COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
RANT - The signs are all around me. I read with interest about a grassroots revolt against the "dot.com" phenomenon which is taking root in San Francisco and quickly spreading around the world. But when I go to their Web site I read a disclaimer apologizing that it has become so popular that they overloaded their meagre servers and so we all have to wait to download the stickers that say "BlowTheDotOutYourAss.com". This is success in the modern world where everything is about marketing they tell us...
Is anyone surprised that I have a problem with this?
As Bonnie Raitt sang, "What is success?" I'll be damned if I know, because I look around at what most of my fellow countrymen call "successful" and I want to blow chunks.
BUT I also look around at what my fellow writers --- even here at The World's Magazine --- believe would be a successful course of life or action and have very serious misgivings, reservations, doubts.
Surprised?
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I have tried my darndest to be a moderator against cant, as opposed to common sense, but I have not always been successful even with myself. It's a natural tendency when you step into the bully pulpit of publication. I see it in dead-tree publications and I see it on the Internet.
What happened to the humor and humility of those who know we are all either fools, damned fools, or out and out liars? Just wondering.
Bear in mind, of course, that dealing with writers is, by definition, dealing with HUGE EGOS. So that means, if you want to keep a few good ones in the stable, you have to put up with their cant. Every freaking writer I've ever met has had an axe to grind. Every editor I've ever met collects writers who helps them grind their axe. That includes me.
The one thing I've tried to do, when I was Editor here, was run with writers who's axe wasn't my axe and who generally pissed me off. That garnered me a reputation as a good guy with a lot of patience and an open mind. And look how rich that has made me.
The Consolation Prize is that the magazine has survived for a decade. And if you meet me in person, you'll see every year on my face.
' Read a fortune cookie a couple of months back that said, "The more you give, the more you have." Who writes these things? If you find out, let me know and include the bastard's address so I can personally shoot him. Thanks.
The FACT IS the more you give, the more people will ask you to give.
Somebody should tell every child that at age six, if not sooner.
The world would be a better place, because everyone would not be as dumb as I was...
TODAY'S TIP: IF you have RealPlayer, I highly recommend you check out Internet Student Radio from the UK. It's tons of fun. If you register with Kerbango.com, you can add it to your preset stations. I did.
Now don't tell me you haven't heard of or visited Kerbango Radio! Why not? Remember when you could pick up radio stations from a thousand miles away late at night? Kerbango does that one better, thanks to the magic of Internet, because now you can get stations from all over the world, most of them live, any time you like. O Brave New World!
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