Fashionable outlaws notably missing

And now for something completely different:

I was talking with a friend about various capers we’ve witnessed and perpetrated over the years, and she mentioned Bonnie and Clyde.

Which reminded me:  Where did all the bank robbers go?  Or really:  Where did all the well-dressed outlaws go?

The 1930s are famous for their organized crime and notorious outlaws like “Pretty Boy” Floyd and John Dillinger.  Not only were these people very cool (except for the moral issue of robbing a bank), they also had great style.  You never saw Dillinger in anything but a three-piece suit — with a hat, of course.  He handled machine guns and jumped over bank counters all while wearing the most fashionable criminal attire of the day.

So the point is, Bonnie and Clyde were well-dressed, even though they robbed banks.

Plus, Faye Dunaway was pretty awesome back in 1967.

Project REAL Log: Day 9 (The End)

Since today is my last day at Questex, everyone in the office finally realized that they won’t get any more free work out of me after this week.  So I’ve had plenty to do today.

I did two voice-overs for videos to go on PMPtv, edited a column for myPMP.net and an article for Landscape Management, and sifted through nearly a hundred comments regarding a survey on the state of the landscaping industry.  I also ate lunch.

Now that my “REAL” life experience is almost over, I think I can sum up what I’ve learned over the past two weeks:

1.  A dot whack is just a sticker with a very entertaining name.

2. Meeting length is not necessarily directly proportional to meeting boring-ness.

3. Don’t order business cards until you are reasonably sure you will have the position for a while.

But seriously, Questex showed me a pretty good time.  Office work isn’t totally boring, and a professional environment can still be relaxed and comfortable.

And a lot of work goes into trade magazines.  Even when they’re about bugs.

We’ll leave the light on for ourselves

This morning I heard that people in Cleveland, or at least in this building, plan to leave lights on in rooms with exterior views tonight.  Why?

The playoffs, of course.

The Cavs play the Orlando Magic tonight here and the whole country will be able to see the city from those blimp shots of the arena.  So we leave lights on.  How does this help?  I guess it’s supposed to make the city look livelier.  I can’t see how it would make the city look bigger.  I doubt that anyone will be watching at home and think, “Wow!  Cleveland looks great with all those lights on!”  But I guess I don’t really know.

This whole plan is just for us.  We see iconic pictures of the New York City skyline at night, with its lights gleaming and reflecting across the water, and we want that.  We want our city to be respected, loved, and valued.  It isn’t right now.

But why pretend?  Why do we need to leave lights on to pretend that we are a big, important city?  Why don’t we turn our lights off to show how forward-thinking and environmentally conscious we are?  That would certainly get us more attention.

Our lights will be on tonight, but only for our own bruised egos.

Project REAL Log: Day 8

We had a long meeting this morning about a few different topics.  Although I was hungry by the end, there was still some interesting discussion to sit in on.

The first topic of conversation was promotion of the magazine at the big trade show in October.  The team is planning to sell backpacks with the textbook the company produces and a few more things and sell advertising space both in and on the backpack.  It sounds like a cool idea to me.

After that, the team discussed the next couple months, including when each part of the issues had to be ready for print.

The meeting ended after a lengthy discussion on journalistic ethics and brand management.  In the publication business, editorial integrity has to be balanced with profitability.  The advertisers can’t have total control of the editorial content, or the quality of the publication goes down the drain.  This is apparently what PCT, the main competitor to PMP, has done.

Despite being long, the meeting was still entertaining due to the laid-back atmosphere in the room.  Jokes and one-liners abounded.

I also wrote another short article today.  One day to go.

Project REAL Log: Day 7

After my parking lot adventure this morning, I finally arrived at Questex around 10.  RJ came by and invited me to tag along with him tomorrow.  It should be a good time.  I have another assignment from Pete, which I’m planning to finish either today or tomorrow.  With only a couple days left, I actually have been able to see a lot of the publishing process.  It’s been a fairly productive and interesting process, and Questex as been a pretty good place to be.

I’ll have an iced coffee and a coathanger, please

8:50 am — I park in my usual parking lot on Prospect across from the Wolstein Center.  There are more people than usual there, so I figure there is probably something going on at CSU.

8:51 am — I get out of the car, close the door, and immediately realize that my keys are not in my pocket.  Fully knowing that all the doors are locked, I try them anyway.  The passenger-side window is slightly open, so I try to slide it down.  It opens just a crack — enough to get a coathanger in if I pull on it a little.

8:53 am — After pacing a little, I ask a lady if she, by any chance, has a coathanger in her car.  She looks through the mass of rubble in the back and says that no, she doesn’t.  Sorry.  I thank her and look for someone else.

8:57 am — I call Mr. Andorka and explain my situation.  He laughs a little and says he understands.

8:58 am — I ask another woman for a hanger.  She doesn’t have one, either.

9:00 am — Three college-age guys pull in in a station wagon.  I doubt that they even use hangers, but I ask anyway.  They don’t have one, but they suggest I call the police.

9:01 am — I call Mr. Andorka for the non-emergency police number, because I don’t want to be recorded calling 911 because I’m locked out of my car.

9:03 am — I call the police and the operator informs me that the police don’t provide lock-out services unless the car is running or there is a child inside.  I am disappointed.

9:05 am — I finally get two bent-up wire coathangers from a guy with tons of junk in the back of his van.  I thank him profusely and he laughs.  I begin fishing around through the crack in the window to pull the lock lever.

9:32 am — After half an hour of suspicious-looking hanger-wrangling and a few offers of help (including one woman who actually brought me another hanger), I have the lever half-pulled, but the coathanger just isn’t cutting it.  I switch to the other one, which is thicker and sturdier.

9:36 am — An Italian man drives past me.  He backs up, looks at me for a second, then parks his car.  A minute later, he walks over and offers to help.  I say okay and he has the car open in about 30 seconds.  I say thanks several times and he walks over to the pay box to pay for his parking.  I open the car, grab my keys and go over to pay for myself.

I thanked him again for helping me out.  He just replied, “Well, like I tell my girlfriend:  You can’t keep a good Italian out!’

So thank you, you marvellous strangers, for being wondrously terrific.

Project REAL Log: Day 5

I interviewed a Texas PMP for a short feature for the magazine today.  It was a quick phone call about not-so-exciting stuff, but I still got a little bit of a thrill by officially representing a magazine.

Later, George Casey (the publisher) took me into his office and explained what a publisher does.  Basically, he is part salesman, part manager, and he’s responsible for the overall profit of the publication.

RJ (the graphic designer) might have some things for me to do later.  I’m looking forward to it.

ECTP FTW? TBD

I walked down Euclid Avenue today instead of taking Prospect the whole way.  It was definitely a pleasant place to be this morning, especially in the theater district.  Apparently the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project (whose website is awful) actually had some positive effect.

But the ECTP isn’t going to completely refresh all of Cleveland.  It’s going to help the downtown area look nicer, and it will improve bus transportation in the area; it’s also going to help CSU as it tries to change its image.  However, this beautification and refreshing of Cleveland is the kind of thing that should just be happening all the time until all of Cleveland looks great.  I’m aware that the money isn’t there right now, but it could be with some work.

If Cleveland could make itself a competitor to other places (especially Michigan) for movie filming, if it could draw new businesses and industry, if it could really capitalize on the incredible theater district it already has, it might find that money rushing in.

Okay, maybe not rushing.

But the point is this: Cleveland used to be one of the major centers of everything from industry to music and beyond.  Cleveland had a Millionaire’s Row on Euclid Avenue.

This city was awesome.  It should be awesome again.

Project REAL Log: Day 4

Today was a little busier for me.  Pat Hyland, the Editor-in-Chief of LP Gas Magazine, gave me an hour-long recording of a phone interview to transcribe.  It took a pretty long time and was a pretty monotonous task, but I was glad for some work to do.  Later, Pete Grasso offered me an actual assignment: I get to interview Larry Soto, a PMP in Texas, about his donation of a termite treatment to a church in Waco and write an article about it.  I tried calling, but the number didn’t work the first few times.  Finally, I got through to an answering machine and left a message.  I should get that interview done tomorrow.

Today has not been too bad so far, although I’m still recovering from my illness.  With any luck, more assignments will follow.

P.S. I almost said “hopefully.”  Oops.

Free Stamp and 10-story Lebron don’t cut it

The Youtube hit, Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video: 2nd Attempt includes a shot of the Free Stamp as the narrator mockingly sings, “We think this is art.”

This is mean.

However, it is also a valid point: Where is the public art in Cleveland?  Aside from random pathetic scrawls of graffiti on a few walls and traffic control boxes, there isn’t much.  And those feeble “tags” seem to suggest that even graffiti artists won’t take the time to make something worthwhile here.

Yes, we have the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, the Moses Cleaveland statue and, of course, the 10-story Lebron James, but why don’t we have anything new by independent artists?

The answer may be that artists don’t look at Cleveland and think, “That’s the place for my art.”  But maybe it’s time for Cleveland to make an investment in itself and commission some art.  It’s not unheard of — part of the New Deal included paying artists to create new works.

I’m not saying I hate the Free Stamp.  I don’t.  I don’t really get it, but I don’t hate it.  But seriously, Cleveland — let’s get some more art.