Or maybe we could just concentrate journalists into convenient camps!

Living in California, I saw that liberal zealots and conservative zealots were separated only by the party they wished to see in power. As a journalist, I was harangued by both on a regular basis, and I actually enjoyed their inability to even imagine that someone could be a moderate.

I generally stomach what I hear on right wing radio by recognizing that it's the same tack that liberals are taking, now that they know it works. I'm looking at you, Al Franken.

But today, when ABC reported that the White House is tracking the phone records of reporters to find the sources of leaks, I was flabbergasted by the "rebuttal" of some conservatives. It just seems that after all the flagellation Clinton took from the press, Republicans would recognize the value of investigative reporting being part of the check-and-balance system.

Apparently not.

Here are some comments from the ABC Web story. They're just about a brick's throw away from a Kristallnacht.

Posted by: Brad | May 15, 2006 11:13:00 AM

well maybe ABC news better stop leaking classified information. This only helps our enemies and right now I believe ABC news is an enemy of the US.

Posted by: scott | May 15, 2006 11:13:39 AM

You didn't inconvenience someone, you broke the law. It's called a criminal investigation!!!!

Posted by: robert johnson | May 15, 2006 11:17:13 AM

GOOD! I hope they find out who is reporting all of these leaks. And I hope you are tried and perhaps spend some time in jail for it.
KEEP CALLING and I hope they track your every word!

Posted by: voxpopgirl | May 15, 2006 11:26:09 AM

I am a journalism graduate, UNC-Chapel Hill. I am also a veteran.
I hope they catch every government leaker of classified secret information and put them in prison for life. And any reporter publishing known classified secret information should be shot. It is called treason, not first amendment rights.

Posted by: Tom Paine | May 15, 2006 12:50:44 PM

I think that this is very good news. Something has to be done to investigate the main-stream media as the MSM has obviously declared war against the President in regards to the war on terror and and the liberation of Iraq. It is outrageous how they are working to leak classified information and to undermine our security at every turn with their reporting. It is also outrageous how they fabricate stories against the President or in a timely fashion recycle old stories as if they were new. I personally no longer trust the MSM at all and feel extremely threatened by their agenda.

Posted by: Garry | May 15, 2006 12:51:49 PM

You commit treason and expose classified national securtiy information - the goverment is going to come after you - as they should.

I feel the bony finger of Skeletor

In a strange pop-culture coincidence, we recently finished watching a two-disc compilation of "He-Man" episodes, right around the time Slate magazine ran an essay on one man's reflections upon the same subject.

While I can't offer the same level of depth and insight on the show (I personally love when the writer laments, "The dialogue is tediously expository."), it did get me thinking about what forms of childhood entertainment hold up when you're an adult. I'm sure the answer is "not much."

Sidestepping cartoons for a moment, let's get high brow and ask whether the best pieces of childhood literature can be enjoyed 20 years later. I haven't found any. They're nostaglic, maybe, but not fulfilling. You really start to wonder how you stomached so much angst and overt emotion as a young adult. That said, I am itching to re-read "A Wrinkle in Time," which I hope to actually understand all these decades later.

Now back to cartoons. (Whew.)

Watching He-Man reminded me that cartoons rarely challenged the viewer. I understand now that they were trying sell toys, but I remember staring hypnotized at the screen each day and actually asking my dad to tape episodes I had to miss. But nothing ever really happened in an episode.

The big exception (to me) was Voltron, which had an ongoing plot that even included one of the main characters dying. Of course, it also had the world's most predictable episode structure: Bad guy appears, a Voltron team member tries fighting bad guy solo in a robotic lion, other lions join in, they're SHOCKED to learn that they cannot defeat bad guy with just lions, they turn into Voltron to fight bad guy and are SHOCKED to realize that they will have to form the blazing sword to cut him in half.

Hrm...maybe Voltron's not a good example. Howsabout Robotech, which was challenging to the point that I never understood what the hell was going on. Now that I'm old enough to watch the whole Robotech series on DVD and catch the intricate plot development, I'm not really interested in doing so.

The first cartoon I saw that really stepped up the intellectual stakes was the movie "Wizards," which obviously was meant for an older crowd. I say "obviously" because one of the female characters spends the whole movie topless. But man, that was a good flick.

I was reminded a lot of Wizards this weekend, when we watched "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind." For one, it's a great movie, even better than Wizards (Nausicaa was made in 1984, Wizards in 1977). But what it really showed me is that there's no good excuse for cartoon movies to be engaging without being an intelligent experience for kids.

So what's your big huge favorite cartoon from childhood? Have you gone back and watched it? Did it hold up? What disturbing things did it teach you about your younger self?

Meanwhile, in a blog more exciting than mine...

I know, I know, I just stumped for my friend Brittany's blog a week or two ago, but I just want to make sure as many people as possible are reading great entries like this one from her recent jungle excursion:

The surrounding jungle has been sprayed with herbicides several times to halt the growing of the coca plants. It hasn´t worked so well, on a side tour, we spent a morning at a cocaine factory. The man who ran it wore a very nice hat and said he´d been in the business for the past 18 years. It is much more lucrative than growing other crops, he says, and besides, the police don´t like to walk into the hills so he isn´t afraid of getting caught.

In a fit of blog envy, I plan to spend an upcoming morning at a northside crackhouse.

Actually, my favorite part of Britt's most recent posting is this comment from her mom AFTER reading that her daughter spent a morning at a coke factory:

We are glad to hear from you - know how we worry!!!! Sounds like an amazing place to visit.

Love,
Mom

That, my friends, is a cool mom.

Shoot this, Johnny Depp.

So I've now made two attempts at the dish made famous by "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" (insert Salma Hayek joke here), and I have to say, it's a bit of a hit. I'm judging that partly on the fact that I've been really happy with it and partly on the fact that my sister wants to implement "Puerco Pibil Night" about three times a week.

So in case you haven't gotten this recipe from me (or if you haven't gotten to try it...poor bastard), here it is. Although the recipe is on the DVD, I got it from this great site, which includes reader comments on how they tweaked the recipe. I've attached some of my own suggestions at the bottom, but I would encourage you to at least try to standard recipe once before gooning around with it.

Puerco Pibil

5 pounds pork butt, cut into 2 inch cubes
5 tablespoons annato seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 tablespoon whole black pepper
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
8 whole allspice berries
2 habanero Peppers, fresh or dried, cleaned and minced (optional)
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
8 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons salt
5 lemons
1 shot of tequila
banana leaves (optional)

Grind the annato seeds, cumin seeds, whole peppercorns, whole cloves, and whole allspice in a mortar and pestle, spice grinder or coffe grinder. Blend the chopped habanero peppers with the orange juice, vinegar, garlic and salt.

Mix the dry spices with the liquid.

Add the juice of 5 lemons and a nice splash of tequila.

Place the cubed pork butt in a large zip lock bag and add the marinade. Soak 4-6 hours, in refrigerator, turning several times.

Line (8x13) baking pan with banana leaves. Pour in pork along with the marinade. Cover with Banana leaves and seal the pan with foil. Bake in a 325 F degree oven for 4 hours.

Griner's suggestions:

1. I replaced the lemons with limes and was very happy with the outcome.
2. I haven't yet tried the banana leaves (I just cooked it in casserole dishes), but I plan to use them someday.
3. Don't remove the habanero seeds. So far, no one's complained it's too spicy.
4. Let it marinate as long as possible. I've been letting it sit in the fridge three days or so.
5. Don't trim the pork butt when you cube it (except for the huge chunks of fat). The fat and connective tissue made the dish deliciously tender.
6. Use the biggest Boston butt/pork butt you can find. I did a 7-pounder last time, and there weren't leftovers. You have to remember there's a big, obnoxious shoulder blade bone in the middle of it.
7. Try serving it on flour tortillas instead of rice. That's been a crowd pleaser.

Good luck, and be sure to let me know how it turns out for you.

My life is a full frickin oyster

Because there just aren't enough beautiful things in my life, this weekend I discovered "dog bloat."

I assure you, it's as great as it sounds.

In case you don't know my dog, he's a slender chap with a runner's build and a diverse vocabulary of Star Wars noises. On Saturday, he returned from an unchapperoned sprint around my parents' neighborhood and looked a bit...puffy. In fact, he looked like he had swallowed a soccer ball.

At some point, I also saw him drinking 17 gallons or so of lake water, which I'm sure is awesome for him. There's a nuclear power plant a few hundred yards away from my parents' lakehouse, and I'm personally comforted that so many scientists are nearby to ensure the safety and flavor of the lake.

I spent most of that afternoon doing what any responsible pet owner would do: poking him and calling him names like "lardbucket."

But at some point, my wife decided that it might be worth looking up this little change in body type on the Internet. That's how she discovered bloat. And that's how I ended up driving to the emergency vet at midnight.

That's because she stumbled upon such calming advice as this:

If you know or even suspect your dog has bloat, immediately call your veterinarian or emergency service. Do not attempt home treatment.

Do take the time to call ahead.; while you are transporting the dog, the hospital staff can prepare for your arrival.

Pretty much every site reads like that. Apparently, dog bloat is equivalent in seriousness to a human's head exploding. No time for second guessing! Call out the medi-chopper!

So we drive Fat Jonas to the vet (who agreed that it was potentially life-threatening). There they inform us that, shockingly, Joe has gas. "I understand," I say. "Best to shoot him now then."

In all seriousness, this was an apparently lucky case of bloat. Large breeds of dogs can die within hours if their distended stomachs cause their internal organs to twist until the blood supply is cut off. So it's hard to blame Internet sites from sounding dire in their warnings that a bloated dog has the life expectancy of a Berkeley grad walking the streets of Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

It's just a matter of time, the vet warns us, before Jonas' internal Hindenburg takes its fatal toll. So now we have the options of having his organs stapled to the inside of his chest (I'm probably not using the technical name for that procedure) or feeding him slower with a special bowl that rises in the middle to keep him from inhaling the food. We took the most fiscally responsible approach and turned his current bowl upside-down. Voila.

Of course, we have reason to believe that this isn't an everyday problem. Jonas promptly threw up Sunday evening, and evidence seems to suggest he ate a pile or two of catfood while he was on his lakehouse excursion. So that might explain why his only other case of bloat (which he survived in another Festivus miracle) came shortly after he ate two loaves of banana nut bread.

It's times like this I just can't wait to have a kid.

Surely I wasn't the only one who thought this?

When you were a kid, did you ever think that you might be the only real person, and that everyone one else just existed to entertain/confuse/torment you?

I remember when I was little, I would try jump around corners unexpectedly so that I might catch the world not moving ... you know, because it didn't think I would be there yet. I don't know what I thought I'd catch...maybe people just standing perfectly still, waiting for my presence to cue them.

I think part of that carries over to adult life. Most people I know share the belief that if he/she/I stopped going to work (or wherever), that the entire operation would fall apart within a mere day. Three days, max.

Not sure why I've been thinking about this lately. Maybe it's because with this new job, I'm more of a cog than I was before. I think I still have one of the most interesting cog roles, but it's an anonymous effort that could just as easily be made by someone else. Maybe I miss having a byline, but I doubt it, since I didnt have one (except rarely) during my time as an editor.

Oh well. These are the random thoughts of someone who spent a weekend playing board games, watching zombie movies, drinking sangria, wakeboarding and spending an amazing few days with friends who I'm glad don't exist just in some Twilight Zone world where I'm at the center of everything.

Stroke of culinary genius

Trying to decide last night what the theme should be for our small monthly supper club, we came up with a great idea.

Someone mentioned going with fusion, and we decided to randomly draw country names and then create a dish that joined the two. The results were, of course, cuh-lassic.

Karen and I are responsible for a dessert that's Greek-Filipino. My sister's entree will be Ethioppean-Mexican. Other combos included Turkish-Japanese and Spanish-Indian.

Personally, I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'll post photos.

Feel free to make any recommendations on how we could pull this off.

I may have to be a double agent in this brewing conflict.

I recently wrote about the new Dunkin Donuts ad campaign, which I mentioned was part of a national effort to spread the chain beyond its Northeast roots. (I've also since learned that the Dunk has just about deserted Alabama in the 10 years since I last lived here...sniff.)

Anyway, at the time, I noticed that Slate's ad review said that Dunkin was positioning itself as the working man's Starbucks. Dunkin's drink sales have far exceeded donut sales, so its true competitior is now the Seattle Siren, not the Southeast Sugarmomma (Krispy Kreme).

Today, AdAge has an analysis of Starbucks and how it could face a surprisingly strong competition from (drumroll) Dunkin Donuts! It's an interesting read, especially if you share my obsession with coffee.

I don't have any strong opinions on this emerging rivalry, except to say that I stopped into a Dunkin Donuts while consulting in Kankakee a few months back, and it looked like the steam wand on the espresso machine hadn't been cleaned in days. I'm serious...days. Looked like it had been dipped in concrete. That's a mortal sin in the barista world. It's DAIRY, people. Of course, I failed to mention that this donut shop was in a gas station, but still...

In case the AdAge article requires a log-in (it's free) or the link becomes unavailable, here's an interesting bite from today's piece:

"What should the new owners of Dunkin' Donuts do with the brand? Well, I believe they do have credibility in coffee, but not the Starbucks stuff. They need their own coffee twist. They need to be the opposite of Starbucks. Strong No. 2 brands don't emulate the leaders, they become the opposite.

"Listerine was the bad-tasting mouthwash, so Scope became the good-tasting mouthwash. Home Depot was male and messy, so Lowe's became female and neat."

No seriously, what'd you really think?

Had my first-ever meeting with a client yesterday, when a designer and I pitched three mock-ups of an invitation that will go to a few thousand businesses.

I girded myself for some sort of combat, since I've been hearing that clients often shoot down everything you present them with. But I had gotten a head's up that this one was pretty bright and had a good sense of humor, and sure enough, she loved all three of our proposals. In fact, she hopes to use one of them for another project entirely.

Sorry again for the lack of specifics, but I'll post the final result once it's approved, printed, etc. Just wanted to pass along that, yes, apparently I am doing pretty well at this gig.

Didn't everybody?

Checked my e-mail the other day to find this disturbing insight into my apparently evil soul, courtesy of Netflix:

As someone who enjoyed 9/11, we thought you'd like to know United 93 opens Friday, April 28th in a theater near you.

Now, I assume they're talking about the documentary "9/11," which I did think was amazing. But still...

With coworkers like this, who needs a high-priced dominatrix?

Today's sentence best taken out of context:

Lawyers for Alarm One said the spankings were part of a voluntary program to build camaraderie and were not discriminatory because they were given to both male and female workers.

If you must know, you can read the article here. Have a great weekend, folks.

Hurry and read it before she gives into the allure of bean farming

You know I'm reluctant to throw around blog links, but some just deserve a big fat nod.

Today's is the travel diary of my good friend Brittany, aka Sadiebelle on Cafe Asteria. Brittany is noodling around South America, apparently now in Colombia. She's that rare kind of friend, where you don't mind if she ends an e-mail with "hope all is well... i am in the jungle right now and the weather is sweltering."

I'm tremendously excited that Brittany is blogging, especially since she provides a good place to check out whenever I feel that my humble Europe-Russia trip just isn't practical.

While I knew that her blog would have great writing and anecdotes, it's already provided a few little gems, like the note she got from a newspaper editor in South America about her grad-school plans: "The university is the tomb not the womb. Get out and do something. Plant some corn. Hoe some beans. Learn about life."

So check it out and join me in saying, "Good job, Brittany. Now get some damn photos up already."

PS, Britt's blog from her trip to Uganda for my old paper is still online and worth checking out, too. Her stories from our "Friends to the Forgotten" special section are there, and the blog entries are on the right.

Vacation: All I ever wanted.

After years of big talk, Karen and I have finally committed to taking a train trip across Europe next April. That doesn't give us an immense amount of time to plan/save/learn Estonian, but it does put a fire under our collective booty to make this long-planned journey a reality.

So it's easy to say, "I'm taking a train trip across Europe." Oooh, how romantic and bohemian. But now, we actually have to figure out some things. Like, how do you take a train across Europe? How long does it take? And, perhaps most importantly, where the hell are we going?

The goal was to hit three spots, which unfortunately are not in a convenient line. Paris, Prague, St. Petersburg. (Why St. Pete? I dare you to read this book and not think it's the most amazing city ever.) The rough plan is to fly into Paris, pick up our friend Alexia and spend a day or two recovering from jetlag while enjoying the city, then head out to Prague by train. After a few days there, we veer north to St. Pete and fly home from there.

Easy peasy, right? Well...

My preliminary research on one-way flight tickets shows they're a wee bit astronomical, even a year out. Then there's the wacky route. Paris to Prague isn't a stupendously crazy route, but it does involve quite a few choices on where you pass through (anybody have a preference on Stuttgart, Bern, Zurich or Strasbourg?).

Heading out of Prague and toward St. Petersburg presents a few more challenges. A direct route cuts through Warsaw and a corner of Belarus, which is apparently worth avoiding because of the extra charge for the privelege of riding through scenic Belarus.

That led me to look over at the non-direct route along the Baltic Sea. I can't say I've ever dreamed of going to Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia, but they might end up being pretty sweet. Or I might just end up seeing them out a train window on the way to Russia.

So this is your chance to weigh in nice and early to help shape our travel plan. Are there any cities/countries we should hit/avoid? Have you traveled across Europe? Any good tips? We won't be sleeping in parks or staying in youth hostels, but we won't be doing a luxury tour, either.

If nothing else, use this post as a place to talk about your dream trip...where would you spend a week or two? No islands, please, unless they don't have an airport. Then I want to hear about it.

Three reasons to rejoice on this day in 2006

1. Another study finds coffee isn't bad for you or your heart. I love these findings, even though I have an arrythmia that can be pretty serious if I glug coffee and get stressed out. Luckily, I gave up stress months ago. So, glug away!

2. Wes Anderson is in an American Express commercial, and it's pretty great. You'll also see he's got his Rushmore alumnus with him. The bayonet is my favorite part.

3. They Might Be Giants are in a Dunkin Donuts commercial (actually, a few of them), and they're pretty great. Who else could pull off lyrics so seemingly inane? It's part of some manifest destiny march by Dunkin Donuts across the continent. I was flabbergasted to learn that California natives had never heard of it. Of course, they have In-N-Out.

The immortal battle between monkey and fart can

It's always hard to pick a favorite from the great minds that make up the Cafe Asteria patronage, but I'm going to have to say that the winner of the first-ever Cafe Asteria Camera Phone contest is....DALE!

Here again is his entry:



Who among us has something stranger than fart-sound-making putty? Not me.

So what does Dale get as his prize? As I promised, or at least vaguely hinted, he gets a new nickname! Oooh, feel that electric tingle? That's excitement.

From now on, he shall be known to all as:

Dale the Portably Flatulant

This immediately and comprehensively replaces Dale's longstanding nickames of "shirtless mulch shoveler" and "the Irish Pirate." Funny thing about nicknames, while I'm here. Long ago, Dale and I were in high school chemistry together. Someone discovered that the edge of a lab table could be removed. Underneath, there was a message that said, "I'd give me life for you." Somehow, that almost immediately translated into Dale being called the Irish Pirate. It just goes to show how the most seemingly disposable moment can shape your identity.

Comment topic of the day: What's your nickname? Where did it come from? I'm willing to bet that most can be traced back to some pretty inane little incidents.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and be sure to check back often for my next contest. You might end up being as big a winner as Dale!

I feel like Darrin Stephens

Just found out that my first ad campaign pitch was received well by the client, which means it should actually see the light of day. This is a big deal mainly because I've written a lot of copy for existing campaigns, but this is the first time I actually came up with the idea, mocked it up with a designer, got it approved by the boss, etc.

I can't give any details for now, but I just wanted to share with somebody. I'm also coming up with a campaign idea that should be broadcast/printed throughout the Southeast, so I'll let you folks know if any of this goes public.

DON'T FORGET: It's your last chance to enter the photo contest, so e-mail me your cameraphone pic of the weirdest thing on your desk. Don't miss the surely amazing prize!

I suppose it would be bad if I started watching now...

You know how somtimes it feels that if you watch your favorite sports team in a pivotal game, they're more inclined to lose?

Well, apparently, if you stop paying attention to them altogether for a few years, things really start looking up. The Detroit Red Wings thus seem destined for greatness this year. They apparently have the best team since I started following them in their prime years of the late 1990s.

Sometimes I feel bad that I don't make time to watch Red Wings hockey. If it's on, I watch, but that's about it. Truth be told, it's just not that great watching even the best teams on TV. Seeing the Red Wings in person twice made for some of my favorite memories, whether it was from high up in the aging Joe Lewis (thanks, Kare!) or a few rows back from the glass at the swank San Jose arena (thanks, Kare's dad!).

Oh well. Maybe when I have a house of our own, with a nice recliner parked near a nice TV, I can bring back my college weekend lifestyle of hot hockey action, cold beer, and occasional naps during the pass-pass-pass-turnover periods.

For now, good luck, Wingers. I'll be with you in spirit.

Starbucks speaks: Griner, your complaint is groundless. Have a Starbucks card.

So a week or so ago, I e-mailed Starbucks customer service to point out that the quality of their beans has gone from "burnt but generally good" to "burnt and gnarled like tiny black gravel."

I was more polite in my phrasing, but I really was noticing that the great Bucks doesn't seem to screen its beans as well as it used to. For all its faults, Starbucks consistently had evenly roasted beans without too many misfit toys per bag. Lately, it seems there are more bad beans than ever.

(Note about today's photo -- this is an illustration of the difference between Starbucks beans, at left, and roasted beans from a small shop in Ukiah, Calif. The portion at the top left is malformed and broken beans from the Starbucks sample. For more, check out this coffee blog where I found it.)

In addition to my complaint, I did praise Starbucks for adding more fair trade coffees. I pointed out that they still have a long way to go, but any progress is good progress for coffee farmers who make pennies for something that costs more than $13 a gallon.

Today, I got my response from the hidden Starbucks superfortress atop Mount Seattle:

-----------

Dear Mr. Griner,

Thanks so much for contacting us regarding the quality of the coffee beans that you received as well as your kind words regarding our fair trade efforts.

Your feedback is very important to us, so we appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I want to assure you that I've passed on your comments to the appropriate people in our company for their attention.

I want to assure you that we take pride in providing the best coffee available, and that all of our purchases are screened at different points in their process from growth through roasting and bagging. I would be happy to mail you a Starbucks card to replace the bag that you found to be of low quality.

If you have any other questions or concerns, don't hesitate to call our Customer Relations department at (800) 23-LATTE. Or, email us from www.starbucks.com/customer/.

Thank you again for contacting Starbucks, we really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Bill B.
Customer Relations Representative
Starbucks Coffee Company

-------

So this is apparently an isolated incident....a once-in-a-lifetime bag of crap coffee. Oh well, at least they responded and are apparently sending me a make-good card.

Entry No. 4

Camera phone pics continue to pour in as Cafe Asteria's first-ever contest continues to find the weirdest thing on your desk.

This one's from my brother-in-law. It's unidentfied, but it appears to be some sort of stuffed monkey with a soda bottle cap on its head. I'm left with only the most important questions: What is the quality of its fart noise?

Send in yours now, by having your phone send the pic to my e-mail, griner (at) gmail (dot) com.

-----

UPDATE! Jamey says his monkey is customized with a homemade accordian, hat and tip jar. Germany says: 'Gleichmäßiges besseres!"

Entry No. 3

While you were forgetting about the new excitement, loyal Asterian Dale sent in our third candidate in the contest to show the weirdest thing on your desk.



His comments:

It isn't quite so weird as yours, but it's got three canisters with "Flarp!" written on them. So it's a step above mundane. If you haven't played with Flarp, then it's a must-have. Nothing makes more realistic fart noises.

But shouldn't Brendan dye his hair black?

I'm generally not a big fan of collaborations, be they musical, literary or otherwise. With music, it seems like a collaboration yields muddled fruit -- two singers from very different genres creating an ego-driven product that doesn't appeal to fans of either.

But enough negativity, because there's a collaboration afoot that just about makes me clap my hands fast-like and giggle.

Brendan Benson, a geeky but talented singer/songrwriter, is working with Jack White of White Stripes fame on an album coming out in May. The band is called The Raconteurs, and the album is Broken Boy Soldiers.

I know I should reserve jugdment until I at least hear the single, but I have grounds for optimism. First, I'm just glad they're calling it a band. Not, you know, "Brendan Benson vs. Jack White" or "Jack White, with Brendan Benson and the Gold Toof Mafia" or something.

So has anyone actually heard these guys yet? I could probably poke around for a clip, but I'm lazy. I'll just cuddle with my optimism and hope for the best.

Unquestionably sound theories

Frequent commenter and beloved Cafe Asteria treasure Drea has floated a perfectly reasonable response to my previous question: Why do men prefer male singers, while women like to listen to women?

"... I really think the reason most people prefer the same gender is that they can sing along easily to their songs."

Elegantly simple and logical. Maybe that's why I like Concrete Blonde. But...I really like Portishead, largely for the same reason I like Radiohead...they can hit notes that are beyond the capabilities of myself and most dolphins.

Thoughts?

Oh, and I want to take this opportunity to air one of my musical pet peeves: Covers where the gender of the subject is changed to suit the gender of the singer. (Tiffany's "I Saw Him Standing There," etc.) Wait, did I just reference Tiffany? And would I really want They Might Be Giants singing "Maybe I know that he's been cheatin?"

Oh well. Create a bulletproof theory, dismiss criticisms of said theory, then conveniently forget you ever floated the theory. ("The only good sci-fi movies involve aliens that swarm like insects," etc.) It's just what I do.

The new excitement: Cafe Asteria Camera Phone Contests

In my ongoing effort to add interactivity to ye olde cafe, I'm starting an occasional camera phone competition. We all have em. Let's put em to good use.

The topic for the first one:
The weirdest thing on/in/hanging above your desk at work.

My entry:



It's a urine sample cup with an easter egg. Both are surprises from my company...one from April Fools, the other from yesterday. I'm going to see if I can build it into some sort of holiday shrine.

HOW TO TAKE PART
Just take the pic in the next week and have your phone send it it to me at griner (at) gmail (dot) com. I assure you, it should work. Feel free to include a description, or not, but follow it up with an e-mail letting me know who it was from. The winner will get...I dunno...a new nickname, probably.


------

UPDATE: Our first entry

This from Em:


It's her cat mug featuring scissors, chopsticks, a fork and some well balanced eggs. A lesser person might have photographed the hat in the background, but who am I to judge?

Shocking confession: I like guys.

As I was burning ... err ... tracking down original versioins of some CDs to loan to a friend, I stumbled across something that's concerned me off and on for a few years now. It doesn't concern me to the level of "Is shaving once a week too little or too much?" But, you know, it's in the back of my mind.

Anyway.

I seem to overwhelmingly prefer guy singers. Most fellas seem to, as well. (With one recently noted and glaring exception.) And most of the women I know seem to prefer female vocalists. The permutation of this is that women seem more likely to like male singers than the other way around. Plus, is there a female equivalent of Coldplay or John Mayer? (Meaning, is there a woman that guys would like, but women would consider poorly representative of their gender?)

So back to the question at hand: Do men prefer to listen to men, and women to women? If so, what does that say about us?

OK, discuss.

Wait, there are other blogs out there?!

After recently re-posting my original blog entry, I feel justified in breaking one of the initial rules I established. Namely, I said I wouldn't link to a bunch of other blogs. I think I've been pretty good about this, and I don't plan to make it a regularity.

BUT, I wanted to pass along some sites that help me get through slow days while still motivating me in my new profession. While some of these are advertising-oriented, I'm only listing the ones that I think each of you will enjoy:

• AdFreak - While part of the much more staid Ad Week, AdFreak is the most consistently updated and fun advertising blog I visit. It's got a quirky voice and avoids industry politics. Plus, if it weren't for them, I'd never find gems like this little guy.

• AdHunt - This one's so much fun, I think I breezed through all the available archives in just a few visits. It's an international collection of whacky ads, some risque and some just plan bizarro. Possibly not safe for work, if you work for a bunch of prudes.

• Minor Tweaks - I don't really read this blog, but AdFreak recently linked to a section where they e-mail corporations with fake compliments. Some of the letters and responses made me titter, I must say. Oh, and there was this classic post about a Duke of Hazzard.

• Gawker - I don't care a tinker's cuss for New York gossip, so I'm not sure why I like this blog. But I do. Maybe it's because they seem to care so intensely about something so vastly unimportant. It reminds me of those people who protested for Fiona Apple. I mean, who cares that much? Oh....wait...it's someone from Columbia, MO. But I digress. Oh, and I should note Gawker uses some pretty rough language, in case you're sensitive about such things.

• Romenesko - If nothing else, this is one aspect of my journalistic life I still cling to. Most of you who aren't already reading this blog will probably find little interest in the goings-on of newspapers, but if it weren't for this blog, I'd never learn about things like the obscenity in a New York Times Crossword. (Don't worry, that one's only unsafe for work if you're working in the year 1912.)

Hope this helps pass some time for you all.

Extreme puppy makeover

As you might know, our dog Jonas shares our current housing with two others... my sister's dogs, Loki the Brittany Spaniel and Picasso the Spanish Water Dog. Today was Picasso's first annual shearing, which had dramatic results.

The before:




























The after:


























The side view:

10 months, 100 posts....I'm so lazy

Egads, people. We've reached an honest-to-god benchmark! CafeAsteria has now had 100 posts, all by little old me.

When I launched this bad boy last year, my goal was just to create an easy way for me to keep family and friends posted on the increasingly unpredictable question of what was happening with me and Karen. Obviously, we were in California at the time, and we were both ready to move along with our lives. But where would we end up? Oh, the drama! But, you know, the answer's Birmingham.

Yes, given its humble origins, I didn't expect this blog to become an international sensation racking up thousands of hits a day.

And thank goodness, that never happened.

My patronage still seems to be our loyal friends and family, several of whom now read my posts days after taking part in the actual events being described. It's like reality TV ... with a REALLY SLOW lagtime. Wait, don't reality shows generally have a lagtime of six months or so before airing? Heck, I'm way ahead of schedule, then.

So how am I celebrating? Would you believe we're going to fly to Spain's Costa De Morta to visit the real Cafe Asteria? No? That'd be nice, though. It's the one pictured up top.

Or maybe the tourist-packed Cafe Asteria on the Greek island of Poros? Nah.

Instead I'll just paste in my first-ever blog post for nostalgic effect. Thanks for reading, folks.

Let's get brewin

Here's the plan. The best way to write more is to force myself, and what better way then to push myself out onto the virtual ledge of the blogging world? Thus, I'm kicking off Cafe Asteria.

What you won't find here: Political rambling, angst-ridden poetry, a flurry of links to other blogs.

What you will find: Some random thoughts, some fun new things to think about, and probably some recipes. For my friends and family, it'll be an easy way to stop in and see what I'm up to. For everyone else, it will be a momentary break from a Web world that always seems itchin for a fight.

So here goes.

Yoga, Rollerblades, Oblivion

So now that you've all had time to contemplate the meat muffins, I suppose I should give you a real update.

Things have been pretty busy around here. After a few months of letting my muscles atrophy, I started taking yoga the other week. I was surprised a bit to find I really enjoy it. Karen already had been taking it for a month or so, and with my new job we're able to meet there twice a week or so for a 90-minute class. Yes, I recognize the irony that we lived in the yoga capital of North America for the past three years and then didn't start taking classes until we moved to Alabama, but better late...

I also picked up a set of rollerblades (I was the last one in the house to step on board with that plan, too, but it's been a good way to wear out the dogs and bruise our tailbones). So with that and the guns I'm building up from drumming, I've been mildly active these days.

In less productive circles, I've been playing a bit of Oblivion, the epic new life-sucking Xbox game. I'm probably three hours into the estimated 200+ hours of gameplay in Oblivion, but several of my friends have immersed themselves much more successfully. My brother-in-law and I have been trading off on playing it, so that's stopped either of us from injecting it directly into our forearms.

I also got a boating license, so I'll be able to take advantage of my parents' lakehouse this summer with full legality.

Oooh, and I almost forgot, I am officially done with Barnes and Noble. I worked my final day there last weekend. I'll obviously miss working in a coffee shop, especialy one with such great people, but it'll also be nice to have my first two-day weekend since last November.

There. There's a quick wrapup of my recent life. I hope spring is being kind to you all, as well.

So? ... Oh...

Classic headline confusion on MSNBC today. I didn't realize it was such a big deal to haul around plumbing fixtures. Apparently, it's deadly.

Bahrain tourist ferry carrying 150 sinks
Interior minister says 44 bodies recovered off coast


Yes, yes, I'll be posting real stuff soon. Just had to share.

Come for the paycheck. Stay for the meat muffins

So, some of you might be wondering, what is it I'm actually doing at my new job?

(Maybe you're not wondering, but I sure was. I had no idea what a copywriter actually did all day at an advertising agency. I'm still not sure I know, but anyway...)

Well, in summary, it was a good first week. Everyone was excited to have me on board, which I thought would translate to me being buried under backlogged work. But that wasn't the case. What's strange is that my agency is, by billing at least, the largest in the state. There are about 100 employees, and the clients are some of the biggest employers in the region (Blue Cross, Mercedes, Little Debbie, Regions Bank, etc.). Despite all that, there has only been one full-time copywriter. There are a few "free-lance" writers, which I put in quotes because they are actually in the office quite a bit, and at least one actually has an office.

So now there are a whopping two full-time copywriters, and we'll probably split the major accounts. I won't get into details on this kind of stuff in the blog because A) it's boring and B) it could be considered top-secret industry info. I'm not sure how important such things are, so I'll err on the side of keeping my mouth shut.

But getting back to the topic at hand, what do I actually do all day? Well, I roll into my cubicle at 8:30 a.m. and check e-mail, announcements, bracket standings, etc. Then I basically just look at a computerized database to see what projects are still assigned to me. I'm left to manage my time however I want, shifting back and forth from writing different projects. This week, I spent most of my time writing a 16-page bank booklet while also cranking out small stuff like an insurance flier, a hangtag for free water bottles, and an invitation to a company event.

None of it is tremendously exciting, but it's nice having a random and diverse set of things to work on each day. Once or twice a day, someone will give me a rush job, which is usually something easy like a one-line ad for a local paper, saying something like "We're proud to sponsor this event." Thanks, Griner, here's your check.

So I'll have a better idea of my workload in the coming weeks, but I have to say it's a nice gig. The stress level is low compared to journalism, although I'm sure it will spike when we're on serious deadline. But it seems like a good fit for me, and it's actually kinda nice to be in a real corporate environment.

Oh, and free doughnuts and meat muffins on Friday mornings. What's a meat muffin? I guess you'll just have to get a job here to find out.

We've got new cell phone numbers...

...so if you didn't get my mass e-mail, let me know. Between my 205 area code and my new Alabama license, I just feel so darned...relocated.

The new licenses actually feature the state haiku. In case you haven't read it yet:

Ah, Alabama
where none of God's pickup trucks
has a turn signal.

Art, absinthe and the scary coolness of Andrew Wyeth

As I continue the required reading for my new advertising job, I ran across a debate that snagged my attention, and I'd like to get your thoughts.

One of the writers said that advertising creative staffs largely are made up of artists who feel they're merely prostituting themselves to the corporate devil until they can get the backing for their "pure" art.

The writer's counter-argument is that advertising is in fact one of the most potent art forms, often trumping art that's made just for art's sake. My instinct was to disagree, but the more I think about it...

Take, for example, the Absinthe poster I've included here. Those of you who know me and Karen know that this has been hanging on our wall for years since we found a large lithograph in New Orleans. It's my absolute favorite piece of art we own, with sentimental exceptions for paintings done by Karen and my sister.

And yet, it's an ad. Our other prominently displayed piece of art is a poster for Black Hook, a beer made by Seattle's Red Hook brewery. The more I think about it, the more examples I find. We also had a vintage ad for passenger train service to Chicago, a framed menu from a French restaurant, and a poster for the They Might be Giants movie, "Gigantic." My sister's house, where we live now, has a massive framed advertisement for Isolobella liquor. These are all great pieces that everyone seems to notice (at least more often than pretty pictures of flowers).

So getting back to the point, if we as a society hate advertisements so much, why do we have so many intentionally placed around our houses?

This is where we get to the potency part. The goal of advertising, or good advertising, is to attract attention and then give the audience an emotional reaction: desire, need, happiness, comfort, etc. The people who produce such ads, and obviously even those who did it 100 years ago, focus much of their energy on giving this experience to the viewer. How can I make this poster resonate with someone's refined taste, so that they think: "Not only will I look at this ad for a few seconds, I might even make a space for it on my wall." Is there a better endorsement imaginable than someone taking your product and using it as decoration?

Looking back at pure art, the art produced by hungry young bohemians with goatees and thick-rimmed glasses, it's often made with the goal of showing the artist's emotional experience. They want to tell their story, and as the viewer, you often feel like it doesn't matter whether you're brought along for the journey or not. This is what drives me away from art. It's often a reflection of beauty with no real mystery, or it's a mystery with no doorways left open for the viewer. In a word, it's masturbatory.

Before anyone thinks I've become some sort of art-hating convert to consumerism, let me cite a quick exception. I will always have a deep love for Andrew Wyeth, whose paintings are powerful, rich, complex and borderline scary. I could look at them every day for a year and still feel different reactions. (The one posted here is "Christina's World." Of course, there are many other greats like him. But what makes him great is that he gives an openness to his art that makes you feel welcome to come in and look around without being confused or victimized by snobbery.

OK, your turn. I'd like you guys to post some of your favorites from either category: the ads that have become your art or the pure art that you believe to be the most powerful. Meanwhile, I'll be taking part in the antithesis of all that is artistic: my taxes.

Front row to the mustache mayhem

Breaking away from our old-person lifestyle of work and sleep, Karen and I went downtown last night to see the Eagles of Death Metal play a tiny venue. It was a great show, and Karen walked away with a set of drumsticks without even having to hussy herself up like the other girls in the front row.

In case you're not familiar with the Eagles o' DM (their single "I only want you" was featured in an iPod commercial, I believe), it was started as a side project by the lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age. It's basically just him and a mustachio'd singer/guitarist named Jesse. But it looks like the lineup changes regularly (much like Queens of the Stone Age, which only has one recurring member). Just to add to the confusion, the Queens singer, who plays with Eagles under the pseudonym "Carlo," doesn't tour with them. Clear now? Great. Oh, and they're not a death metal band.

The moral is, see them if you have the chance.

Required reading

As most of you know, I've never written an ad in my life. This seems to be of bigger concern to me than to my new boss, who is utterly confident in my untested abilities. In fact, he'll be out of town the first few weeks I'm at the ad agency.

But he did give me a few reading assignments, the most important being "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads" by Luke Sullivan. Sullivan began by building ads at a small newspaper and then worked a few connections to get into an ad firm. But his first day was much like mine...he had no idea what was expected of him or whether he could do it.

I finished the book in a few days (which is good, because I have a few more to plow through), and it definitely got me a lot more energized about my new career. He repeatedly points out that copywriter is one of the only jobs in the world where you're paid to be a purely creative talent surrounded by actual business people.

If you're like me, you don't understand how ads are written. So I've included this page from Sullivan's book:

For me, writing an ad is unnerving.
You sit down with your partner and put your feet up. You read the account executive's strategy, draw a square on a pad of paper and you both stare at the damned thing. You stare at each other's shores. You look at the square. You give up and go to lunch.
You come back. The empty square is still there.
So you both go through the product brochures and information folders the account team left in your office. Hmmm. You point out to your partner that this bourbon you're working on is manufactured in a little town with a funny name. Your partner looks out the window and says, "Oh." Down the hallway, a phone rings. He points out that the distillers rotate the aging barrels a quarter turn to the left every few months. You go, "Hmmm." You read that moss on trees happens to grow faster on the sides that face a distillery's aging house. That's interesting.
You feel the glimmer of an idea move through you. You poise your pencil over the page. And it all comes out in a flash of creativity. (Whoah. Someone call 9-1-1. Report a fire on my drawing pad, 'cause I am smokin' hot.) You put your pencil down, smile and read what you just wrote. It's complete rubbish. You call it a day and slink out to see a movie.
This process continues for several days, even weeks, and then without warning an idea just shows up at your door one day, all nattied up like a Jehovah's Witness. You don't know where it comes from. It just shows up.
That's how you make ads. Sorry, there's no big secret. That's basically the drill.

There is a big caveat. He goes on to say that while 20 percent of your energy is spent brainstorming, a hefty 80 percent goes into defending your work. He said your own agency will almost always support you, but clients are mercurial and unpredictable. I might spend two months working on a campaign, just to have a client say: "Nope. I don't like it." At least in newspapers, having an editor not like your finished product generally just meant it would get buried inside. In advertising, much of your best stuff never sees the light of day.

Overall, I'm jazzed about this assignment. Generating ideas has always been my favorite part of journalism, but it's also been a small fraction of my job description. If I had 20 minutes in a day to brainstorm story ideas as an editor, it felt like a miracle of time management.

The only thing that makes me a bit hesitant (and this is pretty shallow) is that I have a cubicle at the corner of a hallway. I'm not saying I wanted an office. In fact, it's kinda the opposite. I've never had a desk that was separated from the rest of my colleagues (well, except in my first bureau, but that was only for a few months). But my friend Emily, who works at the agency as a proofreader (and *ahem* has an office), says that everyone finds the time to circulate and chat throughout the day.

A week from today is my last day at the cafe, and then I start my new job on Wednesday. Should be interesting.

We installed a beer tap in our kitchen! Oh, and...

Yep.

In two weeks, I'll start as a copy writer at the Luckie advertising agency here in Birmingham. I just got off the phone with one of the chief executives, and they've made a pretty great offer. The pay is equivalent to what I was making in journalism, except that the low cost of living here means it's almost like making tens of thousands of more dollars than in California.

I'm excited, but of course I have some mixed feelings and trepidation. Many of my friends in journalism will likely see this as some sort of defeat. All I can say is that I spent the better part of the past year applying to newspapers and magazines, and I was overwhelmingly ignored. Journalism and I have shifted from hugging friends to handshake friends.

With Luckie, it was nice for an employer to be interested in me not because I had done the job before, but because I was the kind of smart and creative person who wouldn't be afraid to try new things. They seemed to take a strong interest in my potential, not just my track record.

So what will I actually be doing? Hard to say for now. I'll be writing a variety of text for advertising. They'd like to take advantage of my background by having me tackle some "long-form" copy, but there will obviously be a steep learning curve as I try to figure out an entire industry.

How will I look back at this decision in a year? I've been asking myself those kinds of questions since deciding to move back from California. I'm tired of those questions. I've made the best decisions available to me, and now only time will tell how it shapes my life.

Plus, I have some celebrating to do. Good thing that beer tap's in the kitchen...

Why go to New Orleans?

A few pics from our recent Mardi Gras dinner party:


My sister looks really excited about the jambalaya:


There was a little dancing/judo:


And Brak was there...


I made a jambalaya that included two whole ducks, some shrimp and a pound of crawfish tails. Very tasty, but the duck was a bit awkward to work around.

Flirting with the enemy

Over the past three months, I've probably applied for a dozen or more serious jobs. Of all those, only two were outside journalism. Those were the two (including the bookstore) that brought me in for an interview. Should I take a hint?

On Thursday, I got a call from a major advertising firm here in Birmingham. A friend works there and had mentioned they might have an opening for a copy writer. I decided that if I was going to apply to a completely new field, I would really need to make myself stand out. So I wrote my cover letter as if it were a memo I was writing to my boss in early 2007, a year after he hired me. I thought it was a bit risky, but it showed my clever side.

I sent it off in mid-January and waited. And waited. I called to follow up and still didn't hear back. I moved on with the old job hunt.

But like I said, the creative director called on Thursday to see if I would come in for an interview. He said, and I'm really quoting, that I was "an odd duck, but an attractive duck."

Turns out, my letter was a hit, but the firm was a little unsure what they could do with someone who has 10 years of journalism experience and no advertising background. They asked me to come in the next day (yesterday), and I had a great talk with the creative director. It sounds like they'll probably throw some freelance work at me to test my abilities, but he still seemed interested in hiring me.

What's funny is, my second best chance at a good job right now is in another field considered anathema to journalism. There's a public relations position open at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and I think it could be a great job. I'd be digging up stories for local and national media on a few of the schools at the university. A good friend of mine is one of the lead hiring people at UAB, and he said he will try to spread the word that I would be a good choice for the job. It's definitely in my target pay range, and the benefits are great. Plus, it only requires three years of newspaper reporting experience. Drops in the bucket.

So it seems I'm destined to leave journalism, unless a miracle occurs. Sure, I'm a little sad about that, and I think I do have a talent for the field, but I'm also pretty excited about trying something new and still getting to write. Plus, my real goal is just to save up enough money in the coming years to finally open my coffee shop.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

My wife has a picture with him, too

Whenever I doubt someone's ability to stay creatively viable throughout a lifetime of writing, I always find hope in my man Roger Ebert. Sure, he's been amazingly wrong before, but I would still argue that he's one of the greatest minds in mass media today. And for those of you who know me, I should probably note that I'm not being sarcastic.

What inspired me to point this out today is this intro line from his new review of "Night Watch," a Russian film being lauded by some as a gripping portrayal of the battle between good and evil:

I confess to a flagging interest in the struggle between the forces of Light and Darkness. It's like Super Sunday in a sport I do not follow, like tetherball.

But just in case you need a reminder of the low points of mass media (I know, who does?), well, here you go.

It's....um....rainy

A fascinating phenomenon. In the same yard, with the same weather condition, only one dog becomes a mudbucket. Can you guess which one?

My borrowed life

Buying a car felt good. Really good. But for a little while, I couldn't quite figure out why.

Then it occurred to me; this is one of the major steps toward leaving this phase of "borrowed life." Since moving out here from California, Karen and I have largely been floating on the generosity of my family. It's been great, and don't think for a second that I don't appreciate all they've done, but it's also been a constant tug on my pride.

Now, Karen has a good job, and it sounds like I'm at least getting some good opportunities. Plus, the consulting gig is becoming a reality, and it's working out better than I could have expected.

Getting my own car again, and being able to return my dad's truck, was a big step for me toward feeling like we're re-establishing our lives.

Of course, the big remaining goal is to get our own place. But I've got major mixed feelings on that point. On the one hand, I can't wait to buy a house and stop being a burden on my sister and her husband. On the other hand, we've all had a great time living together, and it will be a sad day when we move -- even if it's just a few miles away. Anyway, it's doubtful that we'll have the ability to move out in the coming weeks. For now, we'll just keep enjoying the party mansion lifestyle to which we've become accustomed.

I own wheels again!

Breaking news: Griner got a car.

As you may remember, I sold my Subaru for $14,500 in October, and today I agreed to buy a 1999 VW Golf for $6,000. So not a bad deal. It's in pretty great condition. This isn't a photo of the car (which I won't drive home until I transfer some money out of savings), but it looks pretty much just like this one.

I'll post some real pics soon. It's a nice ride, I got it from a cool couple, and it's very dog-friendly. So huzzah.

Don't worry, I didn't wear a trench coat

I've never been much of a loner, and I've always harbored some special fear of eating at a restaurant alone and, even worse, going to a movie alone.

But then I went to Kankakee.

Halfway through the week, I was ready to do anything that didn't involve VH1. So I decided to see every good movie playing in town. And I did see them all. Both of them.

In response, I have one comment and one question.

Comment: "Walk the Line" is incredible for many reasons, but hearing Johnny Cash's laugh coming out of Joaquin Phoenix's mouth is probably No. 1.

Question: What the hell was going on in Syriana? I probably would have known what kind of bizarrely confusing morass I was wandering into if I had first read this part of Roger Ebert's review:

The movie's plot is so complex we're not really supposed to follow it, we're supposed to be surrounded by it. Since none of the characters understand the whole picture, why should we?

Anyway, if nothing else, I at least got past my phobia of seeing movies alone. I might have accomplished more this week, actual journalism stuff even, but that's a topic for a post when I'm a bit better rested. I fly home first thing tomorrow morning.

The visiting ambassador

(Blogger's note: I wrote this early in the week but didn't get around to posting it until I was getting ready to leave Kankakee.)

This seems a bit strange.

I’m at the center of the deadline storm again, as dozens of writers, editors, photographers and designers flit around in the daily frenzy of putting out a newspaper.

It’s a place I’ve been often. It’s a place I’m comfortable and feel at one with the universe.

What’s different this time is that I’m not actually doing anything.

Oh sure, I’ve got plenty to fill my time. I spent half of yesterday meeting with staffers at the Kankakee newspaper, and it’s taken most of this morning to catch up on writing notes from my sessions. Also, I’ve had a few follow-up talks today and have sat down with an editor for nearly an hour.

But now it’s deadline, which is my time to slip away and get some logistical stuff done while the daily miracle is immaculately conceived.

So this is consulting. It’s about what I expected, except there isn’t quite the icy chill of resentment among the staff I’m visiting. In fact, they’ve been pretty receptive, likely because Rich has spent the past year softening them up to the readership efforts we’re pushing.

Up until the moment I walked into the newspaper, I was holding off any predictions on what I would actually do here. I felt that preparing a presentation or building up expectations would be a waste, since I’ve never really done this before.

What I found was a staff that was ready to improve and generally confident in the readership goals, but they were, like all journalists, exhausted by the thought of constant change.

While I’ve done a little coaching, I have mostly spent my time being a sounding board for the reporters and editors who have sat down with me. A few are defensive, but most are just caught up in their unique frustrations and want to gripe about it to someone from outside.

At times I’ve felt like a psychiatrist, especially when I say, “That’s a good question. What do you think?” At the same time, I’m fighting my natural desire to constantly interject my own ideas for how to solve a problem. It’s not the world’s easiest balance, and to be honest, it sometimes makes me feel lazy. But I’m here for a whole week, so I’m sure it’s best to let people warm up to me a bit before I sound like I’m telling them how to do their jobs.

Hey, at least I haven’t been run out of town yet.

Ready to get my consult on

The next few days look to be pretty hectic as I head out to Kankakee, Ill., for my first real consulting gig. I'm excited, but I feel a little under-prepared. Luckily, I'm sure I'll have lots of time there to catch up with any kinds of handouts or presentations I want to do.

In case you're curious (as I was) about what I'll really be doing there, here's an excerpt from an e-mail Rich sent to the staff:

As you know, David will be visiting Monday-Friday of
next week, and I hear some people are signing up to
talk with him already, which will be a good start.
Denise asked what reporters (and editors) should
expect:

For reporters, come with questions about anything:
What does this targeted enterprise mean? How do you go
about doing it? How can I find time for it? Tell him
about or show him a story you’re working on and ask
his take on it. Or tell him about things that
frustrate you about the system or process currently in
place – maybe there is a way to improve it. In short, feel free to pick his brain, maybe even take him to
lunch (it’s on SNG)

For editors, same thing – ask him about processes,
working with reporters farther in advance of deadline,
creating a news budget that you can depend on. Offer
specific examples of stories or coaching issues. At
meetings, bring him into the discussion about your
daily and advance budget.

So there you go. My biggest concern is in striking a balance of being helpful but not overly intrusive. But I'm sure the staff has been softened to the idea of a consultant (Rich) coming in to help, and I'm hoping they're generally on board now. If nothing else, I might be able to offer the same advice from a different perspective. Rich is a highly experienced veteran journalist, which can work for and against you. It might help the staff to hear the perspective of someone who's only been in journalism for 10 years and is excited about its future. (Even if I'm not necessarily excited about the people leading said industry into said future.)

I'll obviously be blogging a bit while I'm there, and I hope to set up a more professional blog on the Media Foresight page. I'll keep you posted.

Egads, time is haulin ass

Preparing a job packet yesterday, I pulled out a letter of recommendation from my old supervisor and noticed something a bit jarring ... the date. Oct. 25.

That means it's been more than three months since I began my job hunt, and here I am still plugging away. Now, an optimist might note that I actually do have a full-time job, one that even gives me benefits and lets me take a week off each month to do some consulting.

But as much as I love working at the bookstore cafe, I have to say it just won't pay the bills if I ever give up this freeloading lifestyle of living with family. Karen's new job will be a big help; now it's just my turn.

I have a good feeling about the coming month, though. The consulting work in Illinois will get my juices pumping just by putting me back in a newsroom. There are also a lot more jobs popping up in the "media" category of the Birmingham classifieds.

Obviously, our options were somewhat limited when we decided to stay here. Birmingham was originally supposed to be a waystation while we figured out what to do with ourselves. But we soon realized that we actually love it here. The town has matured a lot in the decade since I lived here (or maybe it was me that matured....nah). Being so close to my family has been great, and the flight to visit Karen's folks is now an easy peasy 1.5 hours direct.

Thanks largely to my sister, we've landed amid a fun group of friends who keep a pretty frenetic social calendar. We're picking up new skills, too. Karen, somewhat ironically, is taking up yoga now that we're out of California, and she's re-learning the trumpet. I've started playing drums and am steadily getting more practice on the guitar by playing with my brother-in-law. We've taken some dance lessons, and we've all started knitting. I have to say, I'm pretty good at the knitting, but that's another blog post entirely.

So yes, it's been three unexpected months. But it's been a valuable time for us, one where we can take stock of what we really want out of life and start working to get there. Two years ago, maybe even a year ago, I would have laughed at you if you said I'd be at my happiest if I moved back to Alabama. I guess it just shows that you never know what's waiting for you around the corner. Hopefully my next nice surprise will be the one that, you know, cuts me a check.

Oh, and in case you're curious, today's picture is a graph of fecal coliform levels from the San Lorenzo River in Santa Cruz. That's what you get when you do a google image search for "three months," apparently. That, and tons of baby pictures.

Well about time

OK, OK I promise it's my last post on this topic. I just wanted to make sure everyone saw Oprah go nuts on James Frey about the inaccuracies in his memoir. What's most interesting to me is that she admits being brainwashed by that immediate reaction from fans, who defended Frey to the wall without bothering to read the Smoking Gun article about his lies.

So, huzzah to Oprah. In case you're wondering (and I think the article mentions this), we're still selling copies of his book pretty regularly at the store. I always wonder if it's people who just haven't heard about the controversy or if they just want to see what all the fuss is about. Obviously, I keep my mouth shut when I ring them up. It's their money to do with as they please.

I'll post more soon, as I recover from several days of truly obnoxious head cold. I used my sick time to apply for two jobs today -- an advertising copywriting position and an assistant editor spot at a local magazine company. So wish me luck.

Some big job news

Two big pieces of news, avid readers (and random Web voyeurs):

First, Karen has a job! Today's her third day as development assistant for the Alabama Wildlife Center. Obviously she's still feeling out the duties, but it sounds like it'll be a good fit. She's organizing fund-raising, PR, the Web site, etc. It's a small organization, so she'll be a huge part of it. We're both excited, and soon we'll have a real, full-size paycheck rolling in.

As for me, it looks like I'll be flying to Kankakee, Ill., for a week to do some consulting work. Rich, my longtime mentor and three-time employer, has gotten an agreement to do more readership growth work with some newspapers up there. That means I'll likely spend one week a month there, starting at the beginning of February.

I'm stoked. Apart from the added money, this is a great learning opportunity for me and a good chance to expand Media Foresight Associates, which already is doing better in its first year than I could have expected.

Of course, I'm not sure what the Barnes and Noble folks will say today, but I'm sure they'll be cool with me taking the time off, if I agree to give up my benefits and drop to part time. I'll let you know.

Another perspective

I got a great e-mail from the reporter whose story I recently used as a cautionary tale of a source (or wildly popular author) possibly fudging the facts in the name of story telling. David, the writer, had this to say about his profile of a pastor whose story of post-Katrina aid seemed a bit too dramatic:

I, too, was troubled by that piece of
journalism, especially after the reports were
circulating that no one had been raped or killed
because of the violence. I read a lengthy AJR piece
recently written by New Orleans Times-Picayune
reporter Brian Thevenot that essentially said media
outlets, including his, were wrong about the carnage
that supposedly happened in New Orleans.

The (pastor) piece worried me in part because he
said some of the same things to me about New Orleans
that he had said to me after working at Ground Zero
after 9-11: that he was in counseling, that it was the
worst thing he'd ever seen, etc., etc. You hate not to
believe a guy who's giving you such vivid detail,
especially a man of the cloth, but I'd more likely
believe Don Kaput's allergy to electricity now than I
would believe (the pastor). Because I WANT to believe a
guy like (the pastor), a man who even blessed me in the
parking lot of The Union after our interview in
September.

Was that guy a fraud? I don't think so, but in the
heat of the storytelling moment, I think he took
liberties that he knew we probably would never try to
verify and thus take at face value.

Just as a side note, I've deleted the pastor's name because, for all I know, he could have been telling the truth 100 percent, and I'd hate for this post to come up when someone googles his name. But of course you can find his name in the link.

The AJR story (that's American Journalism Review, for the non journalism-obsessed) that David mentions is great reading, by the way. In case you don't plow through all of it, though, here's a good summary paragraph about a New York Times writer who tried to confirm the stories of rape and murder in the aftermath of Katrina:

The paper also dispatched stringers to shelters in Houston and Austin, Dwyer says, where they found no shortage of secondhand or thirdhand accounts of rape and murder – but none that seemed credible enough to discount Dwyer's original thesis. "Nobody could say they saw rapes and murders. It was always three or four steps removed, like 'my sister's uncle's cousin'" had seen the violence, he says.

A little more fallout

Some stiff defensiveness today at Barnes and Noble as fans of "Million Little Pieces" stood up for embattled fiction/memoir author James Frey. I wasn't too surprised...as I mentioned in my last post, it's easy to feel that way until you read the Smoking Gun article.

Here are a few more fun follow-up links:

The last-minute letter from Frey's attorney, hoping to kill the story. It includes a bizarre warning that putting the letter on the TSG Web site would be a violation of the copyright act. That's a new one on me...and the repercussions of such a legal precedent would be staggering.

Also, someone on Fark.com linked to this hilarious review from an American writer at a Moscow paper.

And yes, yes, I promise this is my last Frey post. If this blog is ever going to have a focus, I don't want it to be this.

Hoodwinked...by a drug addict?!

Like your Aunt Mary, that guy next to you on the plane, and the punk rock chick at the hair salon, I have been reading "A Million Little Pieces," a memoir that basically reads like an Upton Sinclair book about drug-induced vomiting.

As you might have heard by now, the book was skewered this week by The Smoking Gun in an expose that's quickly getting national attention. I won't linger on the investigation, which seems to be thorough and appropriately biting. If you've read the book, the TSG article should be required reading. If you haven't, I don't know if you'll get much out of it.

Now I'm at a strange crossroads. I've been reading this book on my breaks for the past two weeks, and I'm about three quarters of the way through. It's good, but I can't quite see myself finishing it now, knowing that it's probably a lot of horseshit.

I'm likely experiencing the same emotions that many of his millions of readers did: Defensiveness at first ("well, of course he changed up the story a bit from real life...that's to be expected), then reluctant skepticism ("I guess I did wonder how he got on an airplane unconscious, covered in vomit and with a hole in his cheek...") and finally resignation ("And he happened to befriend a mob boss? Whose adopted father was gunned down the day the mob boss was going into rehab? WTF?")

I've never trusted narrative memoirs, which of course have been huge best-sellers since "Angela's Ashes." I loved Ashes, but I just have trouble believing that one writer can remember so much about when he was a little boy.

I even felt the same inklings of doubt with "Devil in the White City," a brilliant book that (while not a memoir) purports to be straight nonfiction based entirely on historical documents. Here's the author's note from the intro of Devil:

In the following pages I tell the story of these men and this event, but I must insert here a notice: However strange or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction. Anything between quotation marks comes from a letter, memoir or other written document.

I added the emphasis because that section is tantamount to a wink at the reader, one that you don't notice until you've gone back after finishing the book. Author Erik Larson vividly describes the thoughts and actions of people who died alone and were found only as charred bones. Why bother? Well, it makes good freading, something that "Million Little Pieces" author James Frey seems to have learned himself.

As a journalist, I was occasionally hit with a dilemma about a story that seemed a bit too good. There weren't quite enough records to back up someone's story, but why would they lie, right? Truth is stranger than fiction, right?

With the crunch of deadlines, I likely was responsible for printing several stories that deserved more thorough investigation. I often focused such energies on politicians, who have nice, easy paper trails to follow. But what about the others?

I still have concerns about one in particular...

Something about this story that I assigned and edited always sat funny with me. Editors develop a spider sense of sorts for things that don't seem to add up. This story was a run-of-the-mill tale of a pastor's work helping victims of Katrina in New Orleans. The first thing that bothered me was that he mentioned helping rape victims, and the story was running at a time when people were challenging the stories of rapes in the Superdome. Here's an excerpt from our story:

More than once, Nelson and his crew delivered babies while standing in raw sewage inside a triage center just steps from the Superdome. Where the National Football League has hosted numerous Super Bowl championships, Nelson saw women, too weak to move, urinate on their defibrillators as he prayed for them.

Although authorities are still attempting to determine if people had been raped inside the Superdome, Nelson said his team treated a few. "There were so many rape victims, and we had to turn (most all) of them away because they had life-damaging, but not life-threatening wounds," Nelson said.

I'm not saying any of this is untrue, but it just seems....I don't know, a bit too much for real life. Couldn't you take a few steps out of the sewage to deliver the babies? The story also mentioned this little anecdote:

And yet, Nelson saw signs of hope and humor inside the stadium home of the New Orleans Saints.

One hurricane survivor, wary of the lawlessness pervading throughout the stadium, posted a sign.

"Don't even think about it. I'm sleeping with an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer," the sign read.

The next day, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a picture of this same sign, except it was on the side of a building across town. The reporter checked his notes and confirmed that the pastor had said it was in the Superdome. Weird...

I talked briefly with the reporter and copy chief about how to handle this, and we agreed that it required an intensive set of follow-up interviews and scrutiny. But we were a small paper with tremendously limited resources. In the end, we had to move on to the other 100 stories waiting to be written. But I still feel that spider sense tingling, and I feel responsible for not doing more.

Now, going back to "Million Little Pieces," the question of the hour is WWOD. What will Oprah do? Her choice of the memoir for her book club made it an international sensation. What if it's little more than an embellished lie? His story is one of scoffing at the 12 Steps and instead trying to out-tough addiction. What if that actually hurts or kills those who are turning to it for inspiration?

Something tells me this storm is just starting to crackle.

Anonymous benefactor?

Hey, did one of you fine folks get me a Best Buy gift certificate by mail? One arrived anonymously, and I put it toward a new gig of ram and a new video card. So let me know whom I have to thank.

Quick work updates: Karen had a great interview for a job that doesn't sound like it would pay a living wage, but she's going to try negotiating. I'll keep you posted. Someone also threw my name in the hat for a Web content manager position at a locally based insurance company. While not the most thrilling job ever, it would help me toward my goal of learning more about Web design, and would still leave some time for free-lance journalism (or sleep and video games).