If there is one thing that unites 21st century Americans, it is our desire — or, arguably, our need — for distraction. Our iPhones and Blackberrys ensure we never leave home without it. And our most widespread mass media distraction, professional sports, now comes with another miniature distraction built right into it, like Russian nesting dolls. We’re not only distracted by the games themselves, but also by the games that we play with the games. Fantasy football is now so popular that one of my leagues (yes, plural, for I sadly take my distraction very seriously) includes women over the age of 60 and children under the age of 12. The lesson? If it distracts, it will attract.

But what is distraction, anyway? Is it the same thing as entertainment? Not exactly. Distraction can be entertaining, but it can be boring, too. Certainly, most forms of entertainment count as distractions: Spectator sports and television programming in general all qualify. So, too, does much of what we do on the Internet, such as compulsive email-checking and the passive use of social media. Many of us, myself included, are distraction addicts, and no matter how much we use or how little it helps, we keep jabbing the needle into our mainlines.

We experience moments of clarity at times. In those moments, we tell ourselves with resolve that we will find more edifying forms of distraction, or that we will cease with the distraction business altogether, and start creating useful things or nurturing our ideas rather than wiling away the hours with amusing but ultimately meaningless activities. But this is difficult, because, as silly as they are, we are deeply invested in our distractions. We care very much about the outcome of professional sporting events; we have invested serious money in the technology of distraction; we count on distraction to serve as a catalyst for quality time with the ones we love.

In the end, we choose not to discard these distractions of ours. Yet all of us — if only on an unconscious level — long for a less distracted life. And those select few among us who try and succeed in living largely unfettered by the chains of distraction — who manage to give in to it only moderately and infrequently — live richer lives, no doubt. I have no quantitative or even anecdotal evidence to back this up, and yet I don’t doubt it — and I bet you don’t either. After all, you know how empty you feel after spending an entire day lost in the throes of distraction. It’s as nauseating as it is comfortable.

With a strange combination of stubbornness and laziness, we continue to court distraction at a cost that appears to be free, but is not. Most of us know this, too, but we feel helpless to do anything about it — not least of all because after awhile, we have trouble differentiating between distractions and edifying and/or meaningful activities. After all, ours is a culture in which a well-educated and hardworking person can make millions of dollars writing about — what else? — professional sports.

So we can be forgiven for being deluded into thinking that these trivial things are important. But we can’t be forgiven for not at least trying, every day, to see them for what they are, and, conversely, see ourselves for what we are: human beings, mired in a web of distractions, and desperately thirsting to live meaningful lives — whatever that means.

P.S. Immediately after I wrote that last line, I checked my email and my Facebook feed again. Chalk another one up to distraction.

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That’s the nice way of putting it. In short, they’re scam artists. But to endow them with the word “artist” would be an insult to artists.

I first met with David Caswell, president of New Century Publishing, in early 2009. I had recently been laid off from my full-time gig as an advertising copywriter, and was looking for work — any kind of work. A friend of mine who had interviewed with New Century — but ultimately turned down their request to do some developmental editing work  — referred me to them. Very much in need of income, I emailed the NCP office, and they immediately emailed me back to schedule an appointment.

(That was the first red flag, by the way — the low barrier to entry. A single email that yields an interview, without any references or work samples, or any evidence whatsoever that you’re qualified for the gig? That doesn’t happen. When it does, you best be skeptical. I was, but my skepticism was outweighed by my desire to get paid.)

When I first met Mr. Caswell, I found him friendly — too friendly. An older man with neatly combed silver hair, dressed conservatively in a slacks and a white dress shirt that strained to contain his prodigious belly, Caswell was jocular — jolly, even. Yet he exuded the oiliness one expects from used car salesmen and the sorry folks who sell Amway. To put it more bluntly, he smelled of bullshit.

Caswell eagerly regaled me with stories of his friendships and business dealings with Hoosier politicians such as Rex Early and local quasi-celebrities like Abdul Hakim-Shabazz. He talked about how serious New Century was about the editorial quality of the books it published. He purposely misled me about the nature of his business — a pay-to-publish vanity press — and stupidly, I didn’t question it. Not at first, anyway.

Now would be a good time to mention that I had no experience as a developmental editor. None whatsoever. So when Caswell told me that I would be in charge of developmental editing an “important” book written by a prominent local lawyer, I backed off. “I’m not sure I’m the right guy for the job,” I told him. He insisted I was. The endorsement of my friend who referred me was all the proof he needed to know I was the perfect candidate for New Century. Which, looking back, I obviously was: inexpensive, inexperienced and desperate for an opportunity.

I won’t bore you with the details of what happened over the next nine months. It suffices to say I was never paid in full (I got $700 up front, and never saw a cent of the other $1050 NCP owed me — and still owes me.) But after reading this story at IBJ, it’s clear that I’m far from alone in having been bilked by Mr. Caswell and his motley crew of co-conspirators at New Century.

I blame Caswell for my plight, sure, but more than that, I blame myself. I should have known better. You, reader, can avoid similar misfortune in your professional endeavors by following a few rules that I, unfortunately, failed to acknowledge in my zeal to get paid.

1. Always Google a potential client or employer. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it can save you a world of trouble. Googling David Caswell would have told me right away he had been in legal trouble for deceptive practices before — among other things.

2. If it seems too good to be true, it is. I should have known that a real publishing house with professional standards would never hire a developmental editor without any evidence he could do that job confidently. This is the mistake I’m most ashamed of. It should have been a no-brainer.

3. Listen to your gut. Although Caswell was a nice enough guy, something about him gave me what some people might call “the heebie-jeebies.” Now, I know why: He’s a conscienceless liar. Shame on me for not trusting my instincts. Don’t make the same mistake.

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This kind of silly talk happens occasionally even among people who, surprisingly, are somewhat reasonably educated in the fields of advertising and marketing. So imagine what happens when a few 20-somethings with negligible experience — in marketing and in life — find themselves with vast financial resources, and a desire to launch a high-profile “marketing and branding” agency? For starters, you end up with vision statements like this:

“Committed to developing and executing successful partnerships between brands and the world’s most recognized talent while also leveraging relationships and consumer insight to conceive and deploy innovative marketing initiatives, LRMR offers its clients a unique portfolio of services. LRMR is about partnerships not sponsorships.”

O RLY?

It just so happens that you also end up with one of the most egregiously mishandled PR situations in the history of professional sports. Tonight, after a long and dramatic build-up that came off so staged and ridiculous it must have had the creators of “The Apprentice” drooling in their leather chairs, Lebron James will commandeer ESPN for an hour-long “special” to announce which team he will play for next year. “The Decision” will serve as the final, backwash-heavy swig from a lethal cocktail of PR tone deafness and brazen, unmitigated narcissism that has quickly and decisively transformed Lebron from a widely beloved icon into an object of widespread disgust and derision.

Not surprisingly, this whole misguided scheme was concocted by LRMR: a quartet of 20-something kids from Akron, one of whom happens to be Lebron himself. And it has never been more abundantly clear that none of them, not even Lebron himself, knows the first thing about that stupid, insufferable word “branding.”

Everybody has different ideas about what “branding” actually is. But even the most intellectually challenged marketers can agree that no part of “branding” — or marketing, for that matter -  should result in widespread hatred of the product in question. In this regard, Lebron has failed more miserably than he did in this year’s Eastern Conference Final – no small feat.

“Leveraging relationships and consumer insight to conceive and deploy innovative marketing initiatives?” Yeah, whatever. Of course, Lebron’s mammoth celebrity and concomitant bankroll will prevent him and everyone else at LRMR from suffering any meaningful consequences for their stupidity — or from ever getting any smarter.

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Youth was a key element of Ween’s appeal. Their primary currency was always mayhem and mischief. A big part of what made Ween so incredible to their fans was their all-out commitment to their quasi-nihilistic ethos. They drank entire bottles of whiskey while onstage, did all kinds of drugs, and were gleefully apolitical — just completely and totally irreverent toward everything. Then, about seven years ago when the band went on hiatus, guitarist Mickey Melchiondo cited “the health and welfare of one of its members” as the reason for the time-out. And fans knew it was just a euphemistic way to say that lead singer Aaron Freeman — always the more troubled one of the duo — was heading to rehab.

Since then, Ween has released exactly one album. In the meantime, Mickey started up a side business as a fishing guide in Ween’s hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania. Aaron, presumably clean, began touring as a sort of singer-songwriter with his own backing band. And as I get ready to go see the band tonight, it occurs to me that these guys, who are both closing in on 40, are OLD — probably closer to 50 or older in “real age,” considering the damage they’ve done to their bodies.

The product of their profligacy is easy to see in their bulging paunches, prematurely tired eyes and ashen pallors. And while I’m looking forward to tonight’s show, it sort of feels like I’m going to visit an old girlfriend from when I was 18 years old. It will be great to see these guys who, many years ago, I loved so much, and who were actually an integral part of my identity back then, for better or worse. But after the initial excitement of seeing them is replaced by the vaguely sad reality that none of us are who we were 15 years ago, the whole thing will start be less fun and more depressing. And you know what? I’m alright with that. Because although I’m happy to be where I am now, I find it satisfying to visit where I’ve been — even if the trip is really just a sobering reminder that I can never really go there again.

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Golden State is clearly looking to cash in on the retro-chic trend that has been hot in the NBA (and professional sports world in general) for going on a decade now.

It reminds me of the throwback Pacers logo, both in its colors and its disarming, almost naive simplicity. But the critics at Brand New aren’t impressed. Writes Christian Palino:

“Nothing about this execution could be called good or professional. Not the formal properties of the bridge composition, not the poorly conceived and handled illustration, not the off-set containing circle, not the overstated Copperplate Gothic and its thoughtless kerning, not the color use, not its ability to be reproduced — nothing.”

On the one hand, I agree with Palino. The execution is amateurish. The type treatment is sloppy; the choice of the Copperplate font is questionable at best; the composition leaves much to be desired in the way of form and symmetry.

And yet this is exactly what I find so charming about the logo. It bears many of the same hallmarks of the classic retro logos of yore, when the Adobe Creative Suite wasn’t around to facilitate the pursuit of perfection when it comes to kerning, text alignment, et cetera. There is a gracelessness to it that captures the spirit of the era it pays homage to perfectly. It’s too bad that the folks at Brand New are too hung up on mechanics and aesthetics to see that.

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