WHAT'S
NEW
The Archives
2004
12/31/04: Tsunamis; Satellite Radio
12/13/04: Lost & Alias
12/2/04: Election; J.J. Abrams
10/25/04: Road Trip; Election
10/15/04: Dodgeball; Road Trip; Election
9/10/04: September 11
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135,000 people dead in an instant. What can you even say to that? From what I've heard, in terms of loss of human life, this is the worst natural disaster in recorded history. IN RECORDED HISTORY! Since they started keeping records of things like this several thousand years ago, no natural phenomenon has killed as many people as the tsumanis last week in the Indian Ocean. And that's just from the initial walls of water. How many more will die from the inevitable diseases to follow?
And what has our government pledged to help? 35 million dollars. Oh my god, is anybody else as embarrassed as I am to be an American? I received an email from somebody today that said the White House was trying to fundraise 50 million dollars for the inauguration ball. And you're telling me we couldn't pony up more than 35 million dollars to help an area that just lost 135,000 people? Listening to talk radio this week, I've honestly never been more ashamed to be considered a conservative. In response to the UN ambassador who called the United States a bunch of cheapskates, do you know what these conservative (supposed) friends of Jesus had to say? "Why is it people always expect US to bail everybody out?"
BAIL PEOPLE OUT? We're not talking about some civil war or nuclear accident here. The earth moved and swallowed one tenth of one million people! And you feel annoyed that we have to BAIL THEM OUT? We spend 35 million dollars on certain STATE PARKS in this country. The Yankees paid almost that much in fines this year. Personally, I'm hoping that George W. Bush is going to be a Christian in deed as much as he is in word. I'm hoping he'll do what Jesus would do and donate whatever money they raise for the inauguration ball to the tsunami relief fund. Just have a privately televised ceremony without all the pomp and circumstance. Set an example George.
On the lighter side of things, I must say, I LOVE satellite radio. This truly is the future of radio. I see satellite being now what FM was in the 70's. Little broadcast history... In the beginning, radio was all AM. The FM dial didn't come out until much later and even then it wasn't widely used. All the popular "top 40" stations stayed on the AM dial, the established and well known place to be. It was the rock-n-rollers who pushed the boundaries of FM. No longer limited by the stodgy format limitations of the AM stations, DJ's were free to play all 20 minutes of a Doors song. They could play "Money" by Pink Floyd and not bleep out the word "bullshit." FM was the format that gave a voice to the music fan who wasn't being represented by the corporate AM stations.
These days FM has gone the ways of AM. Every station is owned by two or three giant media conglomerates. Every station plays the same songs over and over. Even the "classic rock" stations don't waver far from standards like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Free Bird". Sattelite is going to change all that. I got my Sirius satellite radio for Christmas and I love it. I love the fact that I can listen for over an hour and not hear a single song that I know. It's opening my eyes to different artists. It's opening my eyes to artists I knew but never appreciated because the FM stations only played their "hits". The commercial-free aspect of it is just gravy. For me, satellite is about hearing music that the media overlords are too afraid to play.
And yes, call it juvenile, but there is just something about hearing a DJ say the word "Mutherf---er" on the air that feels incredible liberating."
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If you haven't done so already, now is the time to start watching LOST. Over the next couple weeks, they'll be showing the first few episodes of this awesome new show. Now is the time to see what you've been missing. I'll tell you now, the show IS an acquired taste. In fact, I didn't even really like it the first couple times I watched it. The only reason I stuck with the show as long as I did was that its creator J.J. Abrams is the same genius behind the masterpiece that is ALIAS. I trusted his judgement and storytelling abilities and he has not let me down. So take a chance. Give yourself 4 episodes before you decide to pass on this show. If it doesn't suck you in, check your pulse man. Okay, that's my sales pitch. I'm done.
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Okay, so I apologize. I know it's been a long time since I last updated. And it's been even longer since I've posted a new column. In the excitement of actually getting paid for this little hobby of mine and also working on the eventual Road Trip book, I have let the humor column fall by the wayside. Well no more. My cousin Ellie smacked me around (electronically speaking) and so I come to you with a pledge that no matter what other projects are pulling at me, I will do my darndest to keep up with the humor column as well.
I'm so happy that the election is done and over with. I can't believe it but I have managed to go over a week without discussing the president and arguing about policy with somebody. I have had time to do more important things like getting up to speed with Alias before season 4 starts in January. I started with season one on DVD back in June and I finally got to the end of season three during Thanksgiving. And I finally managed to get Lauren hooked on it as well. Now I don't know how we're going to wait another month before the next season starts. I guess we'll just keep watching Lost to get our intrigue fix. God bless J.J. Abrams.
Anyway, be sure to check out the new column. I'm going to try and get some more blog material up soon as well. And if you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check out the long-form version of week one of the Road Trip. Thanks for sticking with me here.
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It
was a draining couple month's worth of writing and one exhaustingly long
ass weekend putting the text and pictures into web form, but without further
ado, Week #1 from the road trip is finally
up. The full version. It clocks in at about 27 pages. At first, I'd always
said that writing the road trip journal for the website would serve as
my working outline for the eventual book... Now I wonder if I'm not writing
the book now. There's plenty there to keep you busy until I come back
with Week #2. There's travel ideas, interesting local stories and witty
commentary on everything from backwoods Appalachia to the World's Largest
Ball of Twine. I've included a
new preface and introduction to the journal as well. So check it out,
click on the links and the pictures and write me back and let me know
what you think. And for those who can't handle long hours in front of
a computer screen (like the way I feel after this weekend), I've also
included printer friendly versions.
In light of this much-awaited (by me) post, the featured column this week tackles two of our biggest challenges during our month on the road.
Election Day is almost here. Can you believe that there are still people out there who claim to be undecided? What more information do these people think they're going to hear in the next week to help them make up their minds? It's baffling to me, but then again, I've all but immersed myself in talk radio and current event discussion groups over the last year. I wonder if every election is going to be like this for the next generation, or if this election is truly as important as everyone is saying.
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Okay, so I know I haven't been here in awhile. Sorry. I promise you it will be worth it. I posted a featured column with a fall theme for this week though. Amongst other things this month, I sold an article to a local Philadelphia "alternative" paper called Citypaper. The article was about Dodgeball.com, a new cellphone service that will change the way you go out and socialize. Click here to read the article. I'll post the article print in PDF format eventually.
The thing that's really been occupying my time this past month (I mean besides a day job and a child) is I have finally started working on the long version of the road trip Lauren and I took in March. I currently have an abridged version posted . But this will be the whole story, and hopefully the beginnings of a book if all goes well. I will be posting it week by week. I'm almost done with Week 1 which by itself will clock in at over 20 pages complete with plenty of pictures and links and commentary. Look for that in the next couple weeks hopefully. For a sneak preview, click here.
Something else new I'm doing, something I've been meaning to do for awhile is my "What's New" blog. Basically anything that I've written in this section on the What's New page will be compiled on one page in the blog. No sense in letting these little nuggets go to waste now is there?
I can't wait for this election to be over. I'm at the point where I just don't care who wins anymore. It's all blurring together, the flip flops, the war records, the broken english, the hard work, the pundits, the opinions. What happened to the me who just didn't care about politics. When I was in college, I could go for a month at a time I think without giving a second thought to the president, what he was doing, who was running against him, what people were saying about him... And remember, he got a hummer in the Oval Office. I was too busy worrying about being a film student. Productions, editing, classes, partying. What happened to me where I can't go a single day without mentioning something I heard on talk radio. I miss my days of easy ignorance when politics was something that was so boring that only grownups talked about it.
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Man, it just occurred to me that tomorrow is September 11th. Three years. Wow. Such another lifetime, another frame of mind away. Since that day three years ago, I've gotten married, had a baby, moved to a new city and then out of it. I've started caring about current events, listening to talk radio, getting passionate about politcal topics. Do you realize that three years ago today, 95 percent of the American population probably had no idea who Osama bin Laden was? He was in the news for terror stuff, but not a household name. Do you remember that three years ago today, the big news topic was how old some kid was in the Little League World Series? Can you even remember a time when terrorism wasn't a prominent thought and fear in your head? Do you still look up at planes and think, "Man that one is flying a little low," like I do? And isn't it weird and sickly ironic that back in 1994, the movie True Lies about Arab terrorists was a box office smash, and NOW it's politically incorrect to paint Arabs as terrorists for entertainment? When you think of September 11th today, do you still have the picture in your head of each tower falling straight down like it was sinking into its own cloud of smoke? Or do you think of Michael Moore?
One thing that I remember from that day. A small thing, but it has stuck with me. That night, after I got home, I was watching the news and they showed the video of the FIRST plane hitting. It was the only tape anybody had of it. You know, that fire training video. And you hear the plane coming, the fireman looks up and then the camera whip pans over just in time to see the plane crash into the building. And as the camera zooms into the explosion, you heard a man shouting in the background, "Holy Shit!... HOLY Shit!" On that first night, you heard him say that. The news station probably ran that tape thirty seconds after they had it in their hands and didn't realize it was even in there. But by the next day, and every time since, whenever they showed the tape, you couldn't hear the man shouting. They just kind of looped the sound of the explosion over him. If you know to listen for it, you can actually hear the edits. It's always struck me as odd that the news stations thought their viewers were strong enough to watch 3000 people die in an instant, yet somehow couldn't handle the sound of a dirty word.
In memory of everything that happened that day, I have posted the links to three feature articles that I wrote about the events of September 11th.
