“At Comedy We Only Look”
March 7th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia
It was relayed to me recently that writers are funny. Naturally, I didn’t disagree for a couple reasons. Firstly, I think insofar as comedy is concerned, it’s entirely possible to do worse than me–which is to say that while I’m not gonna be standing in front of a brick wall anytime soon, I think I can crack a howler every now and then. And secondly, I consider myself something of a writer, in the same way someone who ran for fitness would consider themselves a runner or the way someone who has produced some paintings in their basement would think they’re an artist.
Ultimately, my own ego aside, the assessment that writers are funny is totally on the ball. People who write well (here’s where I reach into my bag of rather sly self deprecation, for those of you keeping score) have a tendency to notice the sorts of things the rest of us folk often see straight through, and, in my opinion, observations are at the center of comedy. However, I would take things a step further and say that perhaps it’s not that writers are funny, but that people who are funny are good writers.
One of my favourite comedians is a fella who–and I say this, unfortunately, without sarcasm–a lot of people haven’t heard of: Michael Showalter. Those who do know who he is would know him from a short-lived Comedy Central show called Stella. If not from Stella, then it would have to be from either a film called Wet Hot American Summer or a hilarious early-90′s MTV sketch comedy show The State (or, if you know me in reality, I’ve forced you to watch a brilliant film called The Baxter which has everyone ever in it. Go watch it right now.)
(By the way, if you’re not familiar with The State, not only are you really missing out, but you’re missing the launching pad of probably one of the funniest troupes in comedy. These guys (David Wain, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Joe Le Truglio et al.) are the guys who brought us Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Ken Marino, Keri Kenney, and, believe it or not, Bradley Cooper.)
Anywho, Michael Showalter has a new book out called Mr. Funny Pants that should be arriving any day, if it’s not here already, and I’m really excited to read it. In anticipation, I wanted to tip my hat to comedian writers.
The first book that came to mind was one that kind of came to me out of the blue called Born Standing Up, which is an auto-bio/memoir by Steve Martin. To me, Steve Martin has always been a figure who is just kind of there. I’ve always loved Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And the occasional old SNL skit with him is hilarious–but on the other hand, I’m not hugely familiar with his ridiculous body of work. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, in my life, Steve Martin has been to me what he seems to want to be for himself: a former comedian who is still hilarious, but is enveloped by words and art.
Born Standing Up is truly fantastic. A comedian-scholar like Martin has a way of viewing that world that is unmatched by a lot of folks who decide to write about their lives. Everything he talks about–from working at Disneyland as a kid, to his love of the banjo (a man after my own heart, for sure!), to his Wild and Crazy Guy comedy routine–is used as a vehicle to show us things about himself and, dare I say, the human condition. And best of all, it’s done with the kind of wit and honesty that only someone like him could manage:
In 2003 I hosted the Oscars on the particular weekend that the United States invaded Iraq. The news was grim and just hours before the show I flipped on the TV and saw a report, subsequently proven false, that our captive soldiers were being beheaded. I quickly turned the TV off, sick. I knew, from my experience forty years earlier with the Kennedy assassination, what my job was, and I harbored a secret knowledge that the audience would laugh. I also felt that soldiers who might be watching would be tuning in to see the Oscars and all its hoopla, not a cheerless comedian doing what he doesn’t do best. I decided to acknowledge the circumstances early in the show and then get on with the jokes. The academy had announced that the show would “cut back on the glitz.” I walked out for the opening monologue, took a look around the stage at the dazzling, swirling staircases, mirrored curtains and polished floor, and simply said, “I’m glad they cut back on the glitz.” It got a laugh of relief and the show could go on.
After Mr. Showalter’s book, I want to plunge into Russel Brand‘s foray into the publishing world, Booky Wook (and, I suppose, Booky Wook 2). While I find Brand hilarious (I just split my audience in two, no doubt), I’m anxious to see whether or not he has the sense to be as honest and revealing as Martin. That sort of honesty is a necessary factor for writers who deign to write about themselves; there’s a bit of ego necessary to decide that people will find you interesting enough to plod through a book about you written by you.
The reason, I think, comedians can write about themselves so well–and why, frankly, I have high hopes for Mr. Funny Pants–is that comedy is about observation. And ultimately, anyone who is a skilled enough observer to be funny is surely a skilled enough observer to look into themselves and tell us all about it.
(Thanks to Mr. Aldous Huxley for the half-quote in the title. The full text is: “We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.”)
Hornbyfest 2011
March 3rd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Weirdly, I just now learned, by way of that picture, that the same people were involved in Grosse Pointe Blank. I love that movie, too!
Today, right now, at this very moment, I am setting in motion a new project: I am going to begin blogging regularly about books. Before I begin in on this first bit, allow me to say a quick word about why public posts have been absent for the last few months.
- Writing about politics is hard.
It’s true. Sure, there is a lot going on, and I certainly have opinions, but when I step up to the plate and stretch my fingers out to begin tip-tapping some of them, I can’t ever seem to get a hit. There are so many people who are much more informed and well-qualified expressing their opinions on much more influential soap-boxes that it makes me feel rather small. Which brings me to my next point.
- The West Wing is intimidating.
Well, it is! I’ve been marathoning through the series (the Sorkin seasons anyway) for the 2nd time in 3 months, and when one’s ideological idol is on screen every episode waxing poetic in beautiful Sorkin-verse (and he is played by Rob Lowe), that’s a tough act to follow. I end up feeling like all I could be capable of doing is cribbing the things Sam Seaborn says. I know this appears as though it’s a ludicrous problem, but think this to yourself: how often do you finish reading a poem or story and sit down to write, only to stop yourself after every line wondering if the reader is going to think you’re blatantly ripping off the words that inspired you?
- I don’t engage on a regular basis with anyone in person.
When I was working and/or at University, there were people with whom I could have the great debate. This is not in any way meant to imply those with whom I spend my time here are not intellectual dynamos themselves. Quite the opposite, in fact; I spend my time with a bright young teacher, an accomplished and hilarious actor, the best conversationalist on the planet and a geotechnical consultant. Not to mention my family loved ones, the outside the box writer/philosopher and the mental health technician. However, they are normal people, not insane nutjobs like me when it comes to this sort of thing, and, regardless of their political affiliations, they are not prone to insane ranting like myself. Without someone frantically and in raised voices arguing with me, it seems as though my blade has dulled…that, or I’ve simply mellowed.
No, I haven’t mellowed, because I got so mad at this video below that I turned beet-red and began to shake enough so that I couldn’t type well for a minute.
Now, someone who was being cheeky could point out that me that I have written a bit about politics just now and to that someone I would say, “Yes. Shut up.” Rest assured, heavier/meatier stuff is still up swimming around in my head, I just need to find the right spigot to make it spew forth.
On to books!
Over the last week and a half, I have read every Nick Hornby book I possess. I have a somewhat unique relationship with Mr. Hornby and his works, insomuch as I think they act as a gateway into my very soul. …Ok, perhaps that is a tad hyperbolic, but my point is: I can relate more closely to the situations, characters and feelings in Hornby’s books more than almost any other author I have ever read (except myself. har har. oh shut up Ian).
What draws me to him and connects me so closely to his books is the constant current that runs through all of them: obsession. In the following list, I break down for you the most basic thesis. I like this literature breakdown stuff, so I’m just giving you the off-the-top bits:
- High Fidelity – Popular Culture
- About A Boy – Selfishness
- How To Be Good - Selflessness
- A Long Way Down – Death
- Slam – This, being primarily written as a young adult novel, is a bit of an exception. Although I would argue there’s a theme of ‘fear of growing up’ thrown in.
- Juliet, Naked – Expertise and obsession itself
I won’t go so far as to do the same breakdown to his non-fiction works, despite Fever Pitch being probably the best non-fiction book ever written ever ever. To assign the same sort of metric to his non-fiction would be to deign to apply a thesis to his own life–and who the hell am I but some kid in Iowa he sent some e-mails to?
The persistent themes about obsession speak to me in many ways, largely because I am one of the obessessed. Throughout my life, my tendency to passionately latch on to the newest interest to cross my mind has been a source of criticism and, occasionally, astonishment. Those of us who have a tendency to obsesses do so, I think, out of a sense of mind craziness. That is to say that my mind is never really fit to settle on something. More than just that sense of playing Boggle with everything I see is a deeper motivation: I like knowing everything.
And that brings me back to Hornby’s books. If you take one step beyond the themes of obsession, you find characters who are out of their depth when they have less knowledge than someone else, which in turn means they have less control. The protagonist of High Fidelity–a fella named Rob–stumbles through life guided by chord changes and his encyclopedic musical mind. People are reduced to the sum total of their record collections and interpersonal relationships consist of mix tapes and a chronology of records. When Rob goes on his quest to find out why his past relationships soured, what he finds is that a person cannot simply be what comes out through their headphones.
That knowledge and revelation permeates straight through the page and into the lives of those of us who are afflicted with obsessions. We search out those who can tell us the model number of the spaceships in Star Wars, or those who can rattle off line after line of our favourite films. Or, on the other side of the coin, we reject those who can do so as well as us, for fear that another person with the same knowledge may in fact learn about us what we learned about ourselves through that obsession.
It’s ironic to say this in a post talking about something I love, I know; the things in our lives over which we obsess speak volumes about us, to be sure. But Hornby’s novels show us that the things and ideas upon which we ruminate for hours on end are a byproduct of our own head, and that the effect of peering out from behind the obsession-curtain can yield wonderful results.
Writing Prompt: Tasty Souls
November 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
One day, at your local public library, you are looking around the very back shelves. There is a particularly boring looking book there, but for some reason it catches your interest and you find yourself removing it from the shelf. However, as soon as you move the book, the bookcase opens in like a door, revealing a deep dark tunnel. Write this scene.
Let me just get this out of the way first, since I get the impression that this is going to be some sort of expose interview or some such—I know you humans are rather fond of being the first to reveal something without giving all of the relevant information so right off the bat let me say: if I had the choice to not devour the souls of the living, I’d very well take it. Of course I would! You think that sort of sustenance sits very well on the conscience? You like to write off baddies who need some human part to survive as if we’re all one dimensional evil-doers! It’s not that I don’t feel bad about eating a human soul, but what can I do about it? How bad would you feel if you had to apologize to other members of the species that makes up your diet? I bet the readers of Bovine and Swine Monthly would love all of your excuses about why you don’t eat other things.
But I digress. You don’t want to hear about my never ending hunger for delicious, delicious humanity, you want to hear about the Oak Park Indiana Public Library. That’s where I currently reside, yeah. It’s a nice place, really—last year the city council approved a few hundred thousand dollars for improvements to the place. They bought out an old book store’s collection of regional history to help populate the shelves, and the kids got their wish when the library won a grant for a bunch of new children’s books. All of that is super nice; good for them, but really good for me. Allow me to hop back a few years.
It’s 1871, and I just reached the US by way of possessing some Irish guy. I was getting bored of devouring the eternal souls of people dying from hunger and disease—too easy, not enough mental stimulation. So I figured, “why not? USA: land of opportunity right?” Wrong. The damn Catholics had a bead on me. They tracked me down and performed one of their rituals. Cast me out of my host and into the only thing laying around—a cookbook. A damn cookbook! They then decided the only safe place for me was in the back of the new library in town.
“Who in Indiana reads?” they thought to themselves. There was this whole elaborate system set up wherein if some poor schmuck actually did find his or her way back to me, instead of me being able to easily gobble up their essence, a little secret cubby opened up the moment they moved me. Inside the cubby was a crucifix and a little font of holy water, which kind of gives me a nauseous, wibbly-wobbly feeling for just long enough for my prey to get freaked out and run off. Ingenious, if you ask me. I would work my ever-so-weakened magic to lure someone back, they would pick me up, get frightened by the secret compartment, and scurry away. It continued like that—lure, touch, scream, run—for years and years. Oh sure, there was the occasional success. Sometimes someone wouldn’t get too scared by the cubby opening and I’d get over my discomfort long enough to suck up their delicious soul, but it was a struggle.
Which brings us to last year. Otherwise known as the greatest year of my life. When they got around to renovating, they found the weird secret passage! There was a big to-do in the local press about it, but it was mostly written off as ghost stories. People joked about it. Sure, the local church raised a big fuss and tried to convince the library officials not to move anything but it was too late! Needless to say, things are much, much easier now. I’ve had to kind of adapt, though—it’s 2010, I can’t outright kill people. I only take bits of their souls, that way no one comes along and, I dunno, calls those Ghost Adventures blokes on me or something like that.
Anywho, if you don’t mind, I’ve managed to get it inside this fella’s mind that he absolutely must come back and inspect the antique sections. Specifically a certain cookbook.
Cheers!
Shame On You, Mr. President: Afghanistan 2011
November 11th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia
I’m starting up a new category/series today, and I’ll just let the lead on this article start us off.
The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama’s pledge that he’d begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011 (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/09/103468/obama-administration-moving-away.html#ixzz150KVPqDp)
In the interest of full disclosure, my sister is currently active duty in the USAF, and while I would give anything to keep her from having to eventually deploy to a theatre of war, my wish for her survival is not my sole point of contention with our wars.
Firstly, there’s the cost of the wars. Since the numbers are continuously climbing, and therefore impossible to copy/paste, allow me to type out the cost of the Afghanistan war at exactly 1:45:33pm CT
$364,213,270,797
For those more textually inclined, that number is
Three hundred sixty-four billion, two hundred thirteen million, two hundred seventy thousand, seven hundred and ninety-seven dollars.
In the course of the 45 seconds or so it’s taken me to write that out, the price has gone up almost a million dollars. The more and more Republicans go on and on and on about lowering the deficit, the more and more crazy they seem when it comes to their insistence that discretionary defense spending being off-limits for cuts.
Secondly, there’s 2008. Do you remember all of the nice things you promised us progressives? Before we found out you were a war-criminal hawk like Bush? Here’s what you said:
There’s starting to be a broad consensus that it’s time for us to withdraw some of our combat troops out of Iraq, deploy them here in Afghanistan. And I think we have to seize that opportunity. Now’s the time for us to do it. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/20/ftn/main4275864.shtml)
What happened to that, Mr. President?
Finally, let me just link you all to this. I won’t make any commentary about it.
Happy Veterans Day
Is It Over? Part 2
November 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Image via Wikipedia
On Monday I began talking about endings, and how I feel that, more and more, we are seeing a difference between endings and conclusions. I started out by examining long-form magazine and newspaper articles and how not all of the reading public continue past the bump. Then, I examined the small-bits-after-the-credits trend for big budget films, and how only an informed, insider audience would be able to take advantage of the added information those scenes provide. Today, I’m going to talk about this phenomenon in relation to America’s two favourite things to talk about these days: sports and politics.
I love sports. In fact, I’m enamored with them—I can’t get enough. Sports are the purest form of competition, and have a tendency to explain complex sociological, cultural societal narratives in very simple ways. In fact, Soccer is how I live my life. Yesterday, after a shockingly bad performance by the English soccer team I support, I had to take a short nap to keep myself from exploding. All of that because of a draw. That’s right, the result that got my grits enough to force me to slumber wasn’t even a loss.
And it’s the idea of the draw that brings me around to sports today. In what would be considered “regular season” soccer games, if the teams are level on goals scored after 90 minutes, the game is over. A draw is the result. In the sports we most covet here in the USA, a draw is almost never the case; American sports fans simply do not accept a draw as an ending nor conclusion. On Sunday, while at the gym, I became enthralled by the Oakland Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs NFL game. It was the 4th quarter and Oakland made some great plays and a field goal to even the score at 20. I knew NFL games had overtime rules—as all USA sports leagues do (except for MLS, the soccer league)—but I didn’t know what they were. I was expecting some more excellent back and forth excitement! Instead, since the NFL’s rules are simply “first to score wins”, overtime amounted to simply trying to get a field goal. I was disappointed, but remembered a sports story from a little while back about draws in the NFL.
In 2008, the Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles played out the 17th tie in NFL history, a history which began in 1922. In 86 years of football, only 17 draws. And, apparently, fans hated it. To quote the author of the above-linked article:
Needless to say, ties are the worst and football fans detest them. NFL fans want a winner and a loser. There’s no solace in tying, only frustration. (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/82672-eagles-bengals-its-like-kissing-your-sister)
In case you’re wondering what the deal with the sister kissing is, that quote is attributed to Navy-team coach Eddie Erdelatz in 1953 after Navy and Duke drew a game (source).
The intense distate—hatred, if you will—of the draw game in American sports is at an odd contrast to the way people interact with their other media. Instead of simply accepting the ending (the end of regulation time), American sports viewers demand a conclusion. The same people who don’t read to the conclusion of newspaper or magazine articles and don’t sit through the credits for the conclusive scene simply cannot accept an a tie game. The difference has to do with equality. It seems to me that Americans simply cannot accept equality as an ending; one side simply, as a rule, must be better. One team or the other must be better for a conclusion to be acceptable.
And that brings us to politics—more specifically, the mid-term elections. Just as with the reader/viewership pool when it comes to media, there is a voter pool when it comes to the political landscape. According to Pew Research, 63% of Republicans and Republican-leaning news consumers use Fox News as their primary source of news information (in the interest of fairness: the report states “insufficient number of cases to profile MSNBC audience”). If we compare hearing a news story to reading a magazine article, that 63% are a portion of the voting pool who are not reading after the bump, not fact checking, not investigating on their own. Whenever there is a situation wherein a single pool of listeners, viewers or readers can consume the same media but have a different sense of the ending, there is an information flow problem.
Fox News is in the position of controlling the non-bump readers, and can not only give them a false conclusion, but can do so so convincingly, its viewers think they’re getting an ending. This last mid-term, Fox and its on-air endorsements and fear mongering convinced that 63% that they had heard all they needed to hear. To them, the conclusion to the story was to vote out the Democrats. And that’s exactly what they did.
Is it over? Part 1
November 8th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Today I sat down to write and realized there were tons of things I wanted to talk about, but I didn’t want to be schizophrenic about this endeavor, so I thought it out; “What do these different topics have in common?”. Interestingly enough, it dawned on me pretty quickly. I want to talk about endings. More specifically though, I want to talk about whether or not something really is over when we’ve reached the ending. The more I started drafting my brain onto the computer, the more I realized I had a lot to say on the subject, so I’ve split the posts up for easier reading.
It seems these days that a specific event, film, show or anything’s specific ending isn’t necessarily its conclusion. In print, we have print articles that are often “continued online”, blockbuster movies have a trend of tacking on short bits after the credits, and then there’s the issue which kick-started this whole endings thought process, which is sports overtime. In addition, there are lessons to be learned about our current political climate buried on all of this ending/conclusion talk. Upon examining the above cases as a whole, I find myself wanting to draw a parallel through them that has to do with dedication.
I have exactly two magazine subscriptions: GQ and Esquire. I had never subscribed to anything before 2008 when I first asked to get GQ in my mail, but it seemed like a no-brainer since I found myself buying each issue from the newsstand, and the subscription price was miles cheaper. In essence, I am a dedicated follower not only of menswear and fashion styles, but of GQ as a magazine and a brand. While a certain percentage of my enjoyment in each issue does come from the style-watching and photo editorials, I also am rather fond of the celebrity interviews and journalistic pieces they often run, some of which have a tendency to get quite long. GQ’s tactic, instead of having a string of text-laden pages inside their image-heavy magazine, is to bump oftentimes half or more of the article to the back of the issue, with
Continued on page #
at the bottom. Years ago, when I was wee-lad working for my High School paper, I remember being taught about the notion that, the longer an article went on, the more readers you would lose, ending with some staggering statistic I can’t recall right now that deals with how few people will finish an article if there’s a bump. That idea speaks to the notion about endings—an article may, in fact, be done for that page, and a reader might be satisfied with that, but the conclusion doesn’t come until after that bump. All of this means that only the most dedicated and interested folks arrive at the conclusion. Even more interesting is not only the knowledge lost by those who don’t “Continue on”, but the knowledge gained by those who do. Suddenly, there are two distinct audiences for the same content.
The same applies in movies, specifically blockbuster “nerdy” ones. If you’ve taken a minute to click on one of those links to the left of what you’re reading to explore the bits about me, you’ll find that I fancy myself something of a geek, pop culturally. I grew up on comic books and continue my obsession with them to this day, and I live and breathe Star Wars when oxygen doesn’t suffice. Needless to say, I’ve stood in midnight lines to see the likes of Iron Man 2, The Dark Knight, most of the Harry Potter films and many countless others in the past and still to come (I can hardly contain my excitement for Tron: Legacy, or Captain America, The First Avenger!). For many films in this genre, there is a built-in club of exclusivity due to the fact that they’re based on existing pop culture niche works. It’s a simple fact that people love to be a part of groups, and nothing gets a group going (and paying for things) more than insider information—things which reward their being a part of that niche.
When Jane and Bob Public went to see Iron Man 2, they got a funny action film with explosions, Scarlett Johansson and Robert Downey Jr. And when the soundtrack started up and the credits rolled on, that was their ending. But to the insiders, those dedicated enough to their fandom to have the knowledge, there was more. Once we learned no animals were harmed during filming and saw the copyright information, we were treated to the conclusion: Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, found in the desert. Those who stayed in their seats a few minutes longer now have more information the next time around—they know of Thor’s in-universe appearance much earlier, and they now carry that knowledge into the upcoming films. When it comes time for Iron Man 3 or Thor’s own film, some members of the very same audience will know less than the others.
In Part 2, I’ll be looking at overtime in sports, and how it differs from the consumed media ending/conclusion paradigm and I’ll apply these ingrained principles to our post mid-term political climate. You better stay tuned!
P.S.: It would go against my nature not to at least acknowledge the inherent funniness not only of a paragraph like the above one in a bit about endings and conclusions, but of a “P.S.” at the end considering the meaning:
A postscript, abbreviated P.S., is writing added after the main body of a letter (or other body of writing). The term comes from the Latin post scriptum, an expression meaning “written after”[1][2] (which may be interpreted in the sense of “that which comes after the writing”). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postscript)
UPDATE: Olbermann back on Tuesday
In my last post [Baseball analogy], I talked about Keith Olbermann’s suspension from his MSNBC show for not donating to political figures through the correct corporate channels. After a weekend of quite a bit of press coverage, not only did it turn out that MSNBC’s own Joe Scarborough donated $4200 or more to Republicans, but he was never censured as Olbermann was.
Those findings out, plus a public outcry from many viewers, caused MSNBC Phil Griffin to change his mind and return Olbermann to the airwaves.
[Baseball analogy]
November 5th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Keith Olbermann Suspended Without Pay
Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay from MSNBC for making donations to three Democrats in violation of NBC’s ethics policy.
….
Olbermann, who does not hide his liberal views, has acknowledged donations of $2,400 each to Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords during this election cycle.
NBC’s ethics policy generally bars political activity, including contributions, without the approval of the president of NBC News, Steve Capus, according to a 2007 story on MSNBC.com.
“Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest,” it says. “Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee.” (CBS news, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021940-503544.html)
He should’ve followed the proper channels to donate, yes. But that’s not what I take away from this article at all. Here’s what I take away:
1. NBC News, as an organization, has integrity.
I don’t know for certain whether nor not Fox News has these same “channels” and procedures to be followed for donating to candidates. If they do, and the likes of Beck and Hannity follow them…then fine, so be it. However, one has to ask ask themselves if Fox News would care as much as NBC News cares to. MSNBC, which many see (incorrectly) as a Left-wing bastion, still seems to have ethical standards, which is honourable. It begs the question, however: does anyone care about ethics in the media anymore? Did anyone ever?
2. What “liberal media”?
Here’s the Huffington Post article. Right-wing bloggers and pundits love to call HuffPo (and anything not Fox) propaganda for the Left but, after reading that, would you call it an overly defensive and a propagandized account?
3. Will he go back to Sportscenter?
Joke #3. But really, he was pretty good.
All I know is this: Maddow is gonna be interesting tonight.
An Introduction
November 4th, 2010 § 1 Comment
I have a confession to make: this isn’t my first blog. Far from it, in fact—if I count the one or two entry High School fad services like Xanga, my grand total would be six previous forays into the blogging world.
Welcome to number 7.
At time of writing, I’m serving as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Omaha Fashion Magazine, and loving it. Despite the fact that newcomers into the print industry are seemingly like Greeks choosing to visit Pompeii in 79AD because it “looks pretty”, print publications have always been where my heart is, and it feels right to start my journalism career not only in a city that I love, but on a fashion/style magazine.
In addition to my job, I’m also 23 years old, and it’s almost like I can feel myself growing up. I never used to think about my age too much; birthdays were just a source of gifts, money and cake. But now it seems like I’ve actually got to start doing things—and writing about the world around me in this blog is one of those things. Those who know me know that I have a bit of vanity about me (those same people will laugh at me using such a small-in-stature quantifier, too), and my previous blogs seemed a bit immature because of that. Of course one is prone to write about the things that come across their mind—as I will do here—but the catch is not writing about that mind. Essentially, one should use their experiences, stories and knowledge as a frame and informant—not as content itself (unless it’s a really great experience, story or knowledge).
Finally, if there’s one thing that successful writers and teachers hammer home to aspiring writers the world over it’s this: you have to practice. I do what I can to hammer out some words every day—and usually I do. That effort is what assembles the odds-and-ends poems I piece together occasionally. But a thought that keeps coursing its way through my head is something my girlfriend told me her band teacher used to say:
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
For some, that might seem like common sense, but to me it was a bit of a revelation. Maybe simply tip-tapping a collection of words on this keyboard isn’t doing anything—but maybe a cogent collection of writings wherein I have to make a point will do the trick.
I can already feel myself getting better.
