Mmm....berries

It's blackberry season out here in Northern California.

For those of you who haven't spent much time here, I should explain that blackberries are actually a weed. A highly flammable weed that's thorny and difficult to remove.

The nice thing is that when there actually are berries, you can find them EVERYWHERE. They're all over downtown Nevada City and pretty much anywhere else. Karen recently picked a batch of them from the dog park -- "You have to get the ones from the higher branches." That took me a minute to get. -- and she requested a cobbler be made to honor this rite of summer.

So if you've never gotten my top-secret family recipe for cobbler, here tis:

Fill a metal bowl (dog dish will work, but I usually just use a cast-iron pan) 2/3 of the way with fruit....can be anything. Peaches, blueberries, strawberries, it all works great.

Cook the fruit for 10 minutes. If the fruit is tart, throw a few tablespoons of sugar. You can also add some vanilla extract. If you're doing apple, add cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup self-rising flour (I'll give a recipe for that below, in case you're not in the South), 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Whisk together and pour over the hot fruit. Don't be discouraged if the fruit is liquidy. That will work out great. If you're using a pan, you might want to pour the fruit into a ceramic dish and then pour the batter over. The other night, I made mini-cobblers in medium sized ramkins.

Dot the top with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes. Check occasionally near the end for a golden brown crust. The end product should be firm.

So give it a shot this summer and let me know how it goes. This recipe has never failed me.

Oh yeah, the footnote:

1 cup self-rising flour = 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt.

Aw, damn

So pretty much since the first day I've lived in Northern California, people have been throwing echinacea at me.

"Got a cold? Echinacea!" "Sick to your stomach? Echinacea!" "Ooh, shattered arm? Who wants some echinacea?"

Inevitably, a big medical study has revealed that *gasp* echinacea doesn't do crap, at least in terms of fighting a cold. I might as well have been drinking tea made with hemp seed or hippy sweat.

Here's a piece from The New York Times:

But the investigators found that those who took echinacea fared no differently from those who took a placebo: they were just as likely to catch a cold, their symptoms were just as severe, they had just as much virus in their nasal secretions, and they made no more interleukin-8.

Did you hear that, people?! No more interleukin-8! I'm about to rumble with that koala bear wrapped in a blanket on my tea box. But he does look cute....maybe I'll just buy one more box...

I know what's going to happen next. Earthy types are going to say that you can't trust the Western medical establishment. Then they'll keep taking it for every ailment, until someone at their yoga class says, "Oh man, the best thing for that cold is tincture of mungseed oil. Yeah, it totally clears up anything, man. Nature's cure-all, dude."

A few months later, you'll be seeing mungseed oil herbal teas flooding the mainstream market.

You know my health secret? Coffee. Tons and tons of black, strong coffee. Sure, it ramps up your stress level and loosens your bowels, but it seems there's a new health study every month that says it prevents something... diabetes, colon cancer, boredom in the hood.

So I'll keep chugging coffee while hippies tell me to drink seaweed pressings. And I will live forever.

Liftoff

I realize this isn't much of an update, but I thought you folks would get a kick out of MSNBC's interactive feature on what they've done to the shuttle since the Columbia accident.

It's been frustrating me lately that most of the news coverage has been "It's set to launch!," "It's delayed!," "It's set to launch!," "It's delayed!" For those of you who've tried to watch a shuttle launch, you know that it's ALWAYS delayed. So a few days didn't really surprise me. What I really wanted was a recap of all the work NASA's been doing.

So check it out, and let's hope that it's enough to keep this thing flying a few more years.

OMG, someone bombed Egypt?!

For those of you nonjournalists out there, you might not know about a great, addictive Web site. The Newseum hosts a daily display of hundreds of front pages from across the country, and the world.

It's a great place to see some of the most innovative designs and headline ideas out there, but it's also an easy way to see how many papers are still falling into the same trap.

You can actually make a game out of it. Oooh...maybe even a drinking game. OK, here are the rules.

* Top story is yesterday's big newsin present tense ("Bombers strike Egypt!") -- Take a shot.
* Top headline too small to be read in the thumbnail -- Take a shot.
* The dominant color is gray - Take a shot
* The paper's name has a hyphen - Take a shot
*Centerpiece headline is a cliche ("Two to tango!") - Take two shots
* Centerpiece headline makes no sense ("Tango to too!") - Take two shots
* Everyone pictured on the page is white - Sip
* The only black guy pictured is a pro athlete - Sip
* The only black guy pictured is in jail - Take a shot
* The only black guy pictured is a pro athlete in jail - Slam
* The only thing interesting is a pop culture tease in the bottom corner - Take a shot
* "Bush" is in a headline - Sip
* "Bush" and "stay the course" are in a pull-quote - Sip
* Any of the following words/phrases are in a headline: "OK," "up in air," "strike," "peace talks," "Gaza," "economy," "recovery," "on hold," "man," "woman." or "city" - Sip for each

Play responsibly.

Heading east?

Things are moving a bit faster than I last predicted. Instead of late August, the Norfolk folks want me to come out at the beginning of the second week.

On the one hand, that's great, because it means I'll know my fate all the sooner. On the other hand, it's scary, because I'll know my fate all the sooner.

They still haven't told me what the job is, exactly, which I'm taking as a good sign. A friend out there said they're good about hiring talent and finding a spot for them. It sounds like they're doing some restructuring and will have a few openings to work with.

I talked to my boss the other day, so he knows what's going on. I'll probably tell my staff Monday. In such a small office, you can't keep these kinds of secrets too long, so I think it's best to be out in front.

The logistics of picking up and leaving are probably what's haunting me most. We've done it before with relatively short notice, but this time we have twice as much stuff and a dog.

Yeah, I realize I'm getting ahead of myself, but if this opportunity doesn't materialize, one of them will. I'll miss California in a few ways (the wine....oh, the wine), but I think I'm ready to give urban living a shot. Plus, I feel like I've wandered pretty far from the intensity of daily metro newspapers, so it will be good for me to get back in my old field.

One bit of good news with my current job is that there are several people in line to take my place. When I interviewed for city editor, there was only one local candidate, and he was really just doing it to take a stab at management. Now I think there will be three people at The Union interested, and probably a handful of folks from other papers in our chain. It makes me realize what a lucky break I got with this job. Not many folks get trusted managing a staff of seven at age 25.

It's interesting hearing from larger papers who aren't interested in hiring someone from a small paper, even if it got me management experience. If I had stayed at my old paper (circ. 70,000 daily), I would probably get an audience with just about any paper short of The New York Times, Washington Post, etc. But I would still only have experience as a reporter -- maybe with some time filling in as a night editor.

Instead, I went to a smaller paper and got some amazing experience as a manager, doing stuff I wouldn't have gotten to do at larger papers until my 40s, probably. I launched new sections, served as an interim editor, hired about 10 people (yeah, turnover's a bitch), and fired two. Yet most larger papers just look at the circ numbers and don't really care what experience you picked up. I've worked at every size of paper now, and they're all the same. The only difference is the number of people and the amount of money they have to throw at stuff. The personalities, the day-to-day stress, is exactly the same.

That's why I'm so excited a paper like Norfolk is willing to give me a chance. Even if it doesn't work out, I think it says a lot about them that they were willing to fly me out for an interview.

As a closing note, I've been watching the paper out there pretty intensely, and they're just finishing up a great series, if you're a history buff like me. Check out their 14-part series on how yellow fever devastated the town 150 years ago.

I'll obviously keep you all posted as the trip nears.

The luxurious sounds of ... me

On the off chance anyone actually wants to hear me talking for half an hour (show of hands?), the Newspaper Association of America has posted the audio clip of my speech in Chicago.

It's a huge file, and I'm the second speaker. So fast forward to the 15th minute. That's about the time they introduce me. It's a little strange not having the slides with the audio, but you can download those, too. Check out some of the speech before mine, though. You might notice a subtle difference between us.

Just FYI, I'm having trouble writing more blog updates, because it's hotter than hell in our study these days. Yeah, I've got a laptop, but you know, I'm lazy.

Some exciting news

I'm trying to keep my excitement in check, but I did get an e-mail today from one of the top editors at the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, asking if I'd like to come out and interview in late August.

For those of you outside journalism circles, the Pilot is largely considered one of the best newspapers in the country, if not the world. What's great for me is that it's known for its highly visual, intelligent design, and it's the lead design editor who wants to interview me.

The situation's a bit different for me. I've never interviewed without really having a job opening ... she just thinks I'd be a good fit, and they have a few openings coming up.

In a nice twist, Karen heard from a magazine in Norfolk that wants her to free-lance if we move out there. Things seem to be falling into place.

So I'll keep you all posted, but I wanted to let you in on the news.

Racism in the paddy wagon

Two recent news stories got me thinking about the shelf life of racist and other derogatory terms. How long do we use them before they cease having any shock value at all -- or arousing any ire from the targeted group?

This week, a mayor was accused of insensitivity when she used the phrase "paddy wagon." Then, there were a few stories about the plight of Dykes on Bikes, a lesbian motorcycle group that can't get its name trademarked because federal officials say their own name is an offense against their own people.

So at what point does an insult just become adopted into the vernacular, stealing its potency? I couldn't find many examples where that's happened ... there are a few religious ones. Quakers and Methodists took on the insult names of their critics and have kept them ever since.

Poking around, I found this staggering list of slurs on Wikipedia. I mean, good god, it goes on forever. The Eskimos (wait, is that offensive?) ... the Inuit may have all those words for snow, but do they have 700 racist epithets? This is truly a mind-blowing accomplishment of human insensitivity.

So let's all try to help by finding positive uses of terms like Chug, Fig eater, or Jewgaboo. It might just make the world a better place.

Returning home to war bonds, dog hair, etc.

A few strange things awaiting me when I returned from Alabama on Monday:

1. A 1943 war bond that was never redeemed. It's a $25 bond in perfect condition that my great-aunt sent from St. Louis. People seem to be selling them on the Internet for about $200. I'm just surprised anyone held on to one. Hard to turn down $25 bucks in 1953. We'll probably frame it as a keepsake. This is the actual scan of the bond, in case you're curious.

2. My dog has picked up a new hobby: Shedding. Apparently, after a year of no-shed bliss, he's ditching his winter coat in favor of a more flattering, form-fitting ensemble. And like a drunken sorority girl, he's leaving pieces of his old outfit on pretty much any surface available. Yaaay! Luckily, I learned about rubber pet brushes, which apparently work a ton better than traditional brushes. Sure enough, it works like a pro.

3. My paper won first place in feature writing, second place in investigative reporting, and second place in front page from the California Better Newspapers Contest. This is the big contest for papers our size. The cool thing is, I worked directly and intensely with each of the winners. As an editor, you don't get much notice, so these kinds of awards are great.

4. My office is almost completely remodeled. After a few weeks of funneling everyone through an employee entrance, we actually have a cool entryway now. On Friday, we rip out the carpets and replace ALL the furniture. Meaning, for the first time in a few years, my computer won't have to sit on a pile of plywood. I know this doesn't interest you guys much, but in case you've never seen my office, it's a total cave. Now they've raised the ceilings, expanded the building, updated the AC (just in time), etc.

Sorry for the time away, but I should be more consistently posting now.

Closed for the holiday

Sorry folks, the cafe's going to be closed for a week or so as I reel from Independence Day festivities. To ease the blow, I've included a picture of my puppy.

Zombosis

So about 15 years after I saw George Romero's last zombie movie, "Day of the Dead," Last night, I finally got to see the next installment in the series. I can't say "Land of the Dead" was one of the best movie's I've seen, but it accomplished the one thing I wanted, which was to try something new with the genre.

The biggest problem with all of Romero's flicks - Night, Dawn, Day, Land - is that they're just not scary in the traditional sense. They're gross and they're kinda philosophically creepy, but if you've seen the remake of "Dawn of the Dead," you know how much freakier they could be. Romero's just not that good of a director. His pacing and timing are awkward, and he pretty much just keeps trying the same gags. ("Nope, nothing in this room. Hold on, I've got to turn around.....agh, a zombie!!!")

All that aside, the movie plays around with some interesting themes. (Don't worry, I won't include any spoilers if you're jonesing to see it still.) Humans have staked out a safe enough life that they worry little about moron zombies raiding their fenced-in city. So they get cocky and distracted with infighting, and don't notice the zombies evolving into smarter creatures focused on goals other than eating braaaaaaaiiinnnnnnssss.

I noticed a lot of allusions to Iraq...we have the more formidable military and assume it gives us an unbeatable edge. But then we start losing the smaller skirmishes, and next thing you know, we're getting spanked.

Maybe you'll see a different message (that's half the fun of zombie movies...the other half is watching guts get pulled out), but there's definitely a vibe of insurrection and some hefty social criticism.

OK, so if you're not on the zombie bandwagon with me yet, here's a film checklist to get you started. These are my favorite zombie movies -- not to say they're necessarily great cinema.

1. "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) The daddy of them all. If you think about it, before this, zombies were considered more like brainwashed Voodoo victims. Romero's idea that the dead just suddenly start walking is a pretty incredible burst of ingenuity, and it's that concept that still freaks people out. In most movies, it's just a scientific experiment gone awry or a limited problem. I like Romero's epic scope, told in a very confined rural environment.
2. "Dawn of the Dead (Remake)" (2004) This one went with the new wave approach of "fast zombie" and really made it work more than "28 Days Later." It's handily better than the original "Dawn," but it lacks the social commentary that made the first one pretty funny. The remake is clever and fast-paced, with good acting and a nice balance of gore. The first 15 minutes, as everyone who's seen it knows, are just plain freaky.
3. "Bio Zombie" (1998) This Chinese movie is supposedly a spoof on the original "Dawn of the Dead." But other than the fact they both take place in shopping malls, there's not much similar. Despite a low budget and some seriously bizarre subplots, this one's a lot of fun. It's worth it just to see the zombie sushi bar.
4. "Return of the Living Dead" (1985) This comedic sequel of sorts wasn't endorsed by Romero, so Return's director insisted it be a funnier take on zombies than the original. If nothing else, this is the one that popularized zombies saying "braaaaiiiinnnnsss." But there are a few good gags, including a zombie who spends the whole movie wearing nothing but leg warmers.
5. "Dead Alive" (1992) If you know much about Peter Jackson, you know that his pre-Lord of the Rings movies were ... um.... completely insane. This is one of them. It pushes the gore factor waaay over the top. My favorite scene is when the hero clears out a room of zombies by holding up a lawn mower. If you bother renting this, be sure to get the unrated director's cut. Otherwise, it's only 45 minutes long and makes no sense.

OK, you have your assigned viewing. Feel free to post your favorite in the comments section.

A few good links

Big cheers to Flying Lemur guitarist Christian for keeping alive the band's old Web site I designed in college. I never get tired of that photo of me with nappy hair down to my shins.

Also, I hired a young videographer to assemble a digital clip for our Web site of the recent Nevada City Classic bike race. Be sure to check it out. The guy did the whole thing for free, so I don't know if he'll go through the trouble again. But we hope to get the public access station involved. Most of the private videographers wanted $300 or more to do a 1-minute clip. I can't afford to pay $50 for a free-lance article, though, so that ain't going to happen.

Hope all is well with you guys. If you haven't posted your randomly generated band names below, you better do it. Yeah, I know, it acts like it's making you sign up for a blog when you register, but you don't have to. It just sets up a profile that can be as minimal as you want.

Did you see that Bitch Ratio show on Friday?

I think we, as a culture, are finally moving back away from rock band names with "The" followed by a plural noun.

I mean, when The Strokes came out, I liked the throw-back sound of the name. I even got on board with The Hives, The Vines, The Thrills and, god love em, The Black Keys (but the adjective sets them apart). No one was more excited than me to see a return to stripped-down roots rock. Now it's just crazy. The Killers, The Kills, The Glands, The Alternators, The Bravery, The Raveonettes, The Futureheads, The Perceptionists.

How about, The Forgettable? I used to have a hard time keeping The Cure and The Cult straight, but The Kills and The Killers?

Luckily, as I said, it seems we're moving past this period, so it's time we decide what the new fad will be.

In high school, I teamed up with my friend Bill to create the perfect band. We decided the name had to be "The" followed by an adjective, followed by a noun. The noun needed to be zany but recognizable, the adjective conveying action.

We chose The Flying Lemurs. To this day, I believe it's the best band ever. Someday, we'll play a song.

Today, I think a band needs to have a name that's vaguely offensive, even if you can't quite put your finger on the reason why.

I would go with "Congenital Harpies."

But I decided to hit a few Random Band Name Generators on the Web. Here were their picks for my new operatic prog powerhouse:

Flaming Agenda (good for an all-journalist band)
Bowl Full of Zealots
Arizona O'Clock
Violation of the Soiled (fits my vaguely offensive rule)
Criminal Catalyst
Clean Caution
Bitch Ratio
Atrocious Yet Dumbfoundingly Popular

So try it yourself here, here or here, and post a comment with your favorite results. This is as good a time as any to get all five of you writing comments.

On another musical note, Bill sent me this new video from Brenden Benson. The song's not so great, and Benson looks horrid, but the animation's fun and creepy.

Maybe I should just try Paris...

We just returned from four days on California's northern coast, a few hours up from San Francisco. Karen and I brought Jonas and stayed at a nice cabin with an ocean view outside Mendocino. It was just a quick getaway -- no anniversary or anything.

We saw some amazing parts of California -- parts that sometimes looked more Apalachia than Left Coast -- but it's funny how much differently I'm absorbing these trips than just a year ago. I feel like I'm squeezing in the last bits of my great California adventure before heading...somewhere.

I doubt I ever thought we'd live here forever, but it always felt like an accomplishment to have made it so far from where I started. After a youth in Alabama, even the nice northern parts, I was starved for a place with culture. And strangely, the neon Santa sign in Fort Wayne, Ind., just didn't cut it.

To be honest, I've about had my fill of California culture. Some days it drowns you, like a mint chocolate shaving submerged in a grande decaf mochachino, no whip. In each town where I've lived, I have learned to appreciate the pockets of greatness that make you feel at home. In Indiana and Alabama, they were the places that broke away from the anti-intellectual vibe. Here, they're the places that break away from the sea of pretense that has drenched as far inward as the Sierra foothills.

Part of me still longs for that Hemmingway-in-Paris excitement about my location and my career. But then, Hemmingway didn't stay in Paris for good. And he self-prescribed a 12-gauge shotgun for his crippling depression, so you always have to be careful about role models.

The moral is, this weekend trip made me realize that my mental switch has already flipped over from "arriving" to "leaving" California, like I just crested a hill and am fighting the urge to run down and be done with it. But then you're faced with the only potential worse than having to move: What if that new offer doesn't come? What if I have to go about my daily life indefinitely, distracted with the future to the point of endangering it by messing up the present? (I was at a management training seminar once where they referred to those as "employees who have quit but haven't left." I love that phrase.)

Luckily, there are a few reasons to be optimistic. And, of course, there are worse places to be stuck than in Northern California.

My PowerPoint kung fu

If you've got a copy of PowerPoint, and you're waaaay too bored at work today, you can download the presentation I gave the other week at the NAA Readership Conference in Chicago.

This link will take you to the page of presenters and the slideshows available for download. A few others worth checking out are the presentations by Your Mom Online; the Guelph, Ontario, paper (I was on the panel with the editor, and she busted out a Strong Bad reference. I got served.) ; the Janesville, Wis., Gazette; and the honking, 56-megabyte slideshow by the Times of Northwest Indiana.

I haven't actually checked to make sure mine looks right. Let me know if it's just a bunch of dirty animal photos or anything.

Two shows, one poorly documented theory

We hit two great events this weekend that seemed to showcase what's great and what's weak about U.S. culture. Or at least California culture. Or, you know, greater Sacramento Metropolitan Area culture.

First was a three-act concert in Nevada City, with the headliner being a band one of my friends recently joined. We missed Act 1, but a moderately skilled rock band came on next, then our friend's band, Black Bear (scroll down in link).

The good news: They were really mellow and impressive. I don't know why I've settled in on this description, but they're like a folksy Belle and Sebastian, which I have to say is not what I expected from a local band. Essentially, they had half a dozen people playing pretty simple, melodic guitar/bass/banjo parts, creating a complex, somewhat droning sound. And our friend, David, was great and somehow elegant on the drums.

The bad news:(It's not really bad, I'm just being overly simplistic.) It reminded me that there's just not much to do at a concert these days. Dancing consists mostly of head nodding and maybe some adventurous swaying -- and that was during the rock band's performance. And that level of inertia was limited to a dozen or so high schoolers and folks with crushes on the band. For their part, Black Bear at least gave you some moments of introspection ... it's the kind of show where a long, dirge-like song can leave you thinking, "Wow, I really should apologize to all the people I maligned in my youth." Maybe that was just me.

My point is, American rock and such just aren't interactive. The dancing is arythmic, and, let's face it, boring, even with high-energy bands. You just end up feeling like you're watching a theatrical production...one with a very static set.

So jump from Friday to Saturday night, when Karen's capoeira school hosted its Festa de Sao Joao in Sacramento. It's traditionally a Brazillian corn harvest celebration, but it feels about like any Brazillian party I've been to ... nonstop music and dancing, great food, scantily dressed attendees with bodies like Olympic athletes.

Don't get me wrong, the music was good (even though it centered around a ukulele...swear to god). But what was most impressive was that it really felt like a group experience, like you were interacting with the musicians, the performers and each other throughout the night. Most of my life, I've been ashamed to dance in public. Here, you would only be embarassed if you were one of the three lepers standing off to the side.

Although we spent most of the night drenched in sweat, I left feeling about 50 times more awake than when we went in. Now picture yourself leaving a concert, shuffling in a mob and trying to remember where your car is.

So do we have emulate another country to get Americans truly involved in a performance? Do Americans even want to feel involved, or is our comfort zone just too damn narrow?

Get yer Uganda

OK, we're finally getting a moderately steady stream of e-mail dispatches from Brittany, my reporter on assignment in Uganda. We're trying to update every day or two. Another of the volunteers at the Pygmy clinic is writing, too. So far, the highlight is Brittany almost getting attacked by a gorilla.

All grows up

When did you become an adult?

Can you narrow it down to one year, one day, one instant? Didn't it just seem like you woke up and realized, despite what you'd been saying for the better part of two decades, that you really had been pretty stupid and worked up about the wrong stuff?

I'd like to think it was an early moment for me. I was a relatively mature teen, which really just means I was a boring teen. Someone was telling me the other day about how maturity is related to your brain development, as you build inhibitions that pull you away from your reptilian core, blah blah blah. So maybe my brain developed quicker, but that's not to say I had my shit together for a few more years.

Talking about this with a friend the other night, I realized that my right of passion really did come down to one day, when I was a sophomore in college. Sorry, guys, but it's not a very sexy story.

After a year of working at the student paper, I agreed to help fill in as arts editor at the student magazine for their last few issues of the year. I didn't know anybody on staff, and my job was minimal. Next thing I knew, the year was done, and it was time to elect a new editor.

The choice was obvious. The managing editor had been with the magazine for more than a year, she was the No. 2 editor, she was close friends with everyone on staff, and she was the chosen successor of the editor. But for reasons I still don't understand, I decided to try for it. I literally had people asking what I was thinking, wasting everyone's time like that.

I realize now that I was trying to prove something to myself. I had been passive for 19 years, standing by and waiting for someone else's orders. I was fed up, not with how I was treated by others but by how I was treating myself. There was nothing to lose by running for editor, and at least I would feel I made the new boss do some homework instead of waltzing into the job.

So I gave a speech. The first of what would become several ad-lib talks to crowds of strangers. Just like my recent presentation at a conference, I couldn't have told you what I said if you had asked three minutes later. Something about how we could embrace new technology to make our mag one of the best in the nation. Or, you know, something. Maybe I just beat-boxed and ripped a phone book in half.

Whatever it was, it worked. They tallied the ballots, and I won by a slim margin. Over the next year, we did redesign the magazine into what was probably the state's best student publication. I stepped down after six great issues. The next editor put together four. The next editor put out none, and the magazine died a quiet death.

But getting back to the point, I realize that my turning point with maturity was the moment I stepped up and decided to stop letting others make my decisions for me. It wasn't until I scraped together this confidence that I could really hold my ground with anyone, confident that I was someone whose opinion mattered.

So why is it that this remains so difficult throughout your adulthood? Why are so many people still so quick to let others dictate the flow? Lately, I've found myself falling into that same trap. With a new boss and a more hostile work environment, I often think, "It's just not worth the energy." It takes a lot out of you to stand up for yourself, especially when you're constantly losing. It seems so easy to submit, the way death must start to sound good to someone crawling through the desert.

Maybe now I just need to harness that energy to get the hell out of Dodge and find a place where I can feel like an adult again.

Wait, maybe we're not dying after all

It's a little spooky that when you get hundreds of newspaper executives in one room, it can start to get this Jonestown vibe, like we're all on some doomed carousel.

People keep saying this is the worst time ever for newspapers. I think that's preposterous. It's definitely one of the most challenging times to be in the business, but we're suffering as an industry because we've been lazy and selfish.

So it was nice to see a few shining beacons of excitement at the Readership Conference in Chicago. Here are some worth checking out.

Your Mom Online -- The Quad City Times in Iowa launched this Web-focused publication for and by teens last year. I had heard buzz on this site before the conference, but the editor's presentation blew me away. They've pulled off a fun site that actually treats kids like "we" instead of "they." That's a hell of a lot more challenging than most people realize. The site also comes off looking so effortless, you can tell that there's a mountain of effort going into it.

Bluffton Today -- These folks in South Carolina have taken blogging and forums to their logical extreme for local news. It's soft, I'll admit that. There's little in the way of hard news screaming at you. But the navigation is light and airy (as compared to ours...*shudder*), and the community seems to be latching on well.

The Janesville Gazette -- This Wisconsin paper recently redesigned to focus on getting lots of quick hits onto the front page. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of the teasers on the right, but the new centerpiece format is classy and reader-friendly. You can find the day's front page on the bottom left of the site.

Juan Antonio Giner -- (Sorry, no good Web links for this guy.) Juan Antonio pretty much walked away with the Best In Show at the Readership Conference. He's a Spaniard who serves as an international consultant to newspapers. He is candid, hilarious and, most importantly, dead-on. He pointed out that all major newspapers (and us smaller ones, too) continue to think the same way each day, creating a bland and repetitive product. Twenty-four hours after a plane crash, we still say, "Plane crashes!" The modern reader's left thinking "no shit." Our niche is to explain more than to simply report, he said. He really knocked my brain around, in the good, non-concussive way. I ended up in an elevator alone with him. Luckily, before I could say "You're dreamy," he told me he loved my presentation. Then I just stood there like a moron.

So maybe it's just my masochistic side, but I have to say I'm more excited than ever about working in newspapers. The challenge is finding one that's willing to quit screwing around, biting its collective nails and sighing.

Speakeasy

O’Hare International Airport, Chicago

I’m still not quite sure how this happened. How did I end up on a stage, in front of a packed conference of top-level newspaper executives, sitting next to the CEO of a massive newspaper for which I slaved thanklessly just seven years ago? By all rights, I shouldn’t even have been in the audience, but there I was, with a nametag, and a little green ribbon that said “Speaker.”

OK, I mean, I guess I know how it happened. It’s not like I got drugged in a Mexican brothel and woke up at a podium in Chicago.

A few months back, our publisher asked if I would fill his spot at the Newspaper Association of America’s Readership Conference. They wanted us to talk about how we’ve increased circulation, which I assumed was a rare success. Turns out, it’s borderline unheard-of, and newspaper executives are desperate to learn that some paper somewhere is not bleeding to death.

People were grilling me for info before I even got to make my presentation. It felt like a high school lunch table, where I’m the only one who’s actually seen a girl naked. My explanations just didn’t seem to satisfy.

Anyway, my time finally comes, and I take the stage next to the CEO of the Arizona Republic, where I interned at age 20. (A quick tangent. What was that job like, you ask? Well, if you ever want to know what it feels like to be a coffee bean in the hands of Starbucks, go snag an internship in Phoenix. You might produce a nice product, but it's a shame you have to be charred, ground up and urinated back into suburbia. The hiking was nice, though.)

So the last thing I really remember is my name being called, and a polite applause, and approaching the podium. Then I was floating outside my body, watching my lips move but hearing nothing. I saw the crowd. Some guy was yawning. A really crappy PowerPoint presentation fluttered on a large screen, and the color theme seemed like an homage to Albuquerque.

Then it was over, my body’s defense mechanism relaxed, and I was pulled back into my own skull. It was time for questions. Someone asked if I knew our paper’s market penetration. I said, “No.” Right then, the moderator announced the session was over. Strong finish, Griner. I’m such an ass. How could I not know our market penetration? They were onto me. They knew I didn’t really know what the hell I’m talking about.

But I was wrong. A few people came up to tell me they liked my presentation. Then there were a few more. Then a woman offered me a job. Seriously. Wait, what just happened? Even more people came up to me in the back of the room, in the hallway, in the lobby. It was like winning some kind of credibility lottery.

So the moral is, it went pretty well. Shame I didn’t bring any business cards. Such an ass.
More to come, with actual information about the cool parts of the conference, and not just self-deprecating reminiscences.