“How to Make the Newspaper on a Slow News Day”
Want to listen to what I am listening too while you read what I write?
Check out “2000 Man” by The Rolling Stones. This song gets serious play on the pod when I want to play not too seriously. First place I ever heard it was in the movie Bottle Rocket, a Wes Anderson movie with Owen and Luke Wilson. Could be the funniest movie I have ever seen. Then follow up with The Killers—“All these Things That I’ve Done.” This should set the right mood . . .
So speaking of engaging in a little “Tom Foolery” my buddy Andy http://andyzimmerman.blogspot.com, and I decided to try out for Survivor last weekend at a local car dealership. I dressed up in dirty torn clothes, rubbed coffee grounds all over my face, and told the producers that I have been living in the wilderness practicing for Survivor. As a visual aid I ate a few crickets, drank some brown cloudy water and told them I would use my Masters in Psychology to read peoples minds. Something that most Psych Journals have not really been able to prove is possible, but I think I can pull it off. I told the producers that it didn’t really matter how I was going to win, “everybody says they’re going to win” I said, it’s what I am going to do with the money that you should be interested in.
I told them I would use the money to make the world a better place and make Survivor look good. This would involve buying up all the Survivor brand clothes and memorabilia, and giving them to naked people who need clothes. This way exposed people get clothes and Survivor gets tons of exposure. Then I would get plastic surgery to look just like the host Jeff Probst and I’d drive around the country in a Pontiac Torrent telling everyone how great Survivor is and how it “changed my life.” This, my friends, is how to get on the front page of the Sunday paper on a slow news day, in a town where the new Wal-Mart is still pretty big news. It even made the local nightly news. I’m such a local celebrity that even I am already sick of myself. I feel like a child star has-been now in his forties, without all the drugs and financial problems.
I have always wanted to be on Survivor. I am not a big reality show fan because I think following people around while they get nose jobs, trade wives and date 25 girls at a time is the boring version of voyeurism. Even though Survivor is the show that supposedly started the whole reality TV thing (most people really know that MTV’s “Real World” started the “watch people doing boring stuff” genre) I think it is more like an enormous budget game show.
Even better than a game show, it is a microcosm of our world, at least the western capitalist part. People start by developing relationships and community and then they tear it up to get rich. Sound familiar? So my question, my hypothesis, is what would it look like for someone to value the community over the money? Is this even possible? Could one play this way and still win the money as well as the hearts of the community? What if I set out to make the camp a better place, getting up early to fish and fix breakfast? Going to get wood for the fire and helping people find the good within them. What if I went to listen to people and learn about them, not screw them over? What if I made it my goal to connect my life with their life?
There are four ways this strategy could go:
1. The other contestants realize I’m not “playing the game” get nervous because this is the most unpredictable strategy and vote me off early.
4 for Entertainment Level
2 for Feasibility
2. The other contestants realize I’m not “playing the game” and use me to make camp more pleasant and keep me around as long as I work in their strategy.
3 for Entertainment level
1 for Feasibility
3. The contestants keep me around because they actually start liking me and then I start winning immunity at the end and they can’t get rid of me. I Win all the way around in this version.
2 for Entertainment Level
3 for Feasibility
4. In this version I get really far in the game on my community idea, then realize I am playing for a million dollars, turn into a Donald Trumpish demon and not only screw everyone over, but ruin everyone’s trust and hope in all humanity. I win the money in the version, but loose everything that is important.
1 for Entertainment Level
4 for Feasibility

I would like for this conversation to be ongoing. Please give me your feedback with my idea for a “community strategy.” What would be your strategy? Please don’t think you are getting a cut of my money if I use your strategy ideas and win? Remember friendship is more important than money, so you shouldn’t feel like I’m cutting you out friend :)

“Growl” went the man in a less than intimidating middle-aged white guy corporate voice. Not just any kind of growl, but a goofy one. What made it so funny, right before it became very real, was that is sounded more like the kind of growl a kid makes when trying to imitate a lion than it did any sound an adult would make to actually express aggression.

I had the chance to travel to New York before Christmas this year (got out just before the transit strike) and after a brutal day of traveling I passed this guy, the “growl guy.” I passed him at DFW airport (Dallas, Texas for those of you who don’t speak airport) as I was transitioning to my next leg of travel. That day I was trying to get out of New York before the strike, waiting at La Guardia for half the day and traveling with what seems like is now more mandatory than Air Marshals on planes, a screaming kid. Somebody even brought a dog on the plane as a carry on. Since when can you carry a dog on your lap on a plane? Not only that, but I still had a 5 hour drive to the middle of “no where” west Texas to look forward too.

So when I passed this guy, I secretly laughed at him. We are still talking about a grown man, walking by himself through an airport who let out an audible kid growl for no apparent reason. Then I not so secretly agreed with him. I would have done it in a little more intimidating way, but what is it that makes travel, specifically air travel, make us want to scream.

This started making think about how traveling is so barbaric. Then I started feeling guilty because I just had a vacation and I was already complaining, when other people are starving to death. Nevertheless there is something that happens at airports that feels so violating.

So I pose the question, why does the moving part of traveling drive people so nuts? You can put your own thoughts in the comments, but here is my hypothesis. I think it is the same reason we don’t like the hospital, or death. We are not in control. When you travel on an airline they tell you when and where to sit, which isn’t usually a comfortable place. You have to take off your shoes and hurry through the x-ray area hoping you won’t get groped like a criminal (I am by the way pro-airport security and anti-airport bomb). Not to mention that it is hectic and you know if the bird flu is coming to the US it will probably be from the person you are sitting next too, because they keep coughing in your face and look like the kind of person who doesn’t know how to properly handle their avian. And there is nothing you can do about it.

You can come up with your own airport frustrations, but I think the issue is that we don’t like being out of control. All I know is that the next time I go to the airport I expect the “growl guy” to be running around the baggage claim conveyor belt with his neck tie around his head, full painted warrior face, and shouting out primal chants, Lord of the Flies style. And if I am having an out of control day, I might just join him. You have to take your shoes off anyway, why not rip off the rest and run around screaming and lighting stuff on fire?