More Important to be Nice

More Important to be Nice

After pondering the big news stories of the past 24 hours - at least from my perch - it seems to me that Ken Lay, Andrew Baron and Amanda Congdon have (had?) something in common. I have no personal knowledge to confirm my hunch, but it just seems that way to me. To all three, being important and wealthy were apparently paramount.

Lay screwed thousands of people (yes, pun intended) out of millions of dollars so he could live the good life and be important. He allegedly dropped dead of a heart attack the other nite, but I'm guessing he did himself in and some corruption down the line wants us to believe it was natural causes.

Baron fell into a video podcast (vidcast, vlog, y'know) that was as conceptually unique and original as a cardboard box or paper clip, with a production and content quality comparable to that being produced in TV production classes at universities around the world. The delivery method and novelty made him famous, important and wealthy, so he'd like us to think.

Even his inarticulate, nervous nature, as heard in a recent appearance on This Week in Tech (the most relaxed place in media anyone could find themselves) didn't seem to detract much, despite the fact that all he could do was blurt out platitudes that really didn't amount to much.

The bubble seems to have burst yesterday when his meal ticket, Amanda Congdon, the host of the stupid BoomBoom show that some very prominent people in the podcast world drool over like first row ticket holders at a Barry Manilow concert, announced she was leaving.

She seems the most innocent of the three to me. A pretty girl with some - but not that much - talent who wants to be famous, wealthy, important. It's shallow, but understandable in our culture. She'll move to California and find work. Rupert Murdoch loves chicks like her, as do many other media big-wigs.

Lay was a coward and will be remembered that way, even by people who don't want to admit they knew him, loved him, partied with him and called him "Kenny-Boy."

Baron, who - surprisingly - holds a master's degree, should shut up and sit down because he is no big deal in a complicated world where caring and thinking ultimately still mean more than being important, trendy, cool. Wanna know why the world laughs at Americans? Andrew Baron.

-M!