NewscomaGot A Two-Pack Habit And A Motel Tan

From The Hill:

Former Democrat Joe Lieberman could cross the aisle in primetime to give a speech in support of John McCain at September’s Republican National Convention, the Hill reports. The Connecticut Independent hasn’t been tapped yet, but told reporters, “If Sen. McCain, who I support so strongly, asked me to do it, if he thinks it will help him, I will.”

I’ve never been a Lieberman fan. I’m still not.

From  Newser

Mabel’s campaign for president has been challenged by Happycat.

I’m going to let you choose. Here are Mabel’s issues.

It’s up to you. There are no superdelegates. There is only a canine or a cat that can lead our country to greatness again.

It’s up to you, my friends.

Mabel would also like to point out that HappyCat can’t spell. (It could get dirty.)

Magazines.com out of Nashville has started a new program to help soldiers serving in the military to have a little piece of home.

The Subscriptions for Soldiers program allows you to show your support for our troops by donating a magazine subscription to our deserving overseas active duty servicemen and women. We have gathered thousands of requests for magazine subscriptions from our soldiers and now we need your help!

For only $10, you can send a subscription to a soldier you know, or we can match you to one of the thousands of service members in our database.

Seems like a good program. Here’s the link to check out what they are doing in this program.

And for those members of the military on active duty:

If you are an active duty service member or want to refer this free service to an active duty service member go to Subs4ServiceMembers.com.

There you go. I can’t imagine what our soldiers are going through abroad. I can only believe that anything we can do to help them is a good thing.

Dan and I have similar experiences about the newspaper business. His candid advice is priceless in this post about five lessons about newspaper contests. His post goes into detail about these contests that we as journalists know about and have all entered. Dan says he’s done with them.

True innovation will never win awards, because there’s no contest category for something that nobody else is doing. And if you foster a culture in which awards lead to promotions and financial rewards, then asking your talented people to invest themselves in anything new is going to look like a bad deal.

And, if you were wondering, Dan got a Journalist of the Year award a couple of years back in South Carolina. He knows of what he speaks. Dan, I didn’t enter anything this year. I was too busy trying to figure out how to edit video, social media networking services and getting some sleep.

The best award I ever won was for Volunteer of the Year through the Tennessee Association of Community Action Agencies. I must say, it’s one of my favorite things ever. It had nothing to do with the day job, and for some reason that pleased me. I didn’t know I had been nominated. It was more than groovy and I was so honored I think I bawled.

Yeah, I’m a big baby although I bawled at home. Shut up.

Folks who work here are professors

Don’t replace all the knowers

with guessors

Keep’em open

they’re the ears of the town

-Tom Waits

Chez Bez, who is a Renaissance man if you didn’t know, has been talking about Record Store Day for several weeks. He mentions the time he spent at Turtle’s Music on Nolensville Road. I used to hang out there too when I live in Nashville, and even earlier than that, I can remember Big Daddy taking me to Pop Tunes in Memphis when I was a kid. I loved going to buy a “record.” And, my first record was Paul Revere and The Raiders followed by “Hey Jude” by The Beatles. Small 45’s where I had to put this plastic thing in the center so it would play on the record player.

Chez Bez says this:

With so many good music sites around, I’m probably exposed to more of it now than I was then. It’s just the social aspect of it all that I miss. I work in a hotel now and while I still talk music and bands with some friends, it’s not at the level that it was at the record shop. Back then a customer would interrupt a conversation about music to ask a question about music. Now my customers interrupt to talk about boring things like checking in. In my record store days we’d clock out and go to the Boardwalk Cafe to listen to more music and discuss it some more. Now my friends are married, moved away, or both and I just come home to read about bands on various music blogs and other sites. While blogs can be fun, they don’t quite match the experience of sharing a booth at a bar with friends while a cover band plays CCR and Mitch Ryder songs.

I found myself becoming nostalgic reading his post. Cat’s also was another haunt as well as The Great Escape, where I would take what little money I had for a new album or cassette and a book for under $5.

April 19 is Record Store Day. You may call me sentimental if you want about this ‘holiday’ because I am. Buying music has evolved where there is more access to downloading any song you want for a dollar these days, but sometimes just roaming stores would be the best timewaster I could think of. Seeing new work being released that I didn’t know about was always a surprise and a joyful one at that.

Henry Rollins said this:

“I have watched independent record stores evaporate all over America and Europe. That’s why I go into as many as I can and buy records whenever possible. If we lose the independent record store, we lose big. Every time you buy your records at one of these places, it’s a blow to the empire.”

Record stores are falling into the mist of history.

**sigh**