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Staaay

Thanks to Terry McVey for spotting this classified in The Daily Dunklin Democrat (January 19, 2003). If you missed it, it's the edition with the story by Buddy Winkle on professional wrestling, featuring James Arness and Psycho.

Sanctuary.

"To hear a new act before anyone else was a decadent treat, especially if a free CD was involved. For all the bad days dealing with sales and management and long hours in the rain with electrical equipment, there was the glorious sanctuary of the studio." Tracey Kelley "remembering the mystique of radio."

Politicians lie.

They promise that if we elect them, they'll serve just one term and welch on the deal next election. They promise to vote one way on an issue, and vote the other. Their explanations and rationalizations are stock and without imagination and we voters understand they will do anything to get re-elected. Why? The job doesn't pay that much. The power is intoxicating but how much do they really have. I think the deeper motivation is they'll do anything to avoid being sent back to the little towns from which they came.

Please god, I can't go back to Bumfuck, Missouri, with it's Wal-Mart and the little coffee shop where the Good Old Boys talk politics every morning. I can't go back there and run the family business and live out my life so far from here. I won't go back. I will lie, cheat, steal, corrupt, connive... there is nothing I will not do to stay here. Please forgive me, god. Amen.

And when one party unseats the other and takes away the powerful jobs, the losers will take any shitty, boring job with some meaningless commission or state agency rather than go back to Moberly or West Plains or Kennett. Like some virus that goes dormant until the host is weak enough for it to flare back up. Which is where term limits came in. It was the only way we voters could innoculate ourselves. Opponents warn that term limits will result in bad government. Uh, we already have bad government. It'll be worse, they promise (threaten?). We'll take our chances.

[Mealy-mouthed disclaimer: We know that not all politicians are liars. Many of you are just like Jefferson Smith. We're not talking about you.]

Survivor.

Woman at party describing parenthood: "I survived it and it was more fun than I thought." Uh, I'll pass.

Better than I expected.

Like too few things in life. I'm not a Nicolas Cage fan but I liked Adaptation. Had that Being John Malkovich feel throughout. But that's okay.

Smart Jokes

. My current favorite source is Mitch Hedberg. I've been listening to him on XM Radio's comedy channel and hoped to hear some clips from his official web site. But it appears they stream with Real One and I refuse to load that piece of shit and let it highjack my computer. Uh, never mind.

Stupid Internet Joke.

Barb warns you must be of a certain age to appreciate this. And we are. Halley has more.

"Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home.'"
"That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"It's not unusual."

Marketing 101.

At long last, an explanation of Marketing that I can understand.

Studio C.

That's the studio where Jeff Thomas produces The Derry Brownfield Show, a daily, one-hour talk show heard on about 80 radio stations throughout the midwest. And that's what he chose to call his brand new blog. I was going to give Jeff a few days to post before mentioning here but I have a feeling he will be very prolific. Jeff is the second of two co-workers now blogging. Scott being the first. I like to think of myself as the pimp that met them at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and turned them out to a life of blogging. Scott has a real gift for it and I suspect Jeff will, too.

Dave Barry now has a blog

Why does a guy with a daily newspaper column need or want a blog? Writing the column is a job and probably damned hard to do. The blog is --I'm guessing-- for fun. He certainly doesn't need the publicity. Time will tell, but I'm betting the blog will be more fun to read.

Mad Prophet of the Air-waves.

My good friend and co-worker, Kay Henderson, did a little segment on Fox News' The Big Story on Friday. Add to all the other reasons we like and respect her, "Because you're on television, dummy."

Pop.

Douglas Rushkoff's "official and not-to-be-wagered-upon stock market prediction is a 10-15% rise in the S&P by the end of February, and then freefall down to 6500 before the war starts. Then, a blip up with that sense of certainty that always accompanies a good ariel bombardment, and a blip back down when we realize that in a globally networked economy, war is bad for business, too."

The Big Question.

I really liked Po Bronson's first two novels, "The Nudist on the Late Shift" and "The First $20 Millions Is Always the Hardest." And he's written countless articles about technology, Silicon Valley, Dot-Com boom and bust. The title of his latest book, "What Should I Do with My Life?" almost turned me off. I'm not all that keen on non-fiction to begin with. But I really enjoyed this book. I found so many "take-aways"...but I'll only give you a few:

When you're passionate about what you do, time disappears.

People who don't have passions don't struggle.

Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever. It is so much harder to leave a good thing.

Don't pretend what you do doesn't shape you.

People who love what they do are much more productive than those that are doing it for the paycheck. If we can find work we care about, our productivity will explode. Our value will increase radically. We will be the source of good ideas. And we will be rewarded.

This is a dangerous book.

Honky Tonk Woman

Last night the Rolling Stones did a live HBO concert from Madison Square Garden. About half way through the two hour show they launched in to Honky Tonk Women and out struts Sheryl Crow looking like ten million bucks [YouTube]. It's always difficult to tell if Jagger and Richards are leering but they both seemed delighted to have Crow join them and Mick couldn't keep his hands off her. Crow --the only "special guest" to appear-- was just a baby (one or two) when the Stones hit the charts in the U.S. but there she was, on stage in Madison Square Garden, before a world-wide TV audience. I kept asking myself, "What's bigger than this? What's 'up' from here?" The concert will be rebroadcast at 8 p.m., Monday on HBO2 and 9 p.m., Thursday on HBO.

Cyberblog

. William Gibson has a blog. I'd like to know if having a website (and blog) was something his publisher pushed or if he was enthusiastic about the idea. One interesting (and discouraging) item from his bio: "I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here."

God's Machine.

That's what FCC Chairman Michael Powell called his new Tivo in a recent interview. Mine's broken and on the way back to Sony for repair. Television is not much fun without it. [by way of Doc Searls]

You can take the boy out of Kennett

I heard from a couple of Kennett expatriates this week. Dan Landrum worked with me at KBOA back in the 70's. He stayed in radio for a while but gave it up to pursue a career in music. On his website he describes himself as "a hammer dulcimer enthusiast and musician, based in Signal Mountain, Tennessee." He must be pretty good because he's rehearsing "for an upcoming world tour with Yanni." That's pretty cool. Or bizarre. Or both.

I also heard from Ann. I went out with her older sister a few times in high school but never really knew Ann. One of Ann's friends had come across an earlier post about Sheryl Crow and forwarded it. Ann was disappointed that her company firewall prevented her from streaming "Kennett, My Hometown." So here it is. Sort of a note-in-a-bottle, flung into the digtal sea. Duplicate it. Forward it. Put it on your website. Which makes me wonder if there are other Kennettites (Kennettians?) with blogs or websites. Send them and I'll add them here for easy reference.

Brrr again

DeLo adds The Shining to our list of damned cold movies.

Brrr (cont.)

Ms. Funk reminds us that Fargo was a very cold movie. While we're talking about movies...and Joel and Ethan Coen movies...we watched Blood Simple a couple of nights ago. Perhaps we just like the Coen brothers or maybe we were still pissed about paying $25 to watch Gangs of New York which was, my friends, three hours of dog crap. But Blood Simple is ten times the movie GONY is.

2002 in review.

For those of us that someone missed it, Yahoo! has it safely tucked away.

Brrr.

Watched Jeremiah Johnson last night and tried to think of colder moves. Runaway Train was colder. Parts of Doctor Zhivago as cold. There must be others.

As dark as it gets

Beyond that, I won't even try to describe Kilfish.

The Question.

What Should I Do With My Life, by Po Bronosn. "If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and opportunity can lock you in forever." Or "if you don't like The Inevitable Cocktail-Party Question (What do you do?), maybe it's partly because you don't like your answer." I really enjoyed the article and I've ordered the book.