More Dodo Than Dinosaur

I had to leave the house yesterday to clear my head. I started walking east up Main Street to Broadway, then turned right and ducked into the local tavern for a burger and a beer. As I sat by myself in the booth by the window, my head lost in a magazine, the man at the bar started talking. He was dressed in black and his face showed the wear of some sixty odd years of living, but he seemed friendly enough. He asked if I'd mind if he played the jukebox and I said go right ahead. He told me he'd been a drummer once, had played here and there in Greenwich Village in the sixties and a time or two in the same California venue as The Doors. In 1968, he'd moved to L.A. from NYC, met a woman and married her. The adventure had ended soon thereafter when she lost the child she was carrying. "Don't know if it was a boy or a girl," he said. "You don't look back. What's the point? You can't change a thing."

He stood up from his bar stool and walked to the jukebox in the back. Moments later, the sadly outdated opening guitar lick from Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" filled the air.

I've been waiting so long
To be where I'm going

I had to smile. It was oddly appropriate. The man, you see, is now a Pentecostal minister and I had been thinking a lot lately about the Apocalypse. Not the end of the world. Just the end of my world. The signs are everywhere. Ninety thousand journalists lost their jobs in 2009. My employer closed six magazines. I spent a good bit of the holidays trying to evaluate the declining worth of my skill set. And then, just this week, I read in the Los Angeles Times that some freelance writers are accepting work for sixteen cents a word. That's right. Sixteen cents a word. For as long as I can remember, the industry standard has been two dollars. Are things really changing that fast?

I suppose so. And it's not like I don't welcome the change. There's a part of me that thrills to the prospect of what could be. I've spent far too long toiling under the thumb of the baby boom generation. I'd like nothing more than to break with that tradition. Yes, I've been waiting so long to be where I'm going. But I'm wise enough to know that the keys to the kingdom long since promised to me are more likely to land in the hands of the millennials once this revolution has run its course. And so, I'm doing all I can to learn the new tricks of the trade.

I'm open to embracing your vision of the future if you'll permit me to share some wisdom from the past. Let's find new ways to tell important stories. Let's do what we can to reward the good writers and the good editors for quality work. And let's not forget that change is hard. It might take some pushing and some patience from both sides to come up with the ideal solution.

I don't feel like a dinosaur. Maybe just a dodo bird—eager to learn how to fly again.