Thoughtnami Classics | Know Where Your Towel Is

Originally Posted 02/15/09 by Jeff Harris

In this world, you have to know one thing:

Always know where your towel is.

Why yes, I have become a Douglas Adams fan as of late. Those three and a half months without a real computer helped me catch up on a lot of things offline. Aside from the personal things that still depresses me, I've been reading a lot. The Bible (the KJV and SJV), Crimson, the Hitchhiker Trilogy (which is actually five books, not unlike the Jersey Trilogy of Kevin Smith that began with Clerks and ended with the sixth movie, Clerks 2), and a few others.

That whole conversation between Arthur and Ford before the Earth got destroyed was a strange one, but it resonated with me. A towel is, more or less, everything. It's protection. It's a weapon. It could be used for communication. It keeps you dry. It's everything.

I've figured out that in this life, you've got to know who to trust and who you can't. I know I could trust my family because they're there for me in good times and bad and will never let me go. I know I can trust my friends at Toon Zone. Not the posters, per se, but those that I've gotten to know over the years within the administration and moderation. I also have a small circle of friends outside the Zone that I also trust, mostly bloggers, musicians, and long time friends from the olden days when the internet was young and so were we. It still confounds me that I'm a 13-year veteran of the internet.

I've encountered real players in and around the industry. Some are really good guys. Most, however, are arrogant bastards that just want to pick your brain for ideas because they're unimaginative cretins. Learned that from first-hand experience a couple of years back. I can't trust a network executive or anyone with actual power because, even in casual conversation, they're fishing for ideas. This one exec I knew and thought I could trust pretty much gave me the cold shoulder. He works at some Mickey Mouse organization working on some channel. Any way, that's beyond the point. This guy was like a brother, and I thought he'd have my back, but I've learned that I only have to watch my own back.

Big Media is a dangerous thing. It crushes competition, creates laziness and unoriginality, and celebrates incompetence while discouraging creativity. The reason why the unions within the industry aren't happy is because they want their fair share for the work that they do while those in power that don't do anything at all continue to benefit from the works of the artists, actors, and writers. And yet, they don't want to pay anybody anything for repeated use of their talent in any medium and have manipulated the rest of us into thinking that the talent was in the wrong for "demanding more." That's probably why I embrace the creative side of production rather than the executive side. They actually do things.

This is a pointless post, but in the period between the time I lost my computer and the time my aunt gave me a new one, I realized who I can count on and trust.

I knew where my towel was.