Brokered Conversions

Michelle Cottle's passive aggressive sniping in her articles, whether for The Atlantic or The New Republic, in old media periodical cross breeding, isn't as evident in her online demeanor when subbing for the old PBS battle axe Mark Shields; spastic was more interested in putting her face to the work, merging body to voice, than the analysis predicating the rise and fall of national political ambitions as our two party system continually fragments in the gilded age of Silicon Valley. I admonished Michelle years ago for a blog post she wrote in incredulous censure of a woman in full dementia she overheard in a supermarket. It was a duplicitous method all writers use, capitalizing on ailments to churn content, but it wasn't the woman's fault if she was disoriented, and Michelle's snippy intonation culminated in assigning blame, and yet, if Ms. Cottle represents one end of the ambulatory spectrum, and spastic the other, just short of a contorted "demon" in the black underclass vernacular, then my own quest for fusion has failed. If I won't play by the rules, as reasonable suburbanites like my mother's sister might ask, then what do I expect? I expect the so called progressives to be honest: the media has a caste system too, and Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff, would be incapable of offering me social equality.

WPVI could film me in 1992 using the automatic doors of the Presidential Suites office complex, but it is a form of tokenism, much as my unintended comical interludes on Senator Rickles SSA committee, or some such fellow from Michigan, was tolerated with chagrin a few years later, in Washington DC. It was all I could do not to fuck the black congressional aide under the table, but I had wet dreams of my own about Clinton. The district just does something to the sex drive, regardless of ideology, or fringe element.

Perhaps I will never be a fully engaged journalist again. The field has its own bubble, constantly eschewing itself, constantly exploiting, inundating, telling it slant to engage. I understood its mechanisms from the days when my Ridley High article quoting the superintendent about driving school generated controversy in the senior class. There I was invisible, doing my job, fully matriculated, and I daresay happy, but it's a ruthless way to make a living, and has its elements of sociopathy, as the writers for Hannibal intimated in their first season's work. I signed up to do a meet up with writers in center city tonight, but again, I'm too tired, not there so much for group think. All I do is write. I thought the networking would smooth out my vulgar plumage. Maybe next time, again.

In applying my sentiments to the plight of flagship brands, I'd watch for Chris Hughes to hand off TNR to another legacy holder, even a possible merger with the former satellite voice of Boston. We'll see.