Month: August 2005

  • Highly Targeted

    As promised, though overdue– our assessment of the “controversial” All-Target issue of the New Yorker: Big deal. No, that’s not exactly right. In fact, we’d like to see more of this sort of thing. Given the economy of the last four years, no one deserves a vacation more than magazine ad sales executives, and we…

  • The Gift That Keeps Giving

    It was a surprise to come back from vacation to hear that Village Voice and New Times may be well on the way to a merger. You may remember as I do that it was someone’s unenviable job to make Village Voice Media properties profitable enough to justify the significant investment it had required by…

  • Make That Bird Shut Up: Random Notes for My Proposed Study on Parrotology

      I broke my brain. I’m not shitting you. It was joggled around in some giant, anonymous pair of hands and tossed end-over-end, without hope or desperation, down a scarred velvet table in a dark and nearly empty casino. Have you ever felt like a moth that has been pinned to a post and is…

  • How I Spent My Summer Vacation, And: Some Things I've Decided My Hypothetical Parrot Might Say

    Pay attention. Let it be. Say exactly what you think, and what you mean. Stop pretending it’s so damn hard to be human. Show your teeth to God. Do what you can. Every time you notice the stars –and I hope you’ll notice them often– I want you to think of me alone in this…

  • The Decaying System

    There are a few gaps in our health coverage. I went to the dentist this morning for my semi-annual cleaning and check up. Sometimes I go 8 or 9 months between, mostly because of my schedule and his. But I always go eventually, and sooner, rather than later. I’m glad I can afford it. I…

  • Down Pat

    THIS is football Everyone who’s got a brain, and there are damn few of us left, is not even that upset about Pat Robertson’s calling for the assasination of Hugo Chavez. That sort of boorish behavior by Americans is pretty old news, after all. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Robertson and his ilk…