Saturday, February 25, 2012

Song/Video of the week

The Smithereens "A Girl Like You." The formula: A staight ahead rock song about a guy who likes a girl. The result: Success.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LwjD8z2mOg

Friday, February 24, 2012

The last of the old school editors

Mike Reliford embodied just about everything that comes to mind when you think about old school journalism.
And, when I say "old school," I don't mean men in suits and women in dresses and hats talking at the speed of light while chain smoking in a black and white film.
"Say, chief, what a scoop! Put me on it, whatta ya say?"
No. I'm talking about the guys and girls who pounded the pavement for years, worked their sources, did their research, knew about the principles and ethics of the business and worked their way up the ladder -- all while chain smoking and taking an occasional slug from the bottle.
Mike Reliford, the editor of The Independent in Ashland until his death this week at the age of 68, was old school.
He was everything you expected a newspaper editor to be. He had a gravelly yet somehow soothing voice that both boomed and cuddled at the same time. The only way I can describe it is as some sort of cross between Ed Asner and Donald Sutherland.
He had literally been through everything in the business, from winning awards for his brilliant writing, to having a gun pulled on him because of the way he covered high school sports.
Dropping Mike's name in strange company was a flip of the coin, because people were either going to embrace you and buy you a drink or chase you around the block with pitchforks and torches.
When I knew Mike, I could easily imagine him bellied up to a bar in an Old West saloon, piano plunking along, cowpokes gambling, hookers with hearts of gold swaying in their layered dresses.
Then, the saloon doors burst open, and some wild-eyed kid swaggers in, saying he's looking for Mike Reliford.
Mike would sigh, put down his drink and slowly turn around on his bar stool. He would raise his hat, make some remark about how he was getting too old for this, and then appraise the kid.
"Well, I haven't killed anyone since noon," he would say. "You look young, you sure you want to try me?"
It didn't surprise me at all that Mike really liked the HBO show "Deadwood."
I had my first meaningful encounter with Mike in 1999. I was scrambling for a journalism job but I didn't really have any experience aside from what I had to do to earn my degree. I couldn't get past the guy in front of Mike because he simply wasn't going to put up with someone who was so wet behind the ears.
I was working at a carpet store owned by some of my best friends' parents when the owner suggested I talk to Mike instead of the guy I was going through.
So I went to Mike.
He pondered my resume for a second, raised his eyebrows slightly and said "Well, shit, you've got the grades. You don't have any experience?"
"I thought I was going to go post-graduate in English," I said.
Mike offered me a deal.
"Go to the Portsmouth Daily Times," he said. "They're always hiring. Get some experience and then come back."
So I worked for five months in Portsmouth, Ohio, when I finally got the call up from the farm team to the show.
"Well, kid," Mike said in his gruff voice. "I'm going to take a shot on you."
I was 23 years old. As far as I was concerned, I had made it in journalism.
The Independent (or "Daily Independent" as it was then known) was a premier newspaper gig at that time.
Kentucky Press Association awards adorned the walls, proclamations from government officials congratulating the paper on its vigilance hung in stairwells. The staff was loaded with experience, including a writer who had been nominated for a Pulitzer for his work on a series of stories about poverty in Appalachia.
We were owned by a company called Ottaway, which, in turn, was owned by Dow Jones. So we could say with pride we were a sister paper to the Wall Street Journal.
These were people I could learn from.
And in the middle of it all was Old School Mike.
For the first couple of years he called me "cub" (a term for a rookie reporter) or "Young Ben," even though there was no old Ben at the business for comparison.
He spent a lot of time in his office, but we all relished in the times when the mood would strike him, and he would stride out to the obituary station in the fore of the room, lean his elbow on the lip of the desk and launch into a story about how he and Jim Todd (another great reporter and editor, who has since retired) would have a gun pulled on them in a bar across the river in Ironton, Ohio, because people weren't happy with one thing or another.
Mike also kept up the old school image after hours, when he would hit the bars. His favorite spot was a Mexican restaurant called "La Finca."
I remember one morning Mike showed up super early for work and asked me and another reporter if we had seen a police statement concerning a fight at the establishment.
"If you see that, it wasn't a fight. It was nothing," he said, and strode into his office.
My colleague and I exchanged confused glances. Nothing else was ever said about it.
I only went drinking with Mike once. Before I knew it, five hours had passed, I had missed an appointment and I was in trouble with my wife.
"So this is what it's like to be you, huh?" I asked Mike as I slouched out of the booth. He just chuckled.
But there was so much more to Mike Reliford than bravado and image.
He had a warm spot for the community he lived and worked in, and a soft spot for people in trouble.
His detractors, and I was among them at one time or another, called it "pity journalism."
When he would become concerned about how an article about a crime or a trial or lawsuit would affect the suspect's family, I would always say "Look, Mike, everyone has a mom or a grandmother or a brother or an uncle or somebody."
But he would always counter that they also had kids who would have to go to school and deal with their peers knowing about what their family member had done.
Sometimes we held names until we couldn't do it anymore. Sometimes we held entire stories. I remember being furious on those occasions. But, looking back, I was a cub. I didn't know better than Mike Reliford.
Mike had emphysema from the time I started at The Independent.
He would always talk about how it was going to take him down, but he did it with a smile and a laugh, almost as if he saw his fate and would deal with it when the time came. Who knows, the old gunslinger might even shoot down death.
My last years at The Independent were the worst. Mike could no longer make it up the stairs, and was operating out of an office on the first floor. He was on oxygen.
We were no longer sister to The Wall Street Journal. We had been sold in 2002 to an outfit that was no more than a holdings corporation for the Alabama State Teacher's Association retirement fund. They had no interest in us except how much cash we were generating.
For the first few years everything was fine, but then, little by little, we started losing resources. Some of our best reporters and at least one editor jumped ship.
Less people were doing more. Circulation was dropping.
We experienced a bit of a return to the golden age when two reporters who were friends of my wife joined us, and Jim Todd came back as a reporter.
But it didn't last.
I started to feel like it was time for me to go, too.
I shook Mike's hand on my last day, and thanked him for giving me the chance all those years ago, which by then had totalled nearly eight.
I thanked him one last time at his visitation.
I met up with many of my former colleagues, who remain friends to this day, at the funeral home. They said Mike continued to come into work faithfully every day, barring some trips to the hospital, until the end.
Mike Reliford had often postulated, elbow on desk, where he would end up after everything had been said and done.
As for me, I have no doubt God is tugging Mike's sleeve, asking to hear one more story.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Song/Music video of the week

I usually do this on Saturday, but I'm heading to Atlanta in the morrow so I figured I should do it now. After two weeks of pop songs, we are taking a leap in the other direction, with "Type" by Living Colour. When I first heard this band when I was a kid, I knew I wanted to learn to play music, and I knew I wouldn't be listening to the radio anymore. Put simply, this is a band made up entirely of musical badasses. From the scorching lead vocals of Cory Glover to the shredding guitar of Vernon Reid, this is one of the best hard rock bands of all time, and this is my favorite song of theirs. Enjoy responsibly. It's hooked up through Vevo, so you might have to watch an ad. Trust me, it's worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HbF3EAt3ck&ob=av2e

Thursday, February 16, 2012

The precious is lost

I lost my wedding ring on Sunday.
One minute it was on my finger, and the next time I looked at my hands, it was gone.
Somewhere between church, my car and Moe's, it dislodged itself from my finger, where it had happily sat for seven years and four months.
That's not entirely true. I did lose it once before, and when my wife and I were moving into our new house, it came tumbling out of a recliner. That was roughly seven years ago.
I have put on my wedding ring faithfully every day since then. Mostly out of love for my wife, but partly to prove to other women, yes, some one did find me attractive enough to marry me.
I take it off every night, because in the early days it would slip off in my sleep, and put it on every morning.
That's why when my wife suggested maybe I had just forgotten to put in on Sunday I knew that was not the case.
I checked anyway. The ring was not in its box. Nor was it in my car, or anywhere I searched at the church.
That left one possibility, Moe's, the restaurant where my wife and I had lunch with some friends after church.
I had already alerted the staff before I left the first time that my ring was missing and to please be on the lookout for it.
But I was so wracked with anxiety over losing it that I returned to the restaurant after exhausting other search options that same day.
"Welcome to Moe's!" came the enthusiastic shouts as I entered for the second time.
"Yeah, yeah, look, I'm not that happy right now," I thought.
There was a family seated at the booth we had previously occupied, and I politely asked them if I could unseat them and rummage around their space.
They were very understanding, and helped me look. Nothing.
The elderly group in the adjacent booth gave me a look that made it very clear they would not be getting up. It didn't really matter. The booths there are boxed in, so if it slipped below it couldn't have bounced anywhere.
I went up to the register.
"Can I go through your garbage?" I asked.
"You want some gloves?" several voices asked in unison.
"Yes, please."
So, there I was, pawing through discarded salsa, beef, guacamole, cheese and tortilla chips like a common raccoon.
Maybe the gloves made me look like some sort of CSI person of importance, but I doubt it. I certainly felt more like vermin.
It was all to no avail.
The next day my wife and I stopped by my parents' house, and I was telling my mom about losing my ring.
"You know, Benjamin, that exact same thing happened to me," she said, relaying a story about how she lost her wedding ring at the elementary school where she used to teach.
Only in her story, a kindergartner found the ring and turned it in, so she got it back.
That's great mom, so happy for you. Do you know any other ring-sniffing kids I could turn loose in a Mexican restaurant?
I'm still hoping it will turn up somewhere. A quick fitting at a local jeweler determined I had gone down an entire size since my wedding, explaining why the ring might have been loose. The price of gold has tripled since 2004, so I don't plan on buying a replacement immediately.
And, really, I don't want a replacement. I want my wedding ring. The one my wife picked out for me and has reminded me nearly every day since how lucky I am just by glancing at my left hand.
I still consider myself a lucky person, even if some bad luck hit on Sunday, and I'm still happy ... seriously.   

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Song/Video of the Week

We stay in the land of pop this week with New Order's "Regret." It is a pop song, but it's a very well-written and arranged pop song. I can relate to the lyrics in my days as an angry young man, and it still resonates to a degree. I also like the way Peter Hook plays the bass as if it is a lead guitar. This is the official video so an ad will probably pop up beforehand. It will let you skip it.

Cheers,
Ben

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgTtg9FdLAQ

Friday, February 10, 2012

Sandusky's blues

Jerry Sandusky's legal team needs to grab him by the jacket and get him to an underground bunker as quickly as they are able.
Once there, they need to pry his eyes open "Clockwork Orange" style and make him watch every media report that has aired since he was indicted on 52 counts of sexual abuse and make sure he understands that what he is going through is serious.
Then, if they're smart, they'll keep him down there until his trial.
I don't know what kind of bubble the former Penn State defensive coordinator is living in, but it must be more rose-tinted than the poppy fields in "The Wizard of Oz."
Innocent until proven guilty, sure. But you might not want to go out on your back porch and stare at kids from a local elementary school playing during recess when you've been accused of sexually assaulting 10 minors over a period of 15 years.
Sandusky had the gall to be offended that folks in his neighborhood and at the school found his behavior alarming, and told the Associated Press he feels like people have turned on him.
Yeah, people will do that when you've been indicted in connection with more than 50 sex crimes.
"I've associated with thousands of young people over the years," Sandusky said, in a very poor choice of words. "And now, all of a sudden, because of allegations and perceptions that have been tried to be created of me, now I can't take our dog on my deck and throw out biscuits to him."
It's clear that Sandusky still just doesn't get it. Throwing biscuits to his dog should be the last thing on his mind.
In a sense, it's reminiscent of the same mentality Joe Paterno had when news of the scandal broke last fall. Joe didn't seem to understand why people were mad at him for not doing more when he had been informed of Sandusky's alleged behavior.
Sure, he said he should have done more. He also said he would retire at the end of the season.
Joepa didn't realize that this was bigger than him. And Penn State canned him for it.
It was a sad end, punctuated by Paterno's recent death.
But Sandusky, too, seems to be carrying on as if he is invincible.
First he gave an interview to Bob Costas in which he got picked apart like a lame impala trying to fend off a cheetah.
Who pauses when someone asks them if they're a pedophile? Pedophiles, would be my only guess. Otherwise it's a flat and fast "no."
Now there's this stuff where he's expecting his neighbors to rally behind him and just treat him like he's part of the extended family while he's on house arrest awaiting trial.
"Now, all of a sudden, these people turn on me when they've been in my home with their kids," Sandusky said, again using very poorly chosen words. "They've attended birthday parties when they've been on that deck. When their kids have been playing in my yard. When their kids have been sled riding when they've asked to sled ride. It's difficult for me to understand."
That last bit seems rather obvious. Sandusky clearly does not understand what he is involved in. But he'd better wake the hell up.
At 68, with the charges he's facing, he is on trial for his life.
He needs to close all the shutters, bolt the doors and do some serious soul searching. He needs to realize that the days of letting kids sled in his yard are over. He needs to realize that, as an accused sex offender, he can't casually watch kids play and flip biscuits to the dog.
He needs to understand that the rest of the world, including his neighbors, now have a very different way of looking at him. This is real. This is serious.
The justice system will determine if Jerry Sandusky is guilty or not. But, in the world we live in, when charges this grave are levied in such volume, there are no more birthday parties on the deck.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Feet don't fail me now

I had always been a skinny kid. I remember being weighed at 56 pounds in the fifth-grade.
Throughout high school, a lot of sandlot football and pickup basketball kept me in good shape. That, and the three to five miles I had to run every day as part of the high school cross country team.
In college, there was no one yelling at me to run, so I didn't.
I put on some weight (probably healthy in my case), but kept it in check with intramural soccer, wallyball (intramural champs, 1996, yeah, baby) and a lot of trips to the gym for basketball.
In the summer of 1997 I went to England where you have to walk everywhere, and I came back to the States in great shape.
Then I moved off-campus.
Little by little, I started to slip.
Then I graduated and, after a bit of Hoffman-esque floating, got a job.
I was now on one of those water park slides to weight gain.
Finally, I decided to do something about it, for myself and for a new girlfriend who would eventually become my wife.
I started biking. Every day. When it got too cold for biking, I started running, something I never thought I would do again. I was back up to three miles a day.
I was inching ever closer to my college weight, when I walked into a door jamb (something, if you've read the "Kicking Glass" column I seem to have an affinity for) and broke my toe.
I should clarify, I broke one of my toes. Not everyone in Appalachia is without their full compliment of fingers, teeth and toes, people.
As far as injuries go, a broken toe really sucks. Any doctor who is not in it for the money will tell you there's nothing you can do for it except take a lot of Advil.
It's such a tiny injury, but it completely takes you out of commission. You limp around everywhere, and people you approach view you with apprehension, as if you're a shambling zombie drawing ever closer to eat their brains.
I was thrown completely out of my regimen, and, even after the toe healed, I couldn't get back into a routine.
So, I put the weight back on.
Then, I got a job out-of-town where I ate out almost every day for lunch, and, later, every night for dinner when I became a night-dwelling editor type.
Last year, I was put on a doctor's scale and couldn't believe how far out of hand things had gotten.
I was also huffing and puffing in half-court basketball games at my church that didn't involve more than four people.
Time for action.
In February, 2011, I finally started going to the gym that I had a membership at on a regular basis. I even bought a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt that was too small for me as incentive to keep moving.
I was making unbelievable progress.
I dropped 20 pounds in two months, and was within striking distance of 30. I dropped a shirt size. The Leafs shirt fit.
Then, my wife and I took a trip to Naples, Fla.
I hadn't been to a beach in years, and, even though the temperature was nice and not too hot, I forgot how close the sun is to your body in that region.
Long story short (too late, ha) I ended up with second-degree burns on my feet.
I won't describe the condition and treatment of those burns, in case you are eating.
I have broken my left arm twice, and the aforementioned toe, but I don't think anything I've experienced compares to the agony I was in from those burns.
A friend dropped by my house to see how I was doing, looked at my feet, said "Oh, gross," and snapped a picture with the camera on his phone.
I spent the next few weeks at work with bandages beneath sandals and my feet propped up on my overturned garbage can.
Eventually, things healed. But again, I found myself unwilling or unable to get back into a routine.
I didn't put too much weight back on, and kept things steady.
When we visited a friend's house recently, one of their adorable children asked me how much I weighed. I told him. He looked horrified.
"I still have a few pounds to go," I said.
"If I were you, I would lose 100 pounds," he said.
Cute kid.
After some dithering about, I finally returned to my gym.
I'm settling into a good routine, and watching my feet very carefully. I will not let them be my downfall again.
Besides, my wife and I will eventually have children, and I don't want them to have a fat dad, nor a dad who dies at 60 due to complications from diabetes, heart disease or whatever else is waiting for me if I don't right the ship.
So I am 35, and I weigh 220. Do the math and you can see where I came from. But you can also see, especially if you knew me when I was much younger, that I have a long way to go. I plan on getting there sooner rather than later.
That is, as long as my feet don't get mauled by squirrels or something.



 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Hey, you wanna? No, I'm good.

Nothing says football like an over-the-hill, fading sex symbol in gold S&M gear being hauled around by a team of androgynous dancing slaves.
After last year's Super Bowl halftime show, during which the Black-Eyed Peas shuffled around in robotic suits and a pitchy Fergie destroyed Guns 'N Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine," I didn't see how things could get any worse. I've been wrong about a lot of things.
Ever since the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" between Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, there has been an unnatural obsession over who will perform at half time of America's biggest game in its biggest sport in its biggest league. The NFL has promised to keep it clean, while the "artists" involved have tried to push the envelope, with the exception of The Who, which pulled off the trick of none of its members dying on stage during the show (I apologize, I like The Who, but they should have stopped after John Entwhistle went down)
When it was announced that Madonna (whom I've heard is on a one-woman tour going door to door trying to shock people) would be this year's entertainment, tongues began to wag in Hobbiton.
"What will she do?"
"Can she play by the NFL's strict rules, or will she rebel against them?"
"Will her clothes fall off? I hope not, 'cause she's around 50."
"Will they make a sequel to 'Desperately Seeking Susan?'"
Really, I could feel nothing but squeamishness as Madonna uneasily made her way around the stage, looking like she was about to fall (I think she might have, at one point) in thigh-high boots, and occasionally being hefted into a figure skating pose by one of her androgynous man-servants.
One might view all of this as offensive, at least on an artistic level. But the actual offensive moment, the one that is going to have the NFL tearing its hair out, didn't come from the material girl.
Instead it came from one of two female hip-hop artists flanking her, who turned to a closeup camera and said "I don't give a shit," and flipped the bird to the millions of people watching the Super Bowl at home.
This was either during, or after a marching band came on stage and the brilliantly rhyming chorus of "You wanna? Hey, hey Madonna" was repeated ad nauseam.
During this bit, Madonna grabbed some pom-poms and looked like a majorette who was back on campus for alumni day.
Then Cee Lo Green showed up, sang some of Madonna's songs better than her, and it all ended in a whoosh of smoke with Madonna being dropped into what I hope was a carbonated freezing chamber, with the message "World Peace" waving in flowing gold light on the field/stage.
"What the hell?" was all I could manage.
I don't care if there's media backlash, criticism or praise for the show. I really don't. Besides, I'm nobody. Madonna could buy and sell me 100 times over.
What I really want to know is why the Super Bowl feels like it needs an over-the-top half time show.
It's the friggin' Super Bowl.
Granted, last night's 21-17 snorer between two teams I can't stand could have used a boost. You know you've entered a weird area when a running back is trying not to score while the defense is letting him into the end zone to save some clock.
Still, if people can't go a half without something strobing in their faces, move them to Tokyo. It's seizure-lights mixed with sex 24/7 there. Where did I put those boarding passes?
Anyway, I intentionally busied myself with other stuff during half time so I wouldn't have to watch the show and get all negative. But my wife had paused the TV. Blasted DVRs.
The one positive, for me, anyway, was the ad with the dog getting in shape so he could chase the Volkswagen. Dogs always make me smile, except when they're being held by Sarah McLachlan.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

New feature: Song/video of the week.

I knew it wouldn't be long before I worked music into this somehow. I plan on putting up a song/music video every week in the hopes of generating some musical discussion, while not hammering away at people on Facebook. This particular song has been in my head all week. And though I am 35 years old, the video still disturbs me somewhat. It is Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey." Check it. (I cannot pull off that phrase)
"Cover me, darling please."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo9riZYUpTw

Thursday, February 2, 2012

One wedding and no funerals (aka The Tale of Rev. Benjamin Fields)

I'm trying to cheer an old friend up as much as possible this week, so I decided to write about a significant event in his life, and mine.
We were young and stupid. We're still stupid, but the point is, we were young.
My friend had finally decided to tie the knot.
This presented one problem. We are part of a tight-knit triumvirate, or trio for us stupid people.
I knew the wedding party would be small, and I knew one of the trio was a slight step up from me and would inevitably be the best man. So I wondered, selfishly, if I would be included.
Was I in for a surprise.
I got the call, and my friend got as far as "We were wondering if you would do us the honor of ..." when I was ready to blurt out "Yes, of course. The honor is mine, sir."
But he didn't finish the way I expected. He didn't want me in the wedding party.
"We were wondering if you would do us the honor of (wait for it) performing the ceremony?"
I was thunderstruck. Me? The same guy who this very Thursday morning was asked if I had a religious preference before a blood test and replied "Non-Unitarian?"
"We understand if you want to think about it for a while," my friend said, now back in the time when we were young and obnoxious but polite.
"I'll do it. I'm in. I am absolutely honored," I said.
"Great, you don't have to worry about anything. We'll get you ordained online and take care of all that stuff."
The papers came. I was now a reverend in the Church of New Life.
I did absolutely no research on the Church of New Life. Anyone with half a brain would have at least looked them up on Wikipedia. I didn't, and I still haven't. I don't really care in what way they differ from the multitudes of organized religion that are tearing this country apart (I play guitar every weekend in a Methodist Church, so I realize the hypocrisy of the above statement.)
My employer was slightly flabbergasted when I asked for a day off so I could go perform a wedding ceremony.
"Is this something that you do?"
"At least once," I replied.
The ceremony was winged for the most part. I knew bride and groom very well, knew that they were perfect for each other, knew they were wonderful friends and knew that the love between them was rare and special. So the words came easily.
I mainly stuck to that, with some jokes sprinkled in here and there. A transcript may be available, I know at least one of my friends was sitting in the back texting "Ben just said this" to another friend who couldn't be present.
I closed with "Now by the power vested in me, for some reason, I pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."
I signed some papers later, and it was done.
My fall from grace did not take very long.
We retired to the hotel where my friend had a room ... and enough booze to fill a hot tub.
The University of Kentucky also happened to upset No. 1 LSU in overtime in football that night. Drinking continued. There are photographs.
The phone rang. We thought it was management calling to tell us to calm down or get out. But it was the bride and groom, asking if we wanted to come down to their room for a bit.
At first I thought we might get trapped up in some weird prima nocta thing, but they wanted to give us presents, and, well, drink some more.
I realized I had hit my personal wall when I was out on a balcony pleading with my friend's ex-girlfriend not to get back together with him.
"He doesn't deserve you!" I said in the uneven, but fluent tongue of Maker's Mark. It's akin to Latin.
"I can't believe you and I are talking about this," she kept saying, equally inebriated.
I sobered up, swore I would never drink again, and drove myself and Mr. Transcript home.
I haven't performed any weddings since. I don't know if I'm still licensed.
I have had the occasional drink here and there (and everywhere) since then. I'm not going to pretend to be a saint. I'm an adult (technically) and it is my choice. It is also my responsibility not go overboard.
Bride and groom continue to live happily ever after, even though this has been a hard week for them. But I want them to know they are two of the best people on earth, and they don't deserve the sadness they're going through. It will pass. Everything does with time. At least, that's what people say.
I just want them and their family to know I will do anything to help. Whether it's transporting some one somewhere, handling some odd job, making funny faces or juggling chainsaws (which I cannot do) I'll do it.