Chemical Brothers – Believe

When I was an editor at small town papers, you could always get a feature story in a pinch by asking for a tour of a local factory. I could fill a lot of column inches in a hurry. I knew they would hook me up.

I didn’t really mind, to be honest. I got to geek out. Factories have a lot of science-y stuff in them. You just asked how everything worked, took a lot of notes and wrote up your story. Easy peasy.

I learned what the Venturi effect was in one of those, a factory that made gizmos for moving material around in factories. They also made a device that fired confetti at football games.

At another factory, I learned that a wedge of Styrofoam inside a box of wine will help you get every drop. I had a curious mind and it was all very interesting.

And these factories hired a lot of people in town. It felt like a public service. Anything to help your local companies succeed, and not un-coincidentally – advertise. I still believed in Trickle Down theory back then and I thought: company does good, local economy does good.

The towns I worked in tended to be at or just above broke. There were honest to God poor people in my coverage area and there’s no poor like country poor – no services, no nothing.

I developed a really Chamber of Commerce-y attitude. If it brought in jobs, I was for it. I didn’t know what else to dol I saw some of the pressures these towns were under. If a company closed up shop, people had to work in the city and commute. They spent their money elsewhere and everyone lost.

Amon Tobin – Esther’s

If a town depends on a company – especially if it advertises – the newspaper will be a friend of that company.

One of my favorites was a tour of a brick factory. It was a long building with lots of coal burning inside long kilns. The ovens were black on the outside smelled like a fresh-baked bread. The men at the plant carried on around us, working very hard. Many were immigrants, all of them were poor.

I saw them working the assembly lines, moving huge loads of around, sweat pouring off, and I respected them. I couldn’t lift a fraction of that weight, even once. They had to do it all day. It was obviously a hard life, but what other work was there?

After I saw the whole process of clay to brick, the guys in management pointed at the “new” factory in the field next door. Everything would be automated. I wondered how those hard-working men felt, seeing the new factory spring up next door at the place that paid their rent.

I couldn’t help but think that company owed those men something. Still the company also had a side. They were automating because their competitors were automating. They’re caught up in the machine like everybody else.

I did what I always did, filled up all the white space, got the paper out, started working on the next one. But that brick plant gave me an eerie feeling. It wasn’t going to stop with factories. I was online constantly, but I knew the internet was about to eat my lunch. Technology was coming for us.

The Sisters of Mercy – Lucretia My Reflection