Mowing the Grassroots

Politics

“They didn’t keep the organization alive. They thought it was out there to use whenever they wanted to use it. But with constituents who feel like they’ve been part of a revolution — as ours did in ’80 and ’81 — you’ve got to feed them. You’ve got to make sure that they feel important.” Instead, says [former Reagan strategist Ed] Rollins, OFA “e-mailed them to death, but without any real steps to make them feel a part of the process, like they felt a part of the campaign.”

Rolling Stone has a great article, “No We Can’t,” on how Organizing for America, Obama’s key web/volunteer organization during theelection, was co-opted into the Democratic National Committee post-election, ultimately becoming toothless.

Edit: Charles Homan of Washington Monthly has an interesting article on the same subject, “The Party of Obama.”

Looking for Submissions: Onomatopoeia Magazine

FLYMF Alums

FLYMF alum Bobby D. Lux has started an online literary journal, Onomatopoeia Magazine, and is looking for submissions. As the web site says:

Alright, so basically we’re looking for just about anything. Hmmmm, that might not be totally true, but that having been said, we’re huge fans of the usual suspects: short stories, poems, reviews, interviews, one act plays, novel excerpts, photography, graphic design, humor, skits, and whatever else strikes you (and hopefully us) as interesting.

Have something interesting? Send it his way!

Bobby is the author of the short-story collection, The Exciting Life and Death of the Amazing Henry and Other stories (which I reviewed here). He was also a longtime FLYMF contributor, with a number of stories in FLYMF’s Greatest Hits. Bobby’s FLYMF work includes When The Camera Stopped Rolling, Mike Tyson Movie Reviews, O’Neill ‘Scopes’ An Early Career, Monkey Dance, Outrageous Claims, In Memorium, Adventures In Time Travel, The Worst Story Ever, Batman Begins By Superman, The Coreys, Tonto’s Shocking Discovery, Vegas Wedding, The Solution To America’s Problems, Superman Returns, The Pirates Of Swenxof, and “Sly” Nostalgia.

What Price Fandom?

Games

In today’s Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Mark Brown reveals that the Cubs are letting fans buy tickets before this Friday’s official sale date…if they pay a 20 percent premium on their sale. This is in addition to the team owning their own ticket-scalping service.

As Brown concludes:

This is the conundrum in which the Cubs always find themselves: Their tickets are worth more than they can get away with charging for them from a public relations standpoint, a fact proved out by the prices those tickets fetch on the secondary market.

And so the Cubs keep looking for wrinkles to charge their fans more without coming right out and admitting that’s what they’re doing.

The danger is that just because some people are willing to pay the extra money doesn’t mean the team isn’t alienating a part of its fan base that already believes it’s being priced out of the historic ballpark.

The Cubs can charge what they want for tickets (and I plan on buying some this Friday). But fandom is an irrational act, and I wonder how much people are willing to pay before deciding they can do without–especially when there are 81 home games, times are tough, and your team is known for being “lovable losers.”

A Game with a Message

Games

Cued by the Chicago Reader’s Whet Moser, I just spent a few minutes playing Every Day the Same Dream. It’s a simple flash-art game produced by La Molleindustria (about whom I hope to learn more; their slogan promises “Radical games against the dictatorship of entertainment.”) The game is short and intriguing, even if the point it’s trying to make is quickly evident to anyone who’s seen “American Beauty.” Still, I enjoy attempts to express a message through games, and I think the approach will bear a lot of fruit in coming years.

Ebert in Esquire

Movies, Well Worth Reading

Chris Jones has an excellent profile of Roger Ebert in Esquire. “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man” explores Ebert’s life post-surgery, positing “it’s almost impossible to sit beside Roger Ebert, lifting blue Post-it notes from his silk fingertips, and not feel as though he’s become something more than he was.”

Roger Ebert is one of my favorite writers. I would recommend that anyone who loves the written word subscribe to his blog, which has become more engrossing with each new entry.