So Brian Said

Why did no one tell me about this?
--McJangles 11:28 PM
|

I'm posting now just to keep in the habit. I don't really have anything to talk about.

Hm.

I suppose the best story is actually from Saturday, when I went to a hip-hop concert.

It was pretty cool; easily 20 times cooler than I had counted on. Six groups, one backing band through the entire show. One act comes on, busts out three tunes, and then hands the mike to the next guy, who starts immediately. After all the groups went through once, there was a breakdance competition on the floor while the band jammed without anyone rapping. After that, each of the bands came out again and did another three songs. It was really good, and I even ended up buying an album: Obsidian by Edotkom, a Cleveland band.

Now, I don't want to sound racist or anything, but what is with white folk?

There were black guys and white guys on the stage. Guess who sucked.

When I go to a hip-hop concert, I want to see black guys (or girls) on the stage, holding the mike and busting out raps that are clearly in their blood. What I don't want to see is another Parma Heights, cracker-ass, faux-thug, Vanilla Ice-wannabe tool trying to fit in and get some street cred. F.

I bought the album and was sitting outside the room where the concert was going on when Martin pointed out to Heiku that I had just bought his album. Heiku came over and gave us mad props. I was thinking I was about to have some street cred, hoping he would call me his "nigga," but it just never happened.

Anyway, following the show, we left and saw some crazy guy walking down the street in his boxer briefs. We turned around to drive past, and I politely pointed out, "You forgot your pants!" and we drove off.

That was fun.
--McJangles 4:48 AM
|

MEMO:
To: Annoying, lame girls
From: Brian Bardwell
Re: Being interested in me
Date: 08/28/03

Would you all please leave me alone?

Failing that, it would be advisable that you omit "OMG" and similarly nonstandard abbreviations from future correspondence. Capitalization and appropriate placement of apostrophes is always advantageous. The judicious use of hyphens is also appreciated.

Also, don't be lame. Be interesting. This can easily be done in several ways; not all are required, but a combination is:
Play an instrument. I'm partial to strings.
Read a lot of books.
Know a lot about something.
Care a lot about something that isn't veganism, Pearl Jam or coffee.
Quit your whining!

Your continued attention to this matter is appreciated.

Regards,
--McJangles 3:10 AM
|

I just realized that my editor is like Dr. Cox. That makes me J.D. Unfortunately, Elliot is engaged.
--McJangles 5:21 PM
|

Also: remember about a year ago when I blogged about talking to some girl that I met through an online dating service? Yeah, well I never got to meet her, but that's not the point.

The point is that there was this other girl on there, and last night I had a dream that she and some Puerto Rican guy stole my car from the pool. What pool? I don't know. I do know that it was winter.
--McJangles 1:17 AM
|

I went running yesterday for probably the fifth time since I made my departure from cross country. As you all know, I'm getting pretty fat, so I figured I wasn't going to make it too far before I died.

Incredibly, I managed to go about 1200 meters before I started hurting. The cramps quickly subsided, though, and I managed to endure the remainder of the four-mile run without a bit of discomfort. I have no idea how that was possible. Did I mention that I ran about an hour after eating most of a Donato's pizza and drinking two cans of Pepsi? Without stretching?

Last night reminded me how much I like running, and how much I hate dogs.

I like running because it gives me that rebellious feeling. After a couple miles, all you can hear is your legs screaming for you to stop. "Please stop, Brian! Please!" Pretty soon, your legs convince your brain to start rationalizing why it's OK to stop running. "You didn't even stretch; you might hurtself. You can run tomorrow. You know, you're going to get murdered out here this late at night...." Even after all that, it starts getting really boring. But instead, you just keep doing it because you decided you were going to and screw everything else. It's a good way to be stubborn without getting fired.

I hate dogs because they're loud and obnoxious and come running out to kill you in the middle of the night, and you can't even see the thing before it's gnawing away at your calves.

I'm rather impressed with myself, and you should be, too.
--McJangles 12:56 AM
|

The Tavis Smiley Show is usually so unbearably boring and dumbed-down that it leaves me cursing the day I decided to listen to NPR during talk and then to my CDs for music. It's always a bunch of tripe about how it's good to save your money and bad to forget your heritage, with a side of race-irrelevant stories spun into tales of modern-day slavery. Then a white person says "where my children will not be judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character."

But a spirited discussion on the 10 Commandments in Alabama left me amused today, and it was spirited enough that it would have been just as amusing if it were on anything else. But the real fun came during "Friday Funnies," where Tavis brings on some comic for some yukyuks. Today was Arsenio Hall, and he led a fascinating discussion on the racial differences in ass-appreciation.

First it's all about Vivica Fox, and how he thinks she should be nicknamed "Ass-shanti." Get it? Like Ashanti, but with ass in front. He and Tavis start howling about her little white skirt, and all of a sudden they realize what they're doing and get back to the program.

But soon enough, it's "J. Lo has a perfect ass," and "J. Lo has a beautiful ass."

"A white boy look at the same ass you look at he'll say, 'God, look, it sticks out so far!' ... "But a brother look at the same ass and it's very exciting."

And so on. Ass this, ass that. Ass ass ass ass ass ass. It was pretty good.
--McJangles 5:01 AM
|

Remember Martha Brockenbrough? Remember how we hate her a lot?

She's back with another crappy column. Go fetch!
--McJangles 1:17 AM
|

I've realized that promising all of my readership that I'd eventually post that story is keeping me from posting anything else, so I've decided that I'm not going to post it. You'll just have to ask UAPD.

Anyway, I don't think I've mentioned the Patriot Act here yet, have I? Because Ashcroft is doing his tour to support it and no one has shot him yet, so I'll need to bitch about it some more.

Now that Congress is raging pissed off at Ashcroft and the Justice Department, he's hitting the road, and the DOJ has put up a website, lifeandliberty.gov. It's so precious. It's all about how the Patriot Act is good and constitutional and how it "doesn't take away liberties, it increases freedom!" It's like a bad commercial.

It's got a cute little propaganda page for "Dispelling the Myths," where they hit all the right points while slickly glossing over all the ones that back up the myths. Then it has a section called "Congress Speaks" that quotes lots of Congress-folk saying how gee-whiz great this little bit of legislation is. You'll also note that every single one of those quotes is from a month or two of 9/11.

Then--and this is the best part--is "Support of the People," a pair of bar graphs reflecting people's reaction to the law.
"Would you say the Patriot Act is a good thing or a bad thing for America?" asks the first survey. Fifty-five percent say yes, 27 say no, while 18 percent don't have conclusive answers. Then, "To the best of your knowledge have you or a member of your family had your civil rights affected by the Patriot Act?" Ninety-one percent say no, four percent say yes, and five percent aren't sure.

There you have it, the public loves the Patriot Act! Oh, what's that? You want to know who did the poll? Take a look.
--McJangles 1:09 AM
|

There must be some way to outlaw editors.

I'll get around to that long story eventually.
--McJangles 12:55 AM
|

Just about nothing has gone as planned in the last 36 hours or so. I wish I had the energy to post the entire story right now, but Martin, Jay and Quinn can confirm that it really is a long story.

But remember Walsh? Yeah, Akron too.

I hate cops.
--McJangles 1:46 AM
|

I lost a really good post yesterday during Blogger's server maintenance. I had just read the notice and thought, "Oh, that's coming up pretty soon." But I didn't think to back up the post before I tried to publish, so it's gone. It had a Quinn-style mini-play and everything. Your loss.

Why has Jill been my best friend (mostly) for the last eight years? I'll tell you why. Because she just made a blog for her students and their parents to read to keep up on homework assignments and everything. She's asked that I not link to it, so that's that, but I still think it's good to introduce youngsters to blogging.

Jill gets the Golden Oxen for that one.

EDIT: Jill has granted permission to link. It's at missharwell.blogspot.com.
--McJangles 12:38 AM
|

What is it about saying "Bennifer," "Jenjamin" and "Jennufleck" that I think is so endlessly amusing? I don't know.

But here's a funny story about Bennifer in the Washington Post. I laughed all the way through it until I got to where it treats Bennifer as a plural noun, when I explode from laughter.

The story is also interesting for another reason. It contains the word schadenfreude, which Merriam-Webster (unabridged, of course) will tell you is "enjoyment obtained from the mishaps of others." I first heard the word about two months ago, when Dad forwarded some sort of word-of-the-day thing that for obvious reasons made him think of me. I thought it was a great little word, perfectly suited to describing how I feel all stress leave me once pain befalls someone close enough for me to see.

Neither of those things is particularly interesting, as far as I can tell, but what is interesting is that after I first saw the word, I immediately saw it crop up in countless places. For example, Google News turns it up 85 times in about the last month, and most of those hits are unique. Compare that with 118 hits for "Bennifer," probably 25 percent of which are repeats.

I'm upset at all this because it means that schadenfreude is in all likelihood a vogue word that's going to be long gone in short order. I thought it was going to be a nice, obscure word that I could use for a long time before everyone I knew could consistently remember what it meant, but now I can't even bother.

Damn.
--McJangles 2:36 AM
|

The Onion is freaking hilarious. An archive search turns up these:

"Bill of Rights Pared Down To A Manageable Six" Best quote: "The Bill of Rights was written more than 200 years ago, long before anyone could even fathom the existence of wiretapping technology or surveillance cameras," Ashcroft said. "Yet through a bizarre fluke, it was still somehow worded in such a way as to restrict use of these devices. Clearly, it had to go before it could do more serious damage in the future."

"Alzheimer's Sufferers Demand Cure For Pancakes"

--McJangles 2:40 AM
|

Responsible Brian is working his little jobby job on the weekend, so he's got Thursday/Friday off. Round up the usual suspects, and we'll go rock 'n' rollin'. Also, are we going to the Browns game in Detroit?

Hey, Katie, you're blacklisted from Friday festivities.
--McJangles 11:54 PM
|

Where are the posts?

I've got little to say, mostly because I have little to bitch about. The editors haven't seriously toyed with any of my stories lately, probably because I haven't written much of substance.

I had a strange newsroom dream, but I can't remember much of it, except that a lot of people were fat, though they aren't in real life.

I did write another West Nile story that ran yesterday. About a half-hour after I got back into the newsroom, Councilman Tom Urbanek rings me on the phone. In case you didn't know, it's always bad when someone you quoted in a story calls you after the story is printed.

But I actually got off easy; he wanted to tell me what a good story it was.

I haven't read it yet myself, but he said that it read well and was easy to understand and that I "actually quoted [him] accurately." That one's probably a misquote, but not a manufactured quote. "I figured I call enough to complain about your stories, I should call and thank you for a good one." By "your stories," he meant the paper's stories. I've never talked to the guy before this story.

So that was nice. Vote Tom Urbanek for City Council.

I'm going to mow the lawn.

This is Coast Guard Station Lorain, OUT!
--McJangles 1:09 PM
|

The funk is over.

Work was pretty lame today. When the paper declines to pursue public-records issues the way it should, we are left neutered in a way that a newspaper should not be. When we need to immediately get our hands on something that is unquestionably public record, we can't do that, because we've already established that we're not going to push back when we start getting resistance.

I'm still compiling my case against Lorain PD for public records. I have a gigantor-sized stack of illegally redacted incident reports in a box next to my desk. I love seeing it grow.

I still enjoy listening to the scanner, especially to the Coast Guard, because they all sign off saying "this is Coast Guard Station Lorain, OUT!" This is how I'm going to be ending a lot of e-mail, etc. from now on.

Making the nightly cop calls has been getting more interesting lately. The Vermilion dispatcher sighed when I called:

Brian: Calling to see what you have to report tonight.
VPD: Oh, no news.
Brian: All quiet out there....
VPD: sigh Not really.
Brian: Oh, what do you have?
VPD: Nothing newsworthy.
Brian: What is there?
VPD: Just bullshit.

That was fun. Then Sheffield Lake stopped me before I hung up to ask about this story. They wanted to know what was included in the conversation on the tapes. The fact that it was a woman made it very hard for me to elaborate.

SLPD: Do you guys have the tapes?
Brian: (aside) Of course we don't have the tapes; they're public record. There's no way to access those.
SLPD: What do they say?
Brian: Uhh, well, ummm, I guess she, uh, complimented him, ummmmmm....... on the size of his, um, his.........
SLPD: Oh, really?

I was very happy for her to have interrupted.

This is Coast Guard Station Lorain, OUT!

EDIT: Now that I think of it, it might not have been Vermilion, but rather Oberlin or Wellington. Also, you may remember that Lorain Sheriff has a "total bitch dispatcher." She just cut me off mid-sentence and hung up on me. She's lucky she's in a building with people with guns.
--McJangles 2:54 AM
|

About a year ago, I had a back-to-Walsh week, where everybody I hadn't talked to in about a year just started saying hello to me.

And now I just had another.

First, Lisa sends me an IM and signs the guestbook. Then Shandee IMs me to let me know she's pregnant and engaged. Then an IM from Ali to say hello.

To top it all off, though, was a phone call tonight from Bobbi, who is also engaged. That's better than cancer, which was her news last year.

Very strange, all that.
--McJangles 11:41 PM
|

My friends are stupid.
--McJangles 5:57 PM
|

I also wanted to comment on this. If you don't know how to click links, it's the one from Rob's page about the Buenos Aires supermarket employees who are being forced to wear diapers while they work.

Not a nice thing to do, I understand. But in the story, the province/state/whatever's undersecretary of labor says, "In seventeen years as a labor lawyer, I've never heard anything like this before."

What? In seventeen years as a student in an industrialized country, I've heard about this kind of thing more times than I can remember. How can someone acquainted with labor law never have heard about people doing this? She must be lying. Fire her.

The point is: Everyone who is ever quoted in a news story is lying, at least somewhat.
--McJangles 6:16 PM
|

Wish I could blog about that. But, it would be humiliating. Oh well.

Anyway. Pick one: 30 or 21. Which, which, which? Who knows.

If you don't know about the Gehring children, read this first.

About 6:00 last night, some woman calls me and says, "I don't know if you know about what's going on here in Lorain County. You know those kids that they're looking for? Well, the FBI and the sheriff have been digging in my back yard."

WHAMMO! So me and a photog rushrushrush out there and find zero police, but several hillbillies. Not a good sign.

Just the same, the site bore eerie resemblances to the site mentioned: tall grass, cement slabs, rock piles, weathered log piles, eroding embankment. It was missing several of the features too. But we started finding lots of holes that had been dug in the ground, presumably by the police. I wandered around the HUGE piece of land for about 45 minutes, finding lots of creepy spots that looked like they had been checked out, but came up with nothing.

Just the same, I wrote a story.
--McJangles 6:01 PM
|