There are many "offensive" professions in the world. Mine is one of them. Journalists doesn't offend as many people as, say, porn stars do, but when you're producing an entire newspaper's-worth of content for the general public every day, you're bound to offend someone, somewhere on a regular basis.
For example, recently my editor wrote an editorial in which she said she was offended by Rush Limbaugh. In the course of the editorial she referred to him as a crackpot. This produced an amusing chain of letters to the editor in which people wrote that they were offended by what she wrote about being offended, then people responded that they were offended by the first peoples' letters, and yes, the most recent editorial page included people who were offended by the people who were offended by the people who were offended by my editor being offended. No joke. I'm sure it will continue for at least another week as our town sinks further and further into mutual offendedness.
We also got a lot of calls on the issue. They were angry calls where people ranted about our "liberal propoganda" against a man "you don't like because he tells the truth." I didn't mind these calls too much, because they weren't mad about anything I had done, so all I had to do was say "Mmmhmm ... Uh-huh ... I'm sorry you feel that way."
It's not that people can't get offended. But let's pick and choose what to write angry letters to the editor about. I mean, where was that level of outrage when the city spent $100,000 on an ice machine at the same time they voted to raise water rates significantly?
There are sometimes I can see peoples' point, even though they overreact. For example, when I worked for the Daily Universe I got a bunch of angry emails demanding that whoever designed the front page that day be fired. The center story was about cars and the story down the side was about someone being run over by a car on campus. The headlines were next to each other, creating an unfortunate juxtoposition that looked something like this: "Zoom zoom zoom... Pedestrian dies after being run over on campus." Unfortunate? Yes. A sick joke and a fireable offense? No. The copy editor was only looking at part of the page on the screen at a time and didn't really realize how it would come together.
People are also often offended by errors in the paper. I mean, actually offended, not just rolling their eyes. I got a letter once from a guy who was really upset by the fact that I wrote an article about drugs and spelled "heroin" as "heroine" all the way through the article. Sorry, dude. I went to BYU, okay? I didn't have a lot of practice writing about illicit drugs. At least he didn't wax on authoritatively about why my article was "bad jernolism" like someone else.
I prefer to laugh about typos. For example, recently when someone was copying and pasting an article, somewhere along the way the words "A student at..." were lost, so the lede of the article was published as "The Dalles Wahtonka High School was transported to the hospital Friday with a broken jaw." Some of our mistakes are legendary. Like the time (before I started working there) when a photo somehow got blown up inside its photo box, so a story about a city employee was accompanied by a photo of his eyebrow. You're welcome, readers, for the unexpected doses of humor we sometimes bring to your day.
Life is so much more enjoyable when you spend it laughing rather than writing flame mail.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
It's back!
Hey everyone,
As you may have noticed, I kind of gave up on this blog for a while. I was really into it, and then I got a job as the opinion editor for The BYU Daily Universe and was getting paid to write a personal column for a WAY bigger audience, so I lost interest. But I'm no longer at the DU and I'm starting to miss all of that opinionating. So I'm starting up the blog again, same as before-- random, mostly light-hearted musings on life with the occassional political statement thrown in.
The topic on my mind today is that lovely phrase "the show must go on." This afternoon, about six minutes before the matinee of the high school production Mame was slated to start, Cole called me all in a panic because he's been running the light board and neither one of his spotlighters had shown up yet. He wanted me to come and run one of the spotlights, because he didn't know what else to do, short of pulling the two spotlights next to the lightboard and running one with each hand while pushing buttons with his feet. Since I ran lights for a show once I was at least slightly better than that option. That being said, if his spotlighters hadn't shown up at the last second, it would have been a disaster, since it's kind of hard to follow an actor around with a spotlight when you've never seen the show before and have NO IDEA where they're going. It would have been exactly like the anxiety dreams I always get before a show, when I dream that I show up and they're doing a different play than the one I'd been rehearsing.
Anyways, it brought to mind a few of the funniest mishaps I've seen on and off stage:
1) When I was a chorus member/talking apple tree in Wizard of Oz, during a dress rehearsal that had an audience, Glinda asked Dorothy if she was a witch, Dorothy replied "Oh no, witches are old and ugly!" All of us Munchkins giggled, and at that point when Dorothy asked why we were laughing Glinda was supposed to say "They're laughing because I'm a witch!" Instead, she accidentally said, "They're laughing because I am ugly!" There was really no covering up that mistake.
2) Also in Wizard of Oz, one night backstage I ran into a certain red-haired chorus member who played one of the Wicked Witch's soldiers. When I whispered "What are you doing on this side of the stage, you're supposed to be walking onstage right now!" and tried to shove him toward the curtain he hissed back "I'm not wearing any pants!" I looked down, and sure enough, he wasn't. Someone had accidentally grabbed his pants during a costume change.
3) When I was the stepmother in Cinderella, the footman was trying the glass slipper on me when the heel got all caught up in my long petticoats. When one of my stepdaughters reached down and said "Here ma, that's my slipper, I'd know it anywhere," I gave an extra hard tug to free it, and all of the sudden I was watching in horror as the slipper went sailing through the air and into the orchestra pit. There was a second of silence, then Hannah said "Well ... it WAS my slipper," and then the whole audience burst out laughing while the footman calmly, and in character, went to retrieve it.
4) When Lance was in Suessical, I saw the tape of the night when Leah, who was playing the bird in love with Horton, came out with her hugely long tail and started singing about how lovely and long and voluminous it was. Right at the beginning of the song, her tail got caught on something and ripped off. Poor Leah had to sing the entire song about how long her tail was with a stump about six inches long.
5) During Sweeny Todd our lighting designer decided to reset a cue one night before the show to add more blue. Unfortunately they forgot the house lights were on while they were setting it, so that night in the middle of the most sad, emotional scene of the whole show the house lights popped on.
There have been a million other missed cues, forgotton lines, panicking over lost props or costumes, technical difficulties, set pieces breaking, actors not showing up when they were supposed to, people running off stage between scenes to throw up, things being knocked over backstage, injuries before and during shows, wardrobe malfunctions, actors tripping, etc. that I've seen over the years. A few of them the audience has noticed, but many of them were covered up by the brilliant improvisational skills of the cast and crew. And afterwards during the cast party, talking about the things that went wrong every night is always good for a laugh :)
As you may have noticed, I kind of gave up on this blog for a while. I was really into it, and then I got a job as the opinion editor for The BYU Daily Universe and was getting paid to write a personal column for a WAY bigger audience, so I lost interest. But I'm no longer at the DU and I'm starting to miss all of that opinionating. So I'm starting up the blog again, same as before-- random, mostly light-hearted musings on life with the occassional political statement thrown in.
The topic on my mind today is that lovely phrase "the show must go on." This afternoon, about six minutes before the matinee of the high school production Mame was slated to start, Cole called me all in a panic because he's been running the light board and neither one of his spotlighters had shown up yet. He wanted me to come and run one of the spotlights, because he didn't know what else to do, short of pulling the two spotlights next to the lightboard and running one with each hand while pushing buttons with his feet. Since I ran lights for a show once I was at least slightly better than that option. That being said, if his spotlighters hadn't shown up at the last second, it would have been a disaster, since it's kind of hard to follow an actor around with a spotlight when you've never seen the show before and have NO IDEA where they're going. It would have been exactly like the anxiety dreams I always get before a show, when I dream that I show up and they're doing a different play than the one I'd been rehearsing.
Anyways, it brought to mind a few of the funniest mishaps I've seen on and off stage:
1) When I was a chorus member/talking apple tree in Wizard of Oz, during a dress rehearsal that had an audience, Glinda asked Dorothy if she was a witch, Dorothy replied "Oh no, witches are old and ugly!" All of us Munchkins giggled, and at that point when Dorothy asked why we were laughing Glinda was supposed to say "They're laughing because I'm a witch!" Instead, she accidentally said, "They're laughing because I am ugly!" There was really no covering up that mistake.
2) Also in Wizard of Oz, one night backstage I ran into a certain red-haired chorus member who played one of the Wicked Witch's soldiers. When I whispered "What are you doing on this side of the stage, you're supposed to be walking onstage right now!" and tried to shove him toward the curtain he hissed back "I'm not wearing any pants!" I looked down, and sure enough, he wasn't. Someone had accidentally grabbed his pants during a costume change.
3) When I was the stepmother in Cinderella, the footman was trying the glass slipper on me when the heel got all caught up in my long petticoats. When one of my stepdaughters reached down and said "Here ma, that's my slipper, I'd know it anywhere," I gave an extra hard tug to free it, and all of the sudden I was watching in horror as the slipper went sailing through the air and into the orchestra pit. There was a second of silence, then Hannah said "Well ... it WAS my slipper," and then the whole audience burst out laughing while the footman calmly, and in character, went to retrieve it.
4) When Lance was in Suessical, I saw the tape of the night when Leah, who was playing the bird in love with Horton, came out with her hugely long tail and started singing about how lovely and long and voluminous it was. Right at the beginning of the song, her tail got caught on something and ripped off. Poor Leah had to sing the entire song about how long her tail was with a stump about six inches long.
5) During Sweeny Todd our lighting designer decided to reset a cue one night before the show to add more blue. Unfortunately they forgot the house lights were on while they were setting it, so that night in the middle of the most sad, emotional scene of the whole show the house lights popped on.
There have been a million other missed cues, forgotton lines, panicking over lost props or costumes, technical difficulties, set pieces breaking, actors not showing up when they were supposed to, people running off stage between scenes to throw up, things being knocked over backstage, injuries before and during shows, wardrobe malfunctions, actors tripping, etc. that I've seen over the years. A few of them the audience has noticed, but many of them were covered up by the brilliant improvisational skills of the cast and crew. And afterwards during the cast party, talking about the things that went wrong every night is always good for a laugh :)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Memories of 9/11
I found out about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 at the orthodontist’s office.
I was 12 at the time, and I entered the office that morning focused only on the fact that I was experiencing my last moments of braces-free teeth. In the chaos of getting my three younger brothers to school that morning, no one had turned on the morning news, and so it was the receptionist who broke the news to my mother and me.
I remember lying in the chair, trying to hear the radio announcer over the sound of the machines that were cleaning my teeth. I was allowed to watch the riveting, frightening television footage at home only briefly before I was sent back to school, and I remember walking home at the end of the day, eyes scanning the skies intently even as I told myself no terrorist would want to attack The Dalles.
It wasn’t until last summer, when I spent two months living in New York City while interning at the New York Daily News, that I realized how lucky I was to be able to tell myself that. For those of us who live in a small town on the West Coast, terrorism is something we think about occasionally, when we read the news.
In New York, it’s so much different.
On my first weekend in the city, I was in Times Square less than two hours before Faisal Shazhad attempted to detonate a car bomb on the exact intersection my friends and I had stood as we looked at the signs advertising the play The Lion King. If we had gotten there a little bit later, if the bomb had actually worked, I might be dead.
Knowing that changes you. You can’t help but be a little afraid, even if you buy into the New Yorker bravado and say you couldn’t care less that the places you work and walk and live are probably on maps in al-Qaida’s lairs. You can’t help but notice the nervous-looking man with the mysterious duffel bag standing next to you on the subway and realize how truly vulnerable your morning commute through the tunnels is.
In the week after, I practically lived in Times Square as I helped contribute to the coverage of the event.
I spent a morning interviewing and observing Duane Jackson, one of the hero street vendors who alerted police to the smoking car, as he went back to business as usual on that same street corner. I interviewed shop keepers in the surrounding blocks who had been evacuated that day and asked them if they were afraid someone would try again. I searched the streets until I found the trio of female officers who had been some of the first to respond and tried to convince them to tell their story.
I traveled to Grand Central Station, Ground Zero, the New York Stock Exchange and other targets on Shazhad’s revealed list and listened to responses from the people who worked there that ranged from, “Sometimes I look at that ceiling and think how easy it would be to bring it down on top of us,” to, “That’s just part of life here. It doesn’t bother me.”
I talked to the photographers I worked with, and some of them told me about the unforgettable moments when they rushed towards the destruction, thinking that getting some good shots of a fire at the World Trade Center was going to be just another day on the job. They live with the memories of Sept. 11 every day, not just on the anniversaries. They live with the sounds of the cries for help and the smell of burning rubble and the feel of the dust in the air, not just the images on the television.
I thought I understood what had happened when I was 12. I thought I understood even better as I got older. Now, though, the only thing I understand is that I don’t understand what it’s like to spent your life as a terrorist target.
And I’m grateful for that.
I was 12 at the time, and I entered the office that morning focused only on the fact that I was experiencing my last moments of braces-free teeth. In the chaos of getting my three younger brothers to school that morning, no one had turned on the morning news, and so it was the receptionist who broke the news to my mother and me.
I remember lying in the chair, trying to hear the radio announcer over the sound of the machines that were cleaning my teeth. I was allowed to watch the riveting, frightening television footage at home only briefly before I was sent back to school, and I remember walking home at the end of the day, eyes scanning the skies intently even as I told myself no terrorist would want to attack The Dalles.
It wasn’t until last summer, when I spent two months living in New York City while interning at the New York Daily News, that I realized how lucky I was to be able to tell myself that. For those of us who live in a small town on the West Coast, terrorism is something we think about occasionally, when we read the news.
In New York, it’s so much different.
On my first weekend in the city, I was in Times Square less than two hours before Faisal Shazhad attempted to detonate a car bomb on the exact intersection my friends and I had stood as we looked at the signs advertising the play The Lion King. If we had gotten there a little bit later, if the bomb had actually worked, I might be dead.
Knowing that changes you. You can’t help but be a little afraid, even if you buy into the New Yorker bravado and say you couldn’t care less that the places you work and walk and live are probably on maps in al-Qaida’s lairs. You can’t help but notice the nervous-looking man with the mysterious duffel bag standing next to you on the subway and realize how truly vulnerable your morning commute through the tunnels is.
In the week after, I practically lived in Times Square as I helped contribute to the coverage of the event.
I spent a morning interviewing and observing Duane Jackson, one of the hero street vendors who alerted police to the smoking car, as he went back to business as usual on that same street corner. I interviewed shop keepers in the surrounding blocks who had been evacuated that day and asked them if they were afraid someone would try again. I searched the streets until I found the trio of female officers who had been some of the first to respond and tried to convince them to tell their story.
I traveled to Grand Central Station, Ground Zero, the New York Stock Exchange and other targets on Shazhad’s revealed list and listened to responses from the people who worked there that ranged from, “Sometimes I look at that ceiling and think how easy it would be to bring it down on top of us,” to, “That’s just part of life here. It doesn’t bother me.”
I talked to the photographers I worked with, and some of them told me about the unforgettable moments when they rushed towards the destruction, thinking that getting some good shots of a fire at the World Trade Center was going to be just another day on the job. They live with the memories of Sept. 11 every day, not just on the anniversaries. They live with the sounds of the cries for help and the smell of burning rubble and the feel of the dust in the air, not just the images on the television.
I thought I understood what had happened when I was 12. I thought I understood even better as I got older. Now, though, the only thing I understand is that I don’t understand what it’s like to spent your life as a terrorist target.
And I’m grateful for that.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Big Apple
I knew living in New York would be different than living in Provo or The Dalles, but I didn't realize exactly HOW different it would be. Going from a population of less than 50,000 to living alongside 8 million people involves much more than rubbing elbows with a few extra people every day.
10 differences between New York and Provo:
1) In Provo, a furious person brought to extreme provocation may be tempted to utter phrases like "I hope you go to heck!" In New York, it's not unusual to hear a guy drop three f-bombs while describing what he had for breakfast.
2) In Provo, when you want to visit someone unannounced, you simply walk up to their apartment door and knock. In New York, the doorman blocks your way. If there is no doorman, it is probably the type of place you'll want to invest in some pepper spray and a good self defense instructor before braving the premises.
3) In Provo, you go to a nice sit down meal and get a heaping plateful of food for seven dollars. In New York, you're lucky if seven dollars will cover the busboy's tip.
4) In Provo, if you need to use the restroom, you simply enter a store/restaurant, go to the back, and enter the door marked "women." In New York, you give up all hope of ever finding a public bathroom after the first ten blocks.
5) In Provo, the morning commute entails spending fifteen minutes by yourself in an air conditioned car, complaining that you had to wait an extra five minutes at the light because of "traffic". In New York, you spend 45 minutes standing jammed between several large, often smelly people who sneeze all over you, trying to avoid catching the eye of any panhandlers, trying to make sure the people smashed against you aren't helping themselves to your wallet, and trying to figure out if the shady-looking guy next to you looks like his backpack contains any explosives.
6) In Provo, people jaywalk. In New York, people realized the only way they might possibly avoid being killed by a speeding taxi is to stay in the crosswalk while the light is green, surrounding themselves with people sturdy enough to cushion the blow.
7) In Provo, you see a policeman and think "Dang it, he's probably going to come over and write me up for throwing snowballs." In New York, you see a pair of officers and think "Oh good, maybe I won't get mugged, shot, or stabbed on this block."
8) In Provo, getting lost means having to go around the block to avoid going the wrong way on a one-way street. In New York, getting lost means getting on the wrong train and ending up in the New Jersey by mistake.
9) In Provo, when you say you think the person across the street is a terrorist, your friends laugh at you for being paranoid. In New York, they shut down six city blocks.
10) In Provo, "pests" are the few ants that make their way into your kitchen in the spring. In New York, they're rats that could eat your pet chihuahua for breakfast.
10 differences between New York and Provo:
1) In Provo, a furious person brought to extreme provocation may be tempted to utter phrases like "I hope you go to heck!" In New York, it's not unusual to hear a guy drop three f-bombs while describing what he had for breakfast.
2) In Provo, when you want to visit someone unannounced, you simply walk up to their apartment door and knock. In New York, the doorman blocks your way. If there is no doorman, it is probably the type of place you'll want to invest in some pepper spray and a good self defense instructor before braving the premises.
3) In Provo, you go to a nice sit down meal and get a heaping plateful of food for seven dollars. In New York, you're lucky if seven dollars will cover the busboy's tip.
4) In Provo, if you need to use the restroom, you simply enter a store/restaurant, go to the back, and enter the door marked "women." In New York, you give up all hope of ever finding a public bathroom after the first ten blocks.
5) In Provo, the morning commute entails spending fifteen minutes by yourself in an air conditioned car, complaining that you had to wait an extra five minutes at the light because of "traffic". In New York, you spend 45 minutes standing jammed between several large, often smelly people who sneeze all over you, trying to avoid catching the eye of any panhandlers, trying to make sure the people smashed against you aren't helping themselves to your wallet, and trying to figure out if the shady-looking guy next to you looks like his backpack contains any explosives.
6) In Provo, people jaywalk. In New York, people realized the only way they might possibly avoid being killed by a speeding taxi is to stay in the crosswalk while the light is green, surrounding themselves with people sturdy enough to cushion the blow.
7) In Provo, you see a policeman and think "Dang it, he's probably going to come over and write me up for throwing snowballs." In New York, you see a pair of officers and think "Oh good, maybe I won't get mugged, shot, or stabbed on this block."
8) In Provo, getting lost means having to go around the block to avoid going the wrong way on a one-way street. In New York, getting lost means getting on the wrong train and ending up in the New Jersey by mistake.
9) In Provo, when you say you think the person across the street is a terrorist, your friends laugh at you for being paranoid. In New York, they shut down six city blocks.
10) In Provo, "pests" are the few ants that make their way into your kitchen in the spring. In New York, they're rats that could eat your pet chihuahua for breakfast.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
I hate flying
Oops... I know it's been a while since I've posted. Everyone has probably stopped following my blog by now. Unfortunately, taking finals and putting out the last editions of the paper and moving from my apartment and getting ready for New York turned out to be a full time job for the last couple of weeks. But now I'm in New York City! I got in yesterday, after the longest red eye flight I've ever taken. I left my house at 9:00 p.m. Oregon time, and landed in New York at 2:30 p.m. NY time so jet lagged I could barely see straight. I would have gotten there sooner, but my flight got delayed. I have the worst luck with flights. I don't know why I don't just automatically schedule my flights a couple of hours early, because anywhere I'm flying to, there's guaranteed to be a blizzard or some other sort of inclement weather. So while I was stuck in the Houston airport for an extra four and a half hours, I amused myself with my standard airport pastime of watching people talk to the gate agents and wondering how they were intelligent enough to manage to book a flight in the first place. This may sound mean, but if you spent the number of days I did stranded in the Salt Lake airport two Christmases ago, you would understand. This time I saw a guy who had to have the meaning of the word "delayed" explained to him three or four times before he comprehended that the plane wasn't taking off for at least another hour due to weather problems. And then he said "Can't you just call them and tell them that it's really important for me to get there on time?" I also cannot tell you how many people I have seen throw a fit when they get to the gate ten or fifteen minutes after takeoff and realized the pilot has not held the plane for them. These people were serious. They actually thought that instead of closing the jetway and taxiing toward the runway ten minutes before takeoff, the pilot and all hundred and some passengers were still sitting there saying "Well, gee, I really hope Mr. and Mrs. Smith get here soon." And yet, their flight always leaves on time, while I get there two hours early and then get delayed another hour or two. Where's the justice in that? Waiting to get on the plane isn't really all that exciting, and then I finally get to board and I think "Woohoo! No more sitting and being bored.... oh wait, my flight is four hours long." And then I try to get a good night's sleep while sitting upright in my chair next to a complete stranger. Before I got old enough to start flying, I used to think it would be so exciting...
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Man contests
The other day one of my friends was showing me a picture of her little sister, and worrying that she is now sixteen and can date. I listened to the protectiveness in her voice, and realize that with no little sister to worry about, I am missing out on that highly protective feeling. Of course, I do have younger brothers, but I don't worry about them in quite the same way. When it comes to brothers, your biggest worry is generally that they'll live through their teenage years. Forget about someone taking advantage of them on a date, I'm more worried another guy will offer one of them $5 to chug a gallon of guacamole in a minute, or jump off the roof blindfolded, and that'll be it. Trust me, I've seen them do worse things for less money before. Usually because I was the one offering. When Lance and I were both teenagers, I managed to convince him it would be a good idea to chug a glass of vinegar-- free of charge. It was great, except for the moment when Mom and Dad walked in the door while he was throwing up in the kitchen sink. How did I do it? I invented the term "man contest." I discovered early in life, that the most reasonable guy in the world will do anything for you, if only you throw his manliness into question. This is how I persuaded my straight-A student brothers to do a multitude of unpleasant things, from lying shirtless in the snow to eating dog food (if I was mean enough, I probably could have taken that one exactly where you were thinking it was going). I made it a "man contest," and whoever did the best was the manliest of the three. It worked beautifully every time. Even once they realized what I was doing, they couldn't help themselves-- they had to give in eventually, on the off chance I really would believe they were less manly than the other two. Of course, they have other ways to determine who was the manliest, some more reasonable than others. One of their favorites is who had the most hair. I swear, a guy could walk down the street in a pink cardigan, singing "My Heart Will Go On" at the top of his lungs, and if he had enough hair on his arms they would all be saying "Man, what a stud!" The words "peach fuzz" are an insult of choice at our house, never mind that all three of my brothers can grow a five o'clock shadow before noon. The other most important determiner is the deepness of a guy's voice. If any one of my brothers had the indignity of being a tenor, I'm not sure he could ever live down the shame. I sometimes worry about how my brothers are going to react when I bring home a fiancee someday, but then I realize as long as he's got chest hair and a voice like Barry Manilow, they'll all get along just fine.
The art of procrastination
It's finals week, in case you were wondering what could possibly cause me to go so long between posts. I thought in honor of this time of year, I would write about procrastination... since that's exactly what I'm doing right now anyway. Somehow, writing a blog post seems much more appealing than writing a term paper at the moment. The reason I was so busy last week was thanks to procrastination. I seem to be a creature of habit, because I follow the exact same pattern every semester-- I start off strong, determined to get my best grades yet... then I get partway through the semester, and I wonder why I am studying when there are so many more appealing options available, such as hanging out with my friends, watching YouTube videos, or lying on my bed staring aimlessly at the ceiling while listening to Here Without You for the 100th time. Then I get to the end of the semester, realize I've got 12 weeks worth of work due tomorrow, and think "Oh... that's why." Fortunately I know I am in no way alone on this one. I always laugh when professors go over the requirements for a midterm paper two weeks before it's due, and seem surprised when no one responds after they ask "Any questions?" No one responds because it's written on every one of their faces that they plan to not even consider the paper until midnight the night before it's due. Fortunately, it's possible to get an A on a paper you finished at 3:00 a.m, because most professors at BYU have never experienced a paper written during the daytime hours and profread the next day (or at all), so they think the quality of papers they get in is our best, most polished work, and grade accordingly.
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