home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
WindowsWare 2 the Maxx
/
winmaxx.zip
/
winmaxx
/
COMM
/
MNTEXT37.ZIP
/
RUBY37.TXT
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-02-17
|
6KB
|
105 lines
WE GOT A NEW CAT
(Or how I came to be known as Scarnose)
By Del Freeman
(A Ruby Begonia Offering)
"Is it not enough that I have to suffer the degradation of
being a misunderstood and unemployed journalist?" I complained.
"Must I also be marked for life by the very animals I feed and
care for?"
"What are you telling me?" my husband asked solicitously as
I nursed my profusely bleeding nose. "Did the kitty just come up
in the middle of the night and say, "You're ugly," and go smack?"
"That's pretty much how it happened, except the kitty didn't
say anything or I'd have moved my nose," I answered.
Call me demanding, but I don't think your pets should make
you bleed. I have a lot of these expectations which have been
systematically destroyed over the years.
Once, when I was a reporter, I expected a Pulitzer.
The local too-cute married-on-the-air news team would have a
child, I imagined, which would arrive unexpectedly in a rapid
birth as they cut the ribbon at the new drive-in Bagel-'N-Brew, and
I'd be there, notepad in hand.
I could see the headline over my byline: "Muffy Has a Boy -
Handsome Hubby Bites Through Cord With Teeth."
Another great expectation down the tubes. My choice of a
journalism career has pretty much insured the demise of one great
expectation after another. Serving the informational needs of the
public can be a thankless field in which one can experience the
poverty of a barely working wage and be regularly abused. That's
like double coupons on grocery day for a closet Shi-ite such as
I.
I shall never forget my first feature interview with Alice
and Irving Hollingbutton and their offspring, Bobby-Joe, Bubba-Lee
and Sally. Alice called me when it appeared in print to say Bobby-Joe
was not their child at all, but that of Eunice and Hollis-Wade
Hollingbutton. (Why she felt no compulsion to mention this during
the interview, I'll never know, but it left me with a distrust of
all future subjects, and a propensity to ask at the most
inopportune moments, "Tell me, which one of these children isn't
yours?")
Public relations, on the other hand, is financially
rewarding. My P.R. counterparts all drive new Miata convertibles.
I drive a 1979 Toyota with rusted doors and a window that won't roll
up.
And I'd switch to P.R. in a heartbeat, but no one has
offered me a new car. No one has even offered me a newer old car.
Besides, I'm not at all persuaded that journalism experience
qualifies one for P.R. work.
Public relations is the flip flip side of the coin. Modesty
prevents my pronouncement that I am more than a moderately good
reporter, (except for that Hollingbutton thing), but I have no
doubt that I simply do not have the ability to produce 45 pages
of documentation that says nothing. That is not to imply that I
don't frequently produce a collection of writing that is of no
particular interest to anyone. The two are not at all the same thing.
P.R. writing involves the ability to say nothing at great
length and make it seem like you have said something. Even if I
could do that, I can't speak the language.
What is community interaction, anyway? Does waiting for the
bus count? Economic development? It sounds like somebody printing
greenbacks in the basement and it turns out to be spending money,
preferably not your own.
And did you ever read an annual report that said, "We lost
our shirts last year?" Most probably you read about acquisitions and
investments that have a long-term repayment ratio, i.e. they lost
their shirts last year.
P.R. speak is even more difficult than P.R. writing. Next
time somebody calls you up and says, "I hear your wife is getting it
on with the mailman," let's see you come up with a response like, "A
restructuring of management has resulted in a far more responsive
team conceptualization and is expected to have tremendous economic
impact in the third quarter."
(Translation: "I have left the unfaithful harlot and she'll
be a very old, stooped, gray-haired figure before she'll get a
penny out of my I.R.A.").
Public relations work requires that you cease the delightful
pursuit of popping balloons, and concentrate on inflating them,
placing them strategically in positions of maximum exposure, and
persuading mankind that they are modern marvels resulting from
many intense hours of handmade design and attention to detail.
(Translation: "I blew them up myself.")
No Sirree! Give me the massochistic degradation of blue-
penciled copy from a maladjusted, border-line psychotically
vicious editor any day. Why, my creative hackles rise at the
thought of a juicy expose like, "Television Personalities Muffy
and Boy Wonder Patronized Sperm Bank."
I can hear the demented editor screaming a last-minute
demand across the newsroom even now.
"Hey, give me another graph on that warm-water birthing in
the hot-tub, film at 11 thing.
"Hey, you, Scarnose - get cracking."
END
Ruby's Pearls
A. C. Aarbus Publishing
Route 1, Box 444
Callahan, Florida 32011
(904) 845-7672