After a great deal of speculation wondering whether or not he would, Gov. Scott Walker signed the Indian tribal mascot bill.
Walker’s statement channeled the inner libertarian no one knew he had:
“I am very concerned about the principle of free speech enshrined in our U.S. Constitution. If the state bans speech that is offensive to some, where does it stop? A person or persons’ right to speak does not end just because what they say or how they say it is offensive. Instead of trying to legislate free speech, a better alternative is to educate people about how certain phrases and symbols that are used as nicknames and mascots are offensive to many of our fellow citizens. I am willing to assist in that process.
“With that in mind, I personally support moving away from nicknames or mascots that groups of our fellow citizens find seriously offensive, but I also believe it should be done with input and involvement at the local level.”
Well, maybe he does see it as a First Amendment issue. The cynical view is that Indian tribes give neither votes nor money to Republicans, whereas conservatives would be offended by a veto, so Walker signed the bill.
Regardless of motive, Walker did the right thing. There is no, and has never been any, intent to pick a nickname or mascot for the purpose of self-denigration. Complaints about self-esteem and institutional racism are a bunch of politically correct horse manure.
For some inexplicable reason, the state Democratic Party felt the need to send a news release with quotes from someone named Arvina Martin, listed as “(Ho-Chunk, Stockbridge-Munsee), chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin American Indian Caucus:
“In a time where public opinion moves against the use of American Indian imagery as school mascots, I am saddened that Governor Walker decided to take Wisconsin backwards by signing AB 297, regarding race based mascots in our public schools into law.
“Walker falsely claims that signing this legislation will protect the free speech rights of school districts while failing to realize that First Amendment does not allow government programs, in this case, schools, to offend, harm or otherwise discriminate against citizens.
“With a stroke of his pen, Governor Walker ignored the statements of many, both American Indian and non-American Indian, in order to push through legislation that does nothing but further marginalize American Indians in our state.”
Martin, not surprisingly, didn’t consult those with opposing views before her blanket “public opinion” statement. Consider a newspaper poll in an area with numerous Indian-nicknamed high schools, asking whether high schools should be required to change their Indian nicknames:
Yes: 24.
No: 174.
“It depends on the nickname”: 70.
Only a PC-sodden reading of the First Amendment allows protection from being “offend”ed. I wonder how opponents of abortion rights feel about government funds — that is, their own tax dollars — funding abortions. I suspect they are considerably more than offended, but what is their recourse? None. For that matter, I am offended that state legislators make as much money by themselves as the average family in this state. To quote John Cougar Mellencamp, my opinion means nothing.
Since I had never heard of Martin before last week, I have no idea if she’s an elected official somewhere. I certainly hope she never becomes an elected official outside a reservation, because her view of the First Amendment is an offense by itself.
The head of the state’s education establishment, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, isn’t happy either:
“The children of Wisconsin are not served well when legislation makes it more difficult for citizens to object to discrimination they see in local schools. There is a growing body of research documenting the negative educational outcomes associated with the use of American Indian mascots, logos, and nicknames. Yet this new law requires the signatures of 10 percent of a school district’s membership to file a complaint about an Indian mascot or logo. In no other situation of harassment, stereotyping, bullying, or discrimination must an individual gather signatures from others to have the matter considered by a government body.
“While many local school districts have moved away from race-based mascots, there are a few left.
Civil rights issues have seldom been resolved locally. This law is a disservice to the children of Wisconsin and their education.”
Evers is not only himself “a disservice to the children of Wisconsin and their education”; now he’s throwing not-so-veiled threats. (Since court challenges to school mascots have failed anywhere, I’d suspect Evers’ threat is an empty threat, except that you can’t guarantee that in an Obama appointee-poisoned federal judicial system.) To make this is a civil rights issue is to cheapen the entire concept of civil rights. (And it once again makes me wonder why in the world Wisconsin conservatives cannot find a candidate to remove Evers and his predecessors of the last 40 or so years and find an advocate for the two groups of people whose opinion should count in schools — parents and taxpayers — more by far than they do.)
As long as we’re being cynical here, I’m surprised an obvious solution didn’t come to the minds of tribal leadership. The tribes are making millions of dollars every day from their Wisconsin casinos. School districts are living in fiscally lean times, thanks to the abuses of government of the past. Most of the school districts with Indian mascots probably would have been just fine with changing them had the tribes been willing to pay the costs of the changeover — athletic uniforms, school signage and so on.
Today in 1964, a group of would-be DJs launched the pirate radio station Radio London from a former U.S. minesweeper anchored 3½ miles off Frinton-on-the-Sea, England.
It’s probably unrelated, but on the same day Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys had a nervous breakdown on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston. Wilson left the band to focus on writing and producing, with Glen Campbell replacing him for concerts.
The pernicious influence of unions reared its ugly head today in 1966, when Britain’s ITV broadcast its final “Ready, Steady, Go!” because of a British musicians’ union’s ban on miming. The final show featured Mick Jagger, The Who, Eric Burdon, the Spencer Davis Group, Donovan and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
Proving that there is no accounting for taste, I present the number one song today in 1958:
The number one single today in 1962 was by a group whose name was sort of a non sequitur given that the group came from a country that lacks the meteorological phenomenon of the group’s title:
Today in 1969, the Supremes made their last TV appearance together on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Shew, with a somewhat ironic selection:
Today in 1970, Army veteran Elvis Presley volunteered himself as a soldier in the war on drugs, delivering a letter to the White House. Earlier that day, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had declined Presley’s request to volunteer, saying that only the president could overrule him.
The aftermath of Sunday’s improbable 37–36 Packer comeback win over Allas (because the Cowboys have no D — get it?) includes, of course, social media, according to UW journalism classmate Rob Hernandez:
Meanwhile, this ESPN.com development is cool — the NFL Playoff Machine, in which the previous 15 weeks’ results are added to your picks for weeks 16 and 17 to create a playoff scenario. All you need to know about the Packers is that two wins get them the NFC North title and third or fourth seed. That’s the good news. The bad potential news is that their first playoff opponent is likely to be a team with a better record, though as a divisional non-champion that opponent would be a fifth or sixth seed. (Possibly New Orleans or San Francisco.)
About this time throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Larry Lujack went on the air to start his morning show on WLS radio in Chicago. Like nearly every one of my middle and high school classmates, I woke up to a clock-radio, but it wasn’t set to WISM, or Z104, or WIBA-FM; it was set to WLS.
Lujack died of cancer Wednesday. The fact he died wasn’t that surprising, though at 73. There were many unusual facets to Lujack, as Robert Feder shows:
“Larry didn’t want an obituary filled with people saying what a great guy he was and how talented he was,” his wife, Judith, told me after confirming his passing at age 73. “He was more than that. He was more than a jock. He was more than an employee of WLS. He was a truly amazing, caring, wonderful human being. He didn’t want to be known by the awards he won. He just wanted to be remembered as a person who cared about people — about children — and really tried to do things to help them.”
Though pretty much out of the limelight for more than 25 years and enjoying retirement in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lujack left an impression on Chicago that endures to this day. Mere mention of “Ol’ Uncle Lar” from the “Animal Stories” bit he played to perfection with Tommy Edwards still conjures fond memories for hundreds of thousands of loyal fans.
His legacy also lives on among the countless broadcasters he influenced and inspired. The next time you hear Rush Limbaugh rustle a paper on the air or puff himself up with mock grandiosity, remember who did it first — and did it better. …
A genuine original, Lujack perfected a world-weary, sarcastic style that was in stark contrast to the cheery and effervescent DJs of the era. If he was in a foul mood — which seemed to be the case most of the time — he didn’t try to hide it. Audiences found his dark, edgy humor real, relatable and unlike anything they’d ever heard on the radio before. …
In moving up to mornings on WLS, he became a radio superstar of the first magnitude, dominating listenership among 18-to-49-year-olds and making millions for parent company ABC. In 1984 he was rewarded with an unprecedented 12-year, $6 million contract in order to keep him from jumping to WGN.
“It ain’t no big deal,” a typically nonchalant Lujack told me at the time. “I can honestly say — and my wife even finds this astounding — that I am not the least bit excited. Trite as it may sound, you can’t take it with you.”
Ratings declined with his ill-timed move to afternoons in 1986, and Lujack signed off from WLS a year later when ABC bought out the remainder of his contract and sent him into much-too-early retirement at age 47. He made a couple of Chicago radio comebacks on WUBT and WRLL by remote from his home in Santa Fe, but he never commanded center stage as he had in his heyday.
Practically every industry honor imaginable followed, including induction in the National Radio Hall of Fame, the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and the Illinois Broadcasters Association’s Hall of Fame. He took them all in stride. …
In a Sun-Times interview published 30 years ago this week, a 43-year-old Lujack told me he had two main goals in life. Neither one had anything to do with radio.
“First and foremost is to make it to heaven when I die,” he said. “If I do that, then my life was a ragingsuccess, no matter what the Arbitron ratings say. My only other goal — and this is a far, far, far, far, far, far distant second — is to one day shoot 72 on the golf course.
“On the first one, I try to be a good person, an honest person and, in the crude vernacular of the rock ’n’ roll world, I don’t fuck over people. On the other thing, I hit zillions of practice balls. But if I achieve the first one, I’ll be quite satisfied even if I don’t come close to the other one.”
I heard Lujack on his second WLS iteration. He started at WLS doing its afternoon show and then its morning show …
… after and before stints at WLS’ main rock and roll competitor, WCFL in Chicago.
Lujack’s on-air personality was unusual for the day. His sarcasm and irony was sort of a preview of the ’80s, but he also would go entire seconds saying nothing, for the dead-air effect. That’s commonplace now, but it wasn’t in those days.
Feder compared Lujack to Limbaugh, and Lujack did occasionally channel his inner Floyd Turbo, though it was probably for entertainment value more than for the political statement. Limbaugh, remember, started as a rock DJ before he became a right-wing talker.
One of Lujack’s former bosses, John Rook, inherited Lujack:
Larry Lujack and Art Roberts were common folks, with distinctive voices and an abundance of imagination. I instinctively knew they figured into my plans. …
Larry’s rebellious image and appearance gave need for me to think he must have some James Dean or Marlon Brando in him. As time would tell, both Art and Larry were radio originals and LuJack would become a radio franchise. He never ventured from radio but I feel certain he could have made major contributions as an actor.
Larry inspired and left his imprint on a young David Letterman. …
Rush would borrow heavily from the Lujack style and become a talk radio star….but he never forgave me for not hiring him at WLS, where today his “talk” show is featured.
Everyone who listened to WLS during its top 40 heyday agrees that WLS didn’t stand out for its music. WLS stood out because of its personalities, including Fred Winston, who replaced Lujack on the morning show and whose deeeeeep voice can be heard from Ferris Bueller’s clock-radio at the beginning of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”; and John Records Landecker, who has been written about on this blog. (WLS’ first renowned rock DJ, Dick Biondi, is still on the air, five decades after he started at WLS, which wasn’t his first radio job.)
Radio guy Ted Ehlen explains why Lujack and his WLS colleagues were as so great at what they did:
In the time that I’ve been involved in radio, mornings on the medium have changed for music stations. The yuck-it-up, wink-wink-naughty and often noisy nature of “morning zoo” radio has been in vogue for decades now. The listener has become the eavesdropper rather than the recipient of the message in this venue, which is why I seldom listen to morning music radio (or music radio as a whole these days) and stick to a one-host talk show in the morning, because that’s the way that morning hit radio used to be with personalities like Larry Lujack. He groused, he voiced his opinions, and poked fun of the world around him while he gave you the time and temp and cranked out the hits on WLS and WCFL. Larry Lujack was made for morning radio, because he sounded an awful lot like you felt as you rolled out of the sack, got on your feet, and negotiated your way to getting ready to get out the door and head to work. And he talked to YOU. Yes, you’ll hear an awful lot about “Animal Stories” with Lil’ Snotnose Tommy, but, for the most part, Larry Lujack was sharing his world with YOU. …
When I was first learning about radio at WBSD, the 10-watt FM station at Burlington High School as “Top 40 Ted”, my on-air style was molded by those I heard primarily on WLS Musicradio…Bob Sirott, Fred Winston, even the likes of Clark Weber from the ‘60’s (John Records Landecker, as I told him on my Racine program last April, was a level of disc jockey talent that I looked up at, and, realizing my personal personality limitations, appreciated without attempting to duplicate). I listened to Larry Lujack, but he really didn’t influence me directly during this formative period, but I appreciated him much more the further down the road I went in broadcasting when it was putting bread on my table. However, the indirect influence of Lujack at the time is tangible, because his on-air delivery allowed me and every disc jockey who cracked a mic to have the ability to truly be themselves on the air and not have to fit the stereotypical deejay mold of smiley, pukey platter patter guy. And when I hosted WLKG’s “Saturday At The ‘70’s” show for about five-and-a-half years, I tried my best to synthesize what a good hit radio personality sounded like then, and bring it to the present day. My models for that were the jocks from the WLS Musicradio years, especially ol’ Superjock, Larry Lujack…
For a legion of air personalities around the country like me, he will be remembered for his contribution to our own on-air presentation formation.
The Letterman parallel is perfect because in each of those cases, there was one and only one DJ on at a time. Everyone else — the news and sports people, and “Animal Stories” sidekick Little Tommy — they came on when needed, and then left. It wasn’t the “Lujack and _______,” show, it was Larry Lujack, first and foremost.
I’ve known John Landecker for more than twenty years now, and everywhere he goes someone tells him how important he was to their lives because of his stint on WLS. People really look up to him. But one of the people that John always looked up to was Larry Lujack. He keeps an autographed picture of Larry in his home office, inscribed with classic Lujack wit: “This is to certify that John Landecker knows me personally.”
And Landecker adds in his book Records Truly Is My Middle Name (because it is):
WLS already had an all-star lineup when I came aboard in 1972. Superjock Larry Lujack was the morning man, Fred Winston was doing middays, and J.J. Jeffrey was the afternoon man. I was hired to fill the evening slot.
I met Larry before I was on the air a single time. The program director Mike McCormack called me into his office because he wanted me to sit in on a Larry Lujack aircheck. In the radio business we call them “airchecks,” but they’re really just critique sessions with the program director. The disc jockey brings in a tape of his or her show, and if the program director likes it, he praises it. I suppose this has happened once or twice in radio history. Usually it goes the other way. Usually the program director picks it apart.
McCormack started Larry’s tape, and we listened to a bit Lujack had done that morning. It was reality radio. Larry was pointing out that you could hear the garbage trucks in the alley through the air conditioner in WLS’s main air studio, and he held the microphone right up to it, so the listeners could hear it too. After the bit ended, the program director turned to me.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
“I thought that was pretty funny,” I said.
I didn’t know what I had done, but after the meeting I was walking back to the jock lounge with Larry and he turned toward me.
“Thanks, kid,” he said.
Apparently before I came in, the program director had been telling Larry he hated it, and Larry was defending it. When I backed him up by saying I thought it was funny, it defused the criticism, and Larry thought the new guy was alright.
On the other hand, not too long after that, I may have turned the tide in the other direction at least for a day. We were in a jock meeting, shooting the shit, and someone asked the seemingly innocuous question: “Who was more important to music — Elvis or the Beatles?”
“I don’t think Elvis was that great,” I said.
Well, I had no idea that Larry Lujack was a huge Elvis fan, but I found out pretty fast. Larry glared at me. And then he nearly spit the words at me, in his patented Lujack delivery.
Years later I was at the station when the news came across the wire that Elvis had died (August 16, 1977). The first thing that crossed my mind was that nobody in the world would want to know this information more than Larry Lujack. (When someone calls you a Philadelphia fuck for not loving Elvis, you have a tendency to remember that sort of thing.)
So, I called him at home, and his wife answered.
“Judy,” I said, “It’s John Landecker. I’ve got something very important to tell Larry. Trust me; he’s going to want to know about this.”
“OK, hang on,” she said.
A few seconds later Larry growled on the phone. “Yeah?”
“Larry, it’s me, John Landecker. Elvis is dead.”
“Who cares?” he growled again. “I’m taking a nap.”
About Lujack’s golf game: He told the story one day about having a “golf thought” while driving (a car), and so he stopped at a driving range in Kankakee, Ill. Armed with a cup of coffee, Lujack began to swing away, until it started to rain. This was some time after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster when fallout supposedly was drifting over the U.S. And as he watched the raindrops dripping into his coffee, Lujack said, he wondered if he was being irradiated by Chernobyl’s fallout. It doesn’t look funny in print, but it was funny enough on air to remember three decades later.
WLS History has a tribute to Lujack on its home page. The site also tells a story about a DJ meeting, where Landecker would argue about the playlist, Winston would suggest at 10-minute intervals that everybody be fired, and Lujack staring at the ceiling before interrupting the program director to tell him there was a fly on the ceiling.
Lujack’s funniest regular segment was Animal Stories, which (in its “early morning rerun of the previous day’s edition”) woke me up each weekday morning at 6:45 to hear …
One of the Animal Stories that got repeated airplay was of a woman at a party who saw the host’s dog’s eating one of the hors d’oeuvres handed to her by someone, after which the person finished the food. When the woman telling the story commented about that, the food-sharer said she did that all the time with her own dog. To that, the narrator said she wouldn’t have had done that had she noticed that the dog had been previously licking his … followed by a series of tones to blot out the words every listener could fill in, followed by laughter and expressions of revulsion by Uncle Lar and Little Tommy.
Lujack and I had one interaction. (Besides my possession of a WLS Fantastic Plastic card, which was worthless in southern Wisconsin.) I helped plan a Boy Scouts trip to Chicago, and as part of it I tried to arrange a tour of the WLS studios, then at 360 N. Michigan Ave. (or, as Lujack’s colleague John Records Landecker called it, the fifth floor of the downtown Burger King). I got my letter back a few days later with a note from Lujack saying that he was sorry, but building security didn’t allow tours on weekends, signed “Lar.”)
Lujack reminds us WLS Musicradio listeners of the days when radio stations were not automated or voice-tracked, and DJs were allowed to have personalities.
Gov. Scott Walker said Monday his administration’s ongoing discussion about taxes includes a look at whether it would be feasible to eliminate the income tax.
Walker said the conversation is starting now so his administration can take time well ahead of the next budget to figure out what employers, small business owners and the public believes “would be the biggest bang for the buck.”
“There are many states that do very well, better than most states in the country, that have no income taxes,” Walker told reporters during a stop at his Northern Economic Development Summit. “That’s one thing for us to look at. Is that feasible? What would that mean in terms of an economic boost? That’s not only for individuals, but small businesses in this state.”
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Revenue Secretary Rick Chandler last week had the first of their roundtable discussions on taxes. Chandler said Monday those discussions are to get input from the public on what they’re interested in as well as what’s best for job creation. He said that could be changes to the income tax code or property taxes.
“We want to look at areas where we may not stack up well against other states, where particular aspects of our tax code may be out of line with other states,” Chandler said. “We want to get the overall burden down, and we want to make all elements of the tax code as competitive as possible.”
Where does Wisconsin “not stack up well against other states” in taxes? Basically all of them, but particularly in income taxes, because our state’s culture hates “rich” people. The purpose of a tax system should be to raise necessary revenue for the functions of government, not for any other purpose, including “fairness.” A system where everyone pays the same tax rate is “fair” because people with more income or who spend more pay more in, respectively, income and sales taxes.
Calabrese adds:
While John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are firing shots at conservative organizations for criticizing the latest GOP punt on fiscal policy, let’s see what’s happening in statehouses across the country – particularly in Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin.
Scott Walker, who already went to war with public employee unions and won concerning collective bargaining rights, isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s now taking a serious look at eliminating Wisconsin’s state income tax – a move that would put Wisconsin on a par with economic strongholds like Texas and Florida. The conversation is beginning well in advance of the next budget cycle because Walker wants to have a clear sense of the fiscal and economic implications before he brings the idea before the Legislature. …
Democrats like income taxes, of course, because they can be used very efficiently as instruments of redistribution. Walker isn’t yet saying how he would otherwise restructure the state’s tax code to compensate for the loss of income tax revenue (assuming he would at all), but one obvious step would be an expansion of the state sales tax. Sales taxes, of course, are less prone to politicians’ manipulation, which is why Democrats don’t much like them. You can exempt certain things – like groceries and medicine – but you can’t build in the same myriad of complications that are possible with an income tax.
And of course, the best argument against income taxes is that they serve as a disincentive against earning, whereas sales taxes encourage savings and discourage consumption. That’s a dagger in the heart of Keynesians who think consumption alone drives economic growth. They prefer to impose punitive income taxes on the rich and redistribute the income to those who earn less on the theory that they will spend the money on their needs and all this consumption will drive growth. That’s why they’re demand-siders, because they think demand leading to consumption creates wealth. We’re supply-siders because we believe production adds value and creates wealth, thus making it possible for people to consume what represents value to them.
Actually, Walker is inflating this trial balloon because, well before the next budget cycle, he has a(nother) reelection. Assuming Walker survives the old and newthreats on his life before the 2014 election, I’m skeptical about this, as I wrote four months ago, for a variety of reasons, beginning with arithmetic. In order to make up the loss of income tax revenue, some combination of three things will have to happen:
Increase the state sales tax from 5 percent.
Increase property taxes (or cut so much state aid to counties, municipalities and school districts that they raise property taxes to make up the lost state aid) in a state that is already in the top 10 in median property tax bills, in terms of taxes and in terms of percentage of personal income and property value. The income and sales taxes exist today in large part because of efforts at property tax relief. Those efforts, of course, failed.
Cut state spending. Not just reduce the increase, but cut it. By a lot.
Do you see support among the average Wisconsinite for any of those three, let alone all of those three? Democrats demagogue every tax cut and every spending cut because they believe people don’t pay enough in taxes, and that government doesn’t spend enough money in this state. Too many Wisconsinites persist in the mistaken belief that our government services, including our schools, are great values, when they’re not, in either what we’re paying for them or their quality.
The comments on the Cain TV blog and on Facebook (as in 12,041 Likes on Cain’s site alone) indicate overwhelming support for getting rid of income taxes. Some comments may indicate less than fully thought out support of getting rid of income taxes. (Such as the political likelihood of whacking one-third of state government spending.) Others prove that other states have considerably lower taxes and much less government and provide services to their citizens just fine.
I find it unlikely that income taxes will die in Wisconsin. I am most interested to find out what Walker’s tax reform proposal will contain. What it must contain beyond tax cuts is constitutional, not merely statutory, limits on spending and constitutionally required voter or supermajority approval of tax increases. Never trust politicians to do the right thing; you have to prevent them from doing the wrong thing.
The Thought Leader is sort of a highflying, good-doing yacht-to-yacht concept peddler. Each year, he gets to speak at the Clinton Global Initiative, where successful people gather to express compassion for those not invited. Month after month, he gets to be a discussion facilitator at think tank dinners where guests talk about what it’s like to live in poverty while the wait staff glides through the room thinking bitter thoughts.
He doesn’t have students, but he does have clients. He doesn’t have dark nights of the soul, but his eyes blaze at the echo of the words “breakout session.”
Many people wonder how they too can become Thought Leaders and what the life cycle of one looks like.
In fact, the calling usually starts young. As a college student, the future Thought Leader is bathed in attention. His college application essay, “I Went to Panama to Teach the Natives About Math but They Ended Up Teaching Me About Life,” is widely praised by guidance counselors. On campus he finds himself enmeshed in a new social contract: Young people provide their middle-aged professors with optimism and flattery, and the professors provide them with grade inflation. He is widely recognized for his concern for humanity. (He spends spring break unicycling across Thailand while reading to lepers.)
Not armed with fascinating ideas but with the desire to have some, he launches off into the great struggle for attention. At first his prose is upbeat and smarmy, with a peppy faux sincerity associated with professional cheerleading.
Within a few years, though, his mood has shifted from smarm to snark. There is no writer so obscure as a 26-year-old writer. So he is suddenly consumed by ambition anxiety — the desperate need to prove that he is superior in sensibility to people who are superior to him in status. Soon he will be writing blog posts marked by coruscating contempt for extremely anodyne people: “Kelly Clarkson: Satan or Merely His Spawn?”
Of course the writer in this unjustly obscure phase will develop the rabid art of being condescending from below. Of course he will confuse his verbal dexterity for moral superiority. Of course he will seek to establish his edgy in-group identity by trying to prove that he was never really that into Macklemore.
Fortunately, this snarky phase doesn’t last. By his late 20s, he has taken a job he detests in a consulting firm, offering his colleagues strategy memos and sexual tension. By his early 30s, his soul has been so thoroughly crushed he’s incapable of thinking outside of consultantese. It’s not clear our Thought Leader started out believing he would write a book on the productivity gains made possible by improved electronic medical records, but having written such a book he can now travel from medical conference to medical conference making presentations and enjoying the rewards of being T.S.A. Pre. …
The middle-aged Thought Leader’s life has hit equilibrium, composed of work, children and Bikram yoga. The desire to be snarky mysteriously vanishes with the birth of the first child. His prose has never been so lacking in irony and affect, just the clean translucence of selling out.
He’s succeeding. Unfortunately, the happy moment when you are getting just the right amount of attention passes, and you don’t realize you were in this moment until after it is gone.
The tragedy of middle-aged fame is that the fullest glare of attention comes just when a person is most acutely aware of his own mediocrity. By his late 50s, the Thought Leader is a lion of his industry, but he is bruised by snarky comments from new versions of his formerly jerkish self. Of course, this is when he utters his cries for civility and good manners, which are really just pleas for mercy to spare his tender spots.
OK, I’ve changed my mind about the headline. (Meanwhile, read the comments, which are literally all over the place.)
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 