Before electronic communication really took hold, my desk used to bow beneath the weight of all the useless press releases mailed to me from PR outfits around the country.
It was kind of a hassle to deal with them since, having something of an environmental conscience, I didn’t want to just chuck them into the trash; consequently, I opened all of them, taking care to sort the colored paper from the white, back when you had to do such things, and then recycle those sheets, throwing out only the shiny stuff and any CDs that might have been included.
Nowadays, the overwhelming majority of the releases I receive come via email, where they are gone with a mere click of the mouse, a much simpler process.
There were a couple that came this week, though, that I actually read.
The first let me know that today is Take Your Dog to Work Day. At this writing (Thursday night), I haven’t decided yet whether Jewel will accompany me to the newsroom. She has done so on a number of occasions, though. Here she is one Friday night about a year ago, working hard:
My plan was to make a game-time decision Friday as to whether to load Jewel into my pickup, or come to work solo on my motorbike. I’ll let you know what happens.
Also this week, I received word that on July 24, a handful of theaters in Oregon — including one in Springfield and one in Salem — are taking part in a one-night event featuring a film about the making of the Who’s Quadrophenia album. The subject line caught my eye because I’m a big fan of the Who in general and have always liked Quadrophenia, and the documentary sounds sort of intriguing.
But I have to wonder, how did this film happen to get made now, almost 30 years after the record was released?
And why a movie about Quadrophenia (which was also the basis of 1979 film by the same name) as opposed to one about, say, Who’s Next or Tommy, other iconic Who albums?
Well, I have to admit I wasn’t curious enough to make a phone call or two and find that out, and I’m not planning on attending the 8 p.m.-only showing in either the capital city or the town where I worked from 1987 to 1990.
But it was still fun to see “Quadrophenia” in the subject line in the emailbox.
2 comments
dave from Philomath says:
Jun 22, 2012
Once again, thanks for the memories. My older brother bought me Quadrophenia for Christmas when I was a senior in high school. (still have it). I then bought an old Vespa (like the one on the cover) for 15 dollars from a friend of mine – ran great and had a lot of fun with it. (one of the top seven vehicles I remember most fondly). btw – remember to let your dogs how much they mean to you – had to put down our German Shepard 11 year old last week. She was a good dog.
dave
Steve Lundeberg says:
Jun 22, 2012
You had a GS scooter with your hair cut neat? Wore your war-torn coat in the wind and sleet (or however that line goes)? I only have the one dog at this point; I am going to let Jewel, age 10, be an only dog the rest of her life because she really, really likes not sharing my attention with other dogs. She’s my buddy; she had a great outing at the coast on Wednesday. My condolences about your pet.