Bacon, The Food Of Joy
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greatcalvero's LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 2:14 pm |
My eyes. Dear God, my eyes!
So I could use this post, the first time I've posted here in a good long while, to fill you in on my life, or how things at the paper are going. To that I say, bah! So, in a series of posts, I'm going to write down my thoughts on the Star Wars Holiday Special, which I'm watching for the first time right now. I'm 30 minutes in. The pain won't stop. So far, my internal monologue while I watch has been something like this: "Oh dear Lord, make it stop, make it stop, hey Mark Hamil! Make it stop, I hate wookies so much, hey it's Art Carney! I hate George Lucas with the fire of the sun, hey it's Harvey Korman! ow ow ow owie ow!" So, like I said, I'm 30 minutes in. So far the stars of the actual movies have fared relatively well. Mark Hamil's barely in it, though his haircut looks strange. But I'm pretty sure his hair cut is to cover the scars from the bad car accident he was in between Star Wars and Empire, so I can overlook that. Harrison Ford comes out okay, too, at least so far. He's trying to transport Chewbacca to his home planet for Life Day, the Wookie version of Christmas. They run into some Imperials and spend their scenes trying to outrun/kill the evil guys (in battle footage blantly lifted from the first movie). But hey, it's new footage of Han Solo, and that means a lot. But the rest? God help me, the rest. See, Chewie's family are anxiously awaiting Papa's return for Life Day. His family includes his wife, his father and his son Lumpy. They show up around minute 4. Luke and R2 make an appearance in minute 12. What fills up the time between minute 4 and minute 12? An 8 minute scene of life in the wookie household. An 8 minute scene with no dialogue. An 8 minute scene punctuated only by Wookie grunts and whines, with no subtitles to tell you just what the hell they're grunting and whining about. I hate you, George Lucas. I hate you so much. More later. | | Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | | 10:38 am |
The first man to ever report seeing the Lizard Man (South Carolina's answer to Bigfoot) died last week in what police are saying is a drug-related shooting. Bah. It's obvious that Lizard Man came back to finish the job. | | Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | | 10:07 am |
You know...
...it'd be really easy for me to take Netflix telling me, "Jason, we think you'd enjoy Harakiri" the wrong way. | | Friday, April 3rd, 2009 | | 12:13 pm |
Ambition
When I was a little kid, I want to be a pizza maker. I worked at pizza places off and on for years when I was older. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. I've been with the newspapers for nearly three years. In the interest of keeping this pattern alive, if anyone hears of any openings for an cowboy-pirate-spaceman, let me know. | | Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 | | 6:05 pm |
| | Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | | 3:30 pm |
| | Monday, May 19th, 2008 | | 10:17 pm |
What I've been doing tonight.
Write an article, listen to the Juno soundtrack. Write an article, listen to the Juno soundtrack. Why, yes, I am a 16-year-old girl, thanks. | | Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 | | 9:38 am |
I've always been good at delegating
This Saturday, I will be attending the SC Democratic Convention as a Pickens County delegate. I've been thinking about helping out the party for awhile now, since I attended my first PC Democratic Party meeting earlier this month. Since I don't have the free time to help candidates out, or much extra money to give to the party, I thought I could at least give a some time on Saturday and be a part of the voting process. I'm excited. I get to help choose the national convention delegates. I'd love to be one myself someday, not that I'd ever have the time, or ever be selected. Oh, the Pickens County Democratic Party meets the second Saturday of every month at 8:30a.m. at Six Mile Town Hall, if anyone's interested. | | Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 | | 5:12 pm |
Funny
Today I was so busy editing the paper and putting the paper together that we forgot to put in the article that says I'm now the editor (see my last entry), the guy who puts the paper together. | | Saturday, March 29th, 2008 | | 2:37 pm |
Letter from the editor
I am now the editor of The Pickens Sentinel. I found out last Friday when my publisher, Scott, called me into his office. Since I’m kind of paranoid to begin with, I instantly thought that I was about to accused of some monumental fuck-up, fired, and lead through the streets so the crowd could laugh and point before I was executed by firing squad. Instead, I was promoted, with a nice little bump in pay and a huge amount of responsibility to go along with it. The way we’ve been working it, The Easley Progress concentrates mostly on Easley and the Sentinel focuses on the rest of the county. There’s give and take each way but those are the rough guidelines. So I’ve gone from covering a city where I have a lot of good contacts to covering a large area where I don’t know nearly as many people. But I’m excited. I think I respond well to challenges. When I first started working at the Progress, I had no newspaper experience and had to hit the ground running. It was the best education I could possibly have given myself, even though most of my articles from my first six months at the paper are pretty terrible. I’ll still be writing for the Progress and my weekly column, Scales of Truth, will continue as long as I can keep coming up with ideas for it. I’m working on an idea for a Pickens Sentinel column that I would write ever week. Speaking of columns, my friend Michael Brown has been writing a movie review column for the Progress for the past few weeks. Michael at the Movies appears every two weeks. His reviews are great, even though he’s been watching garbage as it’s garbage-movie season. I hope he gets to see something good soon. My first day up at the Sentinel is Monday. I hope it goes well. I’m a boss now, with a writing of staff of one besides me, but I’m responsible for how the paper looks, what goes where, and writing assignments. On the editorial side, I’m now the number three man, under Scott and my managing editor Ben. I’m pretty young to be an editor but I’m going to make the most of it. It’s going to be pretty awesome. Wish me luck everybody. | | Friday, February 15th, 2008 | | 2:40 pm |
...my coat of many colors, that I was so proud of....
The good thing about 15 hour Mondays: they allow you to take Fridays off. The bad thing about 15 hour Mondays: everything else. I have discovered last.fm. What a marvelous invention. Thanks to them, I am completely rocking out to Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" right now. I love this song. Stupid kids, making fun of Dolly and her homemade coat. I'm seeing Jonathan Richman in a couple of weeks. It's a damn shame that nobody seems to know who he is even though "Roadrunner" is one of the best rock songs ever. If people know him at all, it's from being the guitar-playing troubadour who pops up randomly in "There's Something About Mary". I'm interviewing author Steve Almond Monday. He'll be appearing as part of Clemson's Literary Festival next month, along with Brock Clarke, Keith Morris and Dave Eggers. Almond's probably best known for Candyfreak, his non-fiction novel about his ongoing obsession with candy, but his short story collection "The Evil B.B. Chow" and his new collection of essays "Not That You Asked" are really good as well. I'd recommend NTYA solely for his piece on Kurt Vonnegut and the piece on the fallout after Almond resigned from his teaching position at Boston College after the college invited Condoleezza Rice to be commencement speaker. I'm really looking forward to the interview. Hopefully we can run the whole piece or put it all up on the Web site. | | Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 | | 12:36 pm |
John Edwards coming to Clemson tomorrow
John Edwards will be appearing at the Military Heritage Plaza tomorrow at noon. For more information, call 656-2021or 656-1222. Since I hear about campaign appearances before a lot of people, I'm going to try to post them here when I hear about them, Democrat or Republican. I'm all about an informed electorate. I'll be covering the Edwards appearance tomorrow. I'm just happy to be covering a Democratic appearance for once. That's all too rare in Pickens County. | | Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 | | 6:19 pm |
Not resolutions...insane life goals...well, maybe one resolution...
I’ve been thinking about insane life goals lately. This is the time of year when most people are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. And I’ve got one, which I’ll list in a minute. But mostly, I’ve been thinking about the notches I want to make in the bedpost of life. Here’s a few of the things I’ve come up with. 1) Publish a book. I’m not sure what. Some days I think fiction, others non-fiction. There’s a non-fiction book I’m mulling that I think would be very popular in a regional market (specifically, NC). It would require a lot of research and interviews but hey, those are fun. I would also like to do a collection of my columns at some point, once I have enough to collect. My column turns one year old later this month. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing today. Clemson is hosting a Literary Festival in March and I’ve been looking authors and their publicists all day and emailing them for interview requests. I emailed Dave Eggers’ publicist today. The thought of interviewing someone whose first book (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) was a Pulitizer finalist makes me a little light-headed. I’ve also emailed Steve Almond (Candyfreak, which is great) and Brock Clarke (An Arsonist’s Guide to the Homes of New England). I’ll post here if any of the interviews actually happen. 2) Have a piece on This American Life. I love the show. I’d love to be on the show. 3) Publish a piece on music in No Depression. It’s a great magazine about alt-country music and if I could publish something in it, I could die with a satisfied mind, to quote a Johnny Cash song. He sang it anyway. It might be a cover. Porter Waggoner, maybe? 4) And now the resolution: I want to lose a ton of weight this year. To that end, today I bite the bullet, handed over my debit card and joined the Pickens County YMCA. I’m hoping to convince my fat ass to get of bed and go swimming tomorrow morning before work. We’ll see if that actually happens. | | Friday, December 14th, 2007 | | 4:48 pm |
Mark your calendars...
You know the problem with most Christmas music? It sucks. At the very least, it's overplayed. Starting in November, many stations alter their programming and play nothing but Christmas songs. Actually, that's not true. They play nothing but the same 30 or so Christmas songs you hear every year, over and over and over again. There's a wealth of Christmas music that never gets played, never gets heard. Until now. This Thursday at 7 p.m. Michael Brown and I will be playing many of those songs on WSBF, 88.1 Tune in or catch us online at www.wsbf.net It's gonna be good. Trust me, I wouldn't lie to you. | | Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 | | 11:22 am |
It's been a while...
I haven't posted on this thing since September. This morning, though, I thought I would share a momentous occassion in the life of any reporter: my first piece of hate mail. I got a postcard from a cowardly asshole who didn't see fit to sign his name to his attack, not only on my story but on me personally (note to anonymous jackass: I know I'm fat. I write a column about trying to lose weight every week. In every column, I mention that I'm fat.Tell me something I don't know.) Instead of calling me up or writing me about this story in a way where we could talkabout it, the moron sends me a postcard with no identifying information. My editor got one yesterday. My story was accurate and fair. If it's not as in-depth as I would have liked, that's deadlines for you. I'll post a link to the story when it goes up on our Web site. I'm not really corcerned or even surprised. My editor got one from this same person (anonymous but identical handwriting and postmark) yesterday. This person has way too much time on their hands. In other news, Michael Brown and I are doing a Christmas show on WSBF in a couple of weeks, focusing on awesome and almost completely unkown Chirstmas songs. I've been compling my playlist like crazy. There's so much that I can't play, eu to the artists being too popular. I'll post some of those songs here: Steve Earle, "Nothing But A Child" Great song. Prince, "Another Lonely Christmas" Hands down my favorite Prince song ever. | | Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | | 1:12 pm |
Bad News
This one's for the Easley folks: Mr. Oxendine died this morning. I don't know cause of death or funeral information but apparently he woke up feeling bad this morning, was taken to Oconee Memorial, and died there. A heart attack or an aneurysm is suspectd at this point. When I know more I'll post it here. He was a terrfic teacher and a wonderfully nice guy. He'd taught at Easley since 1973. Generations of EHS alumni have memories of Mr. O barking through his megaphone at them: "Hey you! Where are you supposed to be right now?" | | Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 | | 4:27 pm |
This one is also for naeelah
Hey Katie, Can you give me your email address? I want to comment on your latest post (I wrote the article about Jessie and my editor considered Cam his best friend) but I can't comment while I'm at work since my Mac is ancient and ornery. Feel free to write your email address in a spam -proof manner. | | Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 | | 5:53 pm |
This one’s for naeelah: Katie, I can’t comment on your lj at work since I work on an ancient Mac but here goes (assuming BPAL has to do with perfumes like I think it does): Smellin’ of Troy (obligatory Simpsons reference) The Perfumo Scandal Scents and Sensibility Scratch and Sniff A Series of Fortunate Scents Arrivaderci Aroma (sp?) Calvin Nostrillin (that one probably only makes to me) Sniff Tannen (Back to the Future) | | Thursday, August 16th, 2007 | | 8:54 pm |
My niece's smile...
is one of my favorite things in the world. I could watch her smile all day. This week we hired another reporter at the paper. In a strange role reversal, she's the reporter that I replaced at the paper, the one who kind of pushed to hire me. When I heard she was back on the market, I pushed to hire her. I think that between Ginny and our Pickens Sentinel editor Rita-Sue Seaborn, we're going to have a truly excellent crime beat. The crime beat is definitely my weakest area. I enjoy writing crime but I don't feel I ever made the in-roads with the local law enforcement that I've made elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I really like every police officer, Sheriff's Deputy and SLED agent I've ever come in contact with. They're all great people who do difficult jobs well. I urge everyone to check out Rita-Sue's column in The Pickens Sentinel this week. She writes about a recent trial from a police officer's perspective (she was a cop for 15 years). I think it's an excellent column. A whole crew of us Easley Progress/Pickens Sentinel people are going to Columbia Sunday to have dinner at the Governor's Mansion. It's a South Carolina Press Corp dinner. I'm assuming Gov. Sanford will be in attendance. Jason Evans, hobnobbing with the beautiful people! The hiring of a new reporter will mean some of the pressure is taken off of me. I work under the mindset that "If I don't do it, it won't get done". Which, with the other reporter concentrating 97 percent of his efforts on another paper that we publish, and my editor stuck doing layout, is largely true. This week I had roughly 15 pieces with my byline in the various papers. For one reporter, that's a lot. I love my job and I can keep up that output for now but I could really see myself getting burned out in a few years. Now, I'm in a much better place. I was at a Gresham Barrett luncheon today. He's the only Republican I could even consider ever voting for. I was listening to him speak and suddenly, the bones of a book about him were in my mind. I even came up with a great title. I have no plans to write any such thing but it was a neat little moment, thinking, "If I were to do this, this is how I would do it." I tend to milk his appearances for a lot of stories, not because I'm trying to win him more votes but because he's the only Washington politician who makes regular appearances in Easley and he speaks his mind. Thanks to him, I've gotten to write pieces on his opinion of Iraq, the Social Security nightmare, immigration, and biofuel. It's rare that a small time reporter like myself gets to tackle national issues, so I squeeze every bit that I can out of my notes when he comes to town. Another selling point: He's not quick to jump on Democrats now that they have control. The worst thing I've heard him say about them concerned the immigration bill and I've got problems with that bill myself. I do have a book in my mind. It would be a regional book that I would try to publish through a small press, a University Press maybe. Everyday, I grow a little more confident that I have what it takes to actually write the thing. I'm also considering a book of my columns at some point. But to make a book of funny weight loss columns hang together as a whole, I'd actually have to lose some weight. Which I'm having a problem with. I need to give up soda again. Maybe after my vacation. Just over a month away! Current Mood: creative | | Thursday, July 26th, 2007 | | 12:54 pm |
My wish is granted.
For the past few weeks, I’ve had the urge to see movies. I see movies almost everyday. I have netflix, after all. But I’ve been wanting to see something in the theater lately. Something that isn’t your typical summer blockbuster. I’ve been wanting to see something new, something just released, kind of underground, something that not many people know about. Something that isn’t full of cliches or scenes I’ve seen before in other movies. That’s really my only movie-watching criteria: Give me something I haven’t seen before. Anything I haven’t seen before. I’ve been thinking about going up to Asheville or down to Atlanta to check out their independent cinemas. But I can’t really afford to do that right now. Which is why I let out a squeal of joy when I found out that Rescue Dawn is opening in Greenville tomorrow. Rescue Dawn is the latest from Werner Herzog, one of my favorite directors on the planet. I love his films, I just plain love him. Aguirre, Wrath of God. Fitzcarraldo, The White Diamond, Grizzly Man: nobody makes movies like Herzog does. Rescue Dawn is the story of two pilots who escape from a POW camp. It is a narrative based on Herzog’s Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a documentary that is one of my all-time favorite movies. I’m totally going to see this Sunday. If I get off from Michael’s early enough, I’ll see it tomorrow night. There’s a movie that was shot around here that I’m dying to see: The Long Way Home: A Bigfoot Story is about, well, Bigfoot. Here’s the myspace page: www.myspace.com/bigfootsmovie It was shot in Pickens County. It’s on dvd but the only place you can get a copy is Scatterbrains, a dive bar somewhere about Pickens, where a large part of the movie was shot. Might have to make a special trip to Scatterbrains sometime. |
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