A Found Treasure From VidLit To You… Happy Holidays!

“Available on a name your price basis — but keep in mind that it’s a tough job keeping a memory for a nation addicted to amnesia.”

http://www.theclotheshavenoemperor.com/

THE NEW YORK TIMES

BEST SELLER,

BACK AFTER 20

YEARS OUT OF PRINT

SPOILER ALERT! This book is not for fans of Ronald Reagan.  It is not for Sarah Palin fans.  It is not for anyone who can currently call himself or herself a Republican without feeling even a twinge of embarrassment, because everything that is repellent about that party today – the proud ignorance, the shrieking hypocrisy, the utter disregard, no,contempt, for the truth – was given a glorious send-off during the Reagan ’80s.

The Clothes Have No Emperor, first published in 1989, is for anyone who lived through this surreal era not with a sense of pride in being an American – a pride the culture tried to make one feel guilty for not experiencing – but rather of humiliation as an American for being led by this vapid front man for the avaricious, the corrupt and the callous.

It is for anyone who was appalled to the marrow by the reality that no matter how many times Reagan forgot his lines and needed to be publicly cued, or referred to note cards containing scripts for even his most miniscule small talk, or trotted out those relentlessly recycled one-liners yet again (and received, yet again, the obligatory unearned laughs for them), the public and the media nonetheless conspired to pretend that an actor wasn’t playing the role of President of the United States.

It is most especially for anyone too young to have been politically conscious – or even alive – during those eight surreal years, and who might therefore be tempted to buy into the preposterous myth of Reagan’s greatness.

Out of print for two decades, we’re reissuing this collection of idiocy, offensiveness and absurdity to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth by providing evidence to counter the vigorously propagated fable that Ronald Reagan, Godhead to the bitterly regressive party of greed and hate that the Republicans have become, was a Great President.

Read the first section here for free, then

Name Your Price to download the book.

We rarely endorse books we’re not involved with, but this book is amazing.   Take a look:

Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli – Excerpt

VidLit 2.0

It’s a new year and the “well-told tales” specialist VidLit has some new stories to explore for the information and entertainment communities.  The 20-teens is the decade of communication, and we are looking for an exchange of ideas.  We don’t have all the answers – no one does, so don’t let them tell you they do.  No company is an island, and we want your input.  Tell us what you think.  We’re listening.

Our project goals for the next year are:

Help build brands. Building brands may sound trite, but it is the basic of the new entertainment economy.  We’ve been watching the impact of digital on the entertainment and information industries for over twenty years and our conclusion is that if you love writing books or making music or art, the only way to monetize it is to build your public brand.  Brand-building is not haphazard.  You need a plan and we’ve given it a lot of thought.  In the meantime, here’s an excellent brand-building compendium:

Create and publish enhanced books. No one can deny that the publishing industry has gone through mega-changes.  What we’re looking to do is help figure out the new book.  We’re not looking to interrupt the reading experience with needless video or sound effects.  We want to use technology to improve the experience.  For example:  The Year of Living Shamelessly, which uses in-text links to illustrate and annotate the text.   Later this month we hope to add social publishing to this book that will allow you – the reader – to add to it and share your own political observations.

We’re also exploring kinetic educational books.  Will more in-book entertainment help children learn?  We think so, but then again we still remember the Conjunction Junction from School House Rock.

Other categories of books we think can benefit from the VidLit touch include: humor, short stories, poetry, first person essays, and certain non-fiction.  But we want your ideas.

The big project (code name). We have had this idea since 1984 and its time has come.  It’s a global project.  It’s a vantage point to look at history and try to predict (or dream up) the future.  It’s a way of putting tools into the hands of global citizens within a frame.  More on this soon.

So, let’s start a conversation, here or on Facebook or Twitter.

LieSpotting: It starts with the book LieSpotting, which introduces everyday people to deception detection techniques well known in law enforcement and in the intelligence world. If you master these ten tips, you’ll know when it’s time to ask harder questions and you’ll know if Sarah Palin is telling the truth, the next time she tweets “U Lie” to Rahm.

Read The Post

Adding to our ever-growing list of services, VidLit now offers dynamic websites for Authors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, Artists, Musicians, Non-Profits and more.

VidLit has partnered with KR Media & Designs to create what we like to call ” teach a man to fish” websites. We want our clients to be able to update and maintain their sites with as little knowledge of coding as possible. Many of our websites are built on a CMS platform like WordPress, making updating easy for clients. We also customize a Mobile-friendly theme for  each site built on a WordPress platform.

Recent examples include BoozeNews.net,  LiveTalks.org and our own VidLit.com

If you are interested in an efficient, easy to maintain, web user friendly and Mobile friendly website, give us a call!

The State of Online Video

69% of internet users watch or download video online; 14% have posted videos.

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2010/PIP-The-State-of-Online-Video.pdf

The Voice of McDonald’s team has won a 2010 Silver Quill Award of Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)!

The Silver Quill is a regional award and is in addition to the Bronze Quill Award of Excellence we were recently awarded at the Chicago chapter level. The Pacific Plains Region, one of only three IABC regions in the US, includes 20 member chapters in 19 states from Wisconsin to Hawaii, from Arizona to North Dakota. A panel of senior IABC members judged the 101 entries received. One judge noted, “Creative campaign and a very solid plan to ensure a comprehensive worldwide program. Highlights one of the many reasons McDonald’s is so successful from the inside out.”

By Liz Dubelman

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m so angry all the time.  People ask – my mom, Ms. Powell (my teacher), Mr. Hernandez (my 9^th grade counselor).  I wish I could tell them, but when I open my mouth to say, I don’t know, it comes out as Fuck-off.  It’s like there’s a talking hungry bear inside of me that’s hungry and angry all the time.

They love asking questions.  What would make you happy?  Or what do you want to do with your life.  These questions could drive a cheerleader to suicide.  I don’t even think they’re trying (which is what they say about me all the time). Ms. Powell has like 30 other kids that actually care about school and shit, and Mr. Hernandez wouldn’t even know my name if I hadn’t been called to his office so many times.  His office – with his pictures of his perfect wife and his perfect kids.

And my Mom – she cares way more about the little brats in her pre-school class than me.  I remember she once told me that babies learn to smile just when you’re feed up with the.  It’s like nature. So you don’t throw them out the window.  Well Mom, what do I do now?  I’ve got nothing – no tricks.

Yester, I “found” a coin thingy at school.  I know it’s Shauna’s.  I heard her telling Ella that it was her mother’s and it was like special and all.  She said it was from Mardi Gras a long time ago, before Katrina. It has a picture of Marilyn Monroe on it but it doesn’t really look like her.

Now she was a hurricane.  I saw a film of her on YouTube singing Happy Birthday to the President.  She seemed all druggy and sexy. Like she didn’t care.  I want to be like that but I can’t tell them that.  I can just hear it now.  Ms. Powell asked me (for the millionth time) what I want to do with my life.  And I say, I want to be like Marilyn Monroe.  And she says, You want to be an actress? And I say, No I want to be rich and famous and have everyone loves me.  And I want to be totally stoned too so I don’t have to give a shit about anything.

That will just get me another trip to Mr. H’s office so I can stare at his perfect fucking family.

You know what else I want?  I want this coin to be a sign.  I want it to be a sign for me to take off and go to New Orleans.  I think New Orleans feels like me.  Like after the hurricane –all beat up and broken.  My Mom says I am a hurricane.  Hurricane Delilah.  But I don’t fee like that.

But it’s not a sign.  I couldn’t leave my mom all alone.   I have to stay here and make her miserable and I don’t even know why.  I do know I’m not giving the coin back.  It’s mine now.

By Liz Dubelman

The taxi let Samantha off in front of 1129 Wellesley Avenue.  Sam had written that address on countless envelopes and packages containing birthday and anniversary wishes.  She hadn’t been to the house for years, since Kelly and Keith bought it after they had been married a few years.  Back then Sam hadn’t thought it was such a good idea for the kids to buy.  Keith wanted to be a writer and Kelly was mainly supporting them.  Sam hated the idea of her daughter supporting a man.  They had put off having children because Keith wasn’t ready, even though Sam knew Kelly wanted them.

Nonetheless, Elise Hazel Sheridan was born this morning at 6:02 am.  Sam went straight from the airport to the hospital.  The baby was beautiful but the labor and the C-section had taken its toll on Kelly.  Sam thought Kelly looked terrible and she couldn’t help wanting to blame Keith.

Sam didn’t much like Keith at all.  She didn’t see what Kelly saw in him.  Kelly was smart, funny and pretty.  She could have had anyone but she picked Keith.  Sam found Keith distant.  She didn’t think he treated her daughter well.  Everything seemed to aggravate him and he was never supportive of Kelly and what she wanted.

Sam walked up the path wheeling her luggage behind.  Keith had given her his keys.  He would be staying at the hospital with his wife and baby daughter.  Sam got to the door and looked down at the mess of keys.  She sighed.  Keith hadn’t given her any hint about which one to use.  Fortunately, luck was with her today and she got it on the second try.

The house was warm and inviting.  They had really fixed it up since her last visit.  The rooms were painted in soft blues and yellows.  Sam put a kettle on for tea.  She was so mixed up because of the time difference and the excitement of being a grandmother.  She should go to sleep but she was wide awake.

While she waited for the water to boil, Sam wandered around the house.  There were fresh-cut flowers on the table.  The house was clean and neat.  She couldn’t help thinking that Kelly, even in her ninth month, had slaved to make the house a home for Keith.  Sam went into the small office off the kitchen – Keith’s office.  It was true that he was doing a bit better financially.  He was writing the animated series, Bob The Builder.  Sam had no idea what that was, except that it was aimed at the pre-school set.

She sat down at his desk.  It was piled impossibly high with books and papers.  There were framed photos scattered about– one of Keith and Kelly taken in the mirror.  Kelly is holding the camera just to the side of her face and Keith is behind her.  They’re both grinning.   The one in the green wood frame was just a photo strip that you get from one of those booths at a fair.  In one pose they’re kissing, in another they’re smiling, and in another they’re sticking their tongues out at each other.

As she continued to survey the desk, Sam noticed a manuscript entitled, “Love Of My Life,” by Keith Sheridan. Woooooooooooooooooo! The kettle whistled.  Sam took the manuscript with her back to the kitchen.  She made a cup of tea with lots of lemon and sugar and sat down to read.

The book was an impossibly beautiful tale of a man who searches his whole life for his soul mate.  He has many unsatisfying relationships, one after another.  When he is in his late forties, he finds a woman twelve years younger than him who seems to speak the same language as him but she’s married.  Eventually they get together.  Life seems perfect.  The woman wants to have a child.  The man thinks this is what he’s waited for his whole life but his behavior is mean and erratic.   He pushes the woman away through his actions.  Together they come to realize that now that he has found the love of his life, he’s afraid that he will lose her.  It’s not that he doesn’t want children.  He’s scared that she will die in childbirth.  Through their love he is able to tolerate his fear and they have a beautiful baby girl.

By the time Sam finished the manuscript she had tears streaming down her face.  It was such a soulful and touching story.  Sam walked back to the office to return the manuscript.  As she placed it back on the desk she noticed a silver box engraved with the words:  “To Kelly, Love Of My Life.” Sam opened the box.  Inside was an exquisite heart-shaped ruby necklace.  Sam was starting to feel sleepy.  Tonight she would sleep well and the next morning her family would come home.

By Liz Dubelman

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t think it would be more fun to still live at 500-A Grand Street.  The address seemed so majestic — Grand Street – and there were parks you could walk to.  Englewood Cliffs had no parks.  We were confined to our back yard, where we could be watched.  There was an overall sense of impending doom and an overshadowing of ghosts.

I remember the little, slightly rusted aluminum rocking chair.  The seat and back were a dirty plastic mesh of green and white stripes.  I guess it had been my older sister’s and maybe it still was.  I was about three and was rocking my one-year-old brother on the flagstone walkway in the back yard.  I suppose Mary (our black southern nanny) was watching us.  My mother was barbecuing chicken for dinner.

Englewood Cliffs is located just a mile or two north of the George Washington Bridge.  A post-war town built on the Palisades after the builders learned to control dynamite.  All the streets were named after people in the builders’ lives.  We lived on the corner of Laurie and Stephens.

My parents moved from the city when I was 2.  The story goes that my mother was walking back from Tompkins Square Park when my sister ran ahead.  My mother called out, “Debbie, stop.”  And some homeless guy (back then they were called “bums”), upon hearing her name, called out to her, “Come here, Debbie.”  They bought a house the very next weekend.

My parents weren’t just escaping a city full of bums.  They were running from memories – from the unthinkable, the unimaginable.  They had had a son, the first born.  He was born with a terminal blood disease (an illness that can be cured now, which offers no relief to my mother).  David was born bruised, his whole tiny body black and blue.  He lived to be two and a half and was sick his whole life.  Periodically, throughout my childhood, I would find odds and ends of David’s short existence – a microscopic dot of blood on a slide or a brittle yellow newspaper clipping of a new medical advance.  I never knew him but I would try to feel like he was my brother.

My mother basted the chicken.  My father would be home any minute.  We knew this because even in 1966 he had a mobile phone.  It was very large and came in – no, was part of – an attaché case.  It was also heavy, because the power source was like a small car battery.  The phone was more like a ship-to-shore radio.  He would pick up the receiver and call into it, “Mobile operator, mobile.  Mobile operator, mobile.”  The operator would answer, “Mobile operator.  What number, please?”  “LO 8-4214.”  My father always called just as he was crossing the GW so my mom could start dinner.

The evening was just starting to break the heat.  My seven-year-old sister was hovering around my mother.  I was rocking my brother in the old chair.  Maybe I rocked him too hard, or maybe the little chair was half on the grass and half on the flagstone – anyway, it fell over.  He cracked his head.  He didn’t cry.  He just lay there as the magnitude of what I thought I’d done washed over me.  I screamed.  Mary and my mother came running.  They picked him up and I could see a small drop of blood on the muted colors of the flagstone.

He was fine, really, but my mother was so agitated she wasn’t sure she could drive.  Mary didn’t know how to drive.  My father wasn’t home yet.

Though my parents never let us out of their sight, my mother left my sister and me alone to take my brother to the hospital.  Mary went along, either to keep my brother or my mother calm, I don’t know which.  I was exhilarated and terrified.  I thought at first that being alone in the house with my sister was an adventure.  Then the thought crossed my three-year-old mind that by hurting my little brother, I’d done something so terrible that I made my parents go away.

But, in a real sense, neither of them had ever really been there.  I think losing a child (maybe especially a first-born) makes it difficult, if not impossible, to become truly attached to a second, third or fourth.  My parents’ contemptuous tone toward each other was a constant reminder of how they blamed each other for not being strong enough to save David or to take away the lingering pain of his death.  Maybe the birth of each child was a futile attempt to connect, but my parents were scared to love too much.  Another loss could be more than they could bear.

My parents lived together in this semi-detached state for over 40 years.  At some point my father had an affair with a prostitute half his age.  He used all his ingenuity to save her.  He enrolled her in college, he paid the tuition and, when she was flunking out, he spoke to the professors.  But she was a lost cause.

My mother found some letters and filed for divorce.  My father fought as hard as he could.  Maybe he couldn’t take another loss.  Each set up camp in separate bedrooms and refused to move from their suburban home.  He hired private detectives, tapped her phone, and made up vicious lies.  He filed court papers saying that she was plotting to kill him.  He was old, frail, wily and paranoid (a lethal combination).  They couldn’t reattach and they couldn’t part.  They stayed locked in this purgatory for more than four years.

And then one hot-as-hell evening, in that very same home built on rock, a very small thin-tailed creature ran through the house.  (I have always found mice to be creepy.   They appear to have no bones.  Like a memory they can fit through the smallest hole.)  My father, quite insane by now, chased the thin-tailed creature with a hammer.  He slipped, fell, and hit his head.  He went to sleep that night and blood filled his head, pouring out of his ears and nose.  He never woke up.