Does a "brand" burnish or burn?

Ten years ago I used to write poems and essays in a notebook aspiring to be popular.

Believe me, the content I produced at the time surely would not have motivated many clicks, or driven user generated content, or been linked to a sundry of web sites that were a half decade away from being created.

But, at the time, I wanted to be the person everyone at Rockledge High School knew and the man the good looking girls would want to sleep with. I wanted to be so well-known that freshmen aspired to be like me and recent graduates sought my time as validation they still mattered.

All of this came to mind when I stumbled across this column published in the Washington Post last month about branding. A humor columnist, who has a pair of Pulitzers, mocked the concept of people in journalism trying to make their name outside of their increasingly slipping work, stating “because we know that, in this frenetic fight for eyeballs at all costs, the attribute that is most rewarded is screeching ubiquity, not talent.”

That specifically brought back the summer before the Patriot Act, and my quest for adoration.

Admittedly, it was a highly egotistical pursuit. Perhaps it was an overreaction to being an overweight, backup placekicker with few friends. A person no one particularly missed once I slid out the door of my Sarasota high school, rarely to return.

Whatever it was, overhearing the tales of classmates copulating, or at least tell detailed stories of debauchery, led me to believe it was possible for me as well. In hindsight not becoming a Lothario was probably for the best.

A decade later everyone who would have been a candidate became a friend.

The girl who was kind enough to be my first date evolved into someone where we would hold long discussions on conservative politics. Another friend became a reminder that happiness and good things do happen to genuine people. And a third is an inspiration to follow my dreams—even if both our careers are not as successful as others would have imagined at this point in our lives.

As for the person who was to be my prom date? Well, in typical Will Brown fashion there was a miscommunication and it never came to fruition. But, the two of us do talk on occasion and high school is usually not one of our talking points.

Because I refused for any friendship, then or now, to be predicated on the “gauzy filler material, the pale fluff inside decorative throw pillows,” the popularity I always internally craved never came.

I never got the last laugh, or the trophy panties of my classmates. If the corresponding decade is any indicator of the future, there is a strong probability neither will happen.

But if it meant anything, the bespectacled, black placekicker who was admittedly socially awkward, but universally accepted as being smarter than the average Cheez Doodle, did receive the loudest cheer at graduation.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb

“My fellow Americans”, how did you accrue your debt?

When the nickels, quarters and dimes were all counted, there was $5.50 to buy some ice cream. It was a simple pleasure, a gift from me to me after weeks of scrapping by and trying to live within my drastically reduced means.

Such was the dichotomy between me and the two politicians who hoarded the evening discussing America’s rising debt on national television, that I had to write about it.

Despite the protesting from the President that most Americans had not heard of the nation’s debt ceiling until recently, I recalled an informative story on National Public Radio about the history of America’s debt ceiling.

In the two months since listening to the story, my belief has coarsened to the posturing of both parties. As much as both want to claim innocence, not funding two wars of choice and ratifying, then signing two pieces of flawed budget-bursting legislation convicts both major parties to some degree.

Monday, President Obama and Rep. John Boehner (R- Ohio) laid out their thoughts on this so-called debt crisis.

I call this a so-called crisis because at the end of the day some agreement will be made for America to pay its substantial bills — even if it forces the President to think about more pressing things other than his upcoming 50th birthday.

During Boehner’s remarks he noted his House of Representatives recently passed a bill that might lead to passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. My question is why such an amendment is necessary?

We the people are also to blame.

Collectively we are so materialistic that we want to be like our neighbors up the street.

Yet, most of our neighbors are too prideful to mention that their new house has mortgaged their future to the point that one missed paycheck or unforeseen circumstance will send them crashing toward life in Section 8 housing. Our friends do not mention that the new car their purchased has put such a wallop in their credit, or access to it, they cannot buy a new home for a decade.

Instead of electing representatives who are supposedly the best and stateliest among us, we send people to our capitols and Washington and the White House who have the most lumbar flexibility with their positions.

Two sentences after assailing the previous administration for wasting the surplus it was gifted in 2000 President Obama uttered “To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more. …”

Read that again.

“To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more. …”

Yes, this country needs teachers, police officers, firefighters and other essential municipal
employees. Yes, those who lost their job through no fault of their own need and deserve some compensation in the weeks it takes them to get on their feet.

However, when we do not check our elected figures for thinking it is acceptable to spend more than we make, we are allowing them to mortgage our future so they can continue to pay the bills of their lives of relative luxury.

(Obama, whose best-selling books made him a millionaire, will earn $400,000 this year. Boehner will earn $223,500 for his role as Speaker of the House. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid makes $193,000 annually, while the anonymous congressman earns just under $175,000.)

With those salaries, is it little coincidence that politicians discuss “the American people” and it leaves you wondering whether this person is talking about you, or just those that contributed to their campaign?

So while both sides quibble about a manufactured situation and attempt to be the most pious in their closing remarks, I just wonder whether the two Midwestern politicians who have requested for God’s blessing over America have truly remembered that no debt should remain outstanding, except the continued debt to love one another.

Laughs and liveliness,

-Wb