About Telemarketers

Recent events compel me to say a few words about telemarketers and telemarketing, a job that I myself have actually done, and which I rank as one of the Two Most Repellent Jobs I Have Ever Held (it runs neck-and-neck with a job I once had pulling weeds at a long-neglected, dreadfully overgrown condo complex). Herewith some helpful facts and hints about telemarketers for the targets of annoying sales calls:

1. For all you business owners out there: if you're really serious about putting the kibosh on all sales calls for all time, quit advertising your business. Sales calls are part of the price you pay for publicity. Also, next time you go to a sales or trade convention, don't sign up to get free information about anything. Last time you went to the Acme Annual Shower Curtain Ring Sales Convention in Vegas, you took a few too many spins at the roulette wheel, downed a few too many highballs, and then signed your name to a few too many lists. That may be a huge factor in why you are now being besieged by telemarketers trying to get you to sign up for a free subscription to a trade magazine. Booze and mailing lists just don't mix.

2. That pestiferous person on the other end of the phone line, trying to push something on you that you don't need, or pester you with survey questions about your medical conditions, is not annoying you for his health. It is his job -- possibly the only crummy job he could get at that particular moment in history. Some telemarketers have been in the business for years, and love it. You mustn't grudge them that, since it enables them to earn their keep and get through their workdays in peace -- a considerable benefit not only to them, but also to their families and friends and everybody who has to put up with them in person. Others, however, are just struggling, and would jump at the chance to shovel out stables, scrub floors with a toothbrush, clean bedpans, or do just about anything else besides telemarketing. Telemarketers' time is highly regimented and closely monitored by computer: they get dinged for being five minutes late to work; they get only 20 minutes for lunch; they can spend a total of no more than 12 minutes a day on bathroom and drink breaks; and they put up with all this in exchange for peanuts. That person you are about to tell to go take a flying leap may be a lifelong housewife whose philandering husband suddenly left her destitute, or a young widowed mother, or just a kid trying to earn his way through school. Your real quarrel is not with the working slob making the sales call, but with the company that hired the telemarketing firm he works for to push the magazines or take the surveys. Or maybe, the person you really should be mad at is yourself -- see Point No. 1 above.

3. The telemarketer has no control over whom he calls, and has no way of knowing that you have been called three or four times today already. The calls are all placed by computers, into which have been fed your contact information, which was provided by the telemarketing company's client, which in turn came from -- well, you (see again Point No. 1 above). The telemarketer just sits in front of a computer screen, waiting for the calls to come up. The calls are sent to whichever telemarketers are logged in and have their phones on: they must be logged in in order to get paid, and they are not allowed to turn their phones off without a good reason. If you keep getting unwanted calls, it is not the fault of the person on the other end of the line.

4. The telemarketer reads his sales pitches from scripts. He is required to read the script as written. After you have said no, he has another script that he is required to read, and then another script that he is required to read after you have said no again. He has to do this, however annoying you find it, and even though you tell him not to bother. All his calls are monitored and recorded, so if he makes a habit of not following the scripts, and especially of not making his second or third effort, he will get canned.

5. If you want the telemarketers to stop calling you, you can (a) put yourself on the National Do Not Call Registry; (b) sign up for the free subscriptions the telemarketers are hawking; or (c) ask them to stop calling you, at which point they will put you on the do-not-call list (which may or may not actually end the calls immediately, depending on the company's system and procedures). Don't just tell them you're unavailable or too busy, because then you won't be taken off the call list. Just hanging up on them is also not a sure-fire way of stopping the calls. Threatening to press charges will have no effect on the telemarketer, who is not ultimately responsible for your being on the call list in the first place (see again Point No. 1).

Telemarketing is a plague and a nuisance, a sure sign that we have not, and will not, achieve Paradise on Earth. The only good thing that can be said about it is that it at least provides a sort of financial lean-to for some who otherwise would find no shelter at all against the economic storms that batter their lives. Telemarketers are merely annoying, not sinful. Cut them some slack.

The Glory of Ireland; The Squalor of Popular Culture

The late hullabaloo over Holy Week taking precedence over St. Patrick's feast day (which St. Patrick would have backed 100%) is mild compared to some of the other signs of how low we've sunk. One of the local girlie bars in the Treasure Valley is "celebrating" St. Patrick's Day with a wet T-shirt contest; according to the sign outside, the "winner" gets $100.00. St. Patrick must have made some serious inroads into Hell's dominion for the devil to try to avenge himself by arranging for a "tradition" of crass and sinful entertainments to "celebrate" Patrick's feast day.

Prayer of St. Patrick

As I arise today, may the strength of God pilot me, the power of God uphold me, the wisdom of God guide me. May the eye of God look before me, the ear of God hear me, the word of God speak for me. May the hand of God protect me, the way of God lie before me, the shield of God defend me, the host of God save me. May Christ shield me today...Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit, Christ when I stand, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. Amen.

Yeah, Whatever

It's the 80th annual Academy Awards, but unfortunately for the movie biz, nobody seems to give a silver-plated rat's padoo about this landmark occasion in motion picture history. Can this have anything to do with the fact that Hollywood has long ceased to have any respect for its audiences, from its anti-Christian and anti-American story lines to the openly sleazy lives of its "stars"? (Yeah, a lot of the stars of yesteryear -- notice the absence of scare quotes -- also led sleazy lives, but at least the morality clauses in their studio contracts kept many of them from flaunting their sins publicly.)

I quit keeping track of the Academy Awards years ago; today, I doubt I could pick most of the nominees out of a lineup. Since a lot of people have also lost interest, I thought this might be a good time to reminisce about Oscar's Good Old Days.

Best Picture Oscars

The first Best Picture Oscar, in 1928, actually went to two movies; and the award wasn't called Best Picture. Wings (which I once got to see at the Egyptian Theater) got it for Best Production, and Sunrise got it for "Unique and Artistic Picture," a category never again repeated. Wings, starring Buddy Rogers (onetime husband of Mary Pickford) and Clara Bow (the "It" Girl) is a comic, romantic tragedy about two World War I flying aces. An extremely young Gary Cooper appears in this movie, but he lasts about as long as an ordinary crewman on an episode of Star Trek. Wings has the distinction of being the only silent movie to win Best Picture (or its equivalent).

These are my favorite Best Picture winners:

Casablanca (Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Paramount, 1942). I love the defiance of this film at a time when World War II could really have been lost, and was in fact going badly for the Allies. My favorite scene -- and one that gives me goose bumps every time I see it -- is the one where Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) makes the band strike up La Marseillaise and everybody stands and sings along, and drowns out the Nazi tune. This movie also has some of the most quotable movie lines.

Going My Way (Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Paramount, 1944). Made back when Hollywood respected Catholics. I can't watch this without a huge box of Kleenex.

All About Eve (Bette Davis, Ann Baxter, George Sanders, 20th Century Fox, 1950). This is the one where Bette Davis utters her signature line: "Fasten your seatbelts: it's going to be a bumpy night!" It beat out one of my other favorites, Sunset Boulevard (Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Paramount, 1950). It held the record for the most nominations (14) until 1997, when Titanic also garnered 14 nominations.

A Man for All Seasons (Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Highland Films, 1966). How could I leave out a film about my patron saint, with one of my favorite actors (Leo McKern) as a bad guy?

Best Acting Oscars

Some of my favorite winners (or I should say, winning performances):

• Joan Crawford (as Mildred Pierce, 1945). Ann Blyth was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing her disgustingly snotty and evil daughter Veda.
• Bogie (Charlie Allnut in The African Queen, 1951). Starred opposite Katharine Hepburn, who holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscars (4).
• William Holden (J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17, 1953). This is one of the great war movies, though it has no combat scenes.
• Charlton Heston (Judah Ben-Hur in Ben Hur, 1959) (though I liked him even better as Mo-o-o-o-s-e-e-e-s in The Ten Commandments).
• Katharine Hepburn (Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, 1968). Katharine Hepburn actually claimed to be a descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine; given the number of children Eleanor had, this probably put her in company with a great many people.
• Richard Dreyfuss (Elliot Garfield in The Goodbye Girl, 1977). Although this movie involves shacking up, and although the dialogue in Neil Simon movies tends to be just this side of too-clever-by-half, I really like this movie. I like the fact that Elliot loves not only Paula but also her daughter. And Richard Dreyfuss'...shall we say, unconventional portrayal of Richard III is hysterical.
• Sissy Spacek (Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, 1980). Spacek sang all the songs; it wasn't dubbed. Beverly D'Angelo, who played Patsy Cline, also sang. Neither, of course, is the original, but I can't say it sounded terrible.
• Cher (Loretta Castorini in Moonstruck, 1987). "A wolf without a foot!"
• Jack Nicholson (Melvin Udall in As Good As It Gets, 1997). Surprised to see one so recent? So am I! But I found very compelling the treatment of the redemptive power of love. I just loved it when Melvin tells Carol that great compliment he has for her: "You make me want to be a better man."

And of course, there are plenty of good movies and actors and actresses who haven't won Oscars, or even been nominated. I guess that includes some that were not nominated this year, which might be another reason nobody's watching the Oscars tonight.

President's Day

The trouble with "President's Day" is that not all Presidents deserve to be honored. Washington, the Father of his country, and Lincoln, its Preserver, unquestionably deserve holidays in their honor; the same, however, cannot be said of certain other Presidents. This seems to be all part of the culture of "equality," when mediocrity or even badness shares the spotlight with excellence, thereby degrading the latter while doing nothing to exalt the former. I wish we would get away from this business of celebrating all Presidents, whether they deserve it or not.

Unless we're going to start instituting holidays for the days when certain Presidents' terms end; in which case, I could go for that.

(I have a feeling we're going to be celebrating the end of the next administration, whichever candidate wins.)