They say that writing while angry is a good thing; that the emotions flow and the words jump from the screen and poke the reader in the eye. Right now I feel like I have been poked in the eye and other less convenient places by a very unwelcome assailant.
And it all started with an otherwise very friendly phone call.
I have been a subscriber to XM Satellite radio almost from day one. It is a great service with one glaring exception. As far as the programming they provide is concerned I have nothing but praise. But when I called to change my plan – actually disconnect a radio that I am no longer using – all that goodness went right down an especially nasty drain.
Three years ago I extended my plan on three radios to three years. The price was right and at the time it was well worth it. That is no longer the case. I can’t afford to spend that kind of money – over $900.00 – on a convenience that we don’t use as often as we once did. In the course of talking to “Listener Care,” the woman mentioned that the card on file had expired. Fair enough, I was going to redo a modified subscription and its well to get that out of the way.
By the time I had talked to another woman and gotten an arrangement that was more fitting, the card I had given was charged an auto-renewal for $916.00; another three years! Wait a second, let me repeat that. They charged me nearly a thousand dollars without one word indicating that they were renewing the very subscription I was calling to change – and now cancel.
Would you be furious? Would you feel as though this big company reached into your account and robbed you? I did, and someone had to pull me off the ceiling.
We have a credo in radio: make one listener happy and he will tell ten people; make one listener unhappy and he will tell one-hundred, who will tell another one-thousand! This is a great way to ruin a business, especially one that is struggling to get off the ground. Satellite Radio may have a 21st Century name, but it has yet to make a dime. Practices like this will keep it steeped in red.
My problem was taken care of, sort of, with a few more phone calls and a little restraint. But I am still surprised and annoyed that it came to this. I promised the account supervisor that I will wait until I am sure there was no charge placed on my card before I make a final decision about severing my long-time relationship with XM.
Trapped in limbo is the merger between the two satellite radio providers. In the balance could be the very existence of this medium. After this morning I’m not at all sure there is a future in, “the future of radio.”
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Butts and Cutts and All That News
"At the end of the day she will exercise to exhaustion, pour it all out to trusted friends and peers and she will cry her eyes out. It's that kind of story. But the next day she will look some attorney or cop or other professional distracter square in the eye and her five-two visage will become a six-four intimidator. I've seen it happen."
Here's a little secret. I'm going to reveal it under duress, and many of my colleagues will cringe when I let the rather scummy cat out of the bag. Here it goes: news is a filthy business and the filthier the better. Gone are the days of the gentleman journalists - if there ever were such times.
And those tight, often symbiotic relationships with the reporter and those who make the story have morphed into extreme chess matches with white hot pieces and professional life or death as the prize or concession.
The men and women who do this for a living - and I am not one of them - love it when the blood flows and the mud gets in the politicos eyes. Most of them, anyway: the good ones.
We have some real news doozies forming around us. You will certainly keep up on them with the help of Ed Esposito and his stellar news department. That's both here at AkronNewsNow.com and on the air at 1590 WAKR, if you will allow the plug. Ed's blog, Letters To the Editor needs no help from me, it is one of the most popular political and news blogs in the state already!
What I like to offer here is not the news side of what they do, but the human and cultural angle. I am not a big news junkie. Yes, I program a station with News in its fist name, along with Sports and Oldies, but I leave the news to Ed. To do anything else would be foolish.
We have a mostly young staff of journalists bringing you the biggest story. The Bobby Cutts trail, for instance, has a lead reporter named Tina Kaufmann. She is bright, determined and not the biggest woman among the slew of local and national reporters. She will do a great job mainly because she knows she is wading in with crocs, gators and snakes. They have already tried to bait her, flatter her, trap her and insult her. Not going to work. Tina is armed not only with great guidance from seasoned professionals, but with a spirit that is unflappable.
At the end of the day she will exercise to exhaustion, pour it all out to trusted friends and peers and she will cry her eyes out. It's that kind of story. But the next day she will look some attorney or cop or other professional distracter square in the eye and her five-two visage will become a six-four intimidator. I've seen it happen.
You will get the real story about a double homicide in Stark County. While the Gretas and Nancys and whoever else in the national media is sucking up the spotlight, it is Tina and the other young reporters sitting through the horror everyday who will truly understand, and tell you first.
Here's a little secret. I'm going to reveal it under duress, and many of my colleagues will cringe when I let the rather scummy cat out of the bag. Here it goes: news is a filthy business and the filthier the better. Gone are the days of the gentleman journalists - if there ever were such times.
And those tight, often symbiotic relationships with the reporter and those who make the story have morphed into extreme chess matches with white hot pieces and professional life or death as the prize or concession.
The men and women who do this for a living - and I am not one of them - love it when the blood flows and the mud gets in the politicos eyes. Most of them, anyway: the good ones.
We have some real news doozies forming around us. You will certainly keep up on them with the help of Ed Esposito and his stellar news department. That's both here at AkronNewsNow.com and on the air at 1590 WAKR, if you will allow the plug. Ed's blog, Letters To the Editor needs no help from me, it is one of the most popular political and news blogs in the state already!
What I like to offer here is not the news side of what they do, but the human and cultural angle. I am not a big news junkie. Yes, I program a station with News in its fist name, along with Sports and Oldies, but I leave the news to Ed. To do anything else would be foolish.
We have a mostly young staff of journalists bringing you the biggest story. The Bobby Cutts trail, for instance, has a lead reporter named Tina Kaufmann. She is bright, determined and not the biggest woman among the slew of local and national reporters. She will do a great job mainly because she knows she is wading in with crocs, gators and snakes. They have already tried to bait her, flatter her, trap her and insult her. Not going to work. Tina is armed not only with great guidance from seasoned professionals, but with a spirit that is unflappable.
At the end of the day she will exercise to exhaustion, pour it all out to trusted friends and peers and she will cry her eyes out. It's that kind of story. But the next day she will look some attorney or cop or other professional distracter square in the eye and her five-two visage will become a six-four intimidator. I've seen it happen.
You will get the real story about a double homicide in Stark County. While the Gretas and Nancys and whoever else in the national media is sucking up the spotlight, it is Tina and the other young reporters sitting through the horror everyday who will truly understand, and tell you first.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The Real Generation Gap: King vs. Malcolm
"These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ...The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change."
HUDSON, OH -- There are many reasons why being a black family in the 50's and 60's was difficult. As a child of those years most of the challenges were hidden from us by well-meaning parents and a distilled media. But there were many signs that the two Americas were moving along on different paths and at different speeds.
The Civil Rights Era coexisted with the Beat Era and the Vietnam Era, the Drug Era and about a half-dozen lesser periods of history. Yet the problem of segregation and inequality predated and outlasted anything that so moved this country.
Inside those families that the movement affected most, families like mine, there was a different kind of argument. It could be summed up like this: nonviolence or by whatever means necessary. Generally the older generation followed the words, actions and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the only Black American honored with a true national holiday. But the younger tended to hang on the words of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seals, Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X. These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (often forgetting about the second descriptor), The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change.
There was hardly a unified front among those demanding equality.
To this day there are some who revere Dr. King, and rightly so, while secretly wishing the revolution had taken place. What revolution? The one openly called for by these men and women who let hatred and anger distort their view and pervert their intelligence - many were quite intelligent - the impatient ones.
As The Last Poets once proclaimed: The Revolution will not be televised, it will be live.
And so it is. Again, you can argue, but borrowing from Dr. King's famous words we are more likely to be judged by the content and quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We are, finally, closer to being a unified America dealing with economic, health and the microscopic battles of living and working with others. A black president is a real possibility and white America is on the verge of becoming just another minority in a nation of minorities. There are still strata of privilege and power and there always will be. There are the poor and the oppressed of all races, but there is also compassion and opportunity. There is the struggle and the road ahead.
And there always will be.
HUDSON, OH -- There are many reasons why being a black family in the 50's and 60's was difficult. As a child of those years most of the challenges were hidden from us by well-meaning parents and a distilled media. But there were many signs that the two Americas were moving along on different paths and at different speeds.
The Civil Rights Era coexisted with the Beat Era and the Vietnam Era, the Drug Era and about a half-dozen lesser periods of history. Yet the problem of segregation and inequality predated and outlasted anything that so moved this country.
Inside those families that the movement affected most, families like mine, there was a different kind of argument. It could be summed up like this: nonviolence or by whatever means necessary. Generally the older generation followed the words, actions and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the only Black American honored with a true national holiday. But the younger tended to hang on the words of Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Bobby Seals, Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X. These were the young radicals who saw Dr. King as another "Tom" giving into the establishment by not taking up arms against the oppressors. They formed groups like Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (often forgetting about the second descriptor), The Black Panther Party and molded the Nation of Islam into a force for change.
There was hardly a unified front among those demanding equality.
To this day there are some who revere Dr. King, and rightly so, while secretly wishing the revolution had taken place. What revolution? The one openly called for by these men and women who let hatred and anger distort their view and pervert their intelligence - many were quite intelligent - the impatient ones.
As The Last Poets once proclaimed: The Revolution will not be televised, it will be live.
And so it is. Again, you can argue, but borrowing from Dr. King's famous words we are more likely to be judged by the content and quality of our character rather than the color of our skin. We are, finally, closer to being a unified America dealing with economic, health and the microscopic battles of living and working with others. A black president is a real possibility and white America is on the verge of becoming just another minority in a nation of minorities. There are still strata of privilege and power and there always will be. There are the poor and the oppressed of all races, but there is also compassion and opportunity. There is the struggle and the road ahead.
And there always will be.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Dying Mad
"And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end."
PINELLAS PARK, FL - I am writing this in Florida. Not the good Florida, the fantasy land we all dream about right around mid-February, but the trailer park, aimless youth, flea market and dingy strip mall Florida. The kind of place where even sunshine seems to smell like generic cigarettes and scratch-off wax under the fingernails; where being tat-less and body puncture-less means you are old and just trying to stay below the radar else those with destructive appetites notice you and make you a victim.
In other words, this is no Disney vacation. I haven't seen anything close to a beach in the days I have been here and would love nothing more than to see my breath condensing as I warm up the car after a 10 hour day in West Akron. I am serious.
So why am I here? Many of us are gappers, that is we fall between generations. One is just getting their footing, if we are lucky, and the other is on their last leg. We are here because of the latter.
Two things have been reinforced on this trip. For one, my wife Monika is a saint - not an angel, she does not bear the burden softly - and my 98-year-old father-in-law remains mad at the world, perhaps to the bitter end.
Even getting up when he should have known better while in nursing care and slipping on his own waste is somebody else's fault. Breaking his hip and being rushed to emergency is someone else's fault. And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end.
My mom died two years ago in December. She was not angry nor frightened nor remorseful. She was 92 and if she could have predicted it, her last breath would have been a laugh; a good old fashioned belly laugh.
I don't know how much time Danny has left. I would like to think he has enough time to recapture the charm he can show others and the determination that afforded him nearly 30 to 40 years more life than the average American man. We were ready to bring Monika's mom home with us to Hudson and leave Danny in the capable hands of the long-term care professionals. That has changed. Monika cannot leave him with such uncertainty and I will return alone on Tuesday.
There are lots of ways we are dispatched from this life. And few of us have a choice or a chance to choreograph the event. If I learned anything from the gracious and accepting people I have seen in their final moments it is this: don't stay mad at the world.
Exit laughing.
PINELLAS PARK, FL - I am writing this in Florida. Not the good Florida, the fantasy land we all dream about right around mid-February, but the trailer park, aimless youth, flea market and dingy strip mall Florida. The kind of place where even sunshine seems to smell like generic cigarettes and scratch-off wax under the fingernails; where being tat-less and body puncture-less means you are old and just trying to stay below the radar else those with destructive appetites notice you and make you a victim.
In other words, this is no Disney vacation. I haven't seen anything close to a beach in the days I have been here and would love nothing more than to see my breath condensing as I warm up the car after a 10 hour day in West Akron. I am serious.
So why am I here? Many of us are gappers, that is we fall between generations. One is just getting their footing, if we are lucky, and the other is on their last leg. We are here because of the latter.
Two things have been reinforced on this trip. For one, my wife Monika is a saint - not an angel, she does not bear the burden softly - and my 98-year-old father-in-law remains mad at the world, perhaps to the bitter end.
Even getting up when he should have known better while in nursing care and slipping on his own waste is somebody else's fault. Breaking his hip and being rushed to emergency is someone else's fault. And if his last breath should come soon he will use it to scream at a nurse or doctor or aide who is trying to help him. Such misery is no life, but it just might be his fitting end.
My mom died two years ago in December. She was not angry nor frightened nor remorseful. She was 92 and if she could have predicted it, her last breath would have been a laugh; a good old fashioned belly laugh.
I don't know how much time Danny has left. I would like to think he has enough time to recapture the charm he can show others and the determination that afforded him nearly 30 to 40 years more life than the average American man. We were ready to bring Monika's mom home with us to Hudson and leave Danny in the capable hands of the long-term care professionals. That has changed. Monika cannot leave him with such uncertainty and I will return alone on Tuesday.
There are lots of ways we are dispatched from this life. And few of us have a choice or a chance to choreograph the event. If I learned anything from the gracious and accepting people I have seen in their final moments it is this: don't stay mad at the world.
Exit laughing.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
...and Black Men are from Jupiter
A couple of things landed my mood in a particular team locker room today. You know what I mean, we all have teams. Some of us are golfers, some are recovering-whatevers, some drive faster than we should and some eat way too much garlic.
The point is we have identity markers that come and go and are either used or ignored until the next time they become relevant.
Some people make a living out of being on one team or another. A gay activist or Al Sharpton are examples of professionals in this sense. Recently one of my teams has come under a great deal of scrutiny and I don't mind telling you it is a very somber club house right now.
I won't mention the players that tend to give us a bad name. You know who they are. What I am moved to do here is remember a Golden Age. I want to remind you (and me) of the men who propped up a generation, several generations on broad shoulders and dared us to be better than what America was expecting. One of those men was Bill Willis.
I grew up calling this great athlete, scholar and cultural pioneer 'Uncle Bill' because he was one of my dad's best friends. Dad did not have much of a family growing up. Maybe that's why the family he and mom created was more important to him than anything. So he created a circle of friends, of brothers that stayed in close contact and helped each other every step of the way. That term, brothers, has become something of a team nickname that few understand. Bill Willis and Al Collins understood it. It meant being there, teaching and guiding. It meant doing what is right, period.
Bill Willis achieved great things. He is in several Halls of Fame and deserves every accolade. But what is not inscribed on the plaques is the contribution he made to another team: young men and women of color, and many who do not claim that distinction, who still walk along the path he cleared.
No matter what team you are on, we are all better because of men like these.
The point is we have identity markers that come and go and are either used or ignored until the next time they become relevant.
Some people make a living out of being on one team or another. A gay activist or Al Sharpton are examples of professionals in this sense. Recently one of my teams has come under a great deal of scrutiny and I don't mind telling you it is a very somber club house right now.
I won't mention the players that tend to give us a bad name. You know who they are. What I am moved to do here is remember a Golden Age. I want to remind you (and me) of the men who propped up a generation, several generations on broad shoulders and dared us to be better than what America was expecting. One of those men was Bill Willis.
I grew up calling this great athlete, scholar and cultural pioneer 'Uncle Bill' because he was one of my dad's best friends. Dad did not have much of a family growing up. Maybe that's why the family he and mom created was more important to him than anything. So he created a circle of friends, of brothers that stayed in close contact and helped each other every step of the way. That term, brothers, has become something of a team nickname that few understand. Bill Willis and Al Collins understood it. It meant being there, teaching and guiding. It meant doing what is right, period.
Bill Willis achieved great things. He is in several Halls of Fame and deserves every accolade. But what is not inscribed on the plaques is the contribution he made to another team: young men and women of color, and many who do not claim that distinction, who still walk along the path he cleared.
No matter what team you are on, we are all better because of men like these.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Snoop Rakes It In
Calvin slips the gray and yellow reflective vest over his pigtails. The smile on his face is difficult to interpret. No one could be happy spending much of the day, and the better part of the next month in city parks picking up other people's trash.
The rest of the crew? That's a different story. They are almost giddy and falling over each other to gain the attention of this "new fish." They try to get close to him mumbling rhymes and lyrics that, to the speaker, are so fresh they ain't made it to the vine.
The tall, thin man with slits for eyes and a permanent smirk listens politely, then, with a well-placed stare, closes the audition. Something might stick, and the other indentured park worker might hear a treatment of his couplings in a song on the radio one day; realizing he gave it away.
Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. could buy and sell most of the parks he will clean in the 160 hours of his sentence. At the edge of the work detail waits a Bentley and several men in dark glasses, white and black, hired to protect him from undo harassment. The L.A. County sheriff's deputies don't mind the help. Should someone try to gain props by dogin' the Dogg, there could be serious trouble.
They never get used to it, the deputies. They say celebrity inmates are more trouble than the gang-bangers. Celebrity rappers are the worst. Snoop Dogg might be the most recognizable of this growing genre of mega star. Even people who would not be caught dead listening to Rap know him on sight.
One year ago he was caught with a collapsed baton, the kind the police use to break car windows or legs, if need be. It was at an airport and the item was deemed a dangerous weapon. That it is, but Mr. Broadus claimed it was to be used in a video. Since when does the Dogg carry his own props to a location? Lame doesn't even come close to describing this excuse.
But instead of using his court ordered community service in schools or community centers, drawing distinctions between the projected rapper image - something that can be very destructive - and the real business of artistic expression, he is raking leaves and spearing candy wrappers. I supposed he could have fought the conviction into oblivion. Why? Part of that crew near the Bentley includes a cameraman and sound tech.
One guy looks a little like Spike Lee.
The rest of the crew? That's a different story. They are almost giddy and falling over each other to gain the attention of this "new fish." They try to get close to him mumbling rhymes and lyrics that, to the speaker, are so fresh they ain't made it to the vine.
The tall, thin man with slits for eyes and a permanent smirk listens politely, then, with a well-placed stare, closes the audition. Something might stick, and the other indentured park worker might hear a treatment of his couplings in a song on the radio one day; realizing he gave it away.
Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. could buy and sell most of the parks he will clean in the 160 hours of his sentence. At the edge of the work detail waits a Bentley and several men in dark glasses, white and black, hired to protect him from undo harassment. The L.A. County sheriff's deputies don't mind the help. Should someone try to gain props by dogin' the Dogg, there could be serious trouble.
They never get used to it, the deputies. They say celebrity inmates are more trouble than the gang-bangers. Celebrity rappers are the worst. Snoop Dogg might be the most recognizable of this growing genre of mega star. Even people who would not be caught dead listening to Rap know him on sight.
One year ago he was caught with a collapsed baton, the kind the police use to break car windows or legs, if need be. It was at an airport and the item was deemed a dangerous weapon. That it is, but Mr. Broadus claimed it was to be used in a video. Since when does the Dogg carry his own props to a location? Lame doesn't even come close to describing this excuse.
But instead of using his court ordered community service in schools or community centers, drawing distinctions between the projected rapper image - something that can be very destructive - and the real business of artistic expression, he is raking leaves and spearing candy wrappers. I supposed he could have fought the conviction into oblivion. Why? Part of that crew near the Bentley includes a cameraman and sound tech.
One guy looks a little like Spike Lee.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Just When You Think You Don’t Matter
The call happens now and then: “it’s so hard to be an adult.” This coming from someone I will always see as twelve years old. But she’s not. She’s 27 and has lived on her own since her second year in college – with some help, of course.
Now another series of disappointments and more job related consternation. In some respects I love these conversations. It is good to know that such important decisions are still brought home. Aside from being the youngest in the family, she is also the smartest, and a career in the medical field seemed the right choice. But she has to really want to do it and the call last night indicated that was no longer the case. So it goes.
I just want her to do something that she enjoys, and if at all possible something that matters. Usually sometime in these conversations I realize, even if I don’t say it out loud, that the career I have chosen really doesn’t matter much. Strip away all the hype and my second career - a writer - is only to entertain. My time is spent creating a diversion that may or may not be used by listeners or readers to take their minds off the troubles of their day.
Today I got another call. It was from a very nice lady named Jackie. She had just heard the song “Vincent,” by Don McLean on 1590 WAKR. Jackie was in tears and just called to thank me for playing the song. There is a line in the song, “…the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” Jackie’s son committed suicide late last year and she is still in deep pain. For that instant, she said, the radio and that song brought her closer to her son.
It was a difficult call to take. By the time we were about to hang up we were both in tears. Suicide is not a foreign concept in the Collins family. It only happened once, and that was many years ago. It was my brother who was too complicated, too conflicted and yes too beautiful for this world.
Jackie’s call reinforced something we often forget: there are people who listen and there are people who hear. For the listeners we are quite trivial, but every now and then there are those who hear something that makes a difference, possibly a real difference in their lives.
Now another series of disappointments and more job related consternation. In some respects I love these conversations. It is good to know that such important decisions are still brought home. Aside from being the youngest in the family, she is also the smartest, and a career in the medical field seemed the right choice. But she has to really want to do it and the call last night indicated that was no longer the case. So it goes.
I just want her to do something that she enjoys, and if at all possible something that matters. Usually sometime in these conversations I realize, even if I don’t say it out loud, that the career I have chosen really doesn’t matter much. Strip away all the hype and my second career - a writer - is only to entertain. My time is spent creating a diversion that may or may not be used by listeners or readers to take their minds off the troubles of their day.
Today I got another call. It was from a very nice lady named Jackie. She had just heard the song “Vincent,” by Don McLean on 1590 WAKR. Jackie was in tears and just called to thank me for playing the song. There is a line in the song, “…the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” Jackie’s son committed suicide late last year and she is still in deep pain. For that instant, she said, the radio and that song brought her closer to her son.
It was a difficult call to take. By the time we were about to hang up we were both in tears. Suicide is not a foreign concept in the Collins family. It only happened once, and that was many years ago. It was my brother who was too complicated, too conflicted and yes too beautiful for this world.
Jackie’s call reinforced something we often forget: there are people who listen and there are people who hear. For the listeners we are quite trivial, but every now and then there are those who hear something that makes a difference, possibly a real difference in their lives.
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