I got a book by Elmore Leonard caalled “10 Rules For Writing” for Christmas. It’s a short gift book, and most of it i stuff I do instinctively, but the rules are good reminders for anyone who writes for pleasure or work on a regular basis:
1) Never open a book with weather.
2) Avoid prologues.
3) Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4) Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
5) Keep you exclamation points under control.
6) Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7) Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8- Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9) Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10) Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.
I’m a big enough fan of obscenely-good mac ‘n cheese and appetizers the incorporate chicken livers that I was visibly upset when I found out last night that Zon’s closed shortly after I moved out of Jamaica Plain. There were, in my opinion, only about four or five reasons to make a special trip to the hellishly inaccessible corner of Boston, and now there is one less.
But I’m also enough of an economic development geek to know that it was all inevitable; once the Milky Way/Bella Luna opted to stop paying the high rents there and move to new space in the brewery (which is gorgeous but lacks the character of a basement with candle pin bowling lanes), that whole little block was doomed. Now there is a hair salon, which I obviously didn’t patronize, and somewhat creepy-looking coffee shop that no one seems to go into, and not much else.
As the Globe article noted, “It’s sad for JP, which has some bright spots on its dining scene but isn’t the restaurant mecca it seems it should be.”
A big chunk of my income comes from summarizing financial news from 5 to 9 every morning markets are open. The hours aren’t as bad as they seem and it has been educational, if not a bit depressing, in the 2.5 years I have been doing it. Between that and writing somewhat regularly for the Boston Globe’s business desk, I feel like I’m probably more in tune than most with what’s happening in the recession.
Indeed, I first started panicking in July 2007, shortly after I started this gig, and I feel the average, reasonably-educated person who doesn’t immerse him or herself in this kind of thing didn’t truly realize how screwed the economy was until Lehman Brothers collapsed last September. At one point I considered starting a blog to gauge the outlook for economic recovery, figuring I could parlay all the information I was picking up early in the morning into something useful for the average reader.
The idea was to not point fingers and try to explain why we’re in this mess – Calvin Trillin did that quite elegantly in the New York Times this week – but give readers a sense of where we were going. Most recently the debate has gotten bogged down in politics as Congress considers financial reform, and I think a lot of people are confused about what all this means to them.
But given that this is just the second post in five months on my flagship blog, I realized I was a bit too busy to take on something new. So this post will have to suffice. I am not a financial expert, and I do not have a crystal ball. What follows is my take on what the consensus of the leading financial industry observers is on the key components of economic recovery.
Dow 10k (again): Damn if I didn’t call in sick to my job at the Dow Jones News Service when the Dow Jones Industrial Average first crossed 10,000 in 1999. Everyone except for me got Dow 10k ball caps even though we had nothing to do with pushing the index to that lofty goal for the very first time. The Dow crossed 10,000 again this week for the first time in a year, leading many to believe the recession is winding down.
But keen observers are quick to note that the recovery, at least for stock markets, is likely to come in fits and starts. That’s because a lot of the recent market enthusiasm comes from investors who are figuring stocks can’t fall much lower. And some of the lift is coming from companies – particularly banks – reporting earnings that have been inflated with government rescue plans.
Another potential hitch to the market’s recovery: small investors who got stung when their 401(k) balances were decimated last year are going to be gun-shy about jumping back into the market. And perhaps with good reason.
The other shoe: For the record, I was reading Wall Street Journal articles as early as 2002 warning we were doomed when – not if – the housing market collapsed. That happened and now we’re in the worst recession in 70 years.
But the biggest reason why I can’t buy into recent economic optimism is symbolized by a big, newly-built and completely empty office building next to a stretch of 128 in Woburn that I drive by five or six times per week. The just-started commercial property collapse and the related round of commercial real estate mortgage defaults means that recent, big-bank earnings gains will be short lived and a lot of small banks are going to collapse.
And it’s not just office properties – retail and shopping malls in particular are also in a lot of trouble.
The stimulus and regulatory reform: I’m not very political and regular readers (if any of you are still out there) know that I’m inclined to believe that politicians craft short-term solutions (and short-term usually coincides nicely with the current election recycle).
That said, the economic stimulus was probably needed and one of the reasons we can even have this discussion on whether or not the economy has turned the corner. And if regulatory reform efforts don’t get overly-watered down by lobbyists and Congressmen facing midterm election challenges, some real positive change may come out of this (down hold your breath).
The problem with the stimulus can be best characterized by the cash for clunkers program: it was a boon for auto dealers, but as soon as the money ran dry, sales went back to their dismal, pre-program levels. On Sunday, I wrote about something similar happening with small business lending, and the pattern is likely to be repeated in several other areas, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program for banks and insurers and the expiration of the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit for the housing market. Once those programs and programs like them run out of money, the sector they were trying to prop up will be back where it started (unless we have real recovery by then).
Things could always be worse: To use a badly-worn cliché, there are some silver linings in all of this. People are saving more and tighter credit means many of us are likely to get into debt trouble (I’m amazed at the shift on the campus of Bridgewater State College over the past two years: far fewer fliers promising students easy credit card acceptance to fuel spring break getaways they can’t afford).
And a lot of those laid off workers are starting their own companies, which is always a good thing. I’m a pessimist by nature, but I’m certainly feeling better when I wake up to read, digest and summarize financial news than I was a year ago at this time.
I’m going to be honest – if we had played “dead or alive” a week ago there’s a 50-50 chance I would have guessed wrong if you had thrown “Captain Lou Albano” my way. The only times I’ve really had occasion to think about him since I’ve been old enough to drive is when going by a Sheraton in Stamford, Conn. on I-95, where a friend claims to have met Albano and Big John Studd at a breakfast buffet during their 1980’s hey days.
Both are dead now, and, with yesterday’s passing of Albano, I think the 1980’s can be safely – and sadly – put to rest.
For a pre-teen boy coming of age in the 1980’s, Albano was a dominant face of pro wrestling, which was that last lingering hope that some things you believed in were still real and genuine and good. We were well past the age where Santa and Easter Bunnies existed, but as late as fourth grade there was a raging debate: real or not? Some of us – totally against rational thought – held out hope that men in tights beating each other to within inches of death (and then repeating it the very next night) was indeed real. What can I say? We just needed one of those things we believed in as children to carry water into adolescence.
So when Albano showed up in a Cyndi Lauper video in 1983, it was at first confusing and then devastating. Albano was playing a caricature of the larger than life villain he played around wrestling rings throughout the northeast in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The rubber bands safety-pinned to his face were now comical and not a sign of the derangement he would have needed as the manager of professional wrestling villains. That video ushered in the “Rock and Wrestling” era which ushered in the end of pro wrestling’s attempt to even pretend it was a legitimate sport. Today, WWE refers to its talent as “entertainers” instead of “athletes,” and even the youngest of its fans knows that it’s more soap opera than competition.
I got over it, and barely noticed when Albano, like a lot of 80’s pop culture icons, fizzled with a series of fits and starts in the early 1990’s. The 90’s were new and the era when I came of age, bad flannel shirts and even badder Seattle grunge rock to boot. Today the college freshmen I teach don’t even know who Rodney King is and only have a vague awareness of Nirvana, so it seems pointless to dig deeper and try to explain who Captain Lou Albano was.
Which is unfortunate, because, much like Lauper, Ronald Reagan, and Max Headroom Albano was somebody that mattered in the 1980’s. The decade would have progressed much the way it did if he had never emerged onto the national scene, but Albano was the old school-kind of celebrity who got famous by being on t.v., not by having an embarrassing video circulated on YouTube or topping 100,000 followers on Twitter. It was during those virginal times when publicists were just beginning to realize they could turn an ugly fat guy into some sort of icon, and a time when getting those 15-minutes of fame Andy Warhol promised us actually meant something.
Incidentally, I should note that becoming an old-school celebrity didn’t necessarily involve talent (Albano was a wretched actor and an obese man working in a “sport” that was getting its first generation of juiced-out, muscle-bound performers). Becoming an old-school celebrity just meant having a certain charisma. I mean, seriously, have you listened to those Cyndi Lauper songs? Personality went a long way.
So I guess I should be happy some things haven’t changed.
The reading list for the course on greed that I’m teaching this fall continues to expand. I’m probably not going to go with a textbook, but if I did, I’d lean toward McMafia, which I’m currently reading.
Also looking for a handful of films to show: I need to re-watch Wall Street to see if its too dated and Boiler Room to see if it’s too cheesy. Also thinking I may throw Trainspotting into the mix. And I’d love to show Casino or Goodfella, but damn those films are long.
In any case, keep sending article and film suggestions, and I am starting to look for guest speakers with a unique take on the subject. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the course description:
Gangsters, Meltdowns and Greed: Social Deviance in American Society
Why can some people so easily break the law while most of us choose to obey it? The goal of this writing-intensive course is to understand behavior that goes against accepted social norms. We’ll look at career criminals, kidnappers and scam artists and show what social situations prompted them to make life choices most of us would never consider. A key focus of the class will be the current economic recession and the greed-fueled decisions that partially caused it. The instructor will draw on his work as a journalist who has covered financial wrongdoing, corruption and organized crime and will include some unlikely guest speakers.
I once took an I.Q. test and scored 145 which, those of you familiar with these kinds of things will know, labels me as a “borderline genius.” Which is kind of cool at first but then, when you really start to think about it with your ample mental capacity, is kind of depressing.
Because while I’m proud of my accomplishments, I’m not out using my 145 I.Q. to cure diseases or solve the world’s problems. No think tank would hire me, and while I understand and embrace free markets, I don’t thrive in them. I take some comfort in knowing that much of the stuff I write entertains and/or informs, and teaching is fulfilling. But I’m also realistic and realize if you didn’t get a chance to read Blood & Volume, which is all but a few thousand of you, you were reading or doing something else. And if I didn’t teach you how to write, someone else would have.
So the more I think about it, the more I realize the accomplishments I have scored in life would be so much more impressive if I had fallen on the other end of the I.Q. scale. As in I’d be an over-achiever instead of an under-achiever if my I.Q. score came in at “borderline retarded” as opposed to “borderline genius.” (And yes, lest I be accused of being politically incorrect, “borderline retarded” is an actual classification for people whoe score between 50 and 70 on I.Q. tests).
“You wrote a book? You? That is so….special!”
“You live by yourself? Alone? That is incredible.”
Ten years ago, the well-dressed men catching a matinée at the Union Square theater in New York may have been recently wealthy, dot-com whiz kids with time and money on their hands. They were part of the creative class that made its own hours and lots of money. I know they were there because I was working for Dow Jones at the time (as the company’s storied Industrial Average was about to cross 10,000 for the first time) and spent a week of afternoons at the theater when I pulled the graveyard shift and the little window A.C. unit wasn’t enough to fight back the heat wave that hit New York that month.
But now, ten year later, the well-dressed men symbolize a different kind of economic period. They are salesmen watching the 1:50 p.m. showing of “Tyson” because they have no sales calls to make, or they are job hunters killing a few hours between interviews. I suspect if I probed deep I’d find more than a couple hadn’t told a spouse they had lost the job and were on the brink of losing the house.
Around the corner the Circuit City — once a massive anchor in the bustling neighborhood — is out of business, and men are pushing recently-purchased store fixtures out of the Virgin Megastore next door. The record store is holding a going-out-of-business sale of its own, and, according to the sign in the window, everything must go. Once trendy Manhattan apartment buildings have brochure racks out front that advertise rent reductions. In one building, tenants are speculating whether a 27-year-old stock broker fell or jumped off a 12th-story roof deck last week.
And pessimism is prevailing; in an elevator a broker says the market has gone straight up for three months and for no good reason. Some places find sick humor in all of this. Perhaps the most cynical sign of the recession is the one on a boutique clothing store in Greenwich Villages that promises “20 percent off if your name is on the Madoff list.”
Still, and particularly outside of New York City, this is a mostly silent recession. Friends of friends may have been laid off, but other people who are simply friends can still keep dinner plans and meet for post-work drinks. We grew accustomed to ignoring the warning smoke throughout the 1990’s and the mini-recovery following the 2001-02 recession, and that has apparently conditioned us to ignore the fire now burning all around us.
But times have changed. Deep in this New Yorker article — which is the best account of what has happened and what is happening and what will happen — is a simple sentence that sums up what many now believe is coming: “People will work harder for less.”
A friend of mine is taking a screen writing class this summer where the only prerequisite was to have an idea. He emailed and said he was having trouble with that, which is fairly common. This is what I wrote in response:
I teach what amounts to a magazine feature writing class at Bridgewater and spend about half the semester on idea generation. Because to me, half of any good writing is having an incredibly good idea. Most people take something like a screen writing class with an idea in mind — for example, Brad hired me to write a screenplay based on his experiences on the shady side of the music industry, and I took the class.
I’m not sure what advice I can give, other than to be proactive. Since I still make the brunt of my income writing feature articles, ideas are pretty much rent payments. It’s really a matter of reevaluating how you go through life and thinking things out. And the problem is, ideas are often market driven — what may be a unique and original idea now will be played out if you sit too long on it (i.e. Blood & Volume, which is essentially Goodfellas 15 years after the fact). Conversely, you can be ahead of the curve and an idea you have now won’t sell for a few more years.
An anecdotal example: I have a student who is a talented writer but I’m worried because she’s graduating and going to spend the summer bartending and not writing. And her excuse is she doesn’t really have anything to write about. But then we start talking about her job and how she gets sexually harassed five times a shift. And how since the economic downturn has gone mainstream, people have been ordering retro, Depression-era cocktails. In five minutes she had two feature article ideas based on something she deals with everyday.
The point is she took it for granted because it’s routine, but when she told it to someone who doesn’t work in the restaurant biz, she got a fresh set of eyes on her life experiences and found out they’re fairly interesting.
I guess the only thing I can say is you have to be proactive — you can’t wait for inspiration to strike. Finding ideas is exhausting at times. I read a lot, write a lot, watch a lot of tv and movies, and talk to a lot of different people from a lot of different fields in hopes that great idea will take root. It’s not a formal method, and I’m hoping I helped more than I confused you, but it is what has worked best for me.
And yes, you will see me at the camp reunion. Really looking forward to it and it sounds like a lot of people are going up that weekend.
Throughout its coverage of the arrest of a suspect in the Craigslist killing, the Globe references the wedding Web site of Philip Markoff and Megan McAllister. Yet there is no link given to the Web site.
He says what I’ve thought all along — the only way to save the Boston Globe is to stop printing it and start charging for online content (although I do think people will always crave a printed, Sunday paper; perhaps it could be reformated to include new articles as well as a “best of the week” section with updated versions of the article that appeared in that week’s online edition).
Needless to say, I’m glad I started transitioning my career away from newspapers five years ago; I’d be screwed right about now if dead tree journalism was still the only thing I knew how to do.
No one sane ever went into journalism for the money, and neither did I — which was a good thing. I’ve made my first million as a professional newspaper writer/editor but it took nearly 36 years.
Every morning from 4 to almost 9 a.m. I write stuff like this:
U.S. retirement assets fell by 25% last year
U.S. retirement assets fell by $2.4 trillion, or 25%, to $7.86 trillion in 2008, according to a report released Wednesday by Spectrem Group. The drop-off in both traditional defined-benefit pensions and defined-contribution plans was attributed to 40% declines in domestic and global equity markets.
I write stuff like this 10, 20, 30 times a morning depending on how bad of a day it is. It’s getting old, and sad and scary. That’s all.
