National Affairs Desk's FRIDAY RELEASE...week ending 7/10/09

 
              Aha, finally...FRIDAY! Almost one of every American's favorite top 10 words. And this particular Friday would be like any other but due to my own personal circumstances, having finally left the “Evil Empire”, the world's largest management consulting firm I've spent nearly a decade at, and gotten a new job—two jobs actually; also being hired on as a staff writer for a Chicago-based Internet company, I feel like this run-on sentence is worthy of introducing this..the “New” Friday...which I now dub “Friday Version2”. Reasoning behind it is that it seems absent of the gross horrors and lame fuck arounds I've grown so accustomed to on paydays from my last ten years at the firm.


              As I've said before to those of you lucky enough to not have encountered it, at IPA, payday is an emotionally-chaffing, nail-biting, and typically foul-smelling wait in a line that never seems to end. That is of course, until you reach the front and one of the secretaries hands you your bi-monthly metaphoric kick to the groin—that is-- if you even dare peek at your take home before the day is over  and become so utterly let-down that your production ability is effectively lobotomized.


             But, no...not anymore. No more bribing secretaries with KFC lunches to give you your check early without permission from your boss so you can avoid the line. Just a regular process of passing out checks and receiving what you earned.

             
Oh yes. By now, some of you might be wondering, “What the hell am I reading?”. Well, for those of you who have never heard of the National Affairs Desk...let alone one of it's pearls, the Friday Release-- I'll fill ya in.
             

The N.A.D., or National Affairs Desk is a deep-reaching, well-armed, multi-headed beast of a publishing company headquartered out of my living room with agents and operatives world-wide. We are, at least according to Harvard School of Journalism and the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, “Gonzo Journalists”. The National Affairs Desk seeks to cover events from the every day to the extraordinary that touch the lives of most all Americans. And being “Gonzo” or “Journalists that will spontaneously allow   the pen and ink to function as the minds eye”, we cover more than a wide range of topics from international news to small-town events to why one of our reporters' were late...or even somehow early to their day job. But late at night and in the wee-hours of the morning our agents of influence are restless. Some writers have called our style “The New Journalism”, while other say it's more old-school due to the complete lack of censorship over topics, opinions, or political correctness. We just let the shit hit the fan and put on paper what we're standing in the middle of...or knee-deep in. For fuck sakes—I wrote an “award-winning” piece on a terrible incident involving me vomiting all over a pizza delivery guy on bike...and was then given more editorial say-so because of it.
             

Anyways, as soon as I got the unanimous vote passed to do a “my week in hind sight” sort of thing, the FRIDAY RELEASE was born...and I've never come out of labor from birthing.  The Friday Release from the N.A.D. Is my own way of giving the week a thumbs up or a middle finger. There are, not including agents of the National Affairs Desk, about 60-70 regular recipients of the release...and about 75% of 'em are still trying to figure out what if any illicit drugs could ever cause a man to sputter out this sort of gibberish and consider it any format of real reporting at all. Still, they read 'em on break, at lunch, or whenever they have a few, laugh a lot, and demand delivery every Friday. The reason for some may just to make them feel like a more normal person by comparison, but I could personally care less. Shit—I need the readership. So I do the release; either typed and shot out electronically or scribble it down on paper and either scan the pages in or hit up a Kinko's to abuse their hospitality. When those stupid bastards came up with the friendly slogan “Make Our Office Yours!”, they obviously never took into account that someone like me might show up to make good on the offer.


              But to hell with explaining the logistics behind the distribution of the Friday Release—because The King of Pop, Michael Jackson, has died. And I guess that is really the only thing I've heard about this week that I remotely give a hoot in hell about. Oh ya...Sarah Palin: let Sarah Palin abruptly quit politics and become a fucking lion tamer for Barnum and Bailey for all I give a shit. Poor little Alaskan runner-up. Come to think of it, she may do well with the circus having been surrounded by far more dangerous beats of all sorts during the election campaign.


              President Obama is on a world hand-shaking tour, Illinois finances are apparently are a far worse cripple than we had previously come to grip with...and I have a slight suspicion that that little, big headed, small-brained, big neck-tied Blagoyovich and his 11 year-olds hair-cut may just have left us a bigger mess than we originally figured...and poor Governor Pat Quinn looks like he's about to shit his $400 pants every time he steps up to the news conference podium and seems awfully confused.


              The 4th of July was great as usual in the windy city. Utter madness across the entire North-West side and along the entire lake-front! It god-damn sounded like when the soldiers' were storming the beach at D-Day in “Saving Private Ryan”. And I may as well mention it now...but if there is one thing I have come to fully understand,—if there really are any total racial consistencies, one is certainly that Hispanics love a reason to set off a shit-load of fireworks. Truly, Hispanics will use any excuse to grill and blow shit up. Not ALL of them, of course...but at least 99.2% of them on the American continent as a National Geographic study has recently shown. I might be off by a percentage or two, but I'm sure if it comes down to it National Geographic's Legal department will surely set me straight on what exactly they published...only if computers' had white-out. Fuck.


              I'm about to hop off the bus so I suppose I'll wrap up the release for now. Let me know if you want a copy dropped off, e-mailed, post-mailed, or carrier-pigeoned your way and I'll make it happen.


              It gets deeper than you think...and for now it's free...Happy Friday.


                                  --Matt Byron