A Walk Through Digital Publishing

MCM told me that I needed to turn in an article about the state of publishing vis-a-vis the global network of computers that have already turned the music and film industries on their heads.  He said to cover digital distribution models and some other stuff that I missed because I had some Billy Joel mp3s turned up too loud.

And I said to him, it wasn’t the computers listening to pirated Billy Joel and watching a pirated version of From Justin to Kelly.  Then I turned off the movie and got to work.

I finished a paragraph, went back to edit out the curse words, and discovered that I had a pile of quotation marks and commas.

That happens when I’m not in the mood to write a fluff piece for The Man, so I said “screw you, MCM,” and went for a walk to the local convenience store to buy a fresh pack of cigarettes to roll up into the sleeve of my white cotton t-shirt. The old one got pretty mangled from all the bicep curls that I do.

While I walked through the twilight, I had to pass a small piece of unsold commercial property that had turned into a lawless no-mans-land.  The motorists using the nearby road must be incorrigible litterbugs, because the trees and bushes in the grove were dressed up in torn plastic bags like they were ready for Halloween.

One of the plastic ghosts sneezed.

Among the bushes masquerading as ghosts was a real ghost!  And it had allergies!

“Hey, man, do you have allergies?” I asked the ghost.

“Yes, and I can’t go to the convenience store for some non-drowsy allergy medication because I’m a friggin’ ghost!  I scare everybody, and ghost money is no good!”

“Tell you what,” I said, hatching one of my many successful schemes, “I’ll go buy you the medicine, bring it back to you, and you pay me back in ghost money.”

Ghost money must be pretty awesome, I thought.

“That would be grand!” the ghost replied.

I went to the convenience store and bought the allergy medicine and took it back to the ghost.

He fished around in his ghost-slacks and thrust several wadded up ghost-dollars at me.  They featured portraits of dead people, like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but that’s where the connection to ghosts ended. The bills were far too corporeal and substantial.

“Man, this is just regular money, screw that,” I said, and gave it to a post-office box that looked hungry.

When I got back home, I sat down and wrote a terrific summary of the state of digital publishing.  Before I submitted it, though, I realized that it would be Too Real for The Man to appreciate, so I said “screw you, MCM” and gave him a sweet-ass ghost story instead.

About Greg X. Graves

Greg X Graves is a young, angry man who is full of ideas. He’s a rebel, baby. You can’t take him home to Mom and Dad, because he’ll probably start railing against the Man and his stupid Establishment, and your parents will say “Whoa, Daughter, no way are you dating this hooligan,” and it’ll just be a whole big scene, and Greg’ll be like “Whatever, toots,” and ride away on his bitchin’ hog and then everyone will be sorry.

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