Death of a phony

[DesertFox]

Thomas Lifson
American Thinker
2 Sep 07

I must confess that I never liked playwright Arthur Miller's work, even though I never really publicly criticized it. As an Ivy-educated, Ivy-employed intellectual, I was supposed to think he was deep. ... So I sat through performances of his most famous work, Death of a Salesman, on several occasions ....

But I always found Death ... tedious and pretentious. ... When I entered the business world and actually got to know not only some really excellent salesmen (and women) and developed an appreciation for the ways they contribute not just to the bottom line but to their customers' operations, my respect for the sales profession grew and grew. ... The best sales professionals are all problem-solvers and dedicated to their customers. They deserve the big bucks they earn.

I will never forget a conversation with a former colleague ... at Columbia University who left teaching to take a job in business ... He spoke movingly of his deep admiration for the dealers of his company's products, many of whom were self-made millionaires. "They created entire businesses out of nothing," he said with awe in his voice, selling and servicing important tools that made life better for millions. We commiserated over the deeply flawed views of business and entrepreneurs (and life itself) so common in the academic world he left and from which I was departing. Both of us ... voluntarily, I might add. ...

In all of Miller's works I encountered, I found pretension and phoniness: an intellectual's disdain for the country which rewarded him handsomely. A Sean Penn with more brains.

More (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/death_of_a_phony_moralist.html)

[DesertFox]

I had the good sense to avoid plays once I got out of high school. I can still enjoy a high school production, but anywhere else the politics are too stupid and I simply cannot abide the drama (in all senses).

[Wyatt_Junker]

Sales can be the most rewarding as well as the most devastating way to earn one's keep. But either way, its always on the pulse of the customer, the line of scrimmage where the action is.

And there's something almost existential about knowing that, in the end, you are the only one capable of sustaining your own life by virtue of hustling schlock. No one else to bail you out. No sick days. No vacation or holidays'n shit.

No.

Just you and that hot pavement in frunnuh ya. You have to walk it. And if your feet hurt, tough. Just put some old crumpled up newspaper in the hole in your shoe leather and man up.

There is only the customer in the end. Whether you put a smile on their face or not comprises your whole world.

Everyday you are like a salmon swimming upstream. Everyday you wonder if you'll finally get lucky and bang one out.

Car lots are the best. Hot dogs and balloons. Guys in crappy suits walking around with beat red faces and ballcaps on. When you step foot on the lot, you can feel the energy, the heat. Its nearly testicular. As a man, you detest it, you don't like the invasion. Get out of my face. I can think for myself, chump. But then you understand the hunger inside of them. They hold out that hot dog in front of you or that bag of popcorn and its all so dumb you nearly laugh out loud. You want to knock the bag of popcorn out of their hand, but you put up with the crap instead. They chirp incessantly. They are like beggars. They are hungry. They want the sale. I try not to toy with them because you know that that is the only thing, that feeling and that energy, that stands between us and a communist state.

Whether its the dude trying to off a brand new Lexus or the kid in Tijuana holding up fish on a stick swirling with flies, you have to always admire it in the end. There's a lot of people that don't have the fortitude for that kind of rejection. I admire such perpetual human factories of self-esteem like these.

What's a bit unnerving, however, is how the spliff is being systematically removed by the internet. Those sucker fish on the fins of the shark are dying. You don't need a travel agent anymore or even a car salesman or a real estate agent. Brokers in all industries are becoming a thing of the past. You don't even need a broker for office supplies. Staples has made it unnecessary. Streamlined.

Death of a salesman? How about the death of sales entirely?

[PaulRevere]

Academics live in their comfy cocoons on college campuses like pampered housecats. From their lofty perches they pretend to understand the world and share their "knowledge and experience" with naive kids who look up to them and trust them. They look down on not just salesmen and business, but also anyone who has to create value and wealth for a living, yet they are completely ungrateful that the taxes of these toiling masses pay their bloated salaries.

For instance, they support destroying the timber industry, then help themselves to all the free toilet paper they need in the faculty latrines.

Then there is what they think of the military. By the way, I see that Brian De Palma has another military-bashing movie:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2007-08-31T150344Z_01_L31903844_RTRUKOC_0_US-VENICE-IRAQ.xml&src=rss&rpc=22&sp=true

PS: Sean Penn has a brain?

[DesertFox]

Sean Penn has a brain?Nope. That was a mere figure of speech.

[ThomasMore]

Sean Penn has a brain?

If neural ganglia count.

[Wolfcounsel]

Brian de Palma's movies put my coffee to sleep.

[ThomasMore]

Brian de Palma's movies put my coffee to sleep.

If you look at the list of Brian de Palma's movies (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000361/), you don't find any substantial contribution to the art. I won't feel like I am missing anything by avoiding him.

[DesertFox]

Never hearduvvim til this article. Now that I have an idear who he is, I have an idear I don't give two shiites who he is.