Disinfo Rehab

Normally, I'd be headed to a state Democratic Convention in Northern California, because just as artistic folks go to Burning Man, and my comics/anime/film friends go to Comic-Con, folks like me go to these things because you can get your political geek on, in the company of friends and strangers and not feel weird.

In fact, when I re-launched my blog in 2006 I did so armed with a press pass at the CDP convention, which was rather fun (and cheap - Sacramento affords many hotel deals, it seems) and went to the 2003 and 2004 conventions as well

This time around, I didn't think I was going to be in town this weekend so I didn't make any plans, but had a trip pushed back at the last minute. By then, any decent rates on hotels were not to be found, and I couldn't get a press pass in time. Ah well. Probably for the best, as I have tons of other work to do, both for work and for my 15 minutes of Internet fame thanks to the awesome folks at io9.com. (Note to self: never allow yourself to be filmed unless you're dressed to impress, you never know where that video might end up, along with your improv skillz).

However, if you're looking for blogger coverage, fret not, for many of San Francisco's "A-List" Bloggers&trade will be on the case. The gang from Calitics.com will be there, as will Sweet Melissa and Beth Spotswood, and plenty of others (whom I'll add to the list as I discover 'em online). The party itself will stream live video at their site, but as we all know the real fun and drama goes on in the many caucuses, after hours parties, and whatnot at these things.

The funniest thing about this convention is the lack of drama in the Presidential race since we had this stupid idea that moving our primary "ahead" would make us more "relevant" and whatnot. Oddly enough, if California had simply kept all its primaries in June as God and Man Intended, California would literally be the king-maker in the race as one of the last primaries with a sizeable cache of delegates, super or not.

As it stands, most of the drama will be in races for state Assembly and Senate where term limits have created open seats, and of course there's the Migden/Leno/Nation drama-fest as well. Not nearly as much fun as having a host of presidential show up at your convention, but for us Political Nerds it'll be fun.

Or something.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, um, yeah, like these folks like....Barack Obama!

Truth be told...would some insider consultant have come up with something that resonates with,um, pop culture?

Of course not. Most political consultants disdain pop culture and the zeitgeist because the are so f*cking smart. Too bad in San Francisco and elsewhere they get paid to fail....all beause they ignore, well, reality and that cultural reality that we live in.

Oh Hai!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The good citizens over at Improv Everywhere have been getting some press lately. The students at UCB who staged a mass "freeze" the other day took their inspiration from the Grand Central Station freeze in January, which got lots of media attention, and inspired no less than 30+ similar mass events around the world.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg of awesomeness that is the creativity of these folks. Not long ago, a group managed to convince a mall to let them patch audio from wireless mikes into the PA system, and staged a musical number at the Baldwin Hills Mall food court in Southern California.

There is something just so right about a group of people who inject some spontaneity designed to make people happy, or at least have a "you won't believe what I saw today" moment as we go about our lives. Unlike, say Critical Mass, which is based on giving the finger to The Man, and making sure you know how much of a jerk you are for working for a living and oh noes doesn't subscribe to some ideological devotion to bikes, folks like Improv Everywhere show you can have a little fun once in a while and it doesn't have to be All About Sticking It To Someone.

And now, I present to you, the song "I Need A Napkin Please""

Posted by Greg Dewar at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So there I was, all ready to post some little blog post on why the big, noisy, disruptive protest-fest tomorrow is a big, pointless pain in the ass for those of us who have to work tomorrow, when I happened upon an article by Paul Waldman over at the American Prospect.

Go read it. Now. No, really, go now. Read it. Basically, he says what I was going to say, but better.

He's also written some pretty great books, including Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success, Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You, and Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.

Basically, if I'd spent a little less time working on stupid politicians' campaigns in my younger days, and a little more time doing something constructive, I'd be doing something similar. Career cautionary tale to the Youth of America: don't work on political campaigns. It really isn't as smart a move as you might think.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hoarding gets such a bad rap these days. I mean, sure, if you hoard every edition of the newspaper for 50 years along with your 20 cats and assorted random bottlecaps, that could be cause for alarm (or at least a fire hazard). But in politics, saving all those assorted pieces of detritus seem like a pile of junk in the present, but become oddly helpful in recollecting days of old later on.

Today's nostalgia trip is the "DNC Annual Report," of which I've scanned in two pages. The first is the cover with President Bill and Vice President Al, and everyone was aglow over the fact that Old Man Bush had been sent packing, and new Members of Congress, like Sens. Boxer & Feinstein and many more, were now in office. "Change" it seems, was in the air. National Health Care was on the way, thanks to Co-President Hillary, and Democrats, it seemed would be in the drivers seat for some time.

Well we all know how that worked out. 1994 anyone? Speaker Newt? Majority Leader Dole. Senator Santorum?!?

But today I would like to focus on one piece of the "DNC Annual Report" - the section that talks about the DNC "grassroots campaign" to support the "Health Care Plan" for Presidents Clinton and Clinton. If you don't remember any of this, don't worry - that's because in the pre-Internet, pre-blog, political world, efforts like this cost a fortune and didn't really do so great, no matter how hard people tried.

When the cost of disseminating information and organizing people nationally is high and is led from the "top" down, the chances of igniting a movement to change something as big as the health care system is really difficult. Entrenched interests fought back with those f*cking "Harry and Louise" ads, and well, the rest is history (often revised, Soviet-style on the campaign trail, it seems).

Today, however, there are many ways for people to talk amongst themselves, and link up with like-minded folks around the country (and world), rather easily. Movements can take a life of their own, and evolve (as MoveOn did from the late 90s) and today, we have the prospect of a presidential candidate who is able to be competitive with a well-financed, Washington insider because he can activate over a million active donors (most of whom are giving in small amounts.)

It's interesting to see how much has changed in technology, communications, and organizing in the last 15 years. It's also interesting to see how little has changed in the mentality of the well-paid pundit and consulting class in Washington DC who seem to know how to make lots of money, but not how to get anything done. They do know, however, how to complain and whine about "blogs and the internet" and urge a nostalgia for something that never really existed. Funny, that.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So if you haven't heard the story about Gov. Spitzer of New York and the, um, $5000 call girl thing, well, go read it. I mean, wtf? I don't know what you have to be in to that requires you to pay that much for a romp with a hooker, and frankly, I don't wanna know.

Since I'm a political nerd and collect all sorts of poltical ad detritus, here's one of Spitzer's election ads from 2006. Rather interesting in light of said events.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time to lighten the mood with a few fun finds. The first comes courtesy of the good folks who run io9.com, which has all sorts of sci-fi-like goodness daily. Apparently some creative type decided to do the Star Wars credits if Star Wars had been made in the 1950s and employed legendary animator Saul Bass to do the credits. (Once you watch the video, you'll recognize the style from all sorts of classic films in the 50s and 60s).

Also, I got a pin the other day as part of a Guinness St. Patrick's Day promotion for Proposition 3-17. Given all the weirdness we usually get on the ballot, really, this is pretty mild.

UPDATE: The pop culture remix continues, as it seems someone took the Saul Bass/Star Wars mashup, and decided to spoof the digital remake of Star Wars, in the same style.

Thank goodness we now live in an era where we can have the tools at home to make awesome videos, remix pop culture, and remix it again and show it to whoever is curious to watch. Kinda like the Laugh Out Loud Cats remix. Yay Series of Tubes.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. That was fast. The jury in the ongoing litigation between the Bay Guardian and Village Voice Media came to a rather sudden end as a jury awarded the Guardian $15 million and sided with its claim that its competitor, SF Weekly, was selling ads below cost in an attempt to put the paper out of business.

There has been an endless amount of spin from each side at their respective "blogs," and the personalized vitriol between the Guardian's management and the VVM management has been a bit over the top. More importantly, I, as the reader of local media, have not had an objective voice report on this trial, so it's really hard to know who was telling the truth, and who was lying.

Re-reading some of the "blog" postings by Tim Redmond and Andy Van De Voorde, it was hard to believe each "reporter" was even talking about the same trial - it was spin spin spin. This is the mainstream journalism I'm supposed to fear the demise of, thanks to Evil Blogs and The Internet? Hmm.

Now, while they're popping champagne corks over on Portero Hill, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that VVM will appeal said verdict. But let's pretend for a moment that said appeal fails and VVM writes the BG that oversized Publisher's Clearing House check. Here are some (real) suggestions on what to do with the money:

1. Hire real reporters, and start getting them to do real reporting - the kind of work that takes a long time to research, report and write accurately. Stop doing cover stories on bullshit and start doing the kind of work that no other entity (Chronicle, the Weekly, blogs, etc) will do. Give us, the citizen and reader higher quality journalism on topics that are important - but not getting covered. (Example: why don't you do more coverage of things that affect peoples' daily lives - Like, say, our terminally frakked MUNI system?

2. Take a sledgehammer to the computer hosting the "blogs" at the Guardian and destroy it. Now. These "blogs" are an embarassment, and clearly, the Guardian doesn't understand the blog culture. Plenty of other places do "blogs" and local blog aggregation better than the Guardian - let them do it. If you do decide to do "blogs," take a cue from the success of such places as (gasp!) The Chronicle and stop having staff waste time on 'em. It's not that hard.

3. Stop taking sides in petty disputes on the left that no one cares about. Stop staking the paper's credibility on said outcomes, and looking foolish when they end in tears. Spend the money and time instead to take on sacred cows on all sides - and spend more time telling me important information I can't get anywhere else. Yes, an editorial page and endorsements are great, but it's time the Guardian stop getting in the mix of things that no one cares about and that drag the credibility of the paper down.

4. Get the archives online and Google-able. In the era of The Series of Tubes, if it ain't on Google, it doesn't exist. Spend the money and hire someone who can do the job. You have a former mayor selling a wonderful piece of science fiction right now, but no one, upon wanting to do more research, will find much of any of the big investigative pieces from that era. Bad, bad, bad.

I fully expect none of this to happen, and I'm sure I'll get a nasty email and be told once again what a jerk I am for asking for someone who just won a pile of money to, um, stop pleading poverty as an excuse for putting a paper out that is not up to snuff.

But here's the catch - my site is very google-able. And I don't plan on taking it down anytime soon! Welcome to the 21st century, kids.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ya know, it's tough telling people from the Rest of the World you live in San Francisco sometimes. Folks Out There think we live in some hippy Disneyland, complete with hemp-fueled roller coasters to our mandatory crack pipes and abortions, and whatnot, and you wanna say "No, but some of us are cool!"

Then you read about this, and you do the Jon Stewart shaking-of-head thing

Reactions have been swift. As always, Melissa manages to say all that needs to be said in as few words as possible, SFist has a lively discussion, and Curbed offers a rational take on said issue.

Now, while such a "memorial" is likely to go nowhere due to um, er, that whole budget thing that created such a dustup, and all, it does make us come up with a few ideas for more plaques. Heck we can beat LA at that whole "Walk of Stars" stuff, being the City That Knows How (to Bitch):

-A series of plaques commemorating all the nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and Old San Francisco hangouts put out of business by haphazard regulations;

-A series of plaques commemorating all the MUNI lines that were killed off by MUNI in the post-war era to accommodate the bus and car companies' need to sell slipshod equipment. Special bonus ones for the screwing of the cable car system and the Washington/Jackson line (aka the profitable one!).

-And finally, a new statue , a west coast statue to celebrate the City That Knows How to Bitch. But instead of Lady Liberty's Torch held on high, we'll have a vision of a bitchy, confused person who wants to know why their f*ckin' latte had skim milk instead of chai, and bitch accordingly about something.

Or whatever. What do I know? It's not like I'm smart enough to be a supervisor or something.

Posted by Greg Dewar at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going through some old files this evening and found one of my many stashes of direct mail I've kept over the years for various reasons. Somehow, in all the moving and whatnot over the years, this piece, from the first Clinton campaign in 1991-1992 got misfiled in a batch of 2003 SF Mayoral mail (!) which I was looking up because...well, you know.

Anyway, click on the images for a larger version of the covers and the inside spread. You can tell this is probably one of the first brochures the campaign made, most likely in 1991 when Clinton's campaign began, but before James Carville and Paul Begala joined the campaign (in 1991 they were busy winning an impossible bid for US Senate for Harris Wofford).

Design notes, and a clip from "Mad Men" after the jump! Read on!

Couple of design notes that also clue us in to just how old this thing is - first of all, it's a three-color job. Once upon a time four-color printing cost a lot more, and there were some presses that ran three colors cheaper (usually black + 2 other colors). Today, there's no such thing as "three color" printing - advances in technology have rendered that process obsolete as a cost saving measure. (There are, however, still 2 color presses which do offer cost savings on simple campaign collateral).

But more importantly, look at how wordy this thing is. As this was probably the only thing they had at first, they had to "kitchen sink" 12 years as Governor into 2 pages - not an easy task, especially for a candidate at the time who was considered "c-list" at best, and had no foreign policy experience, and came from a state smaller than most cities and counties in the west.

And finally, for those nostalgic for the 90s, I offer Don Draper's take on what "nostalgia" really means in this awesome clip from the season finale of "Mad Men." If you haven't seen the show, then maybe you might wanna watch it first before seeing this. Those of you who have seen it will know it for the amazing dramatic punch this had.

Enjoy!

Posted by Greg Dewar at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)