Being that I’m on the upswing with some new things happening, I have started to pay attention a little bit more closely. Sometimes we know things are happening but there really aren’t words to express what our friends, loved ones and acquaintances are going through.

I have realized that some folks are just as bruised and wounded as I have felt. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m feeling much better but I see other people that aren’t and there are times that you can’t even see the signs.

My generation had it all layed out. We knew what we wanted and we, and here is the kicker, expected it to work out.  It has for some but not so much for others.  Loss and grief is a part of life and we are not our parents or our grandparents generation. Things have changed drastically. We used to have small networks that understood emotional things yet never spoke of them. Now we talk about them in larger networks.

We want more now but are only willing to give less. I have realized that time is not that hard to give and to arrogantly hold on to those moments selfishly only creates more walls for us personally that will eventually have to be torn down anyway.

Life is filled with moments.

• The homeless man at the Mapco at Cooper-Young in Memphis, who asked me if I’d had a nice day. He was older, his clothes frayed and a torn toboggan on his head. I stopped to give him a few minutes because he obviously just wanted to talk for a minute. He asked for nothing but a bit of time, which I had.
• The woman I have known for years who found herself at 50-years-old in an abusive relationship. I made the calls. She had never been through anything like this before. Her eyes were shell-shocked.
• The man who had been unemployed for three years who was on the verge of getting another job. I just listened. He was honest and said he felt like “damaged goods” and was afraid to get his hopes up.
• She is always angry. I have been the recipient of that deep fury on a couple of occasions. I realized that she has to be angry at someone. At times, I listen. At other times, when I am also bruised, I walk away. There are times that you just have to know your limitations.

There are storms. We get through them. The hardest part is to remember that as humans, we bruise. It’s even more difficult to remember that sometimes those bruises cannot be seen and that other people have them as well.

I’m constantly learning this lesson.

Could we get Rep. Mark Maddox or Sen. Roy Herron on this please or am I on my own?

I’m on my own I have a sad feeling.

I finally ended up at a juke joint I hadn’t been in for awhile and saw the very famous Dirk Diggler, who was looking chipper, who tried to be just another person on the list that tried to explain NASCAR to me. This list of fine, concerned folks have tried to explain this soap opera of wheels and gears to me before and I appreciated him trying to teach me, especially about some bad, intentional wreck last week but I still don’t get the allure of NASCAR, but I do enjoy people trying to educate me about it. I think that I like that best. I also don’t understand neurosurgery either, so there is that.

He had seen a statue of a monkey holding a baby monkey near a dumpster. He had deemed it close enough to be Bigfoot and decided he was going to get it for me as a gift. When he returned to pick it up, it was sadly gone.  The fact that someone was willing to dumpster dive for me to get a statue of “Bigfoot” tickled me to no end. As I haven’t been in Hoots very much recently, it was also good to see Mr. Jimmy. He didn’t look like he felt very good so I didn’t get to hear him cuss. I was admittedly somewhat disappointed because I usually learn new curse words that I try to incorporate into everyday life from him.

I heard talk of newspapers, which honestly this time, I recused myself mentally from because I don’t work for one anymore and it was of the one I used to be at. I have found that listening is better than participation because I don’t need to throw gasoline on a fire. I was too close to the situation so it’s hard for me to be unbiased. It’s taken me eight months to learn that lesson because these are my friends from there.

They are still living it. I am not.

I’ve been on the road so my time is not my own right now. I love being busy. I love meeting new people, so life is good. As I keep telling myself that it’s become a reality. I’m pleased to know that sometimes when you do indeed talk the talk, walking the walk becomes much easier.

And to all the bloggers I’ve met in the past few weeks, ones that I have known before and new ones I’ve met, thanks for keeping me sane and keeping me company.

That’s what makes this little place on the web quite wonderful. It gave me all of you.

Now, with that said because I’m going to do some self-promotion here, put Speak to Power in your RSS feeds if you are so inclined, join us on Facebook or on Twitter.

Thanks guys.

Vibinc kept the fires going over at Speak to Power and Squirrel Queen was patient because last week, and for three days this week, I didn’t even have time to think. That could be good or it could be bad, one never knows until they get the hindsight glasses on.

I find myself talking about politics a great deal, as that’s what I sorta do now, but I am having to physically and verbally set some boundaries about it because my brain gets a bit overfull.

So last night, I drowned myself in bad television, ate a bowl of tomato soup which is my comfort food and tried to heal a sore throat.

Tis my own fault as I sometimes forget to wear a jacket.

Cheetos Gazing

I’m feeling a bit disconnected with Hoots right now for the mere fact that I’m not here. When I’m here, it is usually doing some recovery time from driving, neuron malfunctions and spending time with my family. The time spent unemployed did have a positive impact where friendships were nurtured because I had the time to spend with friends without having to be confined to a schedule. Now my time is more limited and I’m having to get back in a routine of organization and structure, which isn’t always easy when you are living out of a suitcase. I have it easier that most and I don’t know how the bossman does it, but he does. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling but there are times that I just need to take out my brain, put it in the refrigerator and take a cranium break. I plan on doing that on Monday. Yes, campers, I plan for my mental health breaks these days. I know, fascinating.

Today, I head back to Memphis for the evening as I’m going to a wedding shower and SQ has a tournament game she has to attend for work. Yeppers, it’s high school tournament time again which means the Squirrel Goddess doesn’t know where she’s going to be from one game to the next. As I have barely seen her since the beginning of the year, I’m going to travel with her a bit in the next week. Work is work, but you have to concentrate on your relationships too. It’s important.

And, as I’m having to schedule myself (I am as unorganized as a squirrel who’s licked the bottom of an abandoned cooler of anhydrous for meth making) I’m having to learn to be more assertive about time, which you kinda lose when you aren’t working. I have learned that I have had to regain that ability to say Yes, No and Argh.

Anyway, it’s not too bad really because I like being busy and useful.

One good thing about Hoots is that when I returned late Thursday, I got to hear ghost stories, as you know that I love, about a local bar and grill.

There aren’t complaints here in the least, just learning new things about myself, meeting fabulous new people and trying to get through the transition that is life. Speaking of meeting amazing new people, Rep. Jeanne Richardson has given me a new addiction, which is Memphis-styled collard greens.
I could eat them everyday. Thanks Jeanne!

I think I need collard greens rehab because they are incredible.

This is that time of year I usually take a break, mentally at least. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my mom’s death. As I do every year, I’m processing it, processing my life since she left us and wondering about things like I always do.

As I’m in a bit of a writer’s block, I will tell you to go here and read what I said last year about her. I know that’s blog cheating but I just can’t bear to rip it open right now again.
So have a good weekend. Tell someone that you love how you feel out loud and be kind to one another.

The term of “if it bleeds it leads” has been on my radar since I started working in news, which initially was in radio broadcasting. People are voyeuristic by nature when it comes to devastating news. It’s been that way historically. An example would be that when we see a wreck on the interstate, cars will slow down to a crawl to see the accident. Was anyone killed? Was someone hurt?
You know where I’m going here.
News rooms in print and broadcasting has been cut so severely in recent years that beat reporting is all but gone. Yes, you still have political beat writers from all over the state at the legislature, you have business editors, because business stories can bring revenue into the industry and sports, because sports sells. Those beat reporters though of earlier days are basically nonexistent. Reporters and other newspaper personnel are handling blogs, which have created a new beat for lack of a better word, in their spare time. Smaller papers have had reporters writing about business one day, a county commission meeting the next, covering fires and local crime stories the rest of the time and then still build the paper. Believe me, I did this for years.
If we want positive news, news organizations are going to have to make a commitment to it and you will find that, in the online world at least, that people go searching for the “sexy” stories. By that I mean the ones that have a tabloid quality to it many times. I saw on Twitter on Tuesday that Austin’s newspaper website had a hell of a time handling the traffic after Joseph Stack committed what has been termed taxicide
. There is also a depression of sorts happening in this country more than just the obvious financial aspect of what is happening. It’s “easier” to look at the negative. When MSM looks at Tiger Woods as a moral barometer for a nation, it’s strange. He’s a golfer who screwed up. He didn’t apologize to the nation on Friday. He apologized to his sponsors.
In this same vein, let’s look at niche publications and websites that we find now. From parenting and society to real estate/community magazines, it’s common place to see these publications at the front of restaurants, convenience stores and the list goes on. Small audiences most likely but they are still alive and kicking and folks pick them up to read when they are having their breakfast. Print is expensive though and it will be interesting to see what happens in the next five years with them.
On a positive note though, this is a time of reinvention. SCM asks a good question that do we want more positive news? I think yes. Although the word hyperlocal is a bit too broad at times, I think you will find established news organizations taking to the blogosphere to get more news out more quickly in a local, specific environment. I believe you will find nontraditional alliances in the future between entities that you might never have thought about, working on community efforts because everything is local when it is said and done.
Yes, if it bleeds it leads, but the market is glutted right now with bad news. There are opportunities here right now, but it’s just going to take some smart folks who are willing to take a chance to find the balance between blood and victory.

Back to Memphis, I’m going to be there Monday through Wednesday. Tell me what I need to go do while I’m there because, as you know, sharing is caring.

I haven’t been talking politics much over here lately. I’m doing a new blog on Tennessee politics and progressive matters with Steffens and Ross called Speak To Power for those of you who asked. We are concentrating on Western Division politics but are also spotlighting new, and older, progressive blogs around the state. Still getting it together but we have had a real good run since we started a couple of weeks ago.

You can also follow us at Facebook and at Twitter if you are inclined.

I’ll still be doing my navel-gazing over here.

The Breakfast Club turns 25 years old today. This is the 30th year of Miracle On Ice.

After 44 years on this planet, I look at this and I guess it could give me the blues about getting older but it really doesn’t. The Breakfast Club was probably the last John Hughes film that resonated with me deeply from that era.  I’ve realized recently that we live life in chapters. Every protagonist has an antagonist and not every chapter in the book has a happy ending. If we look at the book of life, the ending is always the same.

So we live life like eating a candy bar. You don’t shove an entire Snickers bar into your mouth at once, you take bite-sized chunks off of it, you swallow it and then you take another bite. Sometimes you set it down, waiting until your ready for another bite before you gnaw off another piece. Eventually you finish the damned thing, but you know, it’s each bite that tells the story and gives you the undeniable flavor that makes you want another bite.

Maybe I’m getting used to being older. Sometimes it’s perfectly fine having the gray in my hair, but there are other times that I wonder if I could do it all over again.

I think not.