mallick, Alexandra Gill, Geoff Pevere, Hal Niedzviecki and all the other professional spectators (sorry, "cultural commentators," er "media theorists," I mean "cutting-edge trendwatchers") taking up column space and airtime in Canada, Mr. Smith is part of an appallingly insular clique of reality-challenged hipness nerds who focus so closely on the fading squeaks of other people’s noise they can’t see that hardly anyone else is listening with them.
I’m willing to bet that Case wrote "farts" instead of noise, but was edited for taste. Mark Kingwell has managed to age his media persona and punditry gracefully. I’m to understand Russell and Mark are friends, and are roughly the same age. Perhaps Russell could ask Mark for a few tips on growing up with dignity.
Speaking of which, also in yesterday’s Virtual Culture column, Smith makes a mention of "mash music." What? Plug "mash music" into Google and you get nothing at all that refers to "mash ups," which is a more meaningful (i.e. correct) description of the concept. Also, mash-ups first emerged, like, two years ago, dude. Expect a Russell Smith column about the Grey Album in another six months. I know butter knives that are more cutting edge.
(P.S. Here is the amazing thing. Somehow, through some media channel or another, Russell will probably end up reading this very sentence, and he will be unable to laugh it off, like a normal human being would. Russell earns quite a bit of money to write a weekly column in the Globe and Mail. Perhaps he should spend some of his salary and invest in a thicker skin.)
