It is a well-known fact that there are not enough baseball caps, T-shirts and other logo-bearing trinkets in the nation today.
Manufacturers should be working two and even three shifts to turn out more, more, more of such material. They should not stop until every American has at least 40 such items, because we all have so much spare closet and drawer space, because nothing wears out so quickly as a baseball cap, and because it is so satisfying to be able to walk around displaying your allegiance to a commercial enterprise for no compensation whatsoever.
An alarming amount of this kind of stuff is sold for profit–yes, people really do pay $100 for the privilege of joining Kate Moss by also wearing a blouse advertising Calvin Klein. But much of it is made up by the companies in question for distribution to people who presumably can help in the promotional effort.
As someone who writes about a relentlessly huckstering medium for a newspaper that reaches millions, I am one of those on the target list. My windowsill right now is cluttered with incentive items like windowsills in the tropics are cluttered with dead flies.
There are more heinous ways of trying to influence coverage, of course: The Hollywood promotional junket, in which the studio pays for the reporter to come chat up the movie’s stars, is alive and well, though most larger papers, including this one, shun them. (Quite a few, however, do not ask freelance writers how they happened to land an interview with, say, Mel Gibson.)
But the cornucopia of memorabilia manque that is sent out seeking to buy, or at least influence, the affection of writers, ad agency workers and others is worth taking a closer look at.
It has a certain, pathetic Willy Loman charm, yes, but it also speaks to how underpaid and simpleminded they must think we are and is indicative of a culture with entirely too much money to spend on useless junk.
The one thing I do get more of than anything else is videotapes, advance copies of programs folks want me to watch and write about, a dozen or more per day in high season. This is as it should be for someone bearing my title: helpful, informative, efficient and all that.
But the other stuff–ranging from embarrassingly shoddy amusements to embarrassingly valuable commercial items–makes me wonder if standard promotional theory holds that TV critics are Divine Browns in waiting, ready to give it away at the drop of a gewgaw.
Am I, for instance, supposed to become more favorably disposed toward the tawdry USA Network series “La Femme Nikita” because they sent me a black baseball cap bearing the show’s logo?
Should I have written about the recent Mother Teresa movie, instead of letting our TV Week cover story handle it, because I was anointed to receive a ceramic mug bearing her statement that “Love has to be put into action”?
And what of the official size and weight, genuine leather basketball that arrived from Lifetime cable, touting its coverage of the Women’s NBA? That had to be worth at least $70 retail, which is more Heidi Fleiss than Divine Brown.
Here is some more of my recent bounty:
– T-shirts for Garth Brooks live in Central Park, an HBO special; for the memorable “Day One” of “X-Files” and “NYPD Blue” reruns appearing on FX cable; and for an MTV “sports and music festival” held in Texas;
– boxer shorts decorated with logos for the movie “Dumb and Dumber” and the cable station TBS, which was showing it, along with instructions on how to give a wedgie;
– a metal, doctor-style clipboard bearing the logo of “Trauma: Life in the E.R.,” a TLC show;
– a heavy-duty carry-on bag bearing the FX logo (the note said, creepily, “thanks for the coverage”);
– a Sony universal remote from the WB network, accompanied by a letter suggesting it was to help out in the frenzy of the fall season;
– the official MTV “Real World” calendar;
– a fancy magnifying glass bearing the “A&E Mysteries” logo;
– and a pull-on rubber shark nose plugging a network’s series of animal specials.
This stuff does not, you have probably surmised, end up under glass on display in my living room. As reinforcement of any self-respecting reporter’s natural revulsion at such enticements, the Tribune, like most respectable news organizations, has an ethics policy against gifts worth more than a keychain.
So every few months I pull the latest pile off my windowsill and into a box, which I then schlep down to our person in charge of getting this kind of stuff to charity. With the more valuable items, letters are sent to the gift giver explaining why writers can’t accept such gifts but you’ll be happy to know they’ve gone to a worthy organization, etc.
In other words, in a couple of months time, there will hopefully be a homeless fellow walking around touting a pay cable station special about a country singer whose early hit spoke about “friends in low places.” The “Garth Live” shirt may not earn the special any ink, but it will be, I trust, the hit of the shelter.
