Business Decorum is Bullsh!t

I hate business decorum. In fact I hate all decorum. Even further I hate the word decorum. It stands for everything I stand against.

DECORUM
–noun

1.

dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc.

2.

the quality or state of being decorous;  orderliness;regularity.

3.

Usually, decorums. an observance or requirement of politesociety.

Propriety of behavior? Ridiculous. Orderliness? Frightening. Polite society? Disgusting. It's all a charade for even more of society's game playing. Truth, honesty and straight forwardness is nearing extinction. Which is almost hilarious when you think of where we come from. We used to be so prim and proper, covering all parts of our bodies at all times and upholding the highest standards of decorum. Today we walk around dressed like hookers and "telling it like it is." Meanwhile we're still being as decorous as ever. We can expose skin, emotions and more but we still can't hurt feelings. The fact that there are feelings to hurt is disturbing. We shouldn't let anything get to us, especially words.

Business decorum is the worst. In social life we are being fake with decorum to achieve something we consider real. In business we are being fake (decorum) within fake constraints (business). It's like living in Candyland and playing Battle Ship with Gloppy (the molasses monster from Candyland). A game within a game within a game equals a whole lot of nothing and a big waste of my time.

I have a friend whom is somewhat a celebrity that society would consider a "has been" as far as pop culture goes. She has continued her celebrity on an Internet basis and has done very well for herself. She has attempted for as long as I've known her to make a "come back." That is as far as society deems a celebrity from the 90's returning to top fame twenty years later.

Since she has been striving online with her celebrity and in turn her business she has been approached by many of the expected media outlets trying to cut deals with her. She's been offered television shows but turns them down. Oprah has approached her to do things and they've never been able to work things out. She's had up to three radio show contracts throughout the last ten years with each of them being cut short and terminated by either herself or the station management.

Never being a famous celebrity anywhere but my own corner of the Internet I always wondered why she just couldn't do it. If you're offered the stars just take them, right? I may have been doing what you know for over ten years now, but I have never tried to network among entities. The corporate big dogs of the Internet who have large audiences that would be interested in what I have to say.

I now understand how my friend can turn down Oprah. There comes a point where there is no more room for negotiation. Talk about compromising your principles. Here we are with such incredibly infuriating things to say about the decorum of society while having to be decorous to be able to say them. Then, in the case of my friend who had accepted the radio show deals, she got to say what she wanted to and then was terminated for saying so. That or her freedom of speech was so heavily restricted that she had to quit.

It makes me think of Rosie O'Donnell. Numerous opportunities to say what she wanted to the world all ending with her being shoved down back into her world. Hilariously she never hid how she felt or what her opinions were, yet once she achieved her position on television everyone was shocked.

One of my goals this year was to pour myself into connecting with everyone I possibly could. I don't need more attention or another platform because I already built my own. However, I just wanted other people to know I'm here and have something to say. Much like my friend I feel my message and interesting way of delivering it would be a superb contribution to anything near mainstream. In doing so I have been easily swept up into this business bullshit. Fake smiles and handshakes all around the room ... the bored room, if you will.

I've discovered that simply asking to write for another person's magazine can turn into this diatribe of how my honesty is unfit for their publications. I'm told to censor this and tone down that. While reaching out trying to "offer my services" to other entities I've quickly discovered this interesting world where I'm extremely unwelcome. Quite frankly I find it invigorating. It's a fight I didn't even know was waiting. It's like being a member of an underground secret society of freaks and finding out you're too freaky for them.

It's certainly frustrating though. You can be a raving freak just so long as you fit the mold of the raving freak they're looking for. As we say frequently on The Fabulous D Show ... You have the freedom of choice, please choose from the options provided and nothing else. 

Decorum ... disgusting.

The Road's Already Been Paved

Looking at old rock star memorabilia makes me sad. It could be the dead god factor. That being when someone dies you put them on a pedestal and make them a god. This gets even worse if they were achieving god status while still alive. While it could be that, it could just be true that something that was will never be again and can never be reproduced.

It's the depression that sets in when I look at Michael Jackon's sparkly glove, Sid Viscious' necklace, Madonna's "Who's That Girl - Tour" red dress or the underwear she wore as an outfit to a fancy awards show. I look at it all. I stared at that necklace thinking about how much sweat and blood it saw. How many parties and good or bad drug trips had it been through?

Those times seem to me like the perfect combination of drugs, fame and money to bake a cake that can never be baked again. I think this because I don't feel the same way when I see Gwen Stefani's outfit or what Katy Perry wore in some video. It's not because I am disconnected from current fame, it's because it's not the same. I love Gwen Stefani, but I hardly wanted to run over and hump her gown like when I saw Stevie Nicks'. Which is why it doesn't seem to be a dead god thing either. Stevie's still alive. So is Madonna. So is Johnny Rotten, well, sort of. But who they are now is so not who they were then. Nor could they be if they want to keep breathing.

Is it a love of a time period instead of a love for a people? Damn right it probably is! We all know Gaga is living in some kind of creative haze and Marilyn Manson will never deviate from his norm, yet it's not the same. I believe it's because those roads have already been paved. You can come flopping down a red carpet in a k-hole dressed in light bulbs, but it will never be like the first time.

Unless I'm getting old and distanced from some sort of glamour. Will your 15 year old visit a museum when they are 50 and see Lady Gaga's egg and outfit on display to get chills down their spine? I don't know about you, but I'll still be staring at Marilyn's dress in the next display.

With every new trail blazer comes the statement that it has all been done and said before. Yet with each generation that becomes more and more true. We're hitting the ceiling for recycled fame creations. You can only remake The Hills Have Eyes so many times. They do it once and it's ground breaking because it's never been done. They do it again because they have the technology to do it right. Why do it again?

Before Monroe there was Harlow and there's been a bunch of Madonna's after Madonna. I wonder if people will ever realize that walking on a paved road is hardly interesting. Just because you never walked on it before doesn't make it interesting. Knowing no one ever has walked on it before is what makes it interesting ...