Doubling Down Part Deux of a 17,000 part series.

To: DD,
From: Chiggy
RE: Feck off

DD,

First of all I would like to mention I am voting for Mccain, a vote for McCain is a vote for the Senator's employment (since he is working on the campaign). As for a need for personal communication I suppose this might be true, but I think it might have a little more with a need to place responsibilities/ blame on someone. Every time I deposit a check at the bank I make sure to go into the branch, not because I don't realize the ATM can do it but because I want to be able to blame an individual if my check is lost. It might not seem rational but I have actually had a check lost in the scuffle from the ATM to my bank account, as for texting I think it has more to do with the fact everyone wants to KIT, but they actually don't like as many people as they profess. There are five reasons why I text, 1) I am lazy, 2) I don't actually want to talk to you 3) Its loud (clubs, concerts, etc.) 4) I am busy (work, class, dinner, etc) or 5) I'm driving jk, there are probably only 4 reasons. Basically half the reasons are of the I don't like you very much variety. But alas I am a huge texter so I shouldn't really let me secrets out.

The main thing about the automated systems that gets to me is that they constantly frustrate everyone. I thought I was the only jackass who just repeated customer service while seething through his teeth; however I have recently watched a couple of friends go through the exact same act. I think just taking the automatic frustration level away from people would be an upgrade in customer service.

I agree with you take on society. I think we are too connected, too plugged in, I mean look at our blog, we have writers in DC, NYC, SF and LA and we are able to communicate frequently and quickly. I think it illustrates a little bit about the diverse options that we are presented with on a daily basis. I think people of our generation have the ability to work hard but with out a firm program/ timeline get distracted by the options of today.

Commercials are the same way, we have so many options and so many bright people have created them that nothing feels fresh, nothing feels new and hence why they seem shittier. Back when we were younger and hadn't been through the process as many times every super bowl commercial seemed fresh and exciting, but I think that might have been a result of having very little options to compare them with. My favorite new commercial is the All State "Safe Driving Bonus" radio spot ("safe-rib eating bonus!"). While it is nothing like the cave man spots it's a lot like the new school spots in which it's a quick cheap thrill and I still remember it months later.

Tangentially, I would like to ask you a couple of questions about our played out society. Super Man dunk or not a dunk? Gladwell's piece, thoughts? Also do you think BS will be angry that we stole his structure? (BTW I love the fact that Senator hates him, LGTS the model of diversity!) These and other questions need to be answered prior to getting back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Chiggy

To: Chiggy
From: Doble Deuce
RE: Two Tickets to Paradise

Chigga Chigga Chigga what Ni**!

So, here we are at a crossroads. How many electronic mails do we write? Would it be better if the Earth were just destroyed by a damn asteroid? I can't know, but it's time to live this week like its shark week. In the meantime, I'm gonna take all that knowledge you just gave me out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

I understand the need to place blame on someone, and I empathize that automated machines don't allow you to do that. I guess it's just sort of weird and circumstantial that we enjoy human contact for completely different reasons. This must be how coalitions are made in Congress. A bunch of white dudes come together and realize they want the same thing for different purposes and sign a deal except when they do it there's always at least one more shithead that piggybacks on the deal and writes in some pork barrel spending for a bridge to nowhere or something. Good thing I pay taxes.

I guess I always thought automated voice systems were sort of soothing. I don't really get your hatred and, finally, every system I've ever used has immediately gone to the operator when I murmured, "Operator." So it goes, I guess.

Anyways, I think sometimes I go a bit far in my critique of society. The sky isn't falling down on us anymore, and as far as I can tell it never was barring a brief period from about 1968-1969. As you know, there is nothing in this world I hat as much as a hippie. Godless swine, I say. Still the movement away from personal interaction troubles me. I mean, at what point will I not even need my voicebox. I've always said that I would smoke to my hearts desire except I've never wanted to have to talk through one of those special external voiceboxes. Well, it appears that speaking itself has become overrated. This troubles me.

I agree that there are now MORE distractions, but I don't agree that this is the root cause of our collective malaise. I mean, there have always been distractions. When they're broken down, isn't that exactly what sports are? Maybe this is the root reason that companies have started to offer the same compensation for females as they do males. The females are less distracted by the traditional medias.

Anyways, if there were less distractions, I'd just let each of them fill up my day a bit more. At the very least, I'd be more knowledgeable about those distractions. So, that'd be nice. As it is, all I can talk about are sports, my job and a few writers.

In fact, just yesterday my girlfriend was asking me about baseball—and I know you hate baseball, but follow me here. She couldn't understand what made sports so goddamn appealing, and I realized that I can't explain it; it's part of being a normalized guy. Why should I care about the Dodgers or, especially, the Clippers? The players change every year, you know? But the thing is, I don't care about the players; I care about the jerseys. The players are the catalyst that allows us to feel that we are actually a part of something greater than ourselves. I think I ended it by saying that underneath it all, guys are pathetic.
There are three ways to look at the advertising conundrum. The first is that I can agree in principle that "a lot of bright people have been making bright commercials for too long," so now nothing feels fresh or new. Unequivocally, bright people make ads; they're drawn by the salaries available without extra schooling, but then the problem is that they're all bright. So in the industry the average advertising IQ is something like 130 so now you've got to be uber-exceptional to stand out.

However, there's another way to look at this. Too often in advertising, we make commercials to please the in-group. That is, to make the grade, you've got to impress the executives. In this process, a lot of the original meaning is lost, and, most times, the message is watered down. I think that, too often, the commercial is lost in an internal bureaucracy. It's too bad.

Finally, advertisers are always worried about amorphous things like "brand awareness" and "brand recognition" and whatever. They think of their job as an art form instead of what it should be: an extension of the sales force. Now, I'll grant you that advertisements that think of themselves as a sales tool tend to be boring and infomercially, but this sort of thing is cyclical man. Right now, we've got too many people telling too many good stories so they all get lost, but when you see an ad actually tell you to DO SOMETHING all of a sudden it works. Sometime in the future, I'm sure that'll flip again.

Wow, I'm not even to your questions yet.

No, the Superman dunk was not a dunk, but it was theater. And my question is who cares? What more could I ask for out of an exhibition competition, you know? It took some thought prior to the competition, and an insane amount of jumping ability. I loved it on three or four hundred levels.

Malcolm Gladwell's piece was from a while ago, and it is among the best articles I've ever read. The problem with Malcolm Gladwell is that he's too good of a writer. Every article of his that I read makes me both amazed and depressed. I can't write as candidly or as lucidly no matter how much I practice, this will never change.

Anyways, the article is incredible. I think it speaks to the biases we, as humans, have towards symptoms. We care about the problem; we do not care about why the problem exists, and this hampers our ability to solve anything. To tell you the truth, after reading the article I was most surprised that more universities don't take Harvard's approach. It blows my mind—remember, my mind is easily blown—that most schools admit students based on their predicted success in school instead of on their predicted success after school. After all, the people who build the libraries and the research areas are rich.
They're people that "made it" after school. In this light, who cares to predict how well someone will be able to write about classic literature. Wouldn't you rather they be ambitious enough to actually finish their own great novel?

I also found it interesting that people who got into UPenn as well as Penn St. and chose to go to Penn St. did just as well after college as those who went to UPenn. I mean, it makes sense. The sort of person who gets into UPenn in the first place is an ambitious sort of person. It shouldn't really matter where you go to school if you've got the ambition.

Finally, "mking connections"is totally overblown. That is to say, where you make connections is totally overblown. Penn students were telling you that connections were their basis for going to Penn as if there has never been a successful person at Penn St. If you're ambitious enough, you'll meet the right people. I guess what I really took away from his article is that life is mostly up to the individual. This is a good thing; as long as you're up for the challenge.

Anyways, I want to know what you think about the Western Conference, your thoughts on the Eastern Conference and what you think about San Francisco culture. It's still a west coast thing we've got going on up here, but everything is just a little bit different. It can't be just the gay vibe, can it?

Back to you, you blackface.