They Blew Up the Chicken Man in Philly Last Night

Congratulations once again to my beautiful wife for correctly naming "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" by the Avett Brothers as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend an Astros game with an old friend. We talked about baseball, we talked about memories, and we talked about work. My friend works in the journalism industry, and I felt compelled to ask where he thinks the print media field is going to be in 10-15 years. He said that he thought things were going to continue to move towards digital format but that if newspapers, especially local newspapers, were going to survive, they would have to offer top-notch local content that readers couldn't get from national sources such as USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

I offered my (admittedly) amateur point of view that if newspapers and magazines want to survive, they don't need to try to be the internet. They need to do what they do best, which is do top-notch, in-depth long form writing. Before you stop me and say that internet journalists can do top-notch, in-depth long form writing, I'll agree with you, but when I want to sit down and devote 15-30 minutes to reading a longer article, I want to have that article in my hands. I want to feel the paper in my hands and be able to turn the pages. Call me old-fashioned, but flicking the scroll button on a mouse is just not the same as turning a page.

Even if you know just a little bit about me, you know that I love books, but if I had to choose my favorite form of journalism, I think it would be the magazine/newspaper feature article that generally runs in the neighborhood of 7-15 pages. There's something about reading an article that feels like a short story that truly has the ability to take me inside of a subject and give me insight into a topic that I might have previously known nothing about.

Within the past year, my favorite feature article was Michael Hastings' piece on General McChrystal that appeared in Rolling Stone, but my favorite feature article ever is John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", which appeared in the October 22, 1960 edition of The New Yorker.

Oh, and before you say anything, I do realize the irony of linking to electronic copies of those articles when I've spent a few hundred words extolling the virtues of print media. I would have mailed all of you copies, but have you seen the price of stamps these days?

Men Walkin' Long the Railroad Tracks, Goin' Someplace There's No Goin' Back

Realizing that it has been two LONG, LONG weeks since new words have been written in this space, I realized that I would be doing myself and the rest of this band a disservice if I didn't jump back on the ol' blogging horse* ASAP.

Yesterday was the first pay-day since starting the job, and for someone who has been operating in the student realm for the past twenty years (that's 80% of my life for those of you scoring at home), I almost had the following conversation with the person handing me my check:

Me: So, you mean I can keep this?

Co-Worker: Yes.

Me: And if I take it to a bank, they'll make my account a bigger number than it is right now?

Co-Worker: Yes.

Me: And there will be more of these in the future?

Co-Worker: Sure, payday is twice a month. The 15th and the 30th.

Me: Only in America. Only in America.

Co-Worker: What does any of this have to do with America? You know people get paid in other countries, right?

Me: I don't know. I've just heard Don King say that a bunch.

*In case you were wondering, that horse's name is Patches. Be sure to feed him some apples when you see him.

Current Reading

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Young Men on the Corner Like Scattered Leaves

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back.


Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

"Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", one of many great pieces of work by (the late) John Updike, who died yesterday at the age of 76. R.I.P.

You Know the One That Takes You to the Places Where All the Veins Meet

Congratulations to Mr. Tim Henderson for correctly naming "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as the Wednesday Song of the Day.

(Referring to Ted Williams) "He radiated, from afar, the hard blue glow of high purpose." John Updike, in an essential piece of reading for everyone (and not simply baseball fans), "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", The New Yorker, 1960.