Misdirected anger
Why the FUCK has this lame yuppie bullshit video been sitting on the NYTimes digital Opinion page (scroll down to "Op-Ed Specials") for almost five fucking months?
Seriously, nothing has ever been so prominently and perpetually placed on that site as this video. How many people per day must still be watching it to merit that placement? And how many of those people, like me, watched it only after months had passed, figuring, shit, if its been there for so long, it must be something truly marvelous! Only to discover it is, in fact, horseshit?
Seriously, it's horseshit! You wanna know what's in the video? Read the title! "Calvin trillin Gets Parked." That's the whole video! Calvin Trillin sits in a car that parks itself. Every now and then he lets loose with some old-person quip -- one of them during a conversation with...get this... a young black man! Haha! What a true flavor-of-New-York this video delivers! A rich old white writer sits in a Lexus and then quips with a negro!
Fuck! I just vomited!
Seriously, I can understand why this video might've been made. It's exactly the sort of inoffensive "literate" drollery that often passes for humor in magazines like the New Yorker and papers like the Times. And as a newsman, I can also imagine the editorial meeting that led to the video's creation:
"Okay, everyone; pitches for today?"
"Well, Lexis has unveiled the first self-parking car."
"Enh... the tech magazines and local nightly news'll be all over it."
"Hey, wait... I think Calvin Trillin wrote a novel about parking!"
"Hey, why don't we get him to test the car!"
"Hey, that's a 'creative' way to cover the story!"
"Hey, and we like to encourage 'creativity!'"
"Hey, and it's also 'smart!'"
"Correct! Calvin Trillin writes for the New Yorker, so anything in which he appears is by definition 'smart,' no matter how lame it is!"
"Hey, and let's make it a web video!"
"You mean 'multi-media?'"
"Yes!"
"Awesome! Because 'multi-media web elements' are always desirable even if they suck!"
Really, it makes total sense. But what is NON-sensical is how this video could be so popular that the Times can afford to leave it on the Opinion page for the web equivalent of centuries, when they could be selling ad space there to, like, Houghton Mifflin or something. Seriously, do that many people give a fuck about Trillin? Are that many people dazzled by the self-parking car at this point? Is the combination of Trillin + car truly so tantalizing as to draw in viewers by the billions?
I'm gonna lose sleep over this. Wait, it's 11pm? I already have.
Seriously, nothing has ever been so prominently and perpetually placed on that site as this video. How many people per day must still be watching it to merit that placement? And how many of those people, like me, watched it only after months had passed, figuring, shit, if its been there for so long, it must be something truly marvelous! Only to discover it is, in fact, horseshit?
Seriously, it's horseshit! You wanna know what's in the video? Read the title! "Calvin trillin Gets Parked." That's the whole video! Calvin Trillin sits in a car that parks itself. Every now and then he lets loose with some old-person quip -- one of them during a conversation with...get this... a young black man! Haha! What a true flavor-of-New-York this video delivers! A rich old white writer sits in a Lexus and then quips with a negro!
Fuck! I just vomited!
Seriously, I can understand why this video might've been made. It's exactly the sort of inoffensive "literate" drollery that often passes for humor in magazines like the New Yorker and papers like the Times. And as a newsman, I can also imagine the editorial meeting that led to the video's creation:
"Okay, everyone; pitches for today?"
"Well, Lexis has unveiled the first self-parking car."
"Enh... the tech magazines and local nightly news'll be all over it."
"Hey, wait... I think Calvin Trillin wrote a novel about parking!"
"Hey, why don't we get him to test the car!"
"Hey, that's a 'creative' way to cover the story!"
"Hey, and we like to encourage 'creativity!'"
"Hey, and it's also 'smart!'"
"Correct! Calvin Trillin writes for the New Yorker, so anything in which he appears is by definition 'smart,' no matter how lame it is!"
"Hey, and let's make it a web video!"
"You mean 'multi-media?'"
"Yes!"
"Awesome! Because 'multi-media web elements' are always desirable even if they suck!"
Really, it makes total sense. But what is NON-sensical is how this video could be so popular that the Times can afford to leave it on the Opinion page for the web equivalent of centuries, when they could be selling ad space there to, like, Houghton Mifflin or something. Seriously, do that many people give a fuck about Trillin? Are that many people dazzled by the self-parking car at this point? Is the combination of Trillin + car truly so tantalizing as to draw in viewers by the billions?
I'm gonna lose sleep over this. Wait, it's 11pm? I already have.