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Detritus: G is for Growing Weary of PR Flacks, A is for Agar, Y is for Yuppies…

Had a few truly awful moments today in trying to finish my article on Sesame Street. I called a major Muppeteer and more or less had the door slammed in my face… as part of my reciprocation to the party who gave me her number I had to agree not to mention who gave it to me, and make it clear that the Workshop wasn’t responsible either… This made her nervous, which I guess made sense, especially since I was calling her at home. It struck me after I hung up and went to hang out in the rain with my tomato plant, rocking self-nourishingly on the front porch, that had I simply dropped the name of a veteran kids TV writer/producer I know personally, she would probably have been willing to talk to me; that’s worked in the past. I was momentarily irritated by the fact. Personal connections make journalism easier. Somehow the field feels like it ought to be more “scientific,” more clinically detached from one’s own social standing… Just another one of those see-through democracy moments.

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Here are sites I visited while half-researching, half-procrastinating on the Sesame Street piece:

Graphic photos of goat births

Which Sesame Street Muppet’s Dark Secret Are You?, first hit on Google’s second page of results for “sesame street.” So much for the PR department’s attempts to keep the words “Sesame Street” and “bitch” off the same page. Get with the program, PR… you can’t protect your memes forever, no matter how many lawyers you own.

A Salon article on a Snoop Doggy Dogg TV show, in which he sounds like a parody of himself — like Herbert Kornfeld.

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I have a crush on the Chrysler Building. I stare at it for what seems like hours at a time when I get to go to the printer and retrieve my documents. It looks different every time I look at it. I want to take pictures. I think the woman whose office I am looking through would freak out, but I want to. It makes me feel dirty and corporate, but then the rest of the job does too.

Although I should note it’s one of the friendliest and most pleasant offices I have ever worked in, despite the periodic outbursts of base idiocy. People joke and talk all the time, and don’t even pretend they have to get back to work. I wonder how long this will last for them.

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I have wandered into a weird ether of Friendster where I click on a friend of friends of friends and when the page loads I discover that I have ventured too far off of the initial chain of connection and I am actually more closely connected to the same person through a different set of people. I have also found the first person who is connected to me two completely separate ways and one of them does not go through God. Although it still goes through Jessamyn which is about the same because she knows everyone. Anyway I think these phenomena have something to do with Amherst and Brown. The dish of agar we yuppie larva swim in has a very definite hard plastic boundary. It is round.

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In other news, my brain is ON FIRE. I have not eaten enough today and my brain is where I feel it when I don’t eat enough. And nobody comes to feed me because I live in Queens. And appear to be a functioning adult. Where’s my wife? I thought I ordered one last week. Yes, Mom, I ordered one for you too.

2 Comments

  1. neil wrote:

    ‘Personal connections make journalism easier. Somehow the field feels like it ought to be more “scientific,” more clinically detached from one’s own social standing…’

    if i were an amoeba, and I could speak English and had legal rights, you’d better believe I would want to be convinced of the scientists’ credentials and motives before letting her look through the microscope.

    especially if i were at home at the time.

    Monday, June 23, 2003 at 11:20 am | Permalink
  2. Ivan wrote:

    Thank you!
    http://pnzvnlnb.com/mooh/fpat.html | http://cmtclzrq.com/erse/lcce.html

    Wednesday, November 1, 2006 at 3:17 pm | Permalink

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