Look! Summer's no fun

I haven't blogged in forever and a certain co-worker gave me crap for that so here is my triumphant return.

Look! It's my remaining audience.

I'm more than a year into being a professional journalist and I'm about a month and a half into being terrifically burnt-out.

Summers apparently change as you become an adult and they also change tremendously when you become a journalist for a paper with only a handful of reporters available in the newsroom.

No longer do I have time for such frivolous things like swimming or seeing the sun. 

Now, I vigilantly wait for the next drug-fueled car crash or sex scandal to write up and further coax along my budding carpal tunnel syndrome.

As such, I've become a bright, sunshiny person.

Look! Another bright sunshiny person like me.

So, here's a bright, sunshiny, list of further things I've learned about  being a journalist during this summer of my discontent.

1. A large contingent of people you regularly cover hate you. Hate you to death. 

I'm not sure I can blame them. By its nature, being in the news usually denotes talking about some sort of tense or generally uncomfortable situation. It can also denote some kind of crisis, scandal, or worse, a Crisis of Scandals.

Look! Outside the lines: classic case of a Crisis of Scandals.

If I'm regularly covering a person, I generally know what's up and don't really need to ask very many questions, especially the in-depth types. So when I talk to them and ask a few more questions than, "Are (insert number) or (insert number) participating in (insert charity fundraiser)?" people get nervous. And then probably angry when they read the article the next day.

Obviously, that goes the same for any and every criminal story I ever write because mom and pop don't generally like seeing "(insert son's name) arrested for (insert unspeakable crime)."

2. Counting calories sucks.

Although unrelated to being a journalist at first glance, one of my few pleasures when there's no spot news was breaking my unremitting stare at a computer screen by going downstairs and grabbing a Cherry Coke from the vending machine.

But since I decided to stop being fat, Coke, and those brief, blissful trips to the vending machine, have become a thing of the past.

Look! The equivalent of being on the exercise bike for seven and a half hours.

3.  Police Scanners: Your best and worst friends.

Police scanners are vital to local newspapers like The Mercury. You find out what's going on quickly and are able to get out and get real, for-live spot news that reads so much better than a press release that simplifies a building housing aliens and their dear friend Elvis Pressley exploding into a million pieces into four uninteresting lines of words.

Look! This is what comes up when you type "Elvis alien" into Google image search.

However, as great as scanners are for writing news, they have a tremendous duality. Whenever you don't want them to, whether you're working on an incredibly in-depth, intricate story, about to grab food for the first time in 12 hours, or are three minutes from finishing your shift and going home, the scanner will bark something out like "automatic weapon fire reported" or "Tyrannosaurus eating children."

Both those cases are equally likely in my book, because automatic weapons fire never is actually automatic weapons fire or anything newsworthy, just like a Tyrannosaurus will never eat a child in Boyertown.

But if I hear it, which always seems to be two minutes before my shift ends, I can't not check it out. If this is the one time that someone snapped and pulled out his AR-15 or a T-Rex went after Tommy and Sally, if I missed it, I'd pretty much have to get fired.

And so I run on those scanner calls, putting off dates, drinking with friends, sports, all of the only types of things you want to do in the summer when you're 23. And, inevitably, after digging around, it becomes nothing, it's 9:30 p.m., and I still have an hour-long drive home.

But there is that duality, like I said.

In some cases, the scanner seems to feel bad for you, so on a slow day, it'll provide you with a little comedy.

Last week, a report came in of a man who nearly crashed his motorcycle.

"The workers at the quarry say they saw him. They think he's drunk. They said he almost crashed, got off, stood on the side of the road, then performed a sobriety test on himself. Then, I guess, he got back on the bike and drove off. So, because of that performance, the workers think he's drunk."

Priceless. 

That was also the same day the scanner had a report of a domestic dispute outside of our coverage area where a man and his mother were fighting on their driveway outside. When police showed up, the two  said they were fighting because they "were trying to catch criminals."

So the scanner giveth (sometimes) and it taketh away (much more).

But, as burnt-out as I am, as much as my fingers hurt from pounding my keyboard (I really should type softer), I still like my job. It's still interesting, I still like the challenges, and I still feel proud of what I do.

I don't think that'll change, even as I bid goodbye to a lost summer.

A Late Memorial Day Post

           My family has a relatively strong history of service in the military.

My cousin Rich was a paratrooper that put in time in places he still isn’t allowed to tell us about. During a training jump, he was almost killed when an over-zealous jumpmaster pushed him out the plane’s door, causing him to tumble end over end into the sky.

            My dad joined the army in the early 70s after making a promise with God that if he were able to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, he’d join the military.

            My uncle served in the 60s, I’m not sure where, but he alluded to the distinct feeling of machine gun bullets passing over your head.

            My dad’s dad served with the Army Air Corps in the early stages of World War II with the 30^th Fighter Control Squadron as a ground radar man. He had difficulty dealing with fireworks for the rest of his life after spending a more than a few nights in slit trenches on New Guinea under Japanese artillery fire and plane bombardment.

            My great uncle, Johnny, served as the top gunner on a B-17 and was shot down over Germany, the only survivor of his plane after flak blew up the nose of their plane and their flare locker. If you look, you can still see the faint outline of his goggles around his eyes, the only place on his body unburned.

This guy drank harder and kicked more ass than anyone can ever know.

            My great-grandfather even served, not in the U.S. military, but with the Austro-Hungarian Forces in the 19^th century.

            That’s not even all of them. There are others that jumped from C-47s into France behind the beaches on D-Day, helped fight Rommel in North Africa or helped transport supplies with the Merchant Marine through the U-boat-infested Atlantic.

            As such, whenever I think about the military and the fact that I’ve never served, I get a tremendous feeling that stands somewhere between guilt and shame.

            So when I get assignments like the one I had for the Sunday before Memorial Day, I take it very seriously and gladly.

            For Memorial Day, I was assigned with a round-up article. Basically, I had to find out when and where all the parades, observances and other things associated with Memorial Day was going on.

            One such thing was a small ceremony that was to take place at a Revolutionary War soldier cemetery at 2 p.m. Sunday.

            Talking on the phone to the VFW and American Legion commanders about it, I got excited.

            “I know the place,” I’d tell them, smiling.

            I’d passed by it several times, noticing the small sign out front and the 13-starred flag. I’m something of a history geek and my awe of those that served in the military had always drawn me to the site.

            Unfortunately, I only went by when I was on assignment and busy, so I never had the time to stop and check it out.

            Now, I had the perfect excuse.

            When 1:30 rolled around Sunday afternoon, I hopped into my car and took off toward Route 23 from the office.

            It was hot, but a beautiful day and I enjoyed the drive. Sundays, as I’ve mentioned before, are slow, slow days usually, so I was happy to be out of the office with a nice little assignment.

            Eventually, I got out to the cemetery but thought it a little strange that no one was there. I was literally the only person at the site.

            I was about 15 minutes early so I thought that maybe they’d still come, so I began walking around the grounds and taking notes and video.

            It was a strangely peaceful place. In front of the 22 tiny Revolution-era American flags, past a wrought-iron fence, lay Route 23, just about five yards away.

            While I was there, documenting what I found at the gravesite of men dead from a fever sweeping through their army more than two centuries ago, a roadster that looked straight out of the Great Gatsby chugged by going east.

            Just a minute later, a sleek, black Lamborghini flew by traveling west.

            I had the distinct feeling of being at a strange crossroads in time.

            After about half an hour and remaining the only living person at the site, I decided to leave.

            It felt a little sad, that people might blow off those veterans.

            “That’s kind of shitty,” I said out loud to myself.

            I got back to the office and tried to think of how I could swing the story since it was slated for A1 in the next morning’s paper.

            While doing so, I got curious and looked at my own round-up story of Memorial Day events, at the spot where I mentioned the Revolutionary War graves.

            “That’s not right,” I murmured, looking at the article. “Why would they have told me the graves were in East Coventry when they’re obviously in East Vincent?”

            Doing a quick Google search, I suddenly realized my problem.

            “Oh, f***, there’s two of them,” I groaned before grabbing up my notebook and flying out the door, headed for the Revolutionary War soldier gravesite I didn’t know about, Ellis Woods in East Coventry.

            No one had abandoned the soldiers laying in East Vincent. They’d just done a service a week or two before.

            I was able to get the story on Ellis Woods. It wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, but I really don’t mind it. It was worth getting out to both sites.

At the cemetery in East looking south, behind the flags and the low stone wall surrounding them, rolling fields, valleys and green hills, bluish in the distance, stretch out before your eyes.

It looks empty and if you squint so that the few radio antennas ahead disappear, you can see the country in the same way the 22 Continental Army soldiers there did.

            As a rule, I don’t like using the word “patriot” in my stories. In my opinion, it’s a broken word. It once truly meant something, but politicians, businesses and others have twisted it up and repurposed it for their own use far too many times.

            It’s a word that has so many latent, politicized connotations now that it’s almost worthless, in my opinion.

            Although the men at the cemetery in East Vincent were patriots in the truest, original sense of the word, I pushed that thought from my mind.

            Standing out by that cemetery, I thought of how timeless they were, regardless of the fact that they died nearly 250 years earlier.

            The nameless men there were the same as my grandfather who fought in the Pacific, same as my cousin who may or may not have been in Somalia.

They were all people that served their country in their best capacity.

And that’s a quality that I respect far too much to ascribe a broken word like “patriot” to.

On the Road

            Recently, I’ve begun reading “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac.

            Unashamedly, I’ll admit that I only began reading it because I was impressed by the trailer recently put out for the movie. Years ago, I’d thought of reading it but looked a quick summary and decided that I probably wouldn’t like that.

After seeing the trailer, I thought I should try reading it, that I was maybe missing out on something.

Two hundred-twenty pages in, I’ve found out that I was not.

 

On the Sucks

In any case, it seemed ironic that while in the midst of reading that book I found myself plodding along in the sun on the side of a road, at times seriously considering thumbing a ride.

 Like this, but not as hipster-y

Sunday, I drove in to work for my regular weekend shift and reached the Wawa where Route 100 splits with South Hanover Street in North Coventry.

Normally, on Sunday, I hit a 9 a.m. mass in West Chester, sleep for about half an hour after, then get up and dressed for my 45 minute commute to Pottstown for work at noon.

Typically, on the way, I’ll stop at Wawa to grab a lunch to eat at my desk when I come in because, hey, it’s Sunday, news rarely happens on a Sunday, and I need something to look forward to while I’m sitting at my desk working on other stories.

I call this cat, News on Sunday.

            So I grabbed my lunch and got back into my car. Turning the key, I expected to immediately be greeted by Fitz and the Tantrums.

            Instead, I was greeted by silence.

            Confused, I turned the key again.

            More silence.

            Then, I hit panic mode and turned the key, like, nine more times.

            Quickly assessing the situation, I called a few people in Pottstown looking for a jump for what I surmised was a dead battery.

            Everyone was either away or not picking up.

            After calling my parents to explain the situation, I decided, mostly influenced by a terrible anger at my car, to hoof it in to the office.
            (Though, Brandie Kessler did offer a ride if I waited for her to come back from Philly for half an hour, but my pride and silent fuming did not allow that.)

            Almost immediately on my trek, I noticed a sign that informed me that Pottstown was three miles away. Smiling grimly, I re-shouldered my bag, which now contained my lunch of two pretzels, a roast beef sandwich and an apple-watermelon Vitamin Water stuffed in next to old story clippings, and began walking.

            One thing I will say about “On the Road” is that in between his nonsense, fever-dream ramblings, Kerouac portrays how tedious and boring the act of walking along a road can be.

            So he has that going for him.

            But aside from just the tedium of walking, I didn’t mind my sojourn too much.

            Sunday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining across a relatively unclouded sky and there was a pleasant breeze that always seemed to be across my back or hair.

On top of that, North Coventry along Hanover Street is actually really pretty. There’s a lot of nice, well-kept houses that compliment some open fields or patches of woods. Driving in to work, I do notice the pretty landscape, but it’s a lot easier to notice it while you’re puttering along on your feet than when you’re zooming by at 40 mph.

What is the speed limit there? This is basically what I see when I see speed limit signs going in to work.

I’d like to thank the majority of North Coventry residents and businesses who cut their grass. That was much appreciated as I tramped through in my khakis and brown shoes not necessarily made for marching to work.

I also want to thank the municipality for the surprising amount of paved sidewalks. That’s another thing you don’t notice while driving by.

As enjoyable as the walk was, it was definitely tiring. At the beginning, after seeing I had to walk three miles, I quickly calculated how fast I could get to the office. As a freshman in high school, the last time we were forced to run the mile, I’d been the fastest in my gym class at a shade below seven minutes.

“I’ll be in town in just over half an hour,” I thought.

An hour later, I was breathing in a pungent mixture of road tar and metal as I crossed the second set of railroad tracks that cross Hanover Street, still more than a block from the office.

Once inside the newsroom, I thanked God that I’m alone there for the first few hours of my Sunday shift because I was a sweating mess and basically ripped the Vitamin Water bottle in half in my haste to drink it.

A few minutes later, while quickly reading through my article from the week before, I found a tick climbing on my pant leg.

At that point, my world of Sunday journalism had me feeling as glamorous as Cary Grant in “His Girl Friday.”

            What I don't look like every day.

            In any case, everything turned out alright. My parents got a new battery for my car and saw my office for the first time.

            But what might stick with me about my walk in was the sun turning the grass on a hillside in North Coventry almost fluorescent green and how, walking across the Hanover Street Bridge, I could actually see fish swimming in the less-than-murky water.

            They were nice little vignettes in my experience here.

            And Jack Kerouac is still terrible.

Polka, a three-legged goat and filthy, filthy rap lyrics

          My Sly Fox Brewery Goat Race coverage began with me driving and having to turn around in a senior center’s parking lot on my quest for parking. I was blaring my latest kick, Childish Gambino’s song "Bonfire," with the windows down. Several people walking into the building slowly turned around and stared at me as they obviously heard the music coming from my car, of which the lyrics are absolutely filthy.

            I knew from that moment that this would be a good day.

            After successfully finding a parking space, I walked past the Wendy’s toward the parking lot for the shopping center that Sly Fox’s brewpub stands in.

            What immediately greeted me were tables set up for beer pong and a few games of beanbags.

            Things were definitely looking up.

            In what was quickly becoming a theme of being progressively surprised with better and better things, I happened upon a stage in the middle of the lot where four men and a woman dressed in Bavarian beer hall garb cranked out polka music.

            Coming from the University of Wisconsin with the tradition of the 5^th Quarter, where polka music is featured prominently after games, I was absolutely thrilled to listen to Emil Schanta and his band for a little while.

Other traditions

            In a thoroughly good mood, I moved through the crowd to an area near the parking lot’s end that had been cordoned off for the actual racing of the goats. People were already gathered on the macadam there and on a green, wooded rise just off of the parking lot’s end.

            Because I was tasked with taking video for the event, I decided to get there before the racing started so I’d have a good position.

            That good position turned out to be standing in a bush.

If you look really hard, just a little of my elbow is visible in the one on the right.

            Firmly planted in the bush, I waited for the races to start. I’d noticed earlier while walking around that there were a lot of dogs out and about, though I’d yet to see a goat.While waiting in the bush, a fairly large dog knocked me in the back of the knee, almost causing me to fall.

            It was basically the same deal as when I, as my sisters’ older brother and rightful tormentor, will tap the back of their knee with my foot when they’re walking down the hall so that I can watch them suddenly crumple to the floor.

            Turning around to see what kind of dog it was, I found that a goat, being towed toward the starting line, was the culprit.

            It was then that I realized goats are much larger than I anticipated.

Trust me, they're big. This photo is deceptive.

            After that, the goats, generally fighting their “goat coaches” the whole way, streamed toward the line.

            It wasn’t long before the races began. I thought the goats would be sort of shooed toward the other end of the line.

            That’s not how it works.

            What I discovered is that goats do not voluntarily race.

            Instead, their “goat coaches” run ahead of them with dog leashes attached and basically lead the goats by example, prompting them to run by running themselves.

            However, some goats, maybe even most goats, still don’t want to run.

            In that case, their coaches will do everything they can to make them move, tugging on the leashes, pushing their behinds, even picking them up and running them to the line.

            One girl even tried dancing ahead of her goat.

It was slightly less sensual than this....because there was a goat there.

            As such, what I concluded is that to win a goat race, one’s goat doesn’t necessarily have to be the fastest but, actually, the most willing to run.

            Apparently, the goat most willing to run Sunday was also the most unlikely if you were to look at it.

            Peggy is missing one of her hind legs. However, Peggy was also a champion in 2011.

            Coming into the event, I figured I’d just poke around for an hour or so then leave and get done writing obituaries early for the day.

            But my enjoyment of the event as a whole deep-sixed that plan.

            And when I heard the crowd chanting Peggy’s name, I suddenly found myself invested in who was winning. Watching her green-shirted coach running in each heat, I willed him to the line, not necessarily for the goat's benefit, but because everyone around me seemed to want her to win so badly.

            For the final few races, I couldn’t even see the goats. I just watched their coaches running, the goats beneath them obscured by the crowd. I stood next to the polka stage so that I could hear the results of each heat clearly and record them.

              As such, I was standing next to the wooden case for the band’s brass instrument man. That spot smelled so much of pine wood and beer that I was transported back to the Essen Haus, a favorite bar in Madison.

             With my excitement at a pinnacle for the race and such a happy memory on my mind, I was going nowhere.

             Eventually, in a close finish, Peggy was declared the second, all-time repeat champion of the goat races. She was feted before the stage and mobbed by a crowd as if she were  Lindsay Lohan walking out of a McDonald’s.

I met her dad once. That's a different story. Back to goats...

            I didn’t stay long after the final race. I thought about buying a beer but eventually decided that if I couldn't find a manager to interview and possibly get a free one, I might as well forget it.

            All in all, I enjoyed that assignment tremendously. It seemed like a throwaway, especially since I wasn’t scheduled to write an article for it, but it was a blast. I’m already looking forward to next year.

            In the meantime, I’m hoping there’s something similar to spend a Sunday on.

            Maybe llama racing outside Craft Ale House?

            A boy can dream.

Little Talks

            Another post, another song title.

            Talking to a college friend a few nights ago, she asked me something simple: “How do you interview people? What questions do you ask them?”

            Part of the reason why I do this blog is to allow readers a glimpse into my job, how a person like me in the media works and thinks.

            This is probably as good an opportunity as ever to explain that.

            The absolute first thing that came to mind about how I interview was one word: “importance.”

            It seems no matter what my interview is for, I’m asking “How important” something is or “What’s the importance” of that.

            Those probably seem like cheap questions, but I like leading interviews off with them. The word “importance” denotes “importance,” even if my question itself is pretty dull.

            When a person hears me ask what is “important” about what they’re doing, why they’re doing something, or where they are, they think a little harder about what they’re saying, look to add some extra pertinence to their words.

            It’s cheating.

            But I don’t mind cheating.

You do what you have to do

            A tic I noticed that I have is using the phrase, “In regard to…” Whenever I try to direct an interview a certain way, it seems like those words pop out of my mouth.

It probably makes me sound like my thoughts are much more gathered than they are.

However, when interviewing people, on average, my mind is less than calm.

I’m something of a shy person, naturally. As such, walking up to or calling a person I’ve never met before in my life makes me a little nervous.

 STRANGER DANGER....and this sign is definitely a little sideways.

Because of that, when I interview someone, the words that come out of my mouth sound relatively calm, if not slightly disjointed at times.

In my mind…

...Less so.

One of the fun things about this job, though, is when you’re very knowledgeable on a subject that another knows well, too. That’s when my mind is quietest and an interview just becomes an enjoyable conversation.

Of course, however, enjoyable is not the word to describe some interviews.

There are standard questions that go with any interview certain matters, usually the types of things you’d describe as “incidents.” The list of questions takes a little while to remember, and occasionally I’ll forget to ask one or two, but the questions or their spirit change very little for “incidents.”

These usually aren’t the fun interviews, especially if you absolutely need something they absolutely don’t want to tell you.

For those cases, and many others, especially when I’m on the phone, politeness seems to go a long way.

Generally, I’m a good-natured person, I think. As such, I try to be as friendly as I can be in interviews. When you’re with someone that is smiling...

Him

...you’re going to be much more likely to speak to them than that scowling, unshaven guy.

Not him

However, I will admit, sometimes that good-naturedness runs out. I can’t stand it when a source won’t tell me something that everyone obviously already knows. I understand the people that are following the chain of command. They have to protect their jobs.

But I’m not particularly fond of those charged with spinning the news that stall or withhold information that is clear to anyone and everyone.

In one now-infamous moment, I politely thanked the P.R. person that had just blown me off, then slammed the phone and yelled something. I don’t remember exactly what I yelled, but it was completely uncensored and contained at least two f-words, one with a “mother” attached to it, and was capped with “B.S.”

Whatever it was, it was Samuel L. Jackson-esque.

Those frustrations aside, interviewing people can be fun. As I’ve already stated in an earlier blog post, people interest me. And there’s no better way to come across the idiosyncrasies of humanity than to talk with people.

I’ve talked to a fairly wide variety of people, between grieving family members of a shooting victim, lifeguards in 100 degree heat, Lindsay Lohan’s dad and national-level politicians.

My cousin’s son, Owen, who’s 8-years-old, really thinks it’s cool that I interview people for a living.

Almost every time I see him, he asks me to interview him.

I usually oblige, asking him questions like, “Why are you so short?”  and “In regard to the shirt you’re wearing, are the Phillies your favorite team?” and “What is the importance of your little brother’s birthday party?”

What made him so fascinated with my job, with interviewing people, can be traced to one moment: when I told him about the time I interviewed a handful of the Philadelphia Eagles’ cheerleaders for a feature story.

If I interviewed Ryan Howard or Jaromir Jagr, I’m not even sure if he’d be as interested.

 Maybe Spongebob, though. Maybe.

Every time I see Owen, before he asks me to interview him, he grins and asks if I’ve “talked to any cheerleaders lately.”

As such, outside of being a pro baseball player, I have an 8-year-old boy’s dream job. I don’t think that’s so bad.