The Cole Smithey Thread

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As in his only job which he makes a significant amount of money off of. I'm not sure what else it would refer too.
 
Lively Weather said:
I don't understand why people believe he can't be a full-time film critic. I'm pretty sure he is published in enough newspapers that probably pay him for his opinion. Whatever your opinion is on his writing it isn't like dying newspapers or big ones who just lose a lot of money don't at least want 1 guy to review pop culture. Even if it's just to get a few young people reading the local rag.

I'm not really a fan of Cole, his stuff looks boring. I just want to know why many have those assumptions or if there not assumptions and I'm just missing something.
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No one's really saying that he hasn't ever gotten paid for it, just that, if he has, it's unlikely it would be enough to live on. Plus, he mentioned buying his own movie tickets for something he was reviewing, which "professional" film critics don't typically do.
 
Lively Weather said:
As in his only job which he makes a significant amount of money off of. I'm not sure what else it would refer too.
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I thought full time was 40+ hours a week.

Anyway, what Picklechu said. The amount of money Cole can make reviewing shit and getting paid for it, for non-Chris-related reasons, is small.
 
Yeah I get why people would think that based on his limited internet hits. But what about the newspaper stuff. I assumed he was working staff or had a lot of freelance gigs in the small-time newspaper stuff. I've not seen something that makes me doubt it. Has everyone else?
 
Lively Weather said:
Yeah I get why people would think that based on his limited internet hits. But what about the newspaper stuff. I assumed he was working staff or had a lot of freelance gigs in the small-time newspaper stuff. I've not seen something that makes me doubt it. Has everyone else?
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Newspapers don't pay a lot, and IIRC, at least one of the rags circulating his tripe didn't even pay him at all.
 
Lively Weather said:
As in his only job which he makes a significant amount of money off of. I'm not sure what else it would refer too.
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It's the arts. Proportionally speaking, very few people in that field make "a significant amount."
 
Well surely big brother cole is a goodhearted soul. Its only a matter of time before he takes Barb and Chris into his home, to help them out right?
 
ChurchOfGodBear said:
No, it was simply a matter of him providing content in exchange for the newspaper giving him exposure. Trying to find the source.
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That sort of thing is depressingly common. I wrote a column in a trade magazine for almost a year and the only payment I ever got was a free subscription worth £150ish. Got me enough exposure for some paid work, though.
 
A freelance movie review for my local big-city newspaper pays $175. Now add up how many reviews Cole publishes per year in that kind of newspaper. A freelance movie review for the now-defunct alt-weekly in my city paid $60. Now add up how many reviews Cole publishes per year in that kind of newspaper. Add 25%, if you like, on the premise that New York papers pay better.

Cole probably makes his living doing proofreading for a law firm, or medical transcription, or editing real estate listings, or any of the other typing-and-words-related gigs freelance writers depend on.
 
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MrsFrizzle said:
Cole probably makes his living doing proofreading for a law firm, or medical transcription, or editing real estate listings, or any of the other typing-and-words-related gigs freelance writers depend on.
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I see Cole more of an envelope stuffer or an Amway salesman.
 
Lively Weather said:
I don't understand why people believe he can't be a full-time film critic. I'm pretty sure he is published in enough newspapers that probably pay him for his opinion. Whatever your opinion is on his writing it isn't like dying newspapers or big ones who just lose a lot of money don't at least want 1 guy to review pop culture. Even if it's just to get a few young people reading the local rag.

I'm not really a fan of Cole, his stuff looks boring. I just want to know why many have those assumptions or if there not assumptions and I'm just missing something.
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Ex-drummers doing well at writing usually don't offer up guitar lessons to the public.

MrsFrizzle said:
A freelance movie review for my local big-city newspaper pays $175. Now add up how many reviews Cole publishes per year in that kind of newspaper. A freelance movie review for the now-defunct alt-weekly in my city paid $60. Now add up how many reviews Cole publishes per year in that kind of newspaper. Add 25%, if you like, on the premise that New York papers pay better.

Cole probably makes his living doing proofreading for a law firm, or medical transcription, or editing real estate listings, or any of the other typing-and-words-related gigs freelance writers depend on.
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The fundamental question is how many is he printed in and how much do they pay? I presume if there was a demand, he would be represented by a real syndicate. But I don't know the answer -- it could be that he's managed to glue together a bunch of small town clients and effectively floated under the radar.

However, his facebook fan page is a ghosttown. Frankly it looks like the likes were purchased. There's literally zero interaction on 90% of the posts -- highly unusual for a site with 24,000 fans. I don't want to imply that he abandoned it -- he posts constantly. Just nobody notices it.

This doesn't happen on a page with 24,000 likes:

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I want to repeat that: that doesn't happen on a page with 24,000 likes. Even with Facebook's bullshit, to get zero interaction in a week with 24k legit fans is unfathomable.
 
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After reading Cole's mostly stupid review of Life Itself, the Roger Ebert documentary, I have come to the conclusion that Cole is as obsessed with Ebert's dalliances with prostitutes as we are with Chris's dalliances with prostitutes. Cole thinks that the movie could have provided a truer portrait of Ebert had only the filmmakers somehow tracked down and interviewed one of the prostitutes he utilized twenty years ago. Surely this will be the review that clinches Cole that elusive Pulitzer Prize that has eluded so many of his betters.
 
I just ran a boatload of searches and found one Cole Smithey review in a newspaper---a review of Mr. Bean's Holiday in the Arkansas Times for August 30, 2007.

Oops, make that two! He wrote a review of American Splendor ( and interviewed Harvey Pekar) for the Chico News and Review on September 18, 2003.

Oh, man, here's another cache from the tiny Vermont alt-weekly Seven Days.

Good lord, the money must just be rolling in.
 
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