FollowLast night I journeyed eighteen miles up Route 18 to Rutgers and Eagleton Institute to hear a panel consisting of Mike McCurry and Dana Perino, both former Press Secretaries under Clinton and Bush respectively. Pierre Salinger kept popping into mind. He was Kennedy’s and my first exposure as an adult to the position. During the Cuban Missile crisis how much was Pierre told, remembering national security? How the position has evolved. How we have evolved. How information has evolved. I did hear the word, Area 51 slip out and smiled. I like intrigue and cynicism, part of a brand I’d like to become.
Then back down Route 18, starting at the reconstructed portion of the highway, towards home. Cynicism is a brand I’d like for myself. So why the rush to finish the highway, and build a new hotel on George Street, and add 12,000 more seats at Rutgers Stadium, and the condos along the new waterfront of Rutgers alma mater? I smiled and when I got home five recent college graduates were playing beer pong in the backyard and needed a sixth. Brand name popped into mind; now crossing gen x, y, and z barriers; blending, ponging and talking to my pretend contemporaries about Tuna Fish becoming extinct. Another brand; worrying about environment and sustainability. They listened intently in between a dripping wet ping pong ball sailing towards a red cup half filled with low calorie beer. Another brand; preaching dietary health concerns to college grads instead of asking what they thought about “Avatar.”
I like this branding awareness, stream of consciousness. Do I have the beginning of a brand where I relate as a writer to varied demographics with a finger on a contemporary pulse? Three of the kids I was playing beer pong with are my Facebook friends. Pulse stuff. Perhaps horn blowing time. I never blow a horn. Is writing about things that come to be part of a brand? Nostradamus owns the real brand. In my novel I wrote about car and drug companies not recalling for obvious reasons. We know about Toyota. Two weeks ago a diabetes drug company admitted their drug causes a 43% increase in heart attacks. Throughout my novel, I tongue and cheeked my way around Tuna becoming extinct. Without a lot of fanfare two weeks ago, the United States entered into an agreement with several countries to curtail fishing the Atlantic for Blue Fin Tuna, on the way to becoming extinct. HBO, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks released a new 10 part series called ‘The Pacific’ which shows part of the Guadalcanal story during WWII. In my novel, a main character journeys all the way to Guadalcanal today to pay respects to our soldiers who died there. President Obama gave a speech in June 2009 in Egypt promising Muslims that America would treat them with respect and understanding. In the novel, a main character is Muslim and is treated just like the President said. Of course the novel was drafted years before these events.
I like this branding stuff. Maybe I’ve got this pulse thing licked. Maybe a potter’s wheel spinning a bowl of another novel. And I’m thinking about forefathers. Really “fore.” And Lew Wallace’s ‘Ben Hur’ and the last couple scenes in the movie. Happy Healthy Holidays.