Month: April 2007

Noteworthy vs Notorous

Direct quote from Linda Chavez in her April 17th opinion piece in the Albuquerque Tribune.

“We seem to be losing the ability to distinguish what is noteworthy from what is simply notorious. And in the process, we are creating greater celebrity for people who don’t deserve it.”

Linda writes a nice piece discussing the shortfalls of today’s media and I think she’s right on the mark with her comments.

Current case in point: The ongoing saga of the parentage of Anna Nicole Smith’s kid was interrupted only by the now non-stop coverage of the events in Virginia.

Tragic events. Worthy of coverage. However, this morning I heard an in detail discussion of the various mental challenges in the life of the man who did this horrible thing. I know too much! I know the kid was held in a mental health institution in 2005! I don’t need to know this!

I’m so exhausted by the media, I really am.

I took a meditation class a few years back in an attempt to get my blood pressure down. One of the first things the instructor told us was to turn off the news. Don’t read it, don’t listen, don’t watch. She told us “if there is something you need to know, you will hear about it.” So far she’s been right.

I’ve done this for quite some time. Recently I’ve been slipping back a bit. Partly because I’m doing this blog so I’m looking around for ideas. But partly because the media has become so very pervasive in everyday life. Standing at the airport waiting on my bags, I am accosted by TVs from every corner blaring CNN. In the grocery I go to they’ve now installed flat screens over the cash registers pumping out content. Ostensibly to keep me occupied while I wait? I open my (free) email to check to see if a friend has sent me a note and on the opening page there are “latest headlines”.

And don’t get me started on how the results of network competition shows are now top headline news….if I have to hear the word Sanjaya one more time…..

Update: Seems Tim Goodman, the snarky television columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle is on the same page.

Happy Anniversary!

It was one short month ago today that I began this blogtastic journey.

I can’t believe it’s *just* a month because it seems like much, much longer.

It all began on St. Paddy’s Day, March 17th with this post.

What have I learned in my 30 days as a blogger?

1) Blogging every single dingle day is a LOT harder than it looks

2) There is a great community out there of bloggers and some wildly smart people blogging some fantastically smart, wry, witty stuff. I am humbled by what’s out there.

3) I have a LOT to learn about the blogosphere, blogging and all the associated technologies. RSS feeds, vlogs and Flicker, OH MY!

4) There is such a thing as the blogger state of mind. Natalie on her kick ass blog Petroglyph Paradox nailed in perfectly in her April 14 post “Perceptions”:

“Sometimes, I wonder about the lives of my blogger buddies. I wonder how someone actually lives beyond the anecdotal words of their blog. I wonder if they experience the same smelly, downtime or wake up with a story in their head or if they too, drive down the road, see something, and then say to themselves, ‘I’m gonna blog about that.’ “

I do this all the time. See something and then think what angle I can take to blog about it. I have a tiny notebook in my purse crammed with snippets of thoughts. Many of which have made their way to these pages.

5) I have learned that I am a chicken. Only a few folks in my life know about this blog. I know soon I need to come out of the closet, so to speak, and tell my unsupportive family that despite my Clark Kent-ish day job…in reality, I’m a writer, I have a book on Amazon and I’m a blogger….and then deal with the consequences.

Baby steps.

6) My blog is just as valuable as anyone else’s blog. What I have to say matters. Even if only to me. And having the courage to put it out there actually does take courage.

7) Blogging is good therapy. Boy can I get some stuff off my chest!

8) The feeling of elation I get after completing the post for the day is as addictive (more so, actually) as any drug or drink I’ve ever known. That satisfied feeling is something I crave. (addiction number 2 is looking at the webtraffic statistics)

9) I’ve always said I work best under deadlines. Doing this every day and only missing one day which was then properly made up for and backdated has proven this to me. I thrive when I have a deadline. I do some amazing work. It’s why I kick butt at National Novel Writing Month.

10) When I set my mind to something…look out. It took mere days from deciding I wanted to do this to execution. It’s a fact of my personality I actually admire. Should serve me well in my continuing quest to be a writer that people actually pay to write.

So today is a day of celebration for me. I’ll blow out the candle on a celebratory cupcake and go nuts.

Thanks to all readers, your webtraffic brings me joy.

Sometimes quiet is ok too

Today I’m going to borrow completely from Avelino Maestas, the force behind the blog Live from Silver City.

He quoted from a post by Radley Balko on The Agitator and I’ll use the same quote here:

“When you blog every day, you sometimes feel conflicted about writing on other topics when there are breaking, overwhelming, horrible events going on in the news. Ignoring such news while writing on about other stuff seems callous. But so does commenting on an event about which you have little to say.”

The events from yesterday are too overwhelming to discuss. I have nothing profound to add that hasn’t been said in every major media outlet. I’m already tired and sad from hearing about it so much. This morning even Adam Carolla, who has a radio show that is normally a diversion for me, spent the morning talking of nothing but the events at Virginia Tech.

My input today is thus…choose to use your day and the energy of your thoughts toward love. For at the end of the day, love endures.

In a flash

You ever have one of those times in your life where you seem to be getting the same message over and over and over? As though the fates are trying to drum something into your head. As if all the kismet is just too much to take.

Yeah, I’m having one of those times in my life.

On Thursday I went to an exhibition at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. It was the Titanic exhibit with artifacts recovered from the sunken ship. Now, we all basically know the story of the Titanic, James Cameron saw to that, so I was sort of nonplussed walking into the show. They did a nice job putting together the time line of the events and using lighting and mood to bring the story together. From placing your hand on a big chunk of ice to looking up the name of a passenger they’d given to me on entry to see if they survived (she did).

It moved me deeply.

At the end there was a book for thoughts and comments. I wrote, “The fragility of life has never been more apparent.”

It put me in a mood and I thought on that topic for quite a while. I followed the Titanic exhibit by then going to “Bodies…The Exhbition”. So yeah, I had a bit of an overload of “life is fragile” and “make hay while the sun shines” that day. Sort of odd thoughts to have while in Las Vegas.

Basically I spent some time contemplating my own mortality. Is this a hazard of being mere weeks from a birthday?

On Sunday I was in a cab going to McCarran airport. The seatbelt in the cab didn’t work. I thought about how I almost never wear a seatbelt in a cab. I then thought about how that is silly. Just because the driver is on the roads for a living doesn’t make them any better driver or make the roads any safer. Thankfully we made it to the airport without incident despite my not wearing a safe belt.

I boarded a plane and arrived safely to the Oakland airport, got my bags and caught a cab home. I complimented the driver on how clean and nice his cab was. The man had a lot of pride in his car. He told me about how he’d lent the cab to a friend who had returned it dirty. It was a nice new car.

We made our way along the highway and stopped at the toll plaza on the San Mateo Bridge. We were in the far left lane. The next two lanes are FasTrak lanes (if you have a little electronic transponder you can go through without stopping and they charge your account for the toll). As we sat at a standstill, a black Mustang came whipping into the FasTrak lane. I guess he realized he didn’t have a transponder so he slammed on the brakes, threw it in reverse, got going way too fast, lost control, hit the brakes, spun backwards and slammed square into the door I was sitting next to. Demolished the door.

Surprisingly, I was fine. The cab driver commented that he saw me leaning way over. I saw the accident coming but couldn’t move over because I had a seat belt on. Now, I wouldn’t say I shouldn’t have been wearing it. I’m glad I was because I really thought we were going to be slammed into the concrete abutment next to us.

I saw that car hurtling at me and I had that, “I’m going to get really hurt” thought.

Thank whatever entity you choose that I was fine. The door buckled in but the inside panel was only partially bowed. When we came to a rest the door panel wasn’t even touching me.

And as the fear and adrenaline coursed through my veins, I got to thinking again about how things can happen in a flutter of a heartbeat. And that thought scares the shit out of me.

So I was left shaking my head when I read Jim Belshaw’s column “Don’t Forget You’re Human” from yesterday’s ABQjournal, the same day of the accident and my latest thoughts on mortality. Seems Mr. Belshaw was having the same thoughts.

To quote Mr. Belshaw, “Wear your damn seat belt”…even in a cab.

Confidential Side Note To Fate: I get it already.

The Las Vegas Paradox

Simply put, people are *so* happy to get here and *so* cranky to leave.

I just spent forty-five minutes in the security line being herded like something less than cattle and stifling the urge to moo.

Granted, it is my fault for choosing to fly home on a Sunday.

I had a brief flicker of a thought while shuffling my feet and trying to contain my crowd claustrophobia. Back in 2001 after the terrible events of 9/11, I remember the pleading from politicians, famous actors and our President to not let the terrorists win. They asked us to go about our business. They asked us to continue to fly.

I know there was a sharp downturn back then. It was all over the news. I love to travel but was disinclined to fly when just five months after that awful day I flew to San Diego, and was greeted at security by a gentleman from the National Guard with a loaded M16 and his finger on the trigger. A lot of folks were disinclined to fly that year.

Today, looking at the shoving throng trying to get through the squeeze chute with shoes off and ziplocked liquids held high, I realized that here, some six years later…they didn’t win. I can’t attribute this to some overblown notion of patriotism or the enduring spirit of Americans. I can mostly attribute it to the fact that we all love to have a good time and aren’t about to let a little (ok, really really big) kerfuffle stand in our way.

By god, those damn “evil doers” cannot take away our freedom to go to a schlocky town filled with expensive shows, tacky clothes, naked women and cheap frozen margaritas by the yard and blow all our hard earned, middle class dollars on penny slots that cost a couple bucks a pull.

They can’t stop us from dressing inappropriately, drinking too much, sleeping too late and putting “just one more” twenty into the machine because you know, just know it’s going to hit.

They can’t take away our right to have fun.

And that is the American way, now isn’t it? The freedom to have a good party.

I like it.