Politically Incorrect

In an idle moment I decided to check out the latest paintball mag to go digital, Rich Telford's World of Paintball (Facefull). I enjoy Facefull (RTWP) for a variety of reasons but mostly for the name, the occasional creative grammar and the unintentionally humorous bits due to cultural differences. And, oh yeah, the photography. Who but the French would call a paintball magazine Facefull? You know that any tortured paintball association in the name was considered a distant second to the sexual innuendo. (You do remember the first issue, don't you?) No doubt the French have a tool magazine called Handfull, too.
Jungle, the rec paintball companion mag to Facefull, is an even better title. Is "jungle" any kind of synonym for woods when translated into French? I don't know but it seems unlikely. Maybe it makes perfect sense to our Brazilian friends in the Amazon basin but otherwise no PC'er in the English-speaking world would be caught dead using the word jungle--it's insensitive to, er, jungles, as the word has pejorative implications if you're a sophisticated urban elitist. As such it always brings a smile to my face.
I only got a few pages into the digital issue when I ran across an item about this happy blog. It reminded me that like all mass media there is an endless demand for content. And, I must say, I've no objection to helping out. Particularly as the Facefull folks chose not to warn everyone to avoid the VIEW at all costs. Generous of them. Don't know if it will bring many new readers as paintball and literacy don't exactly go hand in hand. (Present company excluded of course.)
On the subject of paintball magazines and media a friend of mine called me recently and wanted my opinion on the state of his sanity. You see, he owns a successful team that hasn't attracted much attention at all and lately he's heard a rumor or two suggesting his team is being blackballed. We got into it in more detail than I'm gonna pass along but the upshot was nobody is out to get him or his team--but then again, nobody is banging down his door to tell his story either. Sadly the explanation doesn't involve an international conspiracy of Jennifer Garner look-a-like robot women. (A guy can hope, can't he?) The simple truth is that paintball doesn't have the resources to search out diverse content nor attract diverse talents. And beyond that paintball tends to be sorta repetitive after a while. Snap-shooting made easy? Make moves like a Pro? For the third time this year? Or my personal pet peeve; the event report. Randomly check any event report and see how amazingly generic it usually is. Most of the time you can change place names and winning teams and never know the difference between them. Explains some of the stuff you've seen in print before though, doesn't it? In my friend's situation mix in more attention given lately to the rec side and shrinking page counts and the whole thing loses its sinister edge. The last thing I suggested to him applies to anyone looking for some paintball publicity--don't wait for it to come knocking on your door. Odds are, it won't. If you've got a story to tell then you've got a story you need to sell.