Friday, Nov. 25, 2005 I'M ALL MIGLED up in finishing next week's daily columns for Jonathan Cainer (he's taking a break to figure out an aspect, as he has said, but I have no clue what aspect that is and I'm not going to ask), so today's will be a short blog; contrary to all the forces of nature and Sagittarius, everything I write today will be short, substantially increasing my average pay per word. This phenomenon of "shortness" has never happened before; usually 3,500 words is my rock-bottom minimum. There will, however, be a plethora of smaller items, including a Sagittarius birthday report and a visit to Esoteric Astrology for its take on the subject of the ninth sign as part of today's Planet Waves Weekly. (This has now been called "Sagittarians I Know and Love," and the birthday report has been bumped to Monday.) For the one person who is going to click through and make sure I get paid $54.95 for writing a single short paragraph (this one), here is the subscription link: http://planetwavesweekly.com/sales/home.html So, a brief commentary about a piece of writing; an English paper, if you will. My favorite installment in The Annals of Journalism this week was an article by The Onion -- not the one on Bush's "hope based initiatives" (the picture they stole is worth the whole visit to the site), but rather the one about Milwaukee parking ramp attendant Brian Haemker, who knows the garage he works in like the back of his hand. This particular joke is from The Onion's news parody genre of blow up the pointless, trivial details of something absolutely meaningless until they're kind of funny. The guy who has what most people would feel is a boring, dead-end job at a parking garage knows exactly where the customers should park their cars so they have plenty of room, where to avoid getting their cars dented, where to be near the Coke machine, how to find a spot and get to the elevator fast if they're in a hurry, and so on. In the process, something else comes across, at least to me. The truth is, we all hope to meet people like this in the course of the day; we hope that the toll booth attendant is the kind who cares enough to know local directions even though that's not officially part of the job. Brian Haemker may have a gig that everyone else thinks is boring, but he's not bored. He's not a victim, and even seems to like what he does. His attention to detail, indeed, paying attention at all, is what saves his mind from rotting, and not coincidentally, he winds up being good at what he does. Now you may be saying, "Okay, he works at a parking lot. My job at Wal Mart is really boring, and he doesn't work with the collection of assholes I have to put up with. And on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I'm risking my life by walking into the electronics aisle, where DVD players are going for $29.95." This may be true, but I still think you should cut out the picture of Brian and put it in your wallet or tape it into your locker as a reminder. There's a book written on the theme of Brian's attitude, called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The basic idea is that if we pay attention to what we're doing, and put a little love and attention into it, that will save the world. In fact, it does save the world. You had better hope that the person who applied the grease to the tail fin of the Boeing 777 you're flying on at 41,000 feet at a speed of Mach 0.84 cares about his job enough to put the right kind of grease there, because the wrong kind can wear down the ball bearings and then one day the airplane can fall out of the sky for no apparent reason. And you can always tell when somebody who truly loves their work made your Big Mac. It just has that well put together feeling, and is so much more nourishing as a result. The word is dharma -- acting as if to hold the world together. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42816 While you're there, don't miss "Area Baby Doesn't Have Any Friends." Pathetic, all too true, but brilliant. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42599