My Experience as a Tweenage Girl

“Is that something you might be interested in?” I asked my newly-ringed fiancée.  I knew it was a question I would gain points for asking, somewhat prematurely, before she inevitably broached the topic later on.

“Yes.  I would,” she said.

Figures.

I walked over to our iMac and pulled up my Netflix queue.  I had a movie to add. That movie was Twilight.  For the first time in my experience with the mail-rental service, a pop-up window blooped into frame.

“Really?” it asked.

I dimpled the bubble next to “yes.”

Bloop.  A new pop-up window.

“You sure?”

Yes, again.

Bloop.

“Whipped?”

Yes, the third.

“Would you like Twilight moved to the top of your queue?”

Yea.  You better.  Sorry Milk.  Your day will come.

As a mass media consumer, there is nothing I find more aggravating than opinion by osmosis: people who have not seen this movie or that TV show who still find themselves brimming with commentary about its worth or lack thereof.  The typical reaction of these critics is outrage, and they shield themselves from informed opinions with a particularly pious brand of self-righteousness. I had allowed myself some shots at the Twilight behemoth (mainly because two of my favorite writers – Roger Ebert and Stephen King – had torn it up), but having never read the books or watched the movie, I was all to aware of my descent into the dark waters of hypocrisy.  I would have to watch this movie.

Having seen it now, what can I say about the film?  It was not for me.  It was for teenage girls.  It was competent and unexceptional.  I’m sure it was a thrill for those predisposed to liking that sort of thing (like the Passion of the Christ for the training bra set), but being that I am about fifteen years and one uterus outside of the target demographic I didn’t necessarily expect to be moved.

But I was intrigued, as I commonly am by works with even the faintest whiff of mythology.  And I knew we had the rest of the series waiting to be consumed on our bookshelves.

So, on my next trip to the water closet I took the second book in the series, New Moon, along.

I made it seven pages.  Seven pages of pedestrian prose and maudlin yammering before deciding that no mythology, no matter how fascinating, could be worth trudging through the most juvenile, unsophisticated prose I’d encountered since See Spot Run. I had just finished Michael Chabon, Gregory Maguire, and Cormac McCarthy in succession before my experience with Ms. Meyer.  I’m sure that didn’t help, but damn.

Still, I was curious. What twists were in store for Bella as things progressed? So, I went to Wikipedia to see if I could find a more succinct outline of the saga. Thus, I was able to make my way through the entire plot of the Twilight saga in about fifteen sentences.

So now, after my brief trip into the world of this tween blockbuster, only one question remains: How can so many people go through two thousand pages of insipid text for fifteen sentences of plot?

Resignation

Earlier this week I stopped my contributions to the Rock Island Argus.  It was nothing scandalous.  I sent them a final essay that explained my reasoning and hoped no hard feelings were had.  Well, I never heard back from them, and the essay I wrote did not appear in the paper as it was supposed to on Wednesday.  No big deal.  But I still want to share it with my people.  So here it is:

Dearest Reader,

I began this assignment with tremendous hope. Hope that I might bring an uncommon perspective to the Argus’ editorial pages. I read this paper every morning. It’s been a comforting ritual for many, many years now. But I never expect to read somebody who thinks like me, especially in the editorial pages. While the Argus does a commendable job bringing a diverse set of voices to this page, they rarely speak to me. They rarely speak about me. So, here was my chance to make myself heard, and hopefully give voice to people who aren’t exactly on George Will’s and Charles Krauthammer’s Christmas list.

Then I got laid off, and suddenly I couldn’t bring myself to say much about anything anymore. Suddenly, I was writing to an audience of future interviewers who I imagine to all be staid puritans. Suddenly, I faced the potential of burning bridges before I even crossed them. That’s a frightening prospect for a young man with no health insurance and a girl he wants to marry tomorrow. Before I got laid off, I could have given you dozens of things I would have liked to see printed on this page. Before I got laid off, I planned to write them with gusto. I wanted to provoke and agitate and set the message boards on fire. I wanted to point out that just as America was electing its first black President, the country’s largest state was voting to restrict the future possibilities for homosexuals. As a devoted agnostic consistently embarrassed by the more militant of my peers, I wanted to offer a less antagonistic descriptor of my spiritual point of view. As a former employee of KWQC, I could have offered a special insight into the bankruptcy of the station’s owner. But if I want to work in TV again, it just wouldn’t be prudent to talk out of school about my former employer.

Now, as I examine the substantial list of topics I hoped to cover, they have all developed the whiff of imprudence in light of my employment situation. Sure, I could plug on for these next few months, but I find it slightly distasteful to give you a treatise on my charming dog (which was a genuine consideration this month) when there are things that matter deeply to me that I can’t voice for fear of the wrath of potential employers. It seems deeply disingenuous to censor myself just to fill space and see my puffy mug in the paper. Especially when others might jump at the idea of seeing their puffy mugs in the paper.

Mark Twain once called freedom of speech the privilege of the dead. He wrote: “As an active privilege, it ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences.” At this point, I’m unwilling to take the consequences. Still, I want to say thank you for reading what you have, and I hope the inheritor of this space makes better use of it than I was able to.

Sincerely,

Phil Rockwell

(Side note: The space that I was to fill was filled instead by Charles Krauthammer, one of the columnists I took a shot at in my column.)

25 Random Things

1. I get extremely uncomfortable when I’m not doing many things at once. I rarely have the focus to just read, or just watch a movie, or just write. I’m usually juggling two or three of these activities at a time. This condition has meant quite a few comments about my manners, as I don’t know how to eat dinner without a magazine or book at the table.

2. Nothing invigorates me more than stimulating conversations with/between smart people. Some favorite sources: Real Time with Bill Maher, Charlie Rose, many episodes of Dinner for Five, and the very late Siskel and Ebert.

3. I have no talent for small talk, and I’m not too concerned about it. This has ruined the occasional dinner party.

4. I have watched all five Saw movies, even though I was only mildly entertained by the first one. It’s a shameful sickness I can no better justify than Obama’s cabinet members can justify their tax evasion.

5. I tend to believe I’m the smartest guy in the room, not because I’m arrogant, but because I work at it. Most people tend to think something is smart simply because they thought it. I like to do my research, because intelligence takes effort.

6. I’m not against religion, but I’m vehemently against the type of thinking that religion enables in the masses. Bill Maher said it very well in Religulous “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who enable faith and elevate it are intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense.”

7. I have been playing video games for a quarter century, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon Especially with those little nothings called Playstation trophies out there taunting me. I’m too obsessive-compulsive about some of those evil shits. Pain’s Harder Dick’s Balls trophy made me want to throw my PS3 through a window.

8. I should have waited to buy my Wii. I never could have imagined the dearth of quality games we’d see from such a rabidly desired machine. It’s been out over two years and there are only four games that are worth a damn to me: Super Mario Galaxy, Boom Blox, Zack and Wiki, and Wii Sports. At this point I would call the Nintendo Wii the most overrated console in the history of gaming.

9. I’m a firm believer in turning off bad movies and quitting boring books. Life’s too short. TV shows get some leeway based on your history with the show, but only a reasonable amount. For example, if you’re still watching Prison Break or Heroes, I have at least two dozen shows you should be watching instead.

10. DVR and TV on DVD changed my life. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the storytelling on TV right now is exquisite. Without series on DVD I never would have seen Firefly, The Shield, Deadwood, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, Smallville, or Veronica Mars (and more that I can’t think of at the moment…Rescue Me, etc.). And I honestly believe each of those shows added to my understanding of storytelling and the power of serial television.

11. I don’t want to spend ninety minutes waiting to see a dog die. I don’t care how many people saw and loved Marley and Me, nothing breaks my heart like the idea of a beloved pet dying. Especially mine… which Marley would remind me of…. Shit. I’m going to go watch another Saw movie to calm me down.

12. I have six seasons of a science-fiction dramedy plotted in my head, but I’m still searching for the right way to get it out there. I’d love to see it in a graphic novel.

13. My three favorite writers – William Shakespeare, Joss Whedon, and Roger Ebert.

14. With few exceptions, I have no interest and/or need for DVD extras.

15. The following movie/TV moments made me weep like a girl: “Dad, want to have a catch?” – Field of Dreams. The reveal of the raptor “Laura” on Battlestar Galactica. Nearly every episode of Friday Night Lights and the first three seasons of The West Wing. When the raft sets sail in Lost’s first season. The end of the Friday Night Lights film when Tim McGraw gives his kid his State Title Ring. The last scene of the series Angel, which I consider the most perfect final scene in all of television (until The Shield). There are actually quite a few more. I don’t cry very often in ‘real life,” but there are a fair share of entertainments that can bring a tear to my eye.

16. I believe that whoever makes decisions on what gets released on Blu-Ray needs to have their head examined. The following personal favorites have not been released on Blu-Ray: Se7en, Bull Durham, Singin’ in the Rain, Out of Sight, Traffic, The Fog of War, Saving Private Ryan. The following have been released: Dude, Where’s My Car, Meet the Spartans, and three movies starring Larry the Cable Guy.

17. Your facebook photos bore me. Facebook features more people with their cheeks pressed together than a proctologist’s office. I know you’re all about that “bar camera” but could we try doing something different from time to time. And by different I’m not talking about your camera’s sepia function.

18. I hate the process of writing, but I love the rewards of having written.

19. I would like uncut versions of comedies to be outlawed, especially from Judd Apatow. All they do is add run time to movies that should have brevity on their side. If a joke is good enough to be featured, it would be in the original release.

20. The idea of Michael Phelps as spokesperson makes me laugh, and not because of his history of substance abuse (there was a DUI before the pot thing, too). It’s because he has zero charisma outside of the water and he sounds like he still has some of the pool in his mouth when he’s speaking.

21. I have not seen any of the following: Any movies featuring James Cagney or Fred Astaire, The Godfather II or III, Gone with the Wind, a full episode of Seinfeld, or anything on MTV since 2002 (Real World X).

22. My favorite thing in entertainment these days is unconventional (but not obviously so) line readings: see Robert Downey, Jr. in Zodiac for a good example (or RDJ in anything for that matter) and Ben or Juliet from Lost.

23. I hate award shows, because they’re clearly broken. The Wire, arguably the greatest American television show of all time never even got NOMINATED for a valued Emmy, and the Academy Awards routinely look quaint and silly after a few years of perspective (Shakespeare in Love beats Saving Private Ryan, Titanic beats L.A. Confidential, Forrest Gump beats Pulp Fiction AND The Shawshank Redemption, Ordinary People beat Raging Bull, Crash beats… well, anything).

24. I am never late for things and routinely early.

25. I know I am going to marry Randi Baldwin. I just hope she knows that I know.

Annual Birthday Survey — Year 29

What is your favorite word?

25: Asinine

26: Grace (as in that of a dancer)

27: Hubris

28: Affectation

29:  Ridiculous

What is your least favorite word?

25: Dude.

26: Job.

27: Lastly

28: That

29: Experience

What turns you on?

25: Intelligent conversation.

26: Grace.

27: Simplicity

28: Coming home to the girl I love.

29: The Signature Move.

What turns you off?

25: Ignorance, and indifference to one’s own ignorance.

26: Bad and/or irrational arguments.

27: Low self-esteem with a dash of desperation

28: Incongruousness

29: Desperation

What sound do you love?

25: The ticking clock theme from 24.

26: Rain with a dash of distant thunder.

27: The ambiance of an afternoon game at Wrigley Field

28: Buzz’s stretch/wine/yawn noise.

29: The ceiling fan

What sound do you hate?

25: My dog, Scamp, barking at the raccoons at three in the morning.

26: Wire hangers scraping against the metal crossbeam in my mother’s fabric room.

27: The unwanted cheerleading of an inept weekend producer.

28: Any sound that signifies that your computer did not like what you just did.

29: The closet doors in our bedroom make the most awful grinding noise I’ve ever heard.

What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?

25: Chicago Cubs’ play-by-play man. I’d say starting pitcher, but who are we kidding?

26: Well, being that I’m unemployed, I can pick anything here. Dramatic television writer.

27: Sportscaster.

28: Screenwriter.

29: Screenwriter.

What profession, other than yours, would you not like to participate in?

25: Anything involving tips. Never again.

26: We’re gonna stick with last year’s on that one.

27: TV Reporter

28: Anything under a floundering coropration.

29: At this point, I can’t afford to be picky.

What is your favorite curse word?

25: Bullshit or horseshit. Any word involving animal excrement I find quite delightful.

26: Bollocks.

27: Fuck

28: Sonofabitch.

29: Bugger.

Finally, if heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

“I suppose I have some explaining to do.” Five years running.

The Scourge of Big Words

It was a typical day at the television station, and I was meeting with my news director for the ritual proofing of the day’s news promotions. The news promos were my primary duty, and for the first time in my life, I was getting paid to write. Having called myself a writer since I was twelve, it was refreshing to say it professionally rather than as some quixotic pronouncement. It’s only true if you get paid for it.

“Ugh,” my news director grumbled, scratching her pen across my copy as if it were a lottery ticket she already knew was a loser. “You and your big words.”

The offending word was thoroughfare. Yes, street could have worked (and did eventually replace my choice), but I chose thoroughfare for its rhythm and flavor. Sadly, big words were theoretically anathema to the station mantra of clear, to-the-point and easy to understand. In the eyes of my news director, thoroughfare would cost us viewers. I like to think that it wouldn’t have had any effect on our viewership, or that maybe it would have even caused a few people to tune in to find out what this exotic “thoroughfare” thing was.

As a lover of language, the world of television news writing was not for me. Aside from the occasional articulate commentary from some of the national cable news figures, news writing is intentionally clinical and simplistic. In fact, I envy my fellow producers’ abilities, many of them exceptionally intelligent writers, to limit themselves for their chosen profession. My heart broke a little each time I was told to dumb down my copy for the sake of the viewing public.

But simple language is not exclusive to television news. Thanks to the internet and cheap text plans, an entire generation has begun using punctuation exclusively for emoticons and trading an extensive vocabulary for a catalogue of insipid acronyms. Cheaply produced reality shows are forcing incredible, literate writers like Aaron Sorkin off the airwaves. And our most recent commander-in-chief made his uninspired speeches memorable only through his unique issues with proper definitions, pronunciations, or syntax.

Where did this disregard, or at least disinterest, in our language begin? Part of me blames schools. This is not quite what it seems. I come from a family of teachers, and I admire them more than any other public servant. But as much as I worship their highly undervalued and mistreated profession, I am not as faithful to the sacred cows of English and literature classes.

There’s been an increasingly mournful chorus from the adult population as our children’s eyes have been stolen away from the wonders of literature by movies, television, video games and the internet. Unfortunately, the sales pitch we’re giving for books gets weaker with every passing year as the standard tomes become less and less relevant to the American youth.

The label “classic” is interesting to examine. In my lifetime I’ve heard the term christened on such disparate works as King Lear and Tommy Boy. It’s been treated so cavalierly in its history that it’s virtually meaningless (sorry, Tommy Boy). But I can guarantee that when a teacher hands a student a book as an assignment, the label is implied. If these “classics”, representatives of the best the written word has to offer, don’t live up to their status, what motivation will students have to explore other options outside of school?

There’s an incredible power in the choices teachers and administrators make in their classrooms. Not only do they infer that the books they assign are masterworks, but there’s also the suggestion that there is some sort of failing on the students’ parts if they can’t find something of value in what they’ve read. It takes incredible courage to stand up to a teacher and say, “This has nothing to offer me.” I went through this trial twice: once with literature in high school and then again in film school. As a student, one is told what’s great, and it’s a failing on our part if we cannot recognize the brilliance of one work or the other. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I had the courage to say, “The Scarlet Letter is worthless” or “2001: A Space Odyssey is a good reason to take a nap.” Right now, my girlfriend, an exhausting bookworm, is struggling to get through Huck Finn, one of my favorite books, and one on many high schools’ reading lists.

The love of reading and the love of language are largely reinforced along extremely rigid lines in our schools. When I was in grade school my mother had several parent-teacher conferences because of what I chose to read in school. It was personally rewarding to be allowed to read Stephen King by my parents, but it was a minor scandal in the eyes of my teachers. Then there were the comics – Marvel, DC, and reprints of the old EC horror comics (comics that suffered from mass book burnings across the US in the 1950’s). I couldn’t be relied upon for Sunday school attendance, but you could be sure I wouldn’t miss the weekly sojourn to Tim’s Corner, a comic book store in Rock Island. I was a weapon of mass consumption when it came to comics, but that was typically frowned upon by my teachers. Funny how, with few exceptions, I barely remember the reading assignments they gave me, but I can recite issue numbers of comic books that changed the way I viewed storytelling.

English curricula should be reexamined frequently with a simple question in mind: “What will this teach our kids?” If it’s a hand full of characters and plot lines to memorize and regurgitate on the test, perhaps we can search a bit deeper or get a bit more imaginative. We want reading to be a continuous, substantive contribution to our children’s lives, not a mechanism for rote memorization they will dismiss outside of the classroom.

Most importantly, we should not dismiss those books and media that our youth have embraced. I wouldn’t mind a little literature-based rebellion in this country. While I don’t think Twilight or Harry Potter are going to cut it, I would encourage our youth to unite behind some book or graphic novel that gets their parents and teachers in a huff. I’d love to see some of the magnificent rhyming schemes of rap artists put along side “classic” poets. It’ll expand our horizons as adults and give us a window to the younger generations. Everybody wins.

I know how hard it is to change what we’ve been doing for so long. However, nothing bothers me more than a book remaining a classic for no other reason than it was called a classic yesterday. Everything is worth another look. If a book is worth revisiting, the second look might be enjoyable. If it’s not, perhaps we should look in an unexpected direction.

How wonderful would it be to live in a country where American Gladiators wasn’t putting Aaron Sorkin out of work, where our President’s speeches were profound, articulate, and inspiring, or where I was free to use “thoroughfare” in a television ad without being chastised for my use of “big words?” It’s time to take a long, hard look at those sacred cows we’ve returned to so tirelessly over the years.

I’ll happily volunteer to host the first The Scarlet Letter barbeque.

After Iraq

Three years ago, Thanksgiving took an ironic turn that forever changed the way my family views the holiday season. On the day we were to give thanks for the many blessings that had befallen us, we put my brother on a plane for Iraq. As we watched him take the long walk to his plane, we were all keenly aware that that moment would define everything before and everything that followed.

Life would now be defined as Before Iraq and After Iraq.

The period After Iraq officially began on June 6, 2006 when a massive IED erupted through my brother’s Humvee. Shrapnel from the blast severed a major nerve in his leg, permanently paralyzing everything below his knee. Though it seems impossibly naïve, this was one scenario my family and I hadn’t paid much mind. Stubbornly attached to the most extreme of possibilities – death and complete invincibility – we had glossed over the very real threat of permanent injury.

Following that unpredictable event, the epilogue of my brother’s Iraq story has been similarly unexpected.

Each day of my brother’s tour hummed with a bewildering urgency. As my family and I went about those most mundane of activities – family dinners, paperwork, pumping gas – the subconscious awareness of my brother’s peril pulsed through us. Bizarre correlations began to develop. While my brother’s fears involved long stretches of road and bullets snapping by his ear, those of us on the home front were finding anxiety in loaves of bread and the sound of crickets. The Hum (as my family came to call it) merged the harmless with the threatening.

For most of my family, The Hum faded away when my brother returned to the States. Some of us haven’t been able to shake it. Our personal barometer permanently zeroed itself on the Iraq level of intensity and anxiety. So, even as I see my brother standing before me, it feels like something’s buzzing just around the corner.

While there were plenty of people as emotionally engaged as I was during my brother’s deployment, nobody was as practically engaged. Sharing frequent instant message conversations and screening dozens of e-mails, I got the must brutal, heart-breaking details of his daily life. I then disseminated the information on a blog I set up for friends and family.

That blog epitomizes my flawed expectations for life After Iraq. When my brother was deployed I posted at least once a day, sometimes several times. Looking back I’m astonished at the record we have of that period in our lives. Everyone was engaged. Everyone was involved. Every day had meaning. Since my brother’s return, my writing has fallen off precipitously. I thought the well of emotion and experience and education of our Iraq days would fuel an already politically astute and involved family for a long while. In truth, my brother’s survival eclipsed the furor that had been boiling for those months he was away. We nearly lost Andrew before we got him back, and even though we believe full-heartedly that the soldiers deserve our praise and passion, continuing my rhetoric seemed to be tempting fate. I had my brother back. We had dodged a bullet. We weren’t going to look back to see the next shot coming.

I’ve felt a sincere guilt letting the Iraq War dissolve into the background of my consciousness when it played so large a part of my family’s story, but I’m not alone in turning away from the conflict. The Project for Excellence in Journalism showed the Iraq conflict fell from 24 percent of cable network’s news coverage to one percent in the past two years. After the Iraq conflict ushered in a major political shift in the 2006 election, it was almost an afterthought in our Presidential election following the collapse of the economy. Why the dramatic drop-off in such a short time?

I can’t speak for the press, or the public as a whole, but for my family Iraq just became too awful to look at. My unfavorable view of the conflict only magnified after my brother’s experiences. Though my animus for the war in Iraq developed because it threatened to take my brother away, my present silence on the war now centers on the impossible position our nation has been put into.

Despite the bombast of our political pundits, withdrawing from Iraq will have grave consequences for Iraq and our nation. However, the conflict is also putting an unbearable strain on our military that hinders our ability to protect our nation from emerging threats. And unfortunately, politicians and the media have combined to make one of the most complicated military, as well as sociological, undertakings in this country’s history into a battle of slogans and buzzwords.

People think themselves real Americans for giving lip service to our troops and slapping a yellow ribbon on their bumper. That’s the least you can do for the men and women in Iraq. But the secret I learned during my brother’s deployment — and the secret that has paralyzed me since his return — is that’s just about the most you can do, too.

The Iraq conflict makes families feel utterly helpless. Families like mine that were so deeply involved in every daily turn of the war can’t help but shake their heads and look away when troubling news arrives from the Middle East. The war has even managed to paralyze our governing bodies. Though my family voted en masse for Barack Obama, we don’t cling to any delusions that he can successfully maneuver us out of the position we have put ourselves in. We’re hopeful, but we’re also realistic.

Iraq is more complicated than most of us either understand, or are willing to admit, and one has to search shamefully hard for those who can speak intelligently on the subject. And sadly, I think the majority of Americans would rather stick to their yellow ribbons and bumper sticker slogans than hear about the grave realities of Iraq. We have enough cognitive dissonance in our lives already.

There are no good answers to this conflict, and the suggestions that we should be listening to are longer than a fifteen second sound bite. The answers are better than “stay the course” and more nuanced than “bring the troops home.” They’re all hard, and they’re all costly, but the men and women who are fighting over there deserve better than what we’ve given them lately. When I start hearing decision-makers in Washington addressing Iraq like adults, and not like sparring cheerleaders, maybe I’ll become engaged again. Until then, it’s just too hard to watch.

Be More Selfish. Vote.

My generation and the ones on its coattails do not have the greatest of reputation among our fellow Americans. We’re commonly seen as shallow, narcissistic, celebrity-obsessed and selfish brats who are more concerned with the latest inaction on The Hills than the action on Capitol Hill. But next week this country will witness the most important election in most of our lifetimes, and the younger generations have a whole lot at stake.

It seems every election there’s an enormous push to get young people out to vote. Most of them are focused on celebrities imploring us that it’s our civic duty, that we must be heard, that we’re the ones who will lead the world in the coming decades.

If you say so, P Diddy.

None of these efforts have had much of an effect on youth turn-out. Unless the

US government starts allowing us to vote from our Facebook pages or via YouTube video, many of us just aren’t going to bother. And this election, above all others, it’s essential that we do. So, forget the celebrities telling you this is your civic duty. Forget needing to be heard. That’s what your blog is for. And if you need to be told to vote, you’re not going to be changing the world any time soon, either.

So, let me offer you a different motivation, one that encourages you to embrace the more selfish traits of our generation. You need to vote in this election because the older generations are stealing your stuff, and you want it back.

It’s true. Trust me. They’re stealing from you every day. They stole over two thousand dollars from each and every one of you because a bunch of absurdly rich, old CEOs screwed up on the job. Two thousand dollars. That’s like four iPhones.

But that’s just one specific case. The truth is they’re getting so sneaky in their thievery that you probably won’t notice what they’ve stolen for years. You won’t miss it tomorrow, or even next week. But at a certain point you’re going to wonder where your ability to retire went, or where reasonable college tuitions went, or where Florida went.

In the past eight years, nearly every aspect of our country has been screwed up by the older generations. The economy. Our military. Education. Even our Constitution has been bent to curly-straw proportions. The way the Bush administration feels about your privacy they could be reading your text messages as we speak.

OMG!

And who says things can’t get worse? If I had a nickel for every time I thought that in the past eight years I could have funded the Wall Street bailout myself. And while I did help fund the bailout, I had help from all of you.

But the economy isn’t the only thing that’s crumbling. We’re stretching our environment to the breaking point, and though some of us may pass on before Florida and Manhattan get slurped up by the Atlantic, many of us will see it if we don’t start devoting some attention to our carbon emissions. And if our government would rather spend ten billion dollars a week on war than things like education, our children aren’t going to be bright enough to rescue us when we’re hoping to retire to The Keys for our twilight years.

Shoot. I forgot. The Keys are underwater.

I know you young people don’t like politics much, but most of you don’t like the dentist either. And from what I’ve seen there’s no epidemic of twenty-somethings spitting molars into their cappuccinos. So, I’m warning you, if you want to keep the stuff you have now, and still have your dreams to look to in the future, you need to vote.

Politics don’t care about you, because you don’t care about politics. But if you turn out in large numbers this election day, you may make Washington a little bit nervous the next time they want to steal from your future.

Why I’ll Never Work for WQAD

These are two write-ups I did after a supremely stupid ad campaign by WQAD, the number two station in my hometown.  One I sent in to my local paper, the other I posted on WQAD’s message board.

Why you can't believe everything you read in the paper.

One would think that a local news organization would place a high value on viewer’s trust. Sadly, at least one of the Quad City’s television stations, WQAD, proved on their Tuesday night broadcasts that they’d prefer to pull a fast one on the viewing public rather than actually expand its viewer base. Is it any wonder that they’ve been a distant number two for over two decades?

For the past few weeks, WQAD has littered local papers and airwaves with a mystery teaser promising a new member joining the channel 8 news team. The ads featured conspicuous weather-related imagery and turns-of-phrase like “weathered the storm” and “take the heat,” in addition to a reference of the mystery individual’s firing from another local station. This carefully crafted ad campaign was clearly designed to build up talk that WQAD had hired Terry Swails, who was dismissed from KWQC earlier this year. Instead, former WOC host Jim Albrecht was revealed as the mystery man, who chuckled to himself: “So you bought that Terry Swails rumor, did ya?”

Of course we did. That’s exactly what WQAD wanted. It was a rumor that was started and reinforced by the station. Apparently uncomfortable promoting their new commentator on his decades of service to the local community, they felt that a misleading campaign implying the hire of a different broadcaster would be more successful. As such they insulted both of these veteran newsmen and alienated any viewers they hoped to gain from this campaign.

As one of the individuals who was laid off from KWQC along with Terry Swails, my loyalty to the station has waned considerably, but I remain loyal to those dedicated individuals who I worked with day in, day out to serve this community. I was rooting for Terry to show up, once again, on Quad City televisions, because he deserves it after his decades of work. In a way, his appearance on WQAD would have been a vindication for those of us who were shown the door; at least we’d know one of us gets to continue serving his community like he deserved to.

So many people look foolish on the other side of this fiasco. WQAD diminished their standing as a news organization by deliberately misleading loyal and potential viewers. They made their current weather team look second-rate by promoting the possibility of a former competitor usurping their position. And by failing to promote him on his own merits, WQAD makes their new addition, Jim Albracht, look small by forcing him to deliver the punch-line for this sad joke.

The local media in the Quad Cities have taken a number of hits in the past year. Jim Albracht himself can attest to that. People like Terry Swails and I who were let go from KWQC can attest to that. Make no mistake. The local media in the Quad Cities and the Quad City community at large have lost enough due to influences outside of their control. The local news outlets are trending more and more toward profit driven corporate control and away from local ownership and local interest. The last thing we need is a local station patting itself on the back for tricking their viewing public. WQAD’s misleading campaign couldn’t be sadder after the past year at our local stations. It was deftly and purposefully executed by a station whose most valuable commodity is its community’s trust, and that trust was dismissed in favor of a cheap, one-time chuckle. We should demand better from those supplying us with our news.

FROM WQAD.COM:

How sad that WQAD can’t advertise Jim on his own merits. Instead, they have to use a deliberately deceptive ad campaign to piggy back Terry Swails’ 30 years of work on — oh that’s right — the number one station in the area to get people to tune in. Channel 8 had more religious KWQC viewers watching last night than they have EVER had, and instead of trying to expand their viewership, they went for a one-night gotcha that not only didn’t deliver what they implied in their advertising, but showed them to be a second-rate news organization with their “clever” switcheroo. What’s most amusing about this whole situation is this whole marketing campaign was based around the success of channel six. Not on Jim’s history in the community. Not on what WQAD can deliver for local news. No. The ad campaign was essentially saying that the only way WQAD can get KWQC viewers is to get one of their guys. Classy move WQAD. Enjoy that silver ratings trophy. You’ve earned it.

Mission Statement

(Transferred from www.rerunproject.wordpress.com)

Television always had its place in my youth.  I had my favorite shows that I watched religiously for the purely visceral rewards they offered children.  It started with MacGyver — a show I now find horrificly unwatchable.  I still understand why I enjoyed it, but it’s entertainment value has been greatly diminished as I have matured and television has reached a golden age of storytelling.

The last MacGyver episode I encountered was one I watched repeatedly on my extensive betamax recordings — the race episode.  This ”very special” ep featured MacGyver on a personal quest after a black friend – a proprietor of a boys and girls club – is murdered (martyred).  By the story’s end Mac has the evil culprit cornered and proceeds to shake him down.

“Why?!?  Why did you kill him?!?!?”

“Because he was black,” the villian answered.

For an eight year old, that was enough.  But twenty years later, after witnessing the brutal realism of The Wire and the dynamic multi-cultural cast of Grey’s Anatomy, MacGyver’s “very special” episode is rather quaint.

Ten years later, those of us who love TV are in the middle of a Golden Age for the medium with a number of gifted visionaries giving us deeply layered stories and richly drawn characters.  It offers the breadth of literature with the visual quality of Hollywood’s best blockbusters.  Of course, if you’re reading this, you probably know all that.  But the impetus of this site was my quest to convince somebody dear to me of its reality.

After falling in love with a smart and sassy broadcast major, I realized that an important part of our relationship would be how she reacted to my TV obsession.  I knew it was true love when we spent the first few months of our relationship catching up on Lost before it’s January premiere.  She started off willing and then became insistent that we keep plugging ahead. 

After plugging through Lost, she wanted to know what else I had.  With the writer’s strike thinning out the spring schedule with summer on its heels, my girlfriend Randi and I have started our own special TV schedule based around my massive DVD collection.  I intend to use this site to review shows I love as I watch many of them for a second and third time.  Plus, I’m sure I’ll include my girlfriend’s thoughts.  I’m always up for conversations about my favorite shows.

So here’s our tentative schedule for the week.  We’re already in full swing so I’ll have to be doing a little bit of catch-up.  But here’s what to expect.

Sunday – House, M.D.

Monday — The Wire

Tuesday – Gilmore Girls (her favorite show which I have never watched)

Wednesday — Movie Night

Thursday — The Office, Lost (New Episodes)

Friday — Battlestar Galactica

Saturday – SNL (New) + Movie Night

Once we get through those shows, new ones will take their place, and there’s a long list to get through (as you can see from my coming soon section).  Stay tuned.

The One

I’ve written a lot about love since this blog started a little over three years ago, but have only now actually experienced it for myself.  And tragically, what I’ve found is that love brings out a wealth of opportunities for cliche.  I’m going to do my best to avoid that type of nauseating narrative, but I’m not going to kid myself that I’ll be able to avoid them completely.  In fact, I’m going to start with one.

When you meet the person you’re meant to be with — you just know.  But since I’ve been skeptical about love for most of my young adult life I offer you the ten reasons why Randi Baldwin is the love of my life.

 1. This has been very hard to write.

I’ve written about many girls in the three years I’ve been a regular blogger, but none of my previous essays have been as difficult as this one.  And I know why.  The previous essays were sales jobs.  Since I had never met anybody I had genuine feelings of romantic love for, I felt a compulsion to elevate them to that level through literary self-delusion.  And I used my blog for that.  So, while I don’t mean to diminish the girls who I’ve made literary pinings for in the past, it wasn’t real.  It wasn’t even close.  What I have now is very real, and it’s why I’m very much embarassed by those old posts.  And it’s why this post makes me nervous. 

Randi deserves the best, because I love her, and she’s the only girl I’ve ever loved.  But it’s going to take more than one post to give her everything she deserves in writing.  She’ll have to be satisfied with what I can give her now, and then wait patiently for the next installment.

2. She’s the first girl I’ve ever yelled at.

It was the beginning of our relationship and Randi had suffered through a horrific trip to NYC.  She was anxious to get back, but a thick fog bank sent her plane back to Chicago.  We got on our cells to try and figure a way to get her home.  I would have driven but the fog covered most of the state of Illinois and was impossible to see through.  At her most frustrated Randi swore she was going to rent a car and drive home.  As I had nearly killed myself just driving to the airport, I got on the phone and screamed at her that she would do no such thing.  I had never yelled at anyone like that before, but Randi’s stubbornness frightened me so severely that I had no choice but to yell and make sure she heard me.  Though I might have been a little harsh.  Just thinking about it sends her into a corner to weep for several minutes.

3.  We are the eye of the storm.

Ours has been a whirlwind romance, but the whirlwind has largely come from the outside.  Here in our home, things are calm and relaxed.  It feels like we’ve been together forever.  Our future is somewhat limited at this point as we wait for Randi to finish up school, so we’ve done some things to give our parents indigestion and raised eyebrows in the meantime.  But in our house, when we’re together the biggest fight we’ve ever had was who was the better comic actor — Will Ferrell (me) or Adam Sandler (Randi).  I won. 

4.  We’re edumacated.

Every night before we turn-in we each grab a book and read till our eyelids get heavy.  It’s a simple pleasure that I’ve never shared with anyone.  And it’s a tradition that we’ll share long after my glasses get thicker than my hair.

5.  Boys v. Girls.

Our love will never end, because my mom would kill me.  For the first time ever, my mother has a worthy confidante in the war against the Rockwell Boys Club.  Not only is Randi smart, but she’s sassy and takes a great deal of pleasure in making her boyfriend squirm.  I will never win an argument again when the two of them are in the same room.  You know you’re locked in for life when Mom is telling you “Don’t screw this up.” 

6.  Independent women still need their White Knights

Randi doesn’t need me to get through the daily grind.  She’s smart, motivated, and capable.  But she still has moments when she needs a knight in shining armor.  And anybody who has followed this blog knows that all I want is to be somebody’s white knight.  I’ve helped her through some fairly intense struggles in the months we’ve been dating, and I can’t think of anything more important for me to do.  My girl is amazing and she’s only going to get better with time and experience.  So I’ll battle through anything to be able to watch her do it..

7.  Brains Without the Bark

This one hurts: Randi’s smarter than me.  She’s never had a B in her life, and she still seems to feel she’s an under-achiever.  It’s as if the only way to prove how smart she is is to be so successful in her classes that she completely destroys the meaning of grades altogether.  Thankfully, Randi is a little less politically agitated than me.  I can run my mouth off about just about anyone I disagree with, but Randi helps keep my reactionary politics in check.  We love to debate even when she doesn’t have a leg to stand on (Adam Sandler), and it’s only helped make me smarter — which is a plus (although I guess that depends on who you ask). 

8.  Wow.

No list would be complete without mentioning the thing I first noticed about her.  Randi’s smile is a mixture of mega-watt and mischevious.  It’s a beautiful smile — the kind that makes dentists pass out — but there’s something in its corners that says “I know something you don’t know.”  I never get tired of seeing her smile and since she thinks I’m really funny (we’ll call that 8a.)  so I get to see a lot of it.  In addition, she’s inspired some of the funniest one-liners I’ve ever uttered (that she’s been collecting on her facebook page).  My favorite — “It feels like I’m kissing a cyclops that I might be related to.”  Figure out what inspired that one and you win a cookie.

9.  Lost

This one goes to pure commitment.  In the first months of our relationship Randi and I watched over 60 episodes of Lost to catch up for this year’s fourth season.  She’s hooked now, but to even start down that road is a tremendous achievement.  And considering it is my other great love, it’s good that the two of them can get along (although now she’s trying to inject some chick named Gilmore into the equation).

10.  She’ll get me to do things.

This is probably the most important.  Randi and I have already begun a number of traditions and activities that I never would have done by myself.  We have 500 NY Times crossword puzzles we plan on working through (we’re on 18).  We’ve had a Wii Olympics marathon.  She’s taking up golf.  I’m taking up tennis.  We take Buzz for walks.  She cooks, I eat.  Eventually she’ll help me get back down to fighting weight.  I look at her and all I say is myself getting better.  Who wouldn’t want that? 

She just brings out the best in me.  Aside from this pathetic attempt to express my love in words, everything I do has been done better since she came along.  She pulls me out of ruts that have so often doomed my best intentions.  She’ll get me writing again.  She’ll make sure I don’t settle for less than I’m capable of.  She’s my muse.  She’s my love.  She’s my future.

 And I can’t wait for you to meet her.