Freakonomics

If I wanted someone to do a movie review, I would not have hired Trevor. – Richard Lem, publisher and guiding light of the Toons

I want my own radio show. If you know anyone who owns a radio station, do me a favor and mention to him or her that they should hire me. (That goes for the Ames Tribune and Des Moines Register or any syndicate as well. I have an idea for a more straightforward, family-friendly humorous column. Here is my proposal to any newspaper editor, I will give you my column more than a month in advance. All you have to pay me is a syndicate fee. If it does not met their standards they do not have to print it or pay me. Everyone wins.) I’m serious. Me on the radio = cash and entertainment. Are any of the would-be Rushes and Hannitys getting the under 45 demographic? No, but I would. America is changing and talk radio needs to keep up. That is why it needs me.

Now for the most part, there is the mistaken belief that liberal radio does not work and a lot of it does not. The reason is simple. Liberals often feel their primary job is to educate, that they need to give the correct facts… and thirty minutes later the audience wakes up well rested. Does it work? I don’t know. Ask our Kenyan Muslim Socialist Commander and Chief. It is called cognitive dissonance. One of my best friends on this earth was raised by two public school teachers, went to a land grant college, spent some time earning an unemployment check when his first place of employment was downsized. He takes subsidized public transportation to work every day and spent the last couple of years being paid by a Wall Street firm. This same firm would not be in business if the federal government had not bailed them out after their greed and monkey business did them in. He is against big government. Cognitive dissonance. There is a whole movement devoted to this notion called the Tea Party that meets in public parks to protest a President that has lowered their taxes. (Does the federal budget need to be balanced? Yes, but that means making extremely tough choices that neither party has the political will to make, like raising the retirement age, downsizing the military, examining our industrial prison system, ending our war against certain drugs, playing hardball with Big oil and Big Pharma, and raising taxes. Most of these choices would have these same tea partiers up in arms and voting the bastards out, if followed through on.) A lot of this column, over the years, has been poking holes in people’s cognitive dissonance, because a lot of our political, moral, and religious viewpoints ignore the real facts.

Not only does education not work, but, in a world with thousands of options for our attention, most people will always go for the more entertaining choice. I can safely say that I have seen more movies than anyone I have ever met. I can quote thousands of movies from beginning to end and know more about the history of cinema than Roger Ebert. In turn, I can write a review that really gets down into the weeds of why a movie is good or bad. Why don’t I do this? Because no one would read the darn thing, except my mom and a couple of wonky nerds like myself. At best, people skim movie reviews. In a world where the Internet, Facebook, and Netflix allows millions to give their opinion on movies, most people go to Hollywood features the first weekend they are out regardless of what the critics say. The biggest waste of space in a newspaper is the movie review.

Whether it is a radio show, a newspaper column, or even a status update on Facebook or Twitter, people need to ask themselves why should anyone else care or give their valuable time to what you have to say. (For the life of me, someone please explain to me foursquare. It is a site from which you get apps for your smart phone that is basically like a tracking chip in a dog. As interesting as your fourth trip for coffee is, why should I care that you are now the Mayor of Starbucks. All it is telling me is your life is boring, and, if I were you, I would put a gun in my mouth.) It is the question every journalism professor should ask their students. In a world where a person had no choice but to read the local newspaper for information, writers could be as dry as dust. Today, people need to ask why what they have to say is important. It is the question that I asked myself when it came to this column. Why should a person read my column when they can get Roger Ebert, or some kid who is the manager of the local dollar cinema who believes that Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes is brilliant, on-line? It was through talking to people who love movies, and those that never go, about what they like to read that this “Northern Exposure” of a movie column was born and transformed. There are weeks I tell personal stories, weeks I “tweak” people, weeks I am somber, weeks that I am extremely political, and weeks where I crack a lot of jokes. There are columns that I am extremely proud of (like my column detailing steroid abuse in baseball long before Jose Canseco came out, my assessment of the Iraq War and the lack of weapons of mass destruction before we went in, my parody of corporate sponsored health care for the poor – get an STD and you get a tattoo from Trojan, or my call to tear down the Statue of Liberty and replace it with something more American, like Shotgun Jesus. That would prove that our God is bigger than your God and we don’t take kindly to foreigners) and others that did not work. (I did a column where I pretended George W. Bush had replaced me for the week to review the movie and only wrote sentences he actually said. Sounds funny, I know. In print, it was like a chicken with ink on its feet had walked across the page. Horrifying.)

So, do you give up on educating people? No. Much like how I have to wrap the pills I give my older dog in a piece of ham, if it is entertaining, people will learn more than they realize. “The Daily Show” actually does a better job providing the news to people than the network newscasts. “Mythbusters” has done more to teach people how to think critically than all the courses on logic taught in universities around the land. Jurassic Park set off a wave of youngsters wanting to learn about dinosaurs.

Economics might be one of the most boring subject matters in the world. How could anyone make it interesting? Then in 2005 along came a book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner called “Freakonomics” which applied economics to pop culture. It sold over 4 million copies over the next four years and merited a sequel called “SuperFreakonomics.” People who had no interest in economics were fascinated by the subject matter, especially when it looked at the economics of drug dealing and why crack dealers often live with their mothers, why teachers and sumo wrestlers sometimes cheat, does a child’s name effect his or her socioeconomic future, and in the book’s most controversial chapter, the correlation between legalized abortion and the crime rate. In this documentary, six chapters have been turned over to six of the best young documentary filmmakers in America: Heidi Ewing, Seth Gordon, Alex Gibney, Eugene Jarecki, Rachel Grady, and the most famous being Morgan Spurlock.

For the most it is as entertaining and as fun as the book. It does not replace the depth of the book, but rather provides a thumbnail understanding of the text and some visual queue to reinforce the subject matter. Whether it is science, mathematics, philosophy or economics, if you can find an interesting story to tell, people will listen and learn. In today’s world, it is the art of the story that dictate whether people will stick around and learn. Bill O’Reilly tells the story of being a culture warrior (even if his personal life does not measure up). Howard Stern and his whack pack crew tell the “us against them” story of an edgy rebel with a heart of gold who is devoted to his wife and friends. Rush Limbaugh tells his story of government standing in the way of excellence and prosperity. Help me tell my story because agree or disagree with it, we will have a fun time along the way and might learn a thing or two along the way. I am easy to get a hold of on Facebook or through the great and powerful Lem.

Verdict: A Good Documentary That Makes Economics Interesting.