Word Up

(Queen Gran's note: I wrote this as a response to a blog I receive by email.)

As a former newspaper editor, I can attest firsthand that investigative journalism is as good as dead and buried. Local newspapers cater to their biggest advertisers, and the big city boys are politically motivated.

You cannot get a factual newscast on television any more. News anchors don’t report the news. They decide how you should feel about it. “Their” opinions are rampant throughout what should have stayed a report of the complete facts.

Journalists are heavily censored in every newsroom in this country. The only fun newspapers are your weekly community papers: that’s how you find out about a town. They are not considered “important” by the powers, apparently, and are usually left alone. Read its weekly or biweekly newspaper a few times and you will find the community’s heart.

They have little budget and their journalists might also be selling its advertising and their editors doubling as classifieds cold callers; but with those multi-hats comes an investment from the heart. Nobody there is getting paid much of anything, but they all are invested in its success. Personal pride is big in those tiny newsrooms, and it’s what is sorely lacking elsewhere.

As an editor, I also know what I, and fellow editors, do to other people’s words. And while editing newspapers is a lot different from editing books, journals, magazines, etc., editors change things. I like to think I don’t mess with a writer’s tone or style, and I get writers to answer questions raised in their stories that I want an answer to when I read it; but I know other editors who prefer to put their stamp on a story.

I imagine it’s the same with translators. Nothing can be translated word for word. I mean nothing. And for one person, or even a group of people (nothing like a committee!), to decide what was meant by a word, phrase or sentence, means original intent has likely been skewed. Writings have been translated over and over, and having the language “updated” can impact the original document in countless ways , with some never even close to resembling the original. 

Americans have let themselves be talked down to, believing things that are said on TV and that are printed in newspapers.

“Why, they wouldn’t print it if it weren’t true, would they?”

Jeesh. “Sheep” is right. We have been lazy and let ourselves be led astray.

Beam it into my house, Scotty!

I have been spending a lot of time trying to connect one of the best Christmas gifts ever, my Sirius radio. I have the Plug and Play Boombox and a subscription that includes the Best of XM, assuring me all the Major League Baseball games I can stand, along with great music and talk stations. And don’t forget the comedy!

So far, the boombox plays on my porch, in a certain spot. It’s lovely – sounds like what I think a Bose radio would sound like. I’m even mastering the remote.

My problem is I can’t get the radio to play inside the house. I would love to have it work inside and I have done all the things I’ve been asked to do to get it to work: put it by a north facing window (due to my zone location), put the antenna outside, put a full-length mirror on the porch to “bounce” the signal inside to the radio. Nothing works.

I live in a doublewide trailer, what the residents and the office workers prefer to call manufactured housing, on my own lot on a golf course. And I gotta say, being surrounded by metal, aluminum or whatever, seems to be OK for other electronics, just not my Sirius boombox.

It works great about a foot outside the overhang. There is no overhang on the back but the radio still doesn’t work in the back bedrooms, despite sitting on the sill of a bay window with no outside overhang. I don’t know why.

The curious thing, to me, is how my other electronics work inside. How does my cell phone work so well? (By the way, when I am driving and get to a “dead” spot, where I cannot place or receive phone calls, how come I can send and receive text messages?)

How does my WiFi work so well inside and out? I can sit outside and be connected to the Internet with no problem. Doesn’t seem to be any metal interference.

And certain things on the boombox work, such as the part of the Sirius radio that shows me the exact time. How does that show up, including whatever station number I happen to be tuned to, but the actual station signal doesn’t get through?

If it were up to me to know how these things work, these wondrous things would never have been invented. My good friend and neighbor and I are still marveling over how transistor radios work. And black and white TV versus color. We are still astounded by our “outmoded” electronics.

I have now purchased a 50-foot extension antenna to connect to the boombox and run outside. I’m trying to figure out how to actually do it but so far haven’t been able to figure out how and where. I do know why: I’d like it to work indoors! But that’s about all I know. Did I tell you the radio works fine in the car? Thanks to my daughter’s namesake, we got the parts properly installed in the car and I have been enjoying it there ever since.

One more puzzle: Picture the radio, sitting in view on the porch, with me sitting inside in my recliner, holding the Sirius remote. I am able to adjust the volume of the radio on the porch with no problem. But when the beep-beep comes, letting me know a favorite artist or song is playing on another station, the button I push to switch over to that song doesn’t work at all. I don’t get it.

OK, one more: I can be in the back room, use the remote key to my car and lock the doors and set the alarm. The car is out front. I'm not complaining. I just want to understand why it works.

Topless: A Poem About Economics

It was a dark
and stormy day
Nobody went out to play

The wind stood up
and flew about
Your roof unfurled and
you ran out

“What luck,” you cried,
as the peak rolled by.
“I’m fully insured,”
and wiped a tear from your eye.

Shaky Ground: Online TV Advertising

Is it just me?

Reebok Easytone

“Tones key leg muscles by using balance pods in the shoes to create natural instability with every step.”

Instability? Really? I picture people looking like those clowns we used to love knocking over as kids. And Weebles. They wobble. No wonder your leg muscles and bum start looking toned; you’re trying to keep from falling over without anybody seeing.

Chase Sapphire

The wife shows off a new dress; husband smiles but wants to say, “What a piece of crap dress you bought, why don’t you just take it off?” Then he finds out she spent all their credit card points on this ugly dress without even consulting him, when clearly he was thinking, “Vacation!” I’m with the husband. Shut up, thoughtless woman, and take off the damn dress.

Dove Nutrium Essentials Nutrients Body Wash

Does the name sound like the ingredients have a whole lot to do with rats to anybody besides me?

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. What the hell. Maybe you have great focus, but you still don’t think. Because if you’d thought about it clearly, you wouldn’t have done it. You’re just another guy after all.

Now they say you are a sex addict because the numbers of girls are up to 9 or 10 as of this writing. Like my friend just wrote to me, "Can't anybody just be an ass anymore?"

Do you get now the far-reaching effect your “transgressions” have?

Did you tell yourself that as long as your wife doesn’t find out, it’s all good?

Did you think that the girls you fooled around with were so taken in by your celebrity that they would keep their mouths shut? Did you think they were all starry-eyed and had no agenda of their own but to be there for you when it was convenient for you?

Did you actually think it would never come out? Because, my little brother-in-law, the truth always comes out. You sure were stupid to think it wouldn’t.

Oh yeah, I've already established you didn't think.

And you have children you didn’t think about as well. You might not think now that this will affect them because they are so young. But it’s affecting them already. And it will into the future. When they get to school, they are going to hear things from other kids who heard their parents talking. You have no idea, really, what you've done.

Don’t think you didn’t have a chance at bringing home an STD. You are lying to your wife and your girlfriends; you can be sure your girlfriends are lying to you about their exploits.

Your right to privacy is virtually nonexistent by your actions alone. It has nothing to do with anybody else, not the media, just you. The media has helped make you as rich and popular as you are; did you actually think any action of yours is not news?

Your reputation was one of the best of any celebrity’s. You seemed to be respectful, dignified and always seemed to know what to say in any situation. Did you think there weren’t hordes of people ready to see you fall?

You may feel mired right now in the physical and emotional aftermath of your wife, your mother and other family and friends finding out you are a lying, cheating bastard. You have no idea even yet the effect your stupidity will have.

You have ruined the kind of marriage only a first marriage of two people in love can be. Your marriage has lost the “we are so special; infidelity will never touch us; we will have that happy ending” feeling. Your wife had it. Now she doesn't. The bubble has burst. The trust, man, the trust. So much more important than any other part of marriage.

If you want to keep your marriage now and your wife consents to attempt to stay married to you, there’s a lot of work that you MUST do. You must be willing to spend the rest of your life proving yourself to her. I’m not saying it’s going to take the rest of your life, but you must be willing. You must be willing to be completely transparent from now on. It’s not hard to do. It really isn’t. Lies take on a life of their own, completely out of your famous control.

You must answer your wife’s questions honestly and fully. Really. She’s going to ask a lot of questions at first. She’s going to want to hear the hurtful things you’ve done. She’s going to want the ever-loving truth, man. The full truth. Because no less than the full truth will keep your family together. And she will know. Her senses are acute now, hyper really, and the blinders are off. She knows now many things you think she doesn’t, because there were bells ringing in her head the whole time you were cheating, but she chose to trust you. Now all those bells are like little metal tabs in a slot machine, falling into place, making sense out of every ding. She knows a lot.

Every little thing you did, every text message, every phone call, every card, gift, everything you’ve ever said to her, whispered to her, written to or done for her is suspect. You have made her entire life a sham, a lie. Her entire life with you.

Transparency, man, full disclosure. She deserves no less.

And get yourself a real name.

All My Life's A Circle

I’m almost through with another well-written TV series, this one British, called, “William and Mary.”

Have I said how much I love Netflix?

The show’s about a single dad who is an undertaker and a single mom who is a midwife and how they get together (via a dating service) and all the baggage that goes along with their families.

(I think it should have been the other way around, with the dad the midwife and the mom the undertaker.)

For instance, Mary’s mother spends a couple of episodes trying to get Mary back with Mary’s long-ago ex-boyfriend and she wants nothing to do with him and is very clear about it. You find out soon enough that the mom and the ex have spent so much time together, they’ve actually fallen in love. And the Brits make it all quite all right. They are much less stuffy about those things than us Yanks.

It’s so well done and has me laughing and crying through each episode. It is filmed making the most of the beginnings and endings of life and is not depressing at all, despite the tragedies that occur because they show the best moments right along with the worst. It feels quite real.

Granted, I am still in a weakened condition, but not too weak to know great story lines.

I thought I would have avoided romantic movies and shows right now, and life and death events, seeing as how my marriage so recently became undone, but I am drawn to them by some invisible force. Possibly one of self-flagellation.

I do find it therapeutic, though; watching them gives me a reason to let go with my emotions in a safe place and not keep stuffing my busted heart inside my shirt, with it surreptitiously leaking when I least expect it. It’s so boring when I just cry all the time in front of people—not fun at all.

Shows and movies give me hope.

Celluloid hope, but hope nonetheless. And fake hope becomes real if you hold onto it long enough.

Death lives!

I’ve been watching a short-lived gem-of-an-HBO series using Netflix: “Dead Like Me.” It’s a quirky, entertaining little show, well written, tackling the ever-interesting subject of the after-life.

Ellen Muth stars as George, an 18-year-old, life-avoiding girl who is working the first day of her first job after high school graduation as a file clerk at a temp agency when she goes out during her lunch hour and is killed by a space shuttle toilet seat plummeting to Earth. As you can imagine, she is pretty much blown to smithereens and her mom, dad and 11-year-old sister have to pick up the pieces of their lives and try to go on. But the story isn't about them.

Immediately after death, George finds that she’s a grim reaper, part of a small group of reapers headed up by Rube, played by Mandy Patinkin. She’s known as Toilet Seat Girl, thereby confirming my own suspicion that at least the writers of this show think like me: Life is no different after high school or death. Most people don’t seem to change. (Did I say high school equals death?)

The reapers must take the souls from bodies of people about to die and they do it after getting a name, time and place on a Post-It note from Rube, every morning at a pancake house where they meet.

I'm just saying, hilarious.

They make their way to the place, find a way to discover the person there who is scheduled to die and run their hand along an arm or shoulder, drawing the soul from the body. A moment later, whatever is scheduled to happen to that person takes place and they lead the just-dead person away from the scene and toward his or her “light.” Each reap has a twist of its own.

One kicker: George is a reaper in her hometown, something that is unusual even by reaper standards, and she gets to check in on her family every now and then. She is seen by the living, has to live and work among them, earning money for her expenses as if she was alive.

But reapers don’t look like themselves to the living. George takes advantage of this to visit her family, pretending to be somebody else and see how they are dealing with her death. This is not encouraged by Rube as it can wreak havoc with your focus. There is one day a year—Halloween, natch—when they are seen as they looked when alive.

The stories are great and ironic and interesting. The series ended all too soon, as the good ones all do.