My Bud, Shecky

Meet my bud, Mike Speller.  I call him Shecky.

We've been friends now for twenty years -- You believe that, Mikey? -- since the days I was a regular at the Adventurers Club in Orlando, and Mike was one of their first and best actors; and although we're separated by miles, I know we're connected through our foul, telltale hearts.

Mike is a professional actor, having performed in tv's Welcome Freshman and in such films as Passenger 57 and my personal favorite, The Night Becomes Charlie.  Became Charlie?  Can't remember.  His role in that fine film was "Man in Road."  Oscar-worthy work.  Check it out on Netflix.

Today Mike is a professional storyteller, wandering around the semi-frigid climes of Chicago and the midwest like a zombieified Jack London.  You can go to his site here and see all about him, or even book him for a performance.  But this post is all about Mike's newest venture: blogging.

If you'd like insight into acting, comedy, storytelling, or if you'd just like to get to know an all-around nice guy who's also one of the most intelligent guys I've ever met, he's posting here on Blogspot.  He's way too modest, but throw him a cookie, and maybe he'll tell you about the time he, Darin DePaul and I helped an adventurer save Christmas.

Santa still owes us.

More on the Slow, Impending and Eventual Doom of Newspapers

As lascivious, corporate greed and the fall of the American economy both continue unabated, the bowties in their towers built upon strata formed by ink, hot type and pulp look down upon their megacorpconglomeranational empires and, merely, wait.  They abide.  For they know, no matter what happens to the newspaper industry today, tomorrow, or by 2017, the year when the last major American newspapers are predicted to have died, that there is absolutely nothing they can do.  At all.

They also know their executive bonuses and perks are safe, no matter what happens.

They'll never admit this.  Ever.  Right now, even though newspapers are closing and layoffs are massive, print newspapers bring in more revenue than their online counterparts.  And it's predicted -- accurately, I believe -- that their online counterparts will NEVER bring in an equal amount of revenue.

The bowties will never admit any of this because it will devalue their stock even more than their stock is devalued now.

It is, after all, not about news, not about journalism, not about loyal employees, and not about what the community needs.

It's all about money.

The question remains: How can they stay in business?

The bowties already know the answer to this one.  Hell, it's as simple as an answer can get:

They can't.

Warren Buffett summed it up for them.

"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks."

I've written about Jeff Jarvis before, and I think he's usually on point about his predictions and trendspotting for the newspaper business.  He's written a piece you should read, that gets to the heart of the issue: deliberately shutting the newspapers, firing thousands, and moving on . . . but to what?

"To take advantage of bankruptcy, a company has to have courage and bold visions of the future. Do newspaper companies? So far, we haven’t seen evidence of it."

His facts jibe with Papercuts, a site that's keeping track of the layoffs at newspapers across the country.

The countdown has begun.  2017 is right around the corner.

The bowties better get used to wearing sweat-stained t-shirts and dealing crystal meth out of their doublewides.

Here's a brilliant but BRIEF RANT by Bret Victor, a guy who knows his way around graphic user interfaces.  His thesis is that our current wave of handheld devices, as exemplified by ereaders, smartphones and tablet computers, is merely a sidestep in a technological evolution that actually leaves out a valuable part of human experience.

It's justification, as far as I'm concerned, that what I've said for a few years now will become the future -- the future of books.  Victor doesn't come right out and say it, but the point of his essay is, ultimately, the reason that books will never be replaced, no matter how many varieties of ereaders eventually tsunami the market.

Books, simply, work.