Category Archives: Personal

Please forgive my e-mail troubles

Yesterday, I realized that all those folks who have told me in recent days that they never got my e-mails actually never got my e-mails. So I apologize for thinking y’all were technically incompetent or something when it was me all along.

In fact, I’m such a klutz that I haven’t figured out what’s wrong yet, and I’ve got 65 outgoing e-mails just hanging there in limbo in my Outbox in Outlook. Some of them were pretty important messages, too, like the resume I sent out Monday right after talking to someone about an exciting job opportunity. I had sent it out immediately to display my high interest, only to realize last night that it never went out. Like I need this on top of everything else.

I’ve got someone trying to talk me through a solution, and I hope to arrive at one soon. But then I’ll have a new worry — if they all suddenly go out, some of them are really going to confuse people because of subsequent conversations with those people that have rendered the original message superfluous. They’re going to think I’m nuts — Why is he sending me this now?

All I can do right now is post this generic apology to everyone with whom I correspond. Once the e-mail’s back up, I’ll try to follow up with specific explanations to all the affected people. Dang. What a headache. Maybe I should just stick to playing solitaire on computers; I at least understand that…

Valerie B. is back in town (all too briefly, though)

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This morning I had the good fortune to run into Valerie Bauerlein, formerly of The State and now with The Wall Street Journal. She was having breakfast with Tim Rogers at the Cap City Club, working on a story that she hopes will make the “A-hed” position on page one — that’s the feature that is always such at good read at the center of the bottom of the page. (Fortunately for her, she wasn’t here to do yet another Sanford story.)

Valerie works in the Journal’s Atlanta bureau. While she spends close to half her time on regional general-assignment news reporting, her specific beat these days is the soft drink industry.

After Tim left, Valerie stopped off at my table and we had a chance to catch up. Her biggest news is that she’s expecting her second baby in November, so she has that glow about her — but then, Valerie always had that glow about her. She’s one of the nicest, most pleasant, kindest, most considerate people I ever worked with, to the extent that you wonder how she ended up in the trade. Not that news people are universally unpleasant or anything; it’s just that she was SO nice. And very good at her job, to boot.

Anyway, it was great to see her, and greater to see her doing so well. I thought I’d pass it on for those of you who remember her.

“Peter Boyle” and other experts agree: I need a job

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Some of y’all will find this interesting. Remember how, last week, I put off all the folks wanting me to run for office by saying I won’t run unless somebody comes to me, the way Peter Boyle did to Robert Redford in “The Candidate” (note that I’m playing the Redford part — I’m just another victim of typecasting), and says, Look, we want you to run, and we’ll do everything — set up the campaign organization, raise the money, buy the media — and all you have to do is show up and be the candidate. Sort of a turnkey political operation.

I figured that was a good way to shut y’all up on the running-for-office thing (and if that didn’t work, my fallback was to say rude things like “shut y’all up” to people who like me enough to urge me to run for office).

But then, a real-life “Peter Boyle” approached me. Sort of. Basically, I got a message from a long-time political consultant (he first came to South Carolina to work in the Pug Ravenel campaign in 1974) who cited the Peter Boyle thing and said “let’s meet.” So we did, at the usual place, over breakfast last Friday.

And we talked about various offices and the need for someone (preferably, somebody with a little bit on the ball) to run for them. And then we talked about my situation. And I told my “Peter Boyle” that before I run for anything, I really need to get a job — not only a job, but one of those very rare jobs that allow a guy to run for office.

And you know what his considered opinion was? He agreed. I need to get a job, first and foremost.

So we’re back to Go, where I won’t collect $200 until I find employment…

Waiting for my UnParty Peter Boyle

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Wow, I am really humbled by the nice things some of y’all said about me running for office back on this post (am I sounding like a candidate yet? they’re supposed to say stuff like that, about being humbled, etc.).

But again, what office? The context was that we were talking about Congress. But as Karen suggested, maybe I’m better suited for state office. State issues are the ones I’m most knowledgeable about and passionate about.

Not that I don’t know as much as (or more than) the other declared candidates for Congress about national and international issues. I’m pretty confident that I do — or at least that I can hold my own, and I can certainly approach those issues in a fresh way that would break the partisan, shouting-back-and-forth pattern that I, for one, am sick of.

But what if I were elected to Congress? I would just feel pretty weird going off to Washington and watching another lame governor take office back here. And you know what? My own mother called me up the other day and said I should run for governor. So that’s one vote I could count on, I guess. (Right, Mom?)

You know what I need at this point? I need Peter Boyle to come see me and make a pitch. You ever see “The Candidate?” Excellent movie. Peter Boyle plays a political consultant type who talks Robert Redford — son of a prominent politician — into running for the U.S. Senate. Redford is a nonprofit activist who is uninterested in the compromises one must make to run for office. Boyle promises him he can stand up for everything he believes in, and points out that this is a great opportunity to give those things he believes in greater exposure. Redford asks something like How does that work? or What’s the catch? and Boyle hands him a matchbook on which he has written two words: “You lose.” On that basis, Redford agrees to run.

But as the campaign proceeds, the itch to win — or at least not lose by an embarrassing margin — starts to get to him….

Anyway, to run for office what I need is a Peter Boyle moment — somebody to say, we’ll take care of the mechanics of the campaign, you just be the candidate. Because I’m an issues guy, not a mechanics guy. Renting an office and getting phone lines set up would be the overwhelming part for me. Seriously.

This, of course, is why most people run under the auspices of parties. Each of the parties has loads of people like Peter Boyle who can say, here’s your infrastructure, you just concentrate on running for office (and raising money).

What I need is an UnParty Peter Boyle. I guess that would be a party stalwart who has become disillusioned. Or who sees greater opportunity in breaking away from the two-party dichotomy.

It’s interesting to contemplate where such a person would come from. On an earlier post, I speculated that if I were to give in and run under the banner of one of the parties next year for pragmatic reasons (see the above discourse on Peter Boyle), especially for Congress, it would probably have to be the Democratic Party. Why? Well, not because I’m a Democrat, but because I don’t see a Republican having a good-enough shot against an incumbent of that party. Too much of an uphill climb.

But it occurs to me that if I run as an independent, my theoretical Peter Boyle would be more likely to come from the Republican Party. It’s the party in trouble. It’s the party that’s falling apart, rather pathetically clinging to tired slogans and petty resentments that have not served it well of late (whereas the Democrats have been doing OK, for the moment, with their tired slogans and petty resentments). It seems more likely that a smart Republican would calculate that an UnParty bid would be advisable than that a smart Democrat would do the same. Democrats are smelling opportunity now, and are unlikely to jump ship.

Then again, there could be a smart Democrat who would rather see me elected than Joe Wilson, and who also sees as I do that Rob Miller is not the best candidate to take advantage of this moment, and yet he’s the Democrat with the money, and has a leg up toward the nomination. Going with me might be the way to step around that problem. I don’t know. That’s the kind of hard-eyed political calculation that I’m depending on this Peter Boyle person to make — I’m the candidate, not the backroom strategist.

Anyway, now would be a good time for my Peter Boyle to step forward. I’ve got a job interview later this week, and possibly another soon after. This window won’t be open for long (I certainly hope.)

The kindness of friends is one thing, and I truly appreciate the supportive things y’all have said here. But at this point I need a nudge from a hard-eyed professional who truly believes this can be done. You might say I should go out and find that person. But I’m thinking that if I truly have a chance, that pragmatic person will see it and come to me. If I don’t — if it’s just me indulging myself and some friends egging me on — then there’s no point in continuing the discussion. Does that make sense? It does to me… Call it the first test of my viability…

They keep pushing me to run…

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Today after Rotary, Kathryn F. buttonholed me and started egging me to run for office. Hey, it’s easy for her to say — I’m the one who would be making a fool of himself, not to mention having to go to all those chicken dinners.

Run for what, you’re thinking? Yeah, I know — it’s hard to remember what Brad isn’t running for today: Is it the S.C. House? Or governor? Or Congress?

In this case, it’s specifically Congress that I’m being coy about.

Kathryn’s not the only one, by the way. Nathan Ballentine asked me about it when I ran into him this morning. Of course, he said it with a smile.

Anyway, I gave Kathryn all the reasons why I can’t run, and she tried to knock them all down:

Neither of the parties can stomach me, and I can’t stomach the parties. And so far, no member of the UnParty has been elected to Congress. There’s a reason for this: Anything as stretched out and gerrymandered as a congressional district in the former Confederacy is really tough to win by shoe leather and personal perseverance. A state House seat, maybe. But a district that stretches to Beaufort sort of needs the simple answers and mass media approach and organization that only a party can provide. And on some of the hot-button issues that separate the parties, I agree with one side, and on some of them with the other. And on some of those issues, I have no easily explained opinion, but explaining WHY I don’t have a position is the work of at least a newspaper column, and how do you get a majority of voters in a congressional district to pay attention to something with that kind of nuance?
I don’t have a job, and I need to get one and get some money coming in soon. Kathryn says running for Congress would BE my job. But far as I know, you’re not allowed to pay your mortgage and personal phone and light bills with campaign contributions — assuming I can get campaign contributions (and who’s going to contribute to someone who’s neither a Democrat nor a Republican?). And when I get a job, the odds are that it will be one that wouldn’t allow me to run for Congress. Most jobs wouldn’t allow you to run for Congress. If I were independently wealthy, yeah, this would be a great time to run. But as things are…
Who would vote for me? Based on the kinds of comments I get here, not even a majority of my putative base here on the blog would vote for me. I mean, if the overall electorate receives my ideas the way some of y’all do, I’ll be lucky not to be ridden out of the district on a rail. I’m way too candid with y’all about too many things to be a successful candidate for high office.
Of the three offices I’m not running for, Congress would be my least favorite. Running for governor or state legislator, I would feel pretty confident that I would know the issues better than just about anyone who ran against me, and the issues aren’t nearly as bifurcated according to party. There’s more room for a Third Way kind of guy like me. With Congress, every conversation is a big political battle. Say I tell folks what I think about health care — well, that would automatically label me as being to the left of Barack Obama (that’s the area assigned to us single-payer types), which would endear me to the Democrats (some of them) and make me persona non grata to the Republicans. And there’d be no avoiding that issue. But suppose abortion comes up (no reason it should since we’re not talking about the Senate, but suppose it did)? On that one I’d be solid with the Republicans, and the Democrats would despise me. And people would accuse me of waffling, when it is my personal belief that I’m the coherent one, and “left” and “right” as they are currently defined don’t make sense. But could I sell that, with all the other messages out there being against me?

And lots and lots of other reasons. Y’all can probably think of more reasons than I can — after all, I would vote for myself.

At least, I think I would. The idea of sending myself up to Ground Zero of all the partisan madness I constantly decry… well, it’s not something I’d wish on a yaller dog. Or an elephant.

But at least Kathryn has given me a small taste of that phenomenon that causes candidates to piously claim that they’re only running because of the people urging them to do so…

Anyway, now that I’ve totally turned you off with my self-absorption — and made some of you laugh because it may sound like I’m actually considering this… Think about this: Almost any normal person who thinks about running for office goes through these same sorts of thoughts. And for almost any normal person, the answers to all these questions would add up to a big, resounding NO. In fact, you have to ask, given that there are all these natural objections to running for office, what it is that’s wrong with the people who actually DO? And you begin to understand why politics is as messed up as it is…

I’m sure U R 1, 2, dude!

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Only once did I ever work in an office with another “Brad.” At the time, I joked that he would have to go, because it was too confusing, and eventually, he did. That was over 20 years ago.

I’ve never met a person named Warthen to whom I was not related. Oh, I’ll occasionally run into the name attached to a stranger in a phone book. And there was that ballplayer Dan Warthen, who used to get his name in the paper a lot when he played for the Memphis minor league team. And that town, Warthen, Ga. — apparently derived from a branch of the family, which originally came into this country through Maryland in the 1630s.

I was as sure as you could be of anything like that that among the 6 billion or so people on the planet, I was the only “Brad Warthen.”

But Facebook changes things. There are so many people there that your sense of uniqueness may have to undergo an adjustment. Some time recently I discovered that there was another Brad Warthen. I couldn’t find out anything about him; I just saw that he was a young guy with red hair. I left it at that.

Then tonight, I got an e-mail:

Brad Warthen sent you a message on Facebook…

Subject: dude

“dude we have the same name so i know ur a bad ass”

I wrote back to him, “Obviously.” I mean, what else could I say? I didn’t want to let him down.

You should definitely go see “The Producers” (now that there’s no chance of me messing it up)

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Well, I did my little cameo appearance last night in the Workshop Theatre production of “The Producers.” It went fine. Although I’ve got to tell you that by the time my cue came early in the second act, I was much more anxious not to mess up than I had been before the curtain went up.

That’s because the show was so good. Everybody was turning in such an impressive, high-energy performance that if there had been ANYthing wrong with my part, short as it was, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. The stakes had been raised. I was sitting there thinking that I was out in right field. You know that feeling? It’s the one where you stand there and stand there and stand there, and the ball never comes to you, and you get used to the ball not coming to you, and you never get warmed up, and then when the ball finally does come to you, the stakes, the consequences of screwing up seem so huge and overwhelming that… well, you screw up. (For that reason, I always infinitely preferred playing pitcher or catcher, where you’re involved with every pitch, to playing the outfield.)

By the time my bit was approaching, everybody on stage was SO warmed up — Matt DeGuire, as Max Bialystock, had worked up a visible sweat before the second scene — that I felt like I’d never be able to come off the bench and jump into something moving at this pace. I felt like the whole show would trip over me or something. But I guess it went OK, because no one threw rotten tomatoes.

After that, I was able to enjoy the rest of the show without that feeling of dread hanging over me. And I really enjoyed it.

Which, I can admit now, surprised me.

Not that I didn’t think the folks at Workshop would do a good job. I assumed they would. My problem was with the show itself. I tried to watch the movie version with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, and I got sick of it by the end of the first scene. I’m a huge Ferris Bueller fan (who isn’t?), but I found Broderick’s trying-too-hard impersonation of Gene Wilder really off-putting. And frankly, as I thought about that, I realized I hadn’t been crazy about the Wilder-Mostel version either.

For me, “Young Frankenstein” was Mel Brooks’ masterpiece, and “Blazing Saddles” had its amusing parts, but it trails off after that. And the movie versions of “The Producers” fell somewhere below “Spaceballs” in my estimation.

So I was startled to see that something that didn’t work for me on the movie screen was so entertaining in a live show. But it was. And it was more than the fact that “over-the-top” fits the live stage better than the wide screen, which prefers subtlety. It was the wonderful performances of these individual local actors — particularly DeGuire as Max, Kevin Bush as Leopold Bloom, Mandy Nix as Ulla, Kyle Collins as Franz and on and on (there are no weak performances) — and the chemistry of how it all came together.

This was the best thing I’ve seen on a stage in Columbia (except, of course, for the shows that my children were in…)

You should definitely go see it. Even though I won’t be in it anymore. Or perhaps, especially since I won’t be in it anymore…

Falling behind on my popular culture

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You have to understand that to me, Elvis Costello is The Latest Thing. He came along late in my life — after I was married and had kids already — so it’s actually a testament to his considerable talent that I became a big fan of his. He was the last popular musician to enter the ranks of my favorites along with the Beatles and others from my youth.

So normally, I would not have gotten the joke when Stan Dubinsky over at USC sent this link with the message, “Kanye West insults the USC website.” I’m still not entirely sure I get it, but at least I know who Kanye West is — sort of. That’s because my 23-year-old daughter went to “The Producers” with me last night, and since I had gone early to check in with the stage manager, we had time to chat before the show, and we started talking about current events, and she mentioned this West guy.

All day long, I’d been seeing references to him on Twitter, but I didn’t know what it was about. My daughter explained it. OK, so now I see why some people were referring to him and Joe Wilson in the same breath. Then she said something about Serena Williams, and I knew who she was, but didn’t know what she had done to cause the world to buzz. I don’t follow sports, either. (FYI, I just learned that USC will have a home football game on Saturday, which means I will stay over on my side of the river all day to avoid the craziness. I appreciate the warning, and thought you might appreciate my passing it on.)

Good thing we had that chat, because now all this stuff has entered the print universe — some of it was the subject of a column in The Wall Street Journal this morning — and I’m glad I knew about it going in.

But I still can’t tell you of anything Kanye West has ever sung.

See me on stage tonight in “The Producers”

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You may recall that, back here, I told you of my invitation to do a cameo role in Workshop Theatre’s production of “The Producers.”

I agreed. And my appearance will be tonight. Other local non-actors are playing the same part on different nights. Judge Joe Anderson is on tomorrow night, for instance. Sheriff Leon Lott will do it next Friday night (the 25th), followed by Sheriff Jimmy Metts the next night.

It’s a small part. A very, very small part, and very silly. And now that the night is upon me, I’m suffering from pre-performance jitters to the extent that I really sort of hope no one is there to see me — but, since the idea behind inviting me and the sheriffs and the others to do this was that we might have a certain following that might come out and buy tickets, well, I… I urge you to come on out, and watch me make a perfect ass of myself.

Here’s the part I’ll be doing, from the movie version. Not exactly like this — the director gave each of us the freedom to change the character as we chose, and my version, while still silly, is silly in a very different way from the guy in the movie. (No doubt I could make if sillier if I had a government grant to develop it.)

So come on out. But don’t blink when I step out onto the stage, because you might miss me. Fortunately, for the enjoyment of paying customers, my part is very short. But I said that already.

I tell you, the things we unemployed people will do to keep ourselves out there in the public eye…

Compromising photographs

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You know how back in the day, people would say they didn’t smoke dope, but if a joint was going around they’d take a toke “to be polite?” Doonesbury once made fun of it, with Zonker speaking the punch line, “I’m VERY polite.”

Well, I’m sort of that way about getting my picture taken with the guest of honor at rubber chicken dinners, receptions, etc. When somebody (usually some enthusiastic lady who has worked hard to put on the event) tugs my elbow and says, “Come have your picture taken with …” whomever, I may grumble a bit, but then shrug and make the best of it.

That explains why there are photographs of me with a wide variety of people, from our latest political persona non grata Joe Wilson (see the new header on my home page) to people I actually feel a little intimidated and unworthy standing next to, such as Elie Wiesel (below). You can see the awkwardness in my face on that one.

But in the Wilson pic, I’m perfectly at ease. You can probably even see a bit of amusement. This was taken at a reception for Joe at the Republican National Convention in New York. This was the last time the newspaper ever paid for me to travel out of state to do journalism, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. At this point, I’m grinning both to be a good sport, and because all week, I had been watching Joe really, REALLY enjoying being at the convention. Joe just has to pinch himself all the time, he SO enjoys being in Congress, and being a Republican, and being around other Republicans, to the point that he just wants to be friends with everybody. He was definitely not saying “You lie!” to anyone that week.

I don’t get enthusiastic like that, and people who do make me smile. Different strokes.

The Obama picture is slightly more complicated. In this case, I was amused not by the candidate, but by the excitement among some of the other people in the room. This was immediately following our editorial endorsement meeting. And while there were no member of the editorial board asking to have their pictures taken with the candidate (Warren, Mike and Cindi are too cool and professional for that) this was one of those meetings that people from around the building who had nothing to do with our editorial decisions asked if they could sit in, and I always said yes to such requests, as long as there was room and no one was disruptive.

And some of them were lining up eagerly to have their pictures taken with Obama. If you’ll recall, this is the kind of excitement his candidacy engendered. The candidate was anxious to get downstairs and put on some longjohns in the men’s room before going to sit in the freezing cold at the MLK Day rally at the State House, but he was a good sport about it.

And after several of these pictures were taken, I said — with an ironic tone, making a joke of it — well, why don’t I get MY picture with the senator, too!? Of course, it wasn’t entirely a joke. On some level, I was thinking that someday my grandchildren will want proof that I met all these famous people, and for the most part I don’t have any photographic proof. Here was my chance to get some, as long as everybody was camera-happy. I was also thinking, it’s all very well to be cool and professional but isn’t it a fool who plays it cool by making the world a little colder? Or something. Anyway, I like to do things that other more staid professionals turn their noses up at. It’s why I started a blog, while my colleagues didn’t. It’s why I do http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/2007/10/the-colbert-end.html”>silly stuff like this. You enjoy life more this way…

My regret that I have looking back is that I didn’t get my picture taken with John McCain, Joe Biden, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, Ted Sorensen, Benazhir Bhutto, Jesse Jackson, or hosts of others. Mainly because I was too cool at the time when I was around them (especially back in the days when I spent a lot of time with Al Gore — in my early career I would have been WAY too self-righteous to pose for any such thing). I never even got my picture taken with Strom Thurmond. You know what? Next time I see Fritz Hollings, I’m going to ask somebody to take our picture…

Am I cut out to be a Mad Man?

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When Kathryn corrected me on the title of the TV show “Mad Men” (and she was right; it was two words), I went to the official site to check — and ran into a thing where you can build your own Mad Men avatar.

So, being unemployed, I did. Well, there’s more to it than that. Being unemployed, and having recently taken a couple of mild forays into consulting in the advertising field (in fact, I’m sitting in the offices of an ad agency as I type this), I thought I’d see how I looked in that milieu.

Not so great, as it turned out. But I did manage to get myself into a scene with Joan Holloway, if only in caricature…

Shop Tart may have the answer

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No, not the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Anyway, we know the answer to that … it’s 42.

But the Shop Tart may have the answer to my dry cleaning question. I’ll have to look into it, although I take stuff to the cleaners more often than once a month, so it might not work for me, based on her math. We’ll see.

Also, I’m not sure I want to look be “fabulous,” or even look that way. I’ll settle for clean and neat. My needs are simple.

Dude, you’re not getting a Dell, are you?

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As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been hanging out at an ad agency recently, which means I’ve been dwelling in the world of Mac. That’s all they’ve got around here. I’m writing this on one.

So as I got ready to get a laptop — I had decided it was a necessity, with the freelance work I’m doing and all — I had a number of people around me telling me I must convert to Apple, for all the usual reasons and more. You’ve heard them: More solid, more reliable, better designed, better software, far better for graphics, cooler, etc. In particular, they said, a Mac would be better for video production, something I’ve wanted to do more of for the blog.

So, of course, I went out and got a Dell. First, it’s about a fourth of the price (my daughter the graphic designer is buying a Mac laptop, and it retails at $2,600 with the software she needs). Second… to paraphrase Billy Jack, I’ve tried; I’ve really tried. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me to practice nonviolence and use a Mac, I really try. But when I’m doing something that would normally call for a right-button mouse click, and my fingers fumble with that one massive button on a Mac… I just go berserk!

Bottom line, I’ve been using PCs too long. The ways of navigating through Windows are built into my body’s muscle memory, and it’s too much work to change.

So I got a Dell. Specifically, this model Dell Studio. Last week, when they were on sale for $80 less than the price on that link. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6500, 4GB RAM, 320 Gig hard drive, plus the usual bells and whistles that have become standard — DVD burner, multi-format card reader, Webcam and so forth.

It not only had what I needed on it, but I liked the look and feel of it. It looked and felt solid and well-built. Compared to the Inspiron, it was like a Volvo versus a Trabi. The Inspiron seemed chintzy by comparison. It had little features that don’t mean much, I guess, but which I liked — for instance, it had a slot for CDs and DVDs instead of that flimsy tray that pops out, and which always makes me afraid I’m going to break it pressing the disc in. That seemed clean and smart, better design.

And the first few days went great. I was particularly pleased with my first effort with the Webcam.

Then yesterday, it crashed. Yeah, I know, you Mac folk are sneering now that that’s what PCs do; they crash. And yes, they do. It’s something PC users deal with. Rebooting makes for a nice bathroom break, gets us away from work for a moment. Part of life.

But this crash was atypical. I was running Firefox in two or three windows, with maybe two other low-intensity applications up, when everything froze up. I went to Task Manager, and saw that my CPU usage was at 100 percent, which was impossible. I bailed out using the power button, booted back up, and tried running Firefox alone — and it was showing more than 50 percent CPU usage. One of the cores of the duo core was running at capacity, the other hardly running at all.

So I took the Dell back to Best Buy, where an interesting thing happened. The Geek Squad guy, after pronouncing that I had an incurable hardware problem, leveled with me, saying that he wouldn’t buy a Dell. Yes, once they were reliable, but he had seen too many Studios come back. I should get an Asus or an HP instead.

Funny thing was, the sales guy last week had tried, gently to steer me toward an Asus. But I had never heard of Asus. I had used Dells for years, so that’s what I got. Now, I went back to that same sales guy, and he nodded and said yeah, he liked the Asus better but I had been obviously set on a Dell…

So we went to look at the comparable Asus — same processor, same memory, same hard drive size. The battery was longer-lasting. The screen was smaller (although perhaps slightly sharper). It had the flimsy pop-out tray instead of the slot I liked. It cost $30 more than I had paid for the Dell.

And it looked cheap and flimsy compared to the Dell. Sorry, but aesthetically it was not pleasing, and even though these tech guys were all but beating me over the head with the inside knowledge that it was very solid and reliable, it didn’t LOOK solid. Finally, I was unable to call up the Webcam to try it out, because of some quirk of how they had the machine set up in the store.

So, sheepishly, I said I wanted to try another Dell Studio, hoping that this one wouldn’t be a lemon. The sales guy said he understood, that it was like buying a car; you either liked the look and feel or you didn’t. But I could hardly look him in the eye, because I knew he thought I was an idiot, a guy who just doesn’t learn.

And when we got up to the customer service desk — where I was to leave it to get it “optimized” (cleaning off all the marketing junk such as trial software, and installing service packs), which is why I don’t have it yet — and I realized the Geek Squad guy who had warned me was standing right there and had to have noticed what I was doing… I almost went over and apologized to him.

But I figure I’ve got two weeks to try this one out (and longer, if it has a hardware failure), and if it isn’t everything it should be, I can go back and get the Asus, no questions asked. So I can’t lose, right?

By the way, I really hope I’m not getting these guys in trouble telling about how open and honest they were. Frankly, I think they should both get a raise, because they were going out of their way to help a customer. And they were both obviously good at their jobs, very knowledgeable about the product. Bright young men, a credit to their organization. I felt much better about Best Buy for having dealt with them.

It’s just that in this case, the customer was too stupid and stubborn to listen to them. Proof yet again that in the marketplace, consumers do not make rational choices, notwithstanding all the propaganda. At least, this one doesn’t. Neither do most people; I’m just logical enough to understand how fallible I am.

Today’s reading, ripped from today’s headlines

But is not being a “yes man” a good thing or a bad thing, job-searchwise?

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Jack Van Loan, continuing to promote Steve Benjamin’s candidacy for mayor of Colatown, is hosting a serious of informal meetings with the candidate and folks Jack hopes will support him, or at least offer constructive feedback.

I was one of the guests for coffee this morning. As I’ve done with Vincent Sheheen and everyone else, I made it clear from the outset that I was just there to collect info, that I have NOT decided whom to support. I like Steve, but I also like Mayor Bob. They said fine, they understood.

Anyway, perhaps because of that statement on my part, but probably also based on knowing me over the years, Jack said something at the end of the meeting that got me to thinking about my own situation. I forget the exact context. I think he was saying he hoped Steve would get support among people who think for themselves. Anyway, here’s what he said:

This guy is the last guy in the world if you want a “yes man.”

He was indicating me when he said it.

I thanked him for the compliment — and coming from my friend Jack, I knew it was a compliment — but then I thought, Is it a good thing for people to think of me that way? Is it good, in particular, for prospective employers to think of me that way?

There’s no doubt that it’s accurate. It’s not that I’m not a team player — I am very much a team player, vigorously so, once I’ve made up my mind to be on the team. But I may take some persuading.

A couple of nights ago, I watched the Jim Carry vehicle “Yes Man” (which by the way was a lot better than I thought it was going to be). The idea was that a very negative guy resolved to start saying “Yes” to life, “Yes” in all circumstances, and it made him more open to life and happier — until it started to catch up with him.

I’m not a negative guy, certainly not the way the Carrey character was. But I do question, and challenge, and need to be persuaded if you want me on board. Once I am on board, I’ll be your fiercest ally. Under certain circumstances, I’m thinking that could be invaluable to the right employer. But do the employers themselves think so?

No, Burl, THIS was a beard that needed trimming

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My high school classmate Burl out in Hawaii posted this picture taken on a recent family trip to the Mainland, and observes:

Jeez, I need a beard trim before I’m mistaken for Santa Bin Laden.

Obviously, that’s Burl down front in the Buddha-like pose. But no, Burl, you shouldn’t worry until it looks like mine in the above photo from late 2004.

Burl’s lucky. He’s got one of those thick, yet maleable, beards that lend themselves to actual grooming and shaping. When I grow mine, I have to settle for more of a Russian dissident or Mad Monk look. Hey, we’re each the way God made us, and with me, He showed His sense of humor. Believe it or not, the beard in the photo WAS carefully trimmed. You should see what it would have looked like otherwise…

Oh, and prospective employers — this is NOT the way I look now. Now, I’m all neat and ready to go. The above photo was taken, like, on my day off years ago. I grow a fast beard…

Maybe I’m putting too much into Twitter…

1 Reply

It occurs to me that maybe too much of my energy that could go into making my blog better is going into Twitter.

Traditionally, I get a lot of my blog ideas when I’m reading the papers over breakfast in the morning. That first cup of coffee coinciding with the reading generally leads to far more ideas than I have time for. I used to stew through the morning meeting, which came right after breakfast, when I was at the paper because I was anxious to get to the computer and start putting some of the ideas on the blog before my enthusiasm (or the coffee, whichever you want to think of it as) wore off.

Now, since I started Twittering, I just go ahead and post a lot of the ideas as they occur to me, on my Blackberry, while eating. Which is great, I guess. Except that this gets each of those ideas out of my system, and by the time I’m at my laptop (It’s possible to blog on the Blackberry, but it’s a LOT harder), my mind has moved on.

So they don’t go totally to waste, bleeding off into the Twitter void, I decided to reproduce this morning’s tweets here, improved with links to the original sources of these brief comments.

You’ll see that only one was developed into a full-fledged blog post. The others I share for whatever minimal value they have:

Gov says calls to quit are “pure politics.” Let’s hope so. The alternative is the divine right of kings. (This, of course, is the one that became a blog post.)
Paper says “South Carolinians aged 18-20 cannot drink alcohol.” Actually, they CAN, but aren’t allowed to…
Twitter followers come and go so quickly. The number constantly fluctuates; the pattern eludes me…
Ad in paper touts “powerful joint pill,” which makes me think “THC,” but that’s not it, apparently…
Sanford sez other govs flew 1st Class. Yeah, but they weren’t hypocrites about it. Big difference…
Just inadvertently did a subversive thing: went to the WSJ Web site and searched for “trotsky”…
Just saw meter maid downtown, and the bag across her shoulder made her look a little like a military man…

And as a bonus, here’s one I just posted:

Gov says he won’t be “railroaded” out of office. How about “trolleycarred?” Or “pickup-trucked?” Or “little-red-wagoned?” Any mode will do.

Today’s job fair: Sweatin’ at the museum

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Today's job fair at the S.C. State Museum. (Don't know whether all these folks are job-seekers; some may just be visiting museum.)

Well, the job fair at the State Museum today was a great success, if you measure it by turnout. The place was packed during the noon hour. I had meant to go earlier (it started at 11), but I wanted to swing by the Bauer thing at the State House, so I think I was probably there at the peak.

By the time I got in from the jammed parking lot I was already pretty sweaty, even though I didn’t put on my coat until I was inside. Looks like I’ve got another candidate for the cleaners (sorry, bud, but I don’t know any way to job hunt except in a coat and tie). And for all the sweat, it wasn’t as productive for me. I think the employers at the Fort Jackson one I went to probably came closer to having openings that I might be suited to. Better yet, that one was less crowded, and it was easier to have a normal conversation with the folks at the tables.

This one was a madhouse. I guess some civilians hesitate to go to something on the Fort, but they definitely didn’t hesitate to show for this one.

Not much else to say, except to share my Tweets from while I was there:

This job fair has some of same names as Ft. Jax one: Aflac, Richco sheriff, others. Much bigger turnout…

I’m ruining another jacket milling about sweatily at job fair. A dry cleaner’s dream…about 4 hours ago from web

Toys not as good at this job fair as the last one. All I have so far is an unexciting keyring from Carmax.about 4 hours ago from web

Mary Kay and Avon going head-to-head at the job fair…about 4 hours ago from web

Maybe I’ll come back to job fair later. Can’t have tete-a-tete w/ prospective employer in this madhouse…about 4 hours ago from web

Becoming a Madman

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As I may have mentioned, I’ve done some freelance work recently for folks in the advertising/public relations world, and most recently some friends at a local agency have been letting me use an empty office at their digs, which is really nice.

Even nicer, they invited me to be their guest at a reception given Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday; my days are swimming by so) by the Midlands chapter of the American Advertising Federation at Gallery 701. I saw lots of folks I hadn’t seen in awhile, such as a former editor at The State who was laid off with me and is now doing PR work, and newer acquaintances I’ve been getting to know in my new, still largely unformed incarnation.

Fortunately, there were name tags (all of life should have name tags; I’m terrible with names). And these being creative ad folk, there was a participatory theme to the tags. As you can see, they were imprinted with the words “Join. Belong.,” followed by a blank. I was told to fill in the blank with a verb.

Some chose upbeat messages such as “Enjoy” or “Celebrate.” One went existential with “Be.” I was all business. I have one clear goal and aim that I want everyone to associate with me, so I went with that. Maybe a real Madman would have been more subtle, but not me.

Anyway, as they used to say in my former profession, a good time was had by all, and I appreciate being invited.

Checking my look, checking my attitude

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Y’all remember Christina Binkley. She’s the super-savvy Wall Street Journal columnist who quoted me awhile back regarding key economic indicators (in this case, Ben Bernanke’s beard — don’t ask me to explain; follow the link).

Anyway, today she’s giving advice on how to be unemployed with style, so of course I paid close attention:

Laid Off? Check Your Look … and Your Attitude

Newly Jobless Update Wardrobes, Rein In Resentment and Embrace Punctuation

… In the aftermath of a layoff, style is critical. And it’s about more than the decision to polish a wardrobe. The way people comport themselves after losing a job can make all the difference in what comes next. From how they convey the news to colleagues, to the type of clothes they wear and how they punctuate their emails, the newly jobless must use careful footwork to navigate the job hunt.

When in doubt, it’s a safe bet to retreat to conservative styles. After Michael Bragg was downsized from his New York-based job at a high-end European fashion brand, he went out and bought a new pair of shoes—lace-up, American-made Aldens. Play it straight with email, too. Sure, sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot off a short, all lowercase missive to a colleague. But punctuation is a risk-free option. The same goes for social-networking. Now is not the time to post pics from a beer-sodden barbecue and share them with everyone in your network….

Good advice, that last bit. Hang on a sec while I go pull a couple of things off of YouTube…

…OK, I’m back. (While I was there, I updated my channel so it no longer says I’m “the VP/Editorial Page Editor of The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina.” Along with style and attitude, I’m assuming accuracy is also important.)

Back to Christina’s piece today … I hope bud will take careful note of the advice therein. bud doesn’t seem to think I should be wearing clothing that requires dry-cleaning while unemployed. I disagree. Christina’s with me. Folks, I get up every morning, put on my coat and tie (shirt and pants, too — details are important), and go downtown to have breakfast at the usual place (Doug knows where). Only way I know to stay in the game and maintain contacts. To me, networking seems key. Looking like you’re ready to go to work this minute also seems advisable.

As for attitude — I think I’m OK there, too. I didn’t get upset and cuss anybody out when I got laid off. I mean, y’all can go back and see what I said at the time, here and here and here (I even said nice stuff about Mark Sanford). Maybe there will be a delayed reaction sometime, but I haven’t really worked up a good mad yet (which is actually sort of out of character for me, but there it is). I guess as a vice president of the company I understood the situation too well. Thirty-eight people were getting the ax that day, and they needed some of them to be top management. I got picked (and had the honor of being the one mentioned in the news story). Way of the world. Stiff upper lip and all that. A chap must face facts, and other pseudo-British mumbo-jumbo…

So I’m doing everything right. Of course, it hasn’t produced full-time permanent employment yet, so after a few more dry-cleaning bills maybe I’ll try bud’s approach, but for the moment I still think Christina knows the score.

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Personal

Please forgive my e-mail troubles

Valerie B. is back in town (all too briefly, though)

“Peter Boyle” and other experts agree: I need a job

Waiting for my UnParty Peter Boyle

They keep pushing me to run…

I’m sure U R 1, 2, dude!

You should definitely go see “The Producers” (now that there’s no chance of me messing it up)

Falling behind on my popular culture

See me on stage tonight in “The Producers”

Compromising photographs

Am I cut out to be a Mad Man?

Shop Tart may have the answer

Dude, you’re not getting a Dell, are you?

Today’s reading, ripped from today’s headlines

But is not being a “yes man” a good thing or a bad thing, job-searchwise?

This guy is the last guy in the world if you want a “yes man.”

No, Burl, THIS was a beard that needed trimming

Maybe I’m putting too much into Twitter…

Today’s job fair: Sweatin’ at the museum

Becoming a Madman

Checking my look, checking my attitude

Laid Off? Check Your Look … and Your Attitude

Newly Jobless Update Wardrobes, Rein In Resentment and Embrace Punctuation