This morning the odd and seemingly pointless LinkedIn professional networking service/website
informed me that a former work colleague and friend aka Jerk No. 1 had added to his Professional Skills listing.
Obviously, on first, second and third consideration (and especially if you know him), this
sounds embarrassing, stupid, pointless,
meaningless, trivial and highly pretentious.
Disruptive Technology "S" Curve (??)
Chief among this fellow's personal and professional vices is that he never returns telephone calls unless
and until he believes to an immoral certainty that there’s something in it for him. (Although this behavior is not unique to him, and can be said, in fact, to be a leitmotif of contemporary business practice, this guy has raised it to Nobel Prize theory and world champion practice levels.)
While on the surface he appears to be a pleasant and polite fellow, he is not -- he is simply unforgivably and unforgettably rude and self-centered. Over the years, I have met a Veritable Multitude of egocentric recording artists with whom my wife worked -- Big Rock Stars -- who are positively St. Theresa -like -- paragons of humility, empathy and charity -- compared to this guy. (Not to mention more talented and better-looking. I mention this because he's exceedingly vain.)
Cliff !
Disruptive Technology (???)
While on the surface he appears to be a pleasant and polite fellow, he is not -- he is simply unforgivably and unforgettably rude and self-centered. Over the years, I have met a Veritable Multitude of egocentric recording artists with whom my wife worked -- Big Rock Stars -- who are positively St. Theresa -like -- paragons of humility, empathy and charity -- compared to this guy. (Not to mention more talented and better-looking. I mention this because he's exceedingly vain.)
A queer & coincidental corollary to this person’s mien
and modus
operandi is that the two of us have a mutual acquaintance (another former
colleague), Jerk No. 2, who is exactly as rude in
exactly the same ways, and who vies for Jerk No. 1's # 1 (with a bullet) position on the Jerk Hit Parade.
On the rare occasions when one gains a telephonic or in--person audience with Jerk No. 1, he complains incessantly about Jerk No. 2, who has not yet publicly announced and self-identified as a Disruptive Technologies expert and, particularly, about his failure to return telephone calls. (N.b.: I feel in my toes that this announcement is on the horizon; Jerk No. 2 is "all over the social media like a cheap suit", rather than bestriding it like a Colossus.)
R. Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders !!
On the rare occasions when one gains a telephonic or in--person audience with Jerk No. 1, he complains incessantly about Jerk No. 2, who has not yet publicly announced and self-identified as a Disruptive Technologies expert and, particularly, about his failure to return telephone calls. (N.b.: I feel in my toes that this announcement is on the horizon; Jerk No. 2 is "all over the social media like a cheap suit", rather than bestriding it like a Colossus.)
R. Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders !!
Query: When two Disruptive Technologies experts get together (in a
manner of speaking), do they cancel each
other out?
Around the dawn-hour LinkedIn's missive disturbed, distressed and
disrupted my day, the Discovery Channel informed me that isolated living was an essential element in natural selection's process of forming new species.
Papua, New Guinea: New species -- Tube-nosed fruit bat
Perhaps I have these guys all wrong. Perhaps Disruptive Technologies are in fact God’s work, promoting existential isolation and part of the evolutionary plan.
I would like to believe this is positive.
But the way things are going lately, that is very difficult to do.
Typhoon Roke -- 9/21/11
I would like to believe this is positive.
But the way things are going lately, that is very difficult to do.
Typhoon Roke -- 9/21/11
Just possibly:
Curtis, I'm sure it's horrible to admit this, but, reading the post... my cup runneth over with vicarious satisfaction. And I don't even know these jerks. Though I feel I do. Indeed, I fear that it is impossible not to have acquaintance with their multiple semblables, who seem to have taken over that fraction of the earth they have not yet Permanently Disrupted.
ReplyDeleteYou are a calm and sober man, so I'm sure the emotions here evinced have a righteous basis.
It's hard to know what to recommend (well, I know you haven't asked for professional consultation in the matter, but still...).
Sending a link to the Linked In Jerks might be a good start. Sure to provide an ego-boost to go with the breaking of the fast.
The post is the "harmless" (?!) virtual equivalent of the voodoo practise of impaling an effigy with knitting needles.
The mechanics and forensics are beyond me, but all the same, perhaps you might want to look into the ways and means of inducing in these loathsome beings just a wee bit of spontaneous human combustion?
I'm plotting my next move. This kind of erupted. Later during the day I posted it I ran into someone who knows both these guys, who approved of what I had written, which was comforting. This is a story I'd love to tell you in detail some day because some of the actual business details are extremely interesting and can be said to explain at least partially why the world is in the state it's in. The spontaneous combustion article will remain inside my head always. As one of the "credulous" types mentioned at the end of the article, I’ve always treasured David St. Hubbins’ immortal words in Spinal Tap: “I believe literally everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything.” By the way, since I posted his photo, I should mention that Caroline worked with Cliff Richard for a number of years and he’s a terrific person. For someone so famous that in the UK and some other parts of the world it can safely be said that he’s recognizable even from behind, he carries that mantle and burden pretty gracefully. And (slight problem though it may seem), he’s had to really struggle with the fact that, Devil Woman and We Don’t Talk Anymore aside, he never broke through in America, something he was anxious to do since 1958.
ReplyDeleteI can feel for Cliff, on that point. And I've never even had a Devil Woman.
ReplyDeleteFifty-three years is indeed a long time to have been knocking on that door.
Though the local Angel can attest to the fame he attained in New Zealand, in her salad days.
(She has not mentioned whether the view from behind remains unforgettable, but there are some secrets into which one must not pry.)
Coming up for air (and fairly breathless), it was nice to find this. Cliff's a very kind and thoughtful man, pleasant to spend time with and possessing a full catalogue of hit anecdotes as well as songs. I base the "from behind" observation on an actual UK television commercial I saw. The only time Caroline ever saw him seriously ruffled was when she was checking him into the Plaza once in Manhattan. Cliff's passport continued (and I expect continues) to name "Harry Webb" as the bearer. (At his mother's request, he never officially changed his name.) The reservation was made under the name "Cliff Richard" and when the pesky American desk clerk noted the discrepancy, Cliff slightly flared up, saying (ridiculously, from a historical point of view, but he was improvising) "You should know about this; you Americans invented stage names." Quickly, a staffer from a Cliff-conscious part of the world (not a New Zealander, but from Indonesia as I recall) perceived the problem and straightened it out. It sounds a little silly to say, but it was great to discover a flesh-and-blood person who remembered your name on subesequent meetings, not a tintype. For what it's worth, he and John Lennon regularly socialized. When you live in the higher parts of the stratosphere, I guess company is a nice thing. Curtis
ReplyDelete