Michelangelo and me

...a dispatch from bewilderness

The last five minutes could be presented in a number of ways. For example, in terms of periods – ancient, modern and gone. Or alternating current and past. A Bruce Eric Kaplan cartoon from The New Yorker: a woman, hands raised as though she is describing a car accident, speaks to a friend: “Somehow, in all the confusion, I aged.”

I remember when People was born. It came from the same folks who created Life, Time, Fortune, Money and Martha Stewart. They called us the Creative Department, which meant we made things fresh, funny and smart.

We made headlines, of course, but most important, we “made deadlines.” This was way more important than talent. You could be Michelangelo, painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but if you didn’t deliver by Tuesday at 4, they showed you the door.

We also “invented new media.” I remember when Big Bird was hatched. Also HBO, CNN, Discovery Channel, History Channel, and MTV, and the advent of abs on Men’s Health. I remember when Oprah was born as a property, and when she bore Doctors Phil and Oz.

I had to telescope huge amounts of information and keep the information owned by each property separate from all the rest. I had to remember what had been said so it couldn’t be said again, or hadn’t been said so it could be, or couldn’t be said because someone would sue. I had to forget lots of things, too, and to recall what to remember and what to forget.

Then I got hit by a drunk with a truck which broke a few things in my brain and became the start of Brain Damaged headlines like these:

*Comet slams into planet

*God tweets New Commandments

Also:

* National Weather Service DROPS ALL CAPS FORECAST

*Fire station in Scandinavia burns to the ground after flames go undetected because no one installed a fire alarm

*Snake recovers from surgery to remove barbecue tongs

*Unnamed person suffers emotional upset caused by inconvenient facts

*Other unnamed persons choose alternative facts

*69-Year-Old Dutch Man Attempts To Legally Lower His Age To 49

*This news is real, more or less, but wording is mine.