The Feel Good Folder

It was for bad days. The flamboyantly bad ones. Black and bloody and bruised purply ones.



Not, I-got-a-spot-of-coffee-on-my-pant-leg bad days. Not even, someone-cut-me-off-in-traffic bad days. We're talking stellar bad. Rock-n-rollin' bad. Days you wished you'd gone into a career of shoveling ditches in the Arabian peninsula. 



Years ago, a beloved editor of mine taught me the virtue of a business compliment. She showed me her "atta girl" stash of cards and emails and letters. Each of them collected over her career. Each thanking her for an excellent job. Each sincere and dogeared.



"This is my Feel Good Folder," she told me one day, one vibrantly punk day, when we were both wondering about switching jobs from journalists to janitors. "Any kind of compliment, anything kind, it goes in here. Then I take it out and read it on days like this."



Though cards age, sentiment is timeless. A heartfelt "thank you" has the eternal shelf life of canned meat. Should nuclear annihilation come, the humans who rise from the ashes centuries later will still be able to fatten themselves on the potato protein and hydrolyzed soy of Vienna Sausages manufactured in the 80s.



Now that's timeless.

That's the Feel Good Folder.



Today, I discovered a lost recommendation from 2009 that is going inside my Feel Good Folder:

"I have a reputation as a 'tough sell' as, more often than not, I decline recommendation letter requests. Tara has never requested a recommendation letter from me. I sought out this opportunity. Tara is, in my opinion, a national treasure: integrity, creativity, humility, decency, personal skills, DIALECTIC INTELLECT!!!! .... Need I say more? I give Tara my HIGHEST recommendation. Call if you have questions (918) *** - ****." 

Booyah. Yummy to my tummy. I needed that. It tasted great and was less filling.



My suggestion? If you don't have a Feel Good Folder, you'll feel good about starting one. You'll feel even gooder about starting one for your employees. Keep it next to their personnel files and yank it out when they've locked themselves in the VIP bathroom. 



Slaps on the back work. Both to motivate and to dislodged processed meat.

VIDEO: Birth of a Book

Never become so dulled with technology that you forget the artistry. 

Quote them: Moonlighting mayhem

I love entertaining/odd/screwball writing wherever I find it. Even if it's in the 80s.



From one of the squiggliest scripts in the big-hair era of TV, I give you....Moonlighting:

Security Officer:
I'm sorry, but you're not on the guest list.


David Addison:
That's because we're not guests. We're looking for a man with a mole on his nose.


Security Officer:
A mole on his nose?


Maddie Hayes:
A mole on his nose.


Security Officer:
[to Maddie] What kind of clothes?


Maddie Hayes:
[to David] What kind of clothes?


David Addison:
What kind of clothes do you suppose?


Security Officer:
What kind of clothes do I suppose would be worn by a man with a mole on his nose? Who knows?


David Addison:
Did I happen to mention, did I bother to disclose, that this man that
we're seeking with the mole on his nose? I'm not sure of his clothes or
anything else, except he's Chinese, a big clue by itself.


Maddie Hayes:
How do you do that?


David Addison:
Gotta read a lot of Dr. Seuss.


Security Officer:
I'm sorry to say, I'm sad to report, I haven't seen anyone at all of
that sort. Not a man who's Chinese with a mole on his nose with some
kind of clothes that you can't suppose. So get away from this door and
get out of this place, or I'll have to hurt you - put my foot in your
face. 

I think of this show. Then I think of pretty much anything on the WB. Then I think of this show. Any questions?

Katy Perry VIDEO: Semper Fi

A man cheats on his woman. A woman joins the Marines. Now that's a great music video.



My Top 10 Reasons for Loving this Music Video:

1. Naomi Wolf hates it. Is demanding a boycott of Katy Perry. That, in itself, is a great reason to watch this video.

2. Instead of watching close-ups of Katy Perry's mouth, face, legs, or any other various body part gyrate to music, we were given a story.

3. Women were being celebrated, not for their sexuality, but for their determination.

4. It gave a positive female response to a negative male problem. Instead of attacking his car with a baseball bat and proving her own petty weakness, she focused on finding out what she was capable of accomplishing without him.

5. I really like camo.


Dana Loesh at Big Hollywood accurately tips a hat to the "kick-assedness" of this video. I give that kick-assedness a definite curtsy.

Rush: Breitbart the "Bulldog"

Crowder: Remembering Breitbart

Words are so frequently useless. As a writer, these are the moments I hate. As a human, too.

Breitbart's War

Andrew Breitbart talked fast. Exceptionally fast. His words compounded like layers in a hoagie sandwich. Any one speech, one book, one project, one interview, one soundbite was meaty enough to feed a family of five.

For life.

But somehow he always had more in him. More to say. More poignancy and relevancy and guts and all of it slathered with wasabi. His words could clear the sinuses right up.

This is what I thought about in 2008 when I had the chance to interview him. He was sitting somewhere backstage of the Republican National Convention, somewhere with lots of noise and people and questions being barked in the background - an atmosphere that followed him everywhere, it seemed.

He took my call without breaking a single stride. What did I want to know? He was ready to talk. Always, it appeared, ready to talk. Primed to fire off eloquence with rapidity, and then follow it up with a quick jab of cutthroat crudeness.

All together, his points were made. Each of them wedged into the moist areas of your brain so that you never forgot them.

 That's what I realized during our interview. That, and the fact he spoke faster than I could record in my wayward shorthand. He had so much to say. So very much. It was a terrible shame to lose even one word.

Sadly, I never got the chance to speak to him again. It was a shotgun kind of crossing. Lots of noise loading, lots of noise when fired. Job done. So I've admired his fighting stance from a distance. He had zeal when so very few do.

People keep calling him a warrior. I can think of no better term. He was schooling the rest of us on how to fight. Then walking into the battlefield, waving his hands wildly so the enemy would put him in the crosshairs, and screaming, "FIGHT THEM LIKE THIS!"

He never wavered, never backed down. It was a fearless, in-your-face technique with such courage that he often made me wonder if, somehow, he could see the end of the war already. As if he knew the devastation coming if conservatives didn't give it their all.

So he led by example.
That's what leaders do.

 Near the end of my interview, Breitbart began talking about American exceptionalism, about the loss of Americanism in American films, about the overtaking of Hollywood with foreign money and foreign influence. He spoke like a Colonel eying a map of the battlefield and marking off the territory lost and the territory still left to defend.

"A lot of Hollywood actors and Hollywood writers and directors are starting to ask," he said, in his notable juicy speech, "did we give it all away?"

If they did, Breitbart was determined to get every inch back. And the battle isn't even close to over.

Rest in peace, Andrew. Our warrior.