Turn a Phrase a Million Ways

Single A to Triple A

2011-05-10T18:15:00.000-04:00

In baseball, players move frequently from one level of the game to the next. Top prospects dance quickly up the ladder of minor league franchises to the majors, while middling players and flameouts can spend careers only a couple of rungs up that ladder.

This week, I decided I wanted to try and take a step or two up that ladder. I traveled to New York City to audition for the world premiere of the stage musical of Newsies.

Now, some background: I have been infatuated with Newsies since I was about 12. My third year in the summer theater camp I attended was supposed to be my last (I was going to outgrow the program). So I was virtually guaranteed a major role. I had been disappointed and confused at the selection of a show I knew nothing of. And after watching it, I liked the premise but was wary of the lengthy kiss scene at the end (hey, I was 12!).

Long story short, I fell in love with the show as we worked on it, in particular the music. Santa Fe killed (and still kills) me, and Seize the Day and Once and For All just stuck in my head for hours on end.

Years pass. I act some more, fall out of acting for a little while, then leap into a deep end of acting in the world of community theater. Some cohorts tell me I've got a nice voice, and over time my confidence in my dancing grows from a 0 to a 5 or a 6 on a scale of 10.

Then, a couple weeks ago, I discover that the world premiere of Newsies was having an open, non-equity call in New York the first week in May. I waffled for a while about going, but when every single person I mentioned it to encouraged me to do it, I sucked it up and went.

Much like minor league ballplayers, I made my pilgrimage by bus. And also much like minor league ballplayers, I stayed in a low-rent accommodation. A youth hostel, to be exact. My experience there could probably fill another blog entry, but suffice it to say the comedians hired by a youth hostel aren't very funny, the roommates like long nights, and the cacophony of language made sleep difficult.

The morning of the audition dawned early-ish (before 8 a.m.), and I staggered through my morning routine before triple-checking which subway I was getting onto and which stop I was getting off at. I made it to the audition studio with only one or two panicked moments of "I'm going the wrong way!", 15-20 minutes after they started accepting sign-ins.

In that time, one hundred and eighty-eight people had signed in.

Well, I figured I had nothing to lose, so I signed in and found a seat in the back corner. The tension (and the sexuality) were palpable. You could smell it. After some time just sitting and collecting my thoughts, we were told of the process. There would be several groups of about 30, each of which would go in, learn the dance, and then be judged on that. No singing was mentioned.

Damn. That was my ace-in-the-hole. I thought I'd found a perfect song, one that was basically Santa Fe, but for an animated movie.

My call wasn't for several hours, so I killed some time at Dunkin Donuts (which had an "internet cafe" but no outlets - seriously?). On returning a couple hours before my call, I discovered the studio was nearly deserted.

Apparently in the hour and change that I was away, a few groups had gone in and completed their audition, while the rest of us weren't around yet.

The room would fill back up again fairly quickly as 1:30 approached, and the folks in charge of the holding room told us the group system was being abandoned and we would go into the audition in groups of 30 based on whoever was around. So I ended up in a group two hours earlier than I should've.

We were herded into a second holding room where everybody dropped their stuff and got into whatever attire they were going to wear for the dance. The anxiety was growing, as the friendly conversations among auditionees tapered off and we all focused on the task at hand.

Moving to the actual audition studio, we lined up Chorus Line-style and learned the dance combination in sequences of 8 beats. By the second set of 8 beats, it was clear to me that this was going to be an exercise in futility for me. I could probably get the steps down over time, but it wasn't going to come together for me in 15 minutes. One count of 8 featured four separate 360-degree turns and a jump.

I mean, I knew Newsies was a dance show, and that this whole little excursion was a pipedream at best, but I had hoped I'd luck into an audition I could handle.

Naturally, I was in the very first group to dance for the choreographer and Paper Mill Playhouse artistic director. In my group was some little kid (auditioning for Les, I assume) and one other guy. I don't think any of us really brought it, but I didn't fall down.

The problem for me with dance is that I'm six feet tall and all arms and legs. Even if I know what I'm doing and commit to it, if I don't have a dead-on musicality and fluidity, I'm going to look like an idiot. Case in point:

Yeah, I'm the one with the giant swinging arms. I suspect I looked worse in New York, where I didn't know the steps and I had giant swinging arms.

Anyway, following the audition, we were herded back into the second holding room for a few minutes, after which one of the producers came in and listed 8 or 10 names (mine, obviously, was not among them) to stick around. Everybody else was free to go.

It was a shame, I had put a lot of thought into what song I was going to use for my audition, and I was never going to have a snowball's chance at using it. And considering I'm "a singer who moves well" on good days, Newsies was probably not the show for me anyway.

The benefit to me was that I gained a sliver of confidence in my dance, believe it or not. Bad as I'm sure I was, I estimate I danced better than 35-40% of the people there. And considering I have nil formal training, I figure that's not all that bad, really. So if nothing else, I know I can handle pretty much anything short of what they gave me in New York.

So no, I'm not going to be making a paid-acting debut with Newsies. Would I audition for something else? Sure, if it were a singing show.

Boston in 60...okay, more like Boston in whatever time I have

2011-03-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

In the summer immediately preceding my trip to Washington, I talked the Boston Globe into publishing my summertime excursion undertaking, which I called the Boston in 60 Project. The goal was pretty straightforward: go out into the city every day for two months, and shoot/write up everything you do. I wanted to go see and do all the things I had taken for granted in my lifetime of living in and around Boston. The Swan Boats, the Warren Tavern, etc.

The project was pretty successful; I still hear about it from people today.

I bring this up because after a meeting at UNO's on Huntington Ave. yesterday, I traipsed back toward my apartment through Northeastern, where I spent five years of my life and money. And it occurred to me in that long walk that I had taken it for granted as well, in many respects.

So as what may be my final community theatre show for the next several months begins to heat up (we open in 4 weeks), I wondered about the practicality and feasibility of reviving my old project. In reading the entries again, I'm reminded of the joie de vivre that came from walking out the door every day knowing I was going to see something cool. And if I could recapture even a fraction of that energy at the cost of some photography, some writing, and a handful of bucks to get in, then maybe it's worth it.

I couldn't do the every-day thing, of course, I do work for a living. But maybe a once-a-week outing, or an as-I-can setup would be successful.

Consider this a call: if you have any thoughts about this, do let me know. What did I miss in Boston in 60? What should I go do again, since it's changed in the 3 years since? Who wants to come along?

Driftwood

2010-10-07T20:09:00.000-04:00

In the not-so-distant past, I wrote about community theatre's blessings and curses; how that special artform brought you in close contact with people you could get along phenomenally with, and completely lose touch with following the cast party. In that same post, I mentioned that the instances in which I've escaped that fate were few and far between, and it looks as though they're growing fewer and farther.

One show in particular brought me close to a couple of people my age. Throughout the rehearsal process, the run of the show, and even for several months after that, we were thick as thieves. We hung out at trivia, went to shows other companies were putting on, and just visited each other and talked online all the time. I thought I'd finally found people in this little realm whom I could call and hang out with on a boring Thursday night.

But it occurs to me now, seeing the situations that surround us, that community theatre friendships are inevitably victims of circumstance. None of the paths our lives are on are likely to cross again; I work in marketing, and I have the flexibility to continue to perform on-stage to my heart's content (hence my three-show fall). Neither of them do: one is in graduate school and the other is attempting to do the same. And the places we've moved and the changes we've endured have apparently rendered it impossible for any of us to meet in person. I've most recently seen one of these people in, I believe, June, and the other even less recently. Phone calls and instant messages are less frequently answered, and invitations to go out and grab a beer and a bite are, without fail, rebuffed.

I shouldn't be disappointed. I should have seen this coming. After all, it happens every time. I just got my hopes up a little too high when the process took that much longer.

Remember when?

2010-09-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

In response to a Twitter question I couldn't answer in under 140 characters:

2004 was the year of the Red Sox for Northeastern. It was also my freshman year, and as an overexcited genuine Red Sox fan living in Kennedy Hall, I lived in incredibly close proximity to Fenway Park throughout the storied playoff run. In fact, I found myself ~~rioting~~ celebrating outside the park on, I believe, six separate occasions that October.

The majority of those incidences were entirely peaceful. Following the win against the Angels and the first three wins against the Yankees, Lansdowne Street was a bedlam of jubilation, rather than that of destructive mentalities.

But the final win against the Yankees, after Game 7 (where the result was never really in doubt), the mob got unruly. BPD officers were summoned to try and control the crowds behind the Monster, and several patrolmen were armed with specialized guns that fire pepper pellets. These pellets are designed to disperse crowds; think projectile Mace.

Well, at some point during the evening, a BPD officer found cause to fire his pepper pellet gun into the crowd. The shot struck an Emerson student in the face, and she lay bleeding on the sidewalk. Naturally, since this was the fifth such riot in only two weeks' time, several news organizations had photographers stationed near Lansdowne Street to respond to the ~~riots~~ celebrations. The photographer for the Boston Herald took a picture of a then-still-alive Victoria Snelgrove as she was treated on the sidewalk.

Snelgrove died between press time for the Herald and morning reveille. The Boston Herald had a picture of a bloodied (but, I repeat, alive) Victoria Snelgrove on pages A2 and A3.

Cue mass outrage. The unwashed masses hollered in protest at the callous treatment of Snelgrove by the Herald, despite the fact that she had not died when the paper went to press. Every journalism class in Boston discussed the merits of publishing that photo. But NEU took it one step further and removed the free Boston Herald copies throughout campus.

Technically, it can't be proven (as far as I'm aware, anyway) that the removal was in response to the Snelgrove picture. But I don't recall there being any exhortations to the contrary from NEU administration. After another outcry from the student body about the injustice of the papers being taken, they were eventually restored. For the remainder of my college career (ending in 2009), the Boston Herald, Boston Globe, NU News (later Huntington News) and NU Voice were all available to students if they knew where and when to look.

The cowardice of the NEU administration wasn't forgotten by the JRN students, though.

How to save community theatre

2010-07-15T22:27:00.000-04:00

I experienced a collision of worlds today, and from that debris I’ve got a half-baked idea that I want to get some feedback on.

Eastern Mass. is flooded with community theatre groups, advocates, participants, and audience members. Inside route 128, it seems as though each significant town has its own theatre group (or two), and each group has its own identity and set of core members.

The last few years, however, have not been kind to some of these groups. Each has suffered various levels of attrition as their most senior members have retired from active roles and the economy’s trouble thinned the numbers of audience members. But some groups have suffered more than others. There are several theatre groups out there that are getting left behind due to a lack of resources and manpower, and there are several theatre groups in danger of folding.

Community theatre isn’t about survival of the fittest, though. If we can save these groups and help restore them to a level at which they can sustain themselves again, and renew the promise of old glorious productions, we, as community theatre devotees, should do what we can.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been contributing in a substantial way to the redesign of the public image of one particular theatre group. We’re conceptualizing a new, more modern logo, creating a stronger and more helpful website, and coordinating an all-fronts PR campaign. The team undertaking these tasks has evolved quickly into a well-oiled machine that seeks out candidates for individual jobs and manages all of them to rejuvenate a company’s image in a short period of time.

Why couldn’t that become a freelance gig?

Assemble a team of “stage ringers” whom a struggling theatre group can contract with. On this team are several consultants who each have an expertise in one particular facet of a theatre rejuvenation project: a website designer, a PR guru, a social media whiz, a graphic designer, a nonprofit manager, a fundraising expert. This team adds the group’s president (a community representative) to their team for the duration of the project, and together they decide on a direction of the redesign and go to work.

What’s more, each of these consultants is a theatre advocate, so the groups with which this team would partner can trust the experts to have the group’s best interests at heart, and the instincts of an old stage friend.

Because this is a freelance group, and because this is a passion for each of the members of this “crack team”, each consultant would accept a discounted fee for their services. This would make it more affordable for the groups interested in the project. And if even that proved to be too much for the group to afford, the consultants who could afford to work pro bono could do so and the others would pass.

It seems to me like a win-win situation: this crack team gets paid for work in an area they love, and the group gets a low-cost redesign that can rejuvenate a flagging group. But I’m sure there are steps I’m missing – what are they? The more I think about this, the more I wonder if it’s doable.

Theatre sandbox

2010-06-21T10:39:00.000-04:00

Today is the audition for my second Summer Scene production. Of all the shows I've ever been connected with, Once on this Island is probably the one with which I have the most exposure. So naturally, that's the show I chose to do in my second year (the first was Seussical, which I can get passionate about in no time). But I'm going to encounter a similar challenge: enrollment. I had to make Seussical work last year with only 12 kids, and I've got to make Island work with only 14.

The great benefit of the program is that it can be very sandbox-like: it's a summer camp, these kids aren't doing it because they're going to be going on to Walnut Hill or Tisch, they're doing it because it's fun and they like the idea of getting up and putting on a show. So their enthusiasm (without the inherent competition and diva-like symptoms) gives me the flexibility to try some new things. Last year, I had a concept for how the entire show was going to emerge from a television. And it did. This year, I want to take Island and "Nutcrackerize" it. And I will.

That's why I love this program: it's laid-back enough that I can still make "let's just have fun" our primary motto, but the kids take it seriously enough that I can try some ideas I have.

Between the ears

2010-05-25T23:48:00.000-04:00

I don't generally like doing the "pet peeve" blog posts, but a pattern has emerged lately that's become disturbing to me. People have an incredible capacity for good, but they also have an incredible capacity to not think. That old axiom that we only use half (maybe less) of our actual brain potential? Feels true of late.

Without giving any details, someone I know has been repeatedly inconvenienced, left out to dry, and overlooked by people he has to deal with every day. I wish I could elaborate, I really do, but for a whole host of reasons, I need to keep my mouth shut. But the extent to which he's not thought of by people who should know better doesn't reflect well on the operation.

Driving, too, you see it. When I'm driving in the right lane of a highway, passing an on-ramp, and a car entering the highway is timed so that he would merge in just as I would pass him, I change lane. It's really not that hard - it keeps traffic moving at the same speed, it's courteous to the driver entering, and it's safer than playing chicken with an unknown quantity. But nine times out of ten, the person on the highway doesn't have the cognitive function to notice this, look around, and make an adjustment.

My patience runs out when people can't be bothered to process information and make a reasonable decision. If the decision isn't to my liking but is reasoned, I can accept that. It's when substantial amounts of viable information are ignored that I get frustrated.

In nomine

2010-05-14T12:34:00.002-04:00

Let me just say right from the outset that this post started out as another "what have I read lately" review post. And I'll mention those quickly, but in my head the topic rapidly evolved into a "holy crap, how did all this religion stuff appear in my life at once" post.

On the book side of things, after I finished The Wild Things, I moved on to a nonfiction I've had on the shelf for some time, Vows. It's the biography (written by their son) of a priest and ex-nun who marry, and their struggle to reconcile a relationship they see as perfectly holy with a Catholic Church that disagrees.

It was an interesting book, a little slow-moving at first, but a not-insubstantial indictment of the speed with which the Catholic Church allows for change. And the Boston-centrism of the narrative helped keep me involved.

Following that, on the boy's suggestion, I read Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bible!. This one I ran really hot-and-cold on. The opening story, about the Garden of Eden and the expulsion of Adam and Eve, reminded me very, very clearly of The Creation of the World and Other Business, an Arthur Miller play I acted in my senior year of high school. So much so, in fact, that I started to get angry and wonder about plagiarism.

The rest of the book just didn't really thrill me. The boy built it up for me before I picked it up, so I suspect my expectations were too high, but alas. It was the same when I passed along Nameless to him - I had built it up to a point it couldn't achieve.

At any rate, the subject of those two books, combined with a resurgence of interest in Jesus Christ Superstar (centering on the fact that I saw it again last weekend) just startled me with how much religion can appear without even thinking about it.

Does that happen to anybody else? You can go ages without thinking about some big concept like religion and suddenly, bang, there's three instances in short succession and you can't help focusing for a little bit?

Wistful for a beast

2010-05-14T09:23:00.003-04:00

I'm not one of those guys who takes fantastic care of his car. I don't take it in for oil changes as frequently as I should, I don't get it washed (it's gonna rain anyway), and I certainly don't name it.

But lately I find myself increasingly wistful for a machine I treated like crap in the 6 years or so I owned it.

I'm talking about my old Jeep Grand Cherokee. A '95 model, the thing lasted me longer than I probably deserved to have it last. I finally admitted it was time to move on when the rear wheel bearings, ring-and-pinion, and differential all started to go at the same time. That's $1500 of repairs, at least, and the car definitely wasn't worth that anymore, so I sold the thing for what I could get ($475) and got a '99 Taurus with more problems than it let on.

But that Jeep, man, that Jeep. The beast saved my life once when the driver's side front wheel came clean off the car when I was traveling at 65 mph. State cops later said if I'd driven anything smaller than my beastly SUV, the car would have rolled and I probably wouldn't have walked away from the accident completely unhurt.

And despite how poorly I treated the thing (go 6-7,000 miles between oil changes, leave it out in the elements, etc.), the beast took everything I threw at it, chimed "thank you sir, may I have another", and kept right on rolling.

I loved that car. It hurt a bit to have to move on from it when I know it still has life. It felt a little bit like abandoning an aged pet cause it got an ear infection but was otherwise okay. I've found it worse because there are so many mid-90s Grand Cherokees out on the road still - it's as though the world at large is rubbing it in my face that my car couldn't make it.

(Of course, there are nearly as many if not more late 90s Ford Tauri out there, but still.)

My Ford and I haven't yet developed that symbiotic relationship that my Jeep and I did. Of course, that's probably a function of so many things needing fixing on the Taurus (engine skip, coolant flush, new tires, needed brakes and bearings recently, transmission slip), and frankly, I'm not sure it ever will reach the level my old Jeep did. It's a terrible thought, but once I'm settled wherever the boy and I end up living, I want to start thinking about how long it will take to save up for a better used car.

Until then, however, I'm going to remain wistful when I see a mid-90s Jeep on the road, because I should still be driving one.

Performance Adrenaline

2010-04-15T11:04:00.003-04:00

I've never had any problem speaking in front of a group of people, mainly because I'm usually on a script I know inside, outside, and backwards. Speaking extemporaneously I'm a little less sure of what I'm doing, but that's never stopped me. Taking a deep breath before the big solo number or hoping against hope that you remember all of the steps to the dance break, it's a thrill.

So when I was thrown into the proverbial deep end yesterday and asked to give a 5-minute presentation of my company and product, I got that familiar adrenaline rush. I was in over my head in several respects - I'm still not well-versed enough on data backup to answer most technical questions, and this was the first time I was flying solo as an exhibitor on what amounted to a trade show floor. (I've been trade show staff a dozen times, but never an exhibitor.)

It was a performance of sorts. I had to get up there and talk about something I didn't know as well as I ought, and do so without being dry, boring, overly technical, or committing any of a host of presentation sins that have been drilled into my consciousness. Oh, and do so eloquently.

Tougher stuff than I originally expected. I would like to think I did fairly well with it, as I had a pocketful of business cards when I left, but I'll definitely need some practice at it. But the adrenaline rush as I was presenting or talking to people one-on-one afterward reminded me of being on stage, and I thought it was an apt comparison.

Pressing our noses to the window

2010-03-30T13:54:00.003-04:00

I am not, nor have I ever been, an “expert” in social media. By all accounts, I’m a novice to the field. Been on Facebook since it was restricted to @.edu accounts, been on Twitter for 18 months or so, LinkedIn for over a year.

But I could pretend to be an expert. Look, it’s easy:

How to be a social media expert in six “easy” steps

1. Build your audience.

2. Listen to people.

3. Give them valuable content.

4. Listen to people.

5. Ask questions.

6. Listen to people.

Here’s what the real secret is: it’s all a load of shit. And that’s the biggest fault I find with so many social media “experts” out there today: they assume the route I’ll take to utilizing social media will be the same as the route they took.

That’s not possible anymore. The social media universe is hyper-saturated by people just like me, ambitious twenty-somethings who can write a lick and have had a computer at their fingertips since before they knew how many fingertips they had.

The reality is that there was a window during which those lucky few earliest adopters of these technologies realized that common sense should prevail over industry hesitation. Those folks experienced a meteoric and lightning-quick ascendancy to social media stardom. In gratitude for their success, they’ve tried to teach their disciples how to do the same.

But what nobody is willing to say is that we can’t. That window slammed shut when that common concept of do-unto-others became widespread. And the social media influencers that made it through the window before it closed keep beckoning to those of us inside, waving us on to Never Never Land without seeing that there’s a pane of glass in the way.

I don’t need a social media Buddha who’ll tell me the only way to become an expert is to be one. I don’t need crazy analogies to how successful marketing is like a box of business cards. I can’t crowdsource a problem when I can’t develop a crowd. And it’s awful easy for someone with 25,000 followers to tell me to “listen to my audience”, but I struggle to assemble more than 150.

I don't want a pep talk.

The trail is jammed and not enough people make it through, so I must forge my own path with a machete and my own guile. The only way to alleviate hyper-saturation, after all, is to do things completely differently.

Community Theatre's blessing, curse, and unfortunate necessities

2010-03-25T20:29:00.004-04:00

The last show I'm going to do for a long time ended this past Sunday as Fiddler on the Roof in Wellesley closed. It still hasn't really sunk in yet. Maybe it won't, cause I'm planning on cheating a bit: I'm going to jump into the crew for Spelling Bee in Newton if my schedule will allow, and the director for Wellesley's EMACT festival show has been operating on the fait accompli method of persuading me to join their crew, too. (Not to mention I'm expecting to be directing again this summer at Summer Scene.)

But I realized during the show's run that I had fallen again into the trap of only really talking to people during tech week and performance weeks. Show after show, I'll make friends with lots of cast members during the rehearsal process, but it's completely superficial. "Hey, you work there, that's interesting." "Hey, you're coming to rehearsals from that town, what route do you take?"

It's bullshit. I don't even know why I do it - is it because I spend so little time with these people during the early rehearsal process that I don't really care? Is it because the course of a show is so short from start to finish that by never getting close to people, I never really lose any friends? Is it because the theatre world in eastern Mass. is so small I can run into people a year, two years down the road, so never getting close doesn't even matter?

Whatever it is, that subconscious strategy gets blown to hell during tech. With so much more time and close contact, not to mention cast parties and outings, longer conversations and deeper histories follow. How is it I don't learn until the show is nearly through that one castmate speaks eight languages and nearly went into the seminary? How is it I don't learn until then that another castmate lost his partner very suddenly last year? That another has been with his wife for fifty years and writes musicals of his own? Another is returning to Los Angeles to pursue acting for a career, another is a well-respected cardiologist...it goes on.

It seems to me almost a crime to not know anything until it's too late for it to be meaningful. Even after I've learned these fascinating details, there's so little opportunity to make it into a conversation that it's safer not to bother.

Only on rare occasions does a friendship or relationship surpass the restrictions of a show. I'm dating someone I met through a show. Two close friends were in Oz with me. Another was in Godspell with me and suffered through Beauty and the Beast auditions with me two years ago. But other than that? Nothing real.

It's community theatre's blessing and curse. It's not a huge commitment to do a show three nights a week for eight weeks and on the ninth be kinda crazy and then be done with it all. But by the same token, three nights a week for eight weeks is no basis for a friendship. It's just not enough non-rehearsal interaction.

Job description: make it up as you go

2010-03-25T13:19:00.002-04:00

Considering how long I went having few real job leads and fewer close calls, the last three weeks proved to be a very strange situation for me, as I ended up with two offers in only 10 days.

The short version is I'm now a working schmo.

After a very brief tenure at a Boston-based news repurposing and SEO agency (I won't call it a news agency), I joined Nine Technology, a startup disaster recovery firm in Middleboro. My official job title is "Marketing Associate", but in reality, I'm going to function as the social media go-to guy and factotum for content generation.

But that's kind of an interesting situation in and of itself; not really having a set list of duties, but kinda making it up as I go and just trying to be a brand evangelist. It's quite the opposite from the Boston company I was with for seven days, where I had a very specific set of goals each day. I had this many articles to write, I had this much sourcing to do, etc. Here, it's quite a bit more free-form: help us find ways to get the Nine Technology name out, help us create compelling content across all media, and help us make sure we're on top of social media strategies.

Although there's something to be said for the comfort and routine of having that specific duty roster, I do like not quite knowing what the day will bring when I get in the car on the way to work. It's much more exciting this way. Admittedly, I'm nervous about building a social media career when my background isn't in traditional marketing, but that may be a positive. I don't have an old-fashioned paradigm that I need to break out of in order to be effective. I just go with what makes sense, what would grab me and make me hang out on the site.

So hey. I'm 23 years old, I was unemployed for nine months, and now I'm working full-time in social media. Not a bad turnaround, huh?

Response to concept of Publishing/Journalism dichotomy

2010-02-22T14:01:00.004-05:00

Chris Brogan recently posted about the differences between "journalism" and "publishing" in the wake of an article about AOL hiring up lots of discarded journalists to help propel its Patch.com and other efforts.

First, let’s be clear: the pursuits of journalism and the pursuits of publishing aren’t the same.
Journalists seek to create compelling information that is helpful and news-worthy.

Publishing seeks to push more product, deliver higher circulation value, and create more value for sponsors/advertisers/money-holders.

Publishers need content creators of some stripe to do what they do. Journalists don’t need publishers, but publishers pay, so that’s a decent place to connect with an audience and be paid.

But never confuse the two.

The move by AOL is both smart for business and helpful for journalists who’ve lost their jobs.

I have to disagree with some major points here. I would submit that journalism at its heart isn't about delivering compelling content. Journalism is about delivering useful information that sheds light on a difficult or under-the-radar topic. If the content is "compelling," all the better.

I make this distinction very carefully because of the mindset that each demands. If the concept of "compelling" content is foremost in a writer's mind, the basic tenets of journalism (fairness, thoroughness, accuracy) can fall by the wayside. It's more important for the writer who purports to be a journalist to think first about basic journalism skills.

While I like the ideas that engendered the Patch.com and Your Town initiatives, there is a danger inherent in mixing the ideas of publishing and journalism. See also: examiner.com. That one pays "journalists" based on the clicks they get. Since the pay is based not per-article or per-week, the incentive is for writers to pick incendiary topics that will draw traffic.

If there is going to be a courtship between these two concepts, it needs to allow for journalistic orthodoxy and independence.

My point is it is near impossible to not "confuse the two" when in many of these initiatives, a writer is expected to do both.

Wayland Town Meeting

2010-02-14T18:13:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to note that I wrote an article about potential changes to the format of Town Meeting in Wayland for the Globe today. The means of change I discussed are being spearheaded by a a few conservative folks in Wayland, including a former selectman, and would effectively move TM from an open vote on issues to a secret ballot.

The alternatives being considered are the Australian ballot (making day one of TM discussion-only and day two voting-only), representative Town Meeting, or to make no change at all to the format.

Wayland residents discuss high tech voting to streamline Town Meeting

Let the wild rumpus start!

2010-02-10T09:50:00.005-05:00

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things. - Maurice Sendak

Last night I finished The Wild Things, which is Dave Eggers' adaptation of Spike Jonze's adaptation of Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are. And while I found the book itself a little bit flawed (the ending seemed rushed and inconclusive, some characters were never given more than one dimension, and Max was caught between being 9 years old and being 45 years old), it did remind me of why I have an immense respect for effective children's literature.

It's no big secret that my favorite author is Dr. Seuss. Not just because the man was an incredible artist who was never truly recognized in his field (incredibly, Seuss never won a Caldecott or a Newbery), but because he had the unique capability to engage children through his writing while challenging their reading abilities and subtly addressing social issues. And let me not forget to note that he did all of this in specific meters.

Think about that for a second - Dr. Seuss wrote about the King of the Turtles in the same way Shakespeare wrote about the King of Denmark 400 years ago.

I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees,
Which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please;
But I also speak for the brown Barbaloots,
Who frolicked and played in their Barbaloot suits,
Happily eating Truffula fruits.
Now, since you've chopped the trees to the ground
There's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!
And my poor Barbaloots are all feeling the crummies
Because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies. - The Lorax

I've bolded anything that's not a real word. But when kids read Seuss, they can feel the rhythm of his meter and predict what the word sounds like. Even if it's a word they've never seen before and will never see again, kids can pick out exactly what it will sound like based on the cadence of the line leading up to it and because Seuss picked easy syllables to manage.

What kind of mastery of language must it take to teach people meter and rhythm a decade before they'll understand it?

How often do you hear of precocious 3 and 4 year-olds who've memorized The Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham? They can't yet read every word in front of them, but they're so engaged in the content and so caught in the meter that they want nothing more than to emulate the people who can read every word. You don't hear those stories about Harry Potter, you don't hear those stories about Artemis Fowl, you don't hear those stories about The Velveteen Rabbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, even Where the Wild Things Are. I don't deny the importance of each of those works, far from it, but I would argue they're not as significant as Seuss.

Without looking it up on Wikipedia, give me a brief synopsis of C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Now try Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. Maybe you can do it, maybe you can't. Now try Green Eggs and Ham. See the difference? Seuss, in no small part because of the meter and because of the illustration, has a greater staying power and a greater recall than more "substantial" literature.

And that's what makes it effective. You remember the story of Green Eggs and Ham even though you may not have held the book for decades. And that's what reading is about - learning and remembering. How much more effective can a book be than to make you remember the plot, the characters, hell, even lines from it years and years later?

I submit to you that Dr. Seuss was the most important children's author of the last 150 years.

Certainly not an original assertion, I acknowledge. But I thought the point needed to be made - as I worked through The Wild Things, I remembered only how this book differed from the movie, and that it was certainly different from the original book. That said, I couldn't remember much of how it was different from the original - Where the Wild Things Are didn't stick with me the same way.

Vim and Vigor

2010-02-06T13:50:00.002-05:00

I swear, I need to put signs with these words on the wall behind my computer. Just thinking about that little mantra is enough to refocus my energies and get me excited to write again. Simply, nothing gets me out of a rut faster than thinking about the potential I have in my fingers to write something that affects people, that could change somebody's world.

In that spirit, I want to apply the phoenix treatment to this blog. Out of the ashes of a less-than-full-throated effort in the past year, I want to put a better stamp on things. I have the privilege of writing for the Boston Globe on a regular basis, and the freedom to write for Blast Magazine whenever I choose.

So perhaps the wisest choice for me is to make this a clearinghouse of sorts, where much of my content is reposted/shared.

At any rate, for lack of a current article (although that will change in the not-so-distant future), I can chronicle my goal of reading 30 books in 2010.

Thus far, I've read:

Batman: Year One - This was a Christmas gift from the boy. I'm not a comic book devotee, as he is, but the idea of Batman always intrigued me. No superpowers, just an incredible intellect and training. Year One was put together by Frank Miller, of 300 and Sin City fame. It was an interesting take on the origins of the Dark Knight, one not in keeping with the recent movies. But as I read it only after I'd seen the movies, it felt strange to read an "obsolete" version of events.

Finlater - Grabbed this from the free-for-all book table at the Globe. I don't even really know what drew me to this one. It wasn't a bad book, it just resolved very quickly and with picture-perfect tied ends. It felt a little cliched in that regard.

In Defense of Our America - Another pickup from the Globe (I haven't paid for any of the books I've read this year). An interesting chronicle of several major cases the ACLU advocated for since 9/11. Predictably, the "good guys" came out on top in each of them, with an awful lot of exposition leading to anticlimactic resolutions. Look, I understand that there's only so much that a Supreme Court decision can be considered exciting, but let's not just gloss over the drama of the presentation.

And I'm currently reading The Wild Things. First Eggers book for me, and thus far I'm not sold on his stardom. It might be because it's from the viewpoint of a 9 year old (although not written entirely as such), but it feels a little overdescribed and overinternalized.

Leftovers, faction edition

2009-09-16T09:22:00.004-04:00

I'll have a lengthy (1350 words) article in tomorrow's Globe West about how school districts decide to have x number of science classrooms vs. y number of seats in the auditorium. It was an interesting little case study to see how the five high school building projects in the Globe West area differed on that decision process.

At any rate, here's the first quote that I couldn't work into the article but that I thought was interesting:

"PE is always going to need bigger spaces by virtue of what we do, we move around, we’re not sitting around in chairs like in an auditorium." - Martha Jamieson, athletic director in Wayland.

Obviously, she has a point. Her argument was that sticking to the very strict square footage guidelines put out by the Mass. School Building Authority won't necessarily behoove the students in terms of their education.

For the most part, the people I talked to said the process was phenomenally transparent and inclusive, at least in Wayland. This compared to some other districts, where departments could submit a list of what they wanted to see in the new building and the architect and superintendent would decide. In Wayland, the committee to make those decisions was more than 60-strong.

But pick your cliche - is it too many cooks in the kitchen when the AD has to try and convince a group of 60 rather than a group of 2 that she needs more space? Or is it as simple as you can't have your cake (a new school) and eat it too (get everything you wanted)?

Staking My Claim

2009-08-18T13:31:00.003-04:00

When I'm asked what I want to do for work, I can't give a short answer - usually it's something to the effect of "I'd like to work in traditional, social, and broadcast media, and how the three interact". Not exactly a simple thought. And yet, recently, I was nearly afforded the opportunity to do just that. I interviewed for a position with the Your Town hyperlocal project run by Boston.com.

The towns I was being considered for are just down the road from me, and I regarded the prospect with unreserved excitement. I would have been working in a groundbreaking experiment in aggressive news coverage, and I would have been doing it in my own backyard. I hoped I was among the top-choice candidates based on my devotion to the paper in finding new places to work, based on my proximity and familiarity with the area, and based on my previous work for Globe West and the Boston in 60 Project.

But last week I got the call that I was not the finalist chosen for the position. It was a blow, I'll readily admit, and one that took me a day or two to rebound from. But immediately following that tough news, I was afforded the chance to go back to basics and work in local coverage for the print section, Globe West. In fact, I was going to be picking up four towns out there, most of which are high-activity and all of which are high-profile. Not a bad deal, I suppose. It doesn't pay as well as the Your Town job would have, but I'll have more traditional clips this way. And I've seen writers take opportunities like the one I now have and turn them into bigger and better jobs.

In the interest of maintaining an online mindset from time to time, though, I'm hoping to add another function to my blog here (one that I hope will drive me to add content far more frequently than I've done): outtakes. The Globe has, in a couple of places, features that highlight the "best of" something that didn't run. A long-time photographer posts the best picture that didn't make it into the paper. Sportswriters add little tidbits to the Notes columns when they don't grow into full stories.

What I'd like to do is, once a week, post the best quote/picture/anecdote that I came across but didn't use in working on these four towns, just because it was interesting. Maybe it'll help me keep the writing-for-new-media skills in practice, too.

Random Thoughts from an Early Morning at the Globe

2009-07-25T07:53:00.003-04:00

I kind of enjoy the peacefulness of being the only person in the newsroom for a stretch. I just wish I didn't have to be here at 7 a.m. to experience it. (Or, alternatively, 1 a.m.)

If I'm going to be here at this unholy hour on a weekend, I'm going to be comfortable. Go go Gadget t-shirt.

I need new shoes. I don't think I have a particularly distinctive gait, but when there's a clicking pattern coming from my left foot when I walk on the tile, it's time to replace the kicks.

They should make two additions to the area surrounding the Message Center - 1. Give us a DVD player. 2. Add one of those Red Box machines with the DVD rentals. There's money to be made.

Speaking of money - sandwiches and meals here are expensive, except at breakfast. Fair portion of scrambled eggs, home fries, and a small coffee - $3.24. I could do worse.

Apropos of the Gates story, as soon as someone drops the words "you people" with me, I immediately assign them to telephone hell.

I don't know what percentage of our readers is over 70, but 80% of our callers are.

Wikipedia: the bored but curious man's best friend. Also good for trivia buffs.

Not every detail is relevant.

2009-05-12T12:05:00.003-04:00

Like many other Boston-dwellers, I was perturbed by the Green Line crash last week. All the more so because the driver of the offending train was sending a text message to his girlfriend at the time of the accident.

Naturally, an incident like that is going to set the mainstream media on fire - heck of a story we're doing, Brownie.

But something that might have upset me even more than the crash itself was a detail included in some of the stories, entirely unnecessarily.

Boston Globe story
WHDH story (AP)
WBZ story (AP)

Those three stories all exclude something specific. These next three stories do not:

Boston Herald story
FOX 25 story
WCVB story (first to mention, by my notice)

What do those last three have that the first three do not? The information that the driver of the train transitioned from female to male in the recent past, including a name change from Georgia Anne Quinn to Aiden Quinn. Two of those last three (predictably, the Herald and FOX) make this little tidbit the crux of their story.

How is this newsworthy? Does Aiden Quinn's gender identity play any sort of role in his capacity to drive an MBTA train? Yes, the fact that he has speeding violations in the past is pertinent, and yes, it's worth a story. But nothing about those Herald and FOX stories has any relevance to the story at hand. It's sensationalistic, "look, this guy is different!" coverage.

Not only is Quinn's gender identity irrelevant to the story, disclosing it so flippantly goes against every rule of LGBT courtesy out there. It's absolutely unacceptable to out someone's gender identity or expression in so public a forum - it is Quinn's business and nobody else's.

People wonder why the media get a bad rap. It's crap like this.

Pledge of Allegiance

2009-05-12T00:34:00.002-04:00

Friday afternoon, while I was working the phones at the Globe, a colleague of mine dug out a packet of business cards and handed one to me with a chuckle. These aren't given out anymore, he told me, but folks used to be instructed to carry one at all times...just in case.

It reads:

Your Honor, I am a reporter for The Boston Globe. On behalf of the public and The Boston Globe, I respectfully object to the closing of this proceeding and request a hearing at which legal counsel may present arguments to the court on the issue of closing this courtroom. I also request an adjournment so I can arrange for counsel to attend the hearing. Thank you.

The card, on its inverse, has numbers for several lawyers retained by the Globe (presumably the Times - all the numbers are New York-based).

I found it an interesting little specimen. Part of me wants to make a snide remark about there obviously being enough use of these cards to justify printing a batch. But part of me rather wishes there was still enough purpose to them to justify handing them out.

There was a time, I'm told in my history of journalism classes, when reporters were respected, rather than despised. There was a time that dropping the name "Boston Globe" would startle many and frighten some. There was a time where reading the text on that card might actually have gotten the desired results.

I doubt any of those are as true today as I'd like, as I enter the industry. A court faced with that card's statement will not change its decision. The last presidential administration so poisoned the judicial pool that most judges won't care. The First Amendment and the respect given to those who protect it has been so eroded that the cards given to reporters, just in case, lie forgotten in a drawer underneath the switchboard.

Damn shame.

Twitter as a Secondary Source

2009-05-08T15:22:00.003-04:00

Now that I'm officially out of college, I'm getting in touch with all my past and present editors and offering up my services as a writer-with-a-car to anyone who'll have me. But when the freelance budget is bupkis, there's got to be other ways to contribute. An editor told me he couldn't use me on the writing front for the section he's controlling, but asked if I knew of any ways to "mine the Internet for content" that he might not have thought of.

Well, when in doubt, I turn to people who know more than I do. And lately, I've discovered that the "collective" is often the best source.

My response was to Twitter-search each of the towns. Yeah, it sounds dumb, but hear me out - you're not using the tweets themselves as sources, obviously you can't do that with unconfirmable identities and the easy potential for bad information. But you can see very quickly what people are talking about in respect to a given town.

For example, one town in question had a short tweet about termites. Well, looking at the tweeter's website indicated he was a pest control service provider, so he clearly has a vested interest in increased interest in termites in that town. That said, the simple fact that it's being mentioned merits a call to town officials to see if there has, in fact, been a spike in the number of termites in the town. And if there is - bang. Story.

I'm looking at Twitter for journalists the same way I look at Wikipedia for research papers - you can't use it as a primary source, but you can absolutely use it as a listing of primary sources or an idea well.

Starter's Gun

2009-05-05T15:47:00.004-04:00

Let the search begin in earnest, I suppose. I'm now officially graduated from college. (Technically, that means I could put letters after my name if I wanted to, but that would be kinda ridiculous.)

The month of April was so incredibly hectic with finals, my show, moving home, and graduation prep that I wasn't able to properly sit down and plan out what my summer and forward was going to look like. Now that I'm home again, I would like to think that this summer is just going to be a quick rest-stop, as it were.

The plan as I would have it drawn up:

May

Make contact with editors throughout the Globe (and other publications?) and pitch stories for freelance opportunities. Also continue to write for Blast Magazine.
Create a home-office sort of space that would give me the right settings to focus on writing and public relations/marketing work.
Pick up as many hours at the Globe on the City Desk and Message Center as humanly possible.
Finalize production team and resources for Summer Scene's production of Seussical Jr.
Find local bartending job, get back into pouring drinks...and getting paid for it.
Hang out with Greg and Natalie as frequently as possible, because both of them are taking off at the end of the month.
Try to start working out regularly, now that I've got more time to do so.

June

Begin to map out each scene and the set for Seussical Jr.; audition program participants and cast show.
Ask around about potential apartment-mates for the fall.
Continue to search for and apply for full-time jobs in the Boston area.
Continue work at Globe, Blast, bar.

July

Direct Seussical Jr., make the show kick ass.
Settle on apartment-mates and find and secure apartment near T line that will let me have car. That last part is pretty key.
Continue working at Globe, Blast, bar.

August

Hopefully I'll have a job by now - once Seussical Jr. concludes, I'll be left with only my part-time jobs, so I'll need to have something lined up very soon to work toward the apartment money.
Part-time work throughout.

Oh, and blogging and twittering and establishing an online identity throughout.

So yeah, that's what I'm hoping happens. We'll just have to see how well I can put that into action.

End of an Edition

2009-03-30T15:16:00.005-04:00

Last Friday, I attended the party to mark the closure of the Boston Globe bureau at which I completed my third and final co-op. The Globe NorthWest section, after a move from a cramped office on Marrett Road to a spacious and bright office on Hayden Ave, will now be divided between the Globe North and the Globe West bureaus.

This is a short photoessay I've constructed:

The photos can be viewed in a full-size slideshow here.

Things to Tend To

2009-03-07T10:25:00.007-05:00

Like a novice craps shooter, I'm moving into hedge-your-bets territory with this job search. In addition to keeping options open in PR or business communications, I'm starting to expect to make a substantial amount of my income through my new trade: bartending. Yesterday I finished up my course at DrinkMaster Bartending School, which means I'm pretty well-trained and qualified to make an Absolut Sex on the Beach, straight-up, rocks on the side.

But that means I've also got to start another job search; I've got to find someone to hire me to work as a bartender part-time while I'm still in school (and maybe more after I graduate until I find something in my field). Remake the resume entirely, emphasizing a whole new skill set that has nothing to do with the written word.

(Also: I love that the instructor of the class confirmed what I've always suspected. People are dumb.)

From time to time, I wonder if I wouldn't have been better off studying something else - there's just seemingly nothing out there. Yeah, I know that's not true, very cynical, blah blah blah. But try convincing college seniors (especially those in the liberal arts majors) of that. Myself included. I bet I'll have an easier time convincing someone to pay me to make a round of Blue Kamikaze shots than I will convincing them to pay me to report on the decline of science fairs throughout MetroWest. Even worse? I think I'd probably make more money bartending than I would at an entry-level journalism job.

Photo is mine from Boston in 60 Project.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me thrice, I'm gonna be pissed.

2009-02-19T18:59:00.003-05:00

Just walked back in from an extremely abbreviated visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Given I've been killing myself the last week to get assignments for other classes done, I had been forced to put off this week's photojournalism assignment (candid shots at a planned event), I was going to head over there tonight to shoot their regular Thursday night cocktail hour. Figured I'd get a couple shots in about 45 minutes and get out of there before I got suckered into buying some expensive drink.

This is three times now, though, that the ISG has screwed me over, and only one of them was my own damn fault.

Sometime when I was younger, my family packed up the SUV to go check out the ISG. We'd been hearing good things about it forever, and my folks figured we could get in and out pretty quickly, before my brother (who was all of 7 at the time) or sister (who would have been 3) started to complain. At some point during the trip, my brother apparently leaned too far over a display and one of the security guards threw a hissyfit, manhandled my brother away from the display, and yelled at him right there. He was 7. He hadn't fallen, he just got closer than the security guard liked.

During the summer, while I was working on my Boston in 60 Project, I decided some Monday morning to go to the Gardner museum for my daily trip. I hadn't checked ahead of time; it's not open on Mondays. Of all the days of the week for it to be closed, that didn't make sense to me, but fine, I'll chalk that one up to my own damn fault.

This time, though, I had done my due diligence. I scoured the ISG website (to which I refuse to link) and found no mention of a ban on photography. Great - I'd swallow my pride, get my shots, and get out of there. So I headed over to the museum around 6:15 for an event that ran from 5:30-9:30. After waiting in line for half an hour in the 35-degree drizzle, I finally got into the foyer where I was told "no photography, you'll have to check that". I asked the guy why not, was this not just a regular Thursday night event? "Museum rules." Then I cursed him out colorfully in front of the whole line and walked away. If someone can find any mention of a ban on photography on the ISG website, I'll take my crow pie, but I looked and there was nothing.

So now, with this assignment due tomorrow morning, I have just about no chance to get anything. Thanks, Isabella, and rot in hell!

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

2009-02-18T12:42:00.005-05:00

We've all heard the expression "addition by subtraction" used, frequently in reference to sports teams. But this past week, I wonder if I didn't encounter my first genuine example of "subtraction by addition".

I'm an ardent and lifelong supporter of the New England Revolution. Stuck it out through some crappy years, and more pertinent to this post, some crappy marketing campaigns to accompany the crappy years. Those of us in the fandom recall vividly the "Get Your Kicks" campaign (gag).

For the majority of the team's existence, the front office has chosen to market itself almost exclusively to the soccer moms/youth teams demographic. I can't fault them on this - in theory, a family of five is going to spend more at a game than five 20-somethings. I thought the campaigns were cheesy and more than a little annoying, but they kept at it for a good few years.

In recent times, however, with the team's sustained success and growing (and vocal) diehards' groups, the team has started to market to that 20-something male demographic with images like this one:

In case you can't read the fine print: "The Fort experience is not intended for children nor is it for the faint of heart. So grab your scarf and warm up your vocal chords and get ready for the most raucous experience in New England sports!"

Definitely a step in the right direction, as far as the diehards like myself saw it. This was an ad campaign that would appeal to the soccer fanatics, the 20-somethings with disposable income (that season ticket works out to $10/game), and wouldn't put off the soccer families that sit on the other side of the stadium.

But last week, the team issued an audition call for its new "street team", the Rev Girls:

The New England Revolution will hold interviews for the Rev Girls, the Revolution’s new promotional squad, at 10 a.m. in the East Fidelity Investments Clubhouse at Gillette Stadium on Saturday, Feb. 21.
The team’s newest marketing initiative, the Rev Girls will run promotions at games and nighttime events and make public appearances on behalf of the team.

Women interested in interviewing for a roster spot with the Rev Girls must be at least 21 years old, and must bring positive identification with them. Prospective team members must also wear form-fitting clothing to the interview, and also bring both a headshot and a full-body image. Successful candidates will also be available for the entire duration of the Revolution season – March through November.

Those interviewing for a Rev Girl spot should come dressed and ready to meet the staff. There will no facilities available to prepare for the interview.

This is an appalling display from the team on several different fronts. Not only is it chauvinistic to a degree we haven't seen from Kraft Sports Group before ("form-fitting clothing", "no facilities available to prepare", "the hottest promotional group in town"), it's also an extremely poorly-constructed attempt at grassroots marketing.

Sending out 10 or 12 B-rate cheerleaders to the local Uno's is neither going to increase ticket sales, nor is it more than a token "we're trying" when it comes to word-of-mouth. And even if the street team does experience some modicum of success, it's completely unquantifiable - you can count how many people use free vouchers, but the team isn't making any money on them. And if it's not vouchers - you've got nothing to show that the street team's work has had any effect.

Word-of-mouth marketing doesn't need to be complex, nor does it need to be contrived, nor does it need to pander so blatantly to one demographic at the exclusion of others. How many soccer moms are going to bring little Suzy Kicksalot and her U-12 teammates when the "tits 'n kits" team are strolling through the concourse? How about if they meet the street team at their local restaurant? Is soccer mom Kicksalot going to be interested in going to a game when the promotional group is wearing two-pieces and and a push-up? Not to mention that the people they want this program to reach aren't going to respond to a couple of tchotchkes handed to them. They'll show up at a soccer bar, start plugging the Revs, and get shouted down by the guys watching the English leagues on TV.

It's this simple: college outreach. I proposed a college outreach program in my full-throated attack on this "street team" nonsense on BigSoccer. It's not all that difficult to envision. Contact each of the colleges within, say, a hundred miles of Gillette Stadium. Offer $15 ticket-bus-and-personal-pizza vouchers to the students, one bus per college. Don't do it all on one night, do it throughout the season. Each week, a dozen or so schools are sending buses full of tabula-rasa-brand-advocates. Each school could do more than one game - although much of the Revs season falls during the summer break, there are a handful of games before and certainly high-level games after.

Get butts in the seats. Give them a quality product, a good time, and an easy trip to and from the venue, and you'll have several thousand new Revs fans who want to come back. You can't fall in love with the local team on TV, you have to do it in person. New England Revolution holds the monopoly on live men's soccer, and yet they do nothing to market this. They need to get out there and demonstrate that we have a supporters section like their favorite European teams do, but the only way to grow that is to become a part of it.

What's more - all of this, the college outreach, the immigrant outreach, this can all be done without running the risk of alienating soccer mom Kicksalot. Throwing some full-chested bimbos at a bar and calling it "word-of-mouth" marketing is a failure both to maintain the audience you have and to reach the audience you want. It's a pathetic display of "sex sells, ergo, we need sex", and it's a step backward from the excellent "Defend the Fort" campaign.

Career Fair Wrap

2009-02-09T10:04:00.004-05:00

Bugger. I went through all that effort to print out and collate clips, buy and stuff folders, update and copy my resume, and practice my elevator pitch, and there was nothing there for me at the career fair last week. I know the industry's going through a rough redesign and identity crisis, but I had hoped there'd be at least a few more jobs tangentially related to journalism there. Even the PR and marketing segments were under-represented.

I suppose, on the bright side, that going to a career fair where there was little for me offered me a dress rehearsal of sorts - I got to interact with HR managers and recruiters without any of the pressure of an actual job being on the line.

Moral victories.

Flickr photo is mine.

The moat is gone.

2009-02-03T14:02:00.002-05:00

This Thursday, I'm heading to my first career fair here at Northeastern. I've had my resume looked at a few times, I'm going to print up some clip folders to take with me, and I'm going home to get my suit tomorrow. But there's at least one thing I'm missing in my sell-yourself toolkit: the elevator pitch.

For each of my co-ops and internships, I've been able to use my clipbook as a moat of sorts. The people in charge take a look at what I've done, and only if they think I can handle the job do they call me in for an interview. By that point, I had one foot in the position already - I'm gathering that there aren't all that many applicants for the regionals at the Globe (although if these kids knew anything, that'd be top of their list). The interview itself was usually "tell me about yourself, tell me about your experience in journalism," and then, "this is what the job requires."

I've got to start from scratch now without that moat - the clipbook won't come into the equation until after first contact, and it's that first contact that is intimidating me a little bit now. I've never had to make an elevator pitch. I have absolutely no idea how I would go about it. "Hi, I'm Adam, I've been writing for newspapers for 7 years, and I've got a good handle on some social media"? That doesn't sound good at all.

How on Earth do I do this?

Tweets as quotes?

2009-01-28T14:08:00.005-05:00

In the not-so-distant past, I remember being outraged when one traditional media outlet or another quoted from someone's Facebook wall for a story. It usually happened after a student's untimely death (look about 12 grafs down), and the TV stations would dig up the flood of condolence messages left on the student's wall in the aftermath and report them. Easy, low-labor quotes for color. I was upset, however, that the traditional media I respected so much would stoop to taking quotes not given to a media member or intended for consumption by many and reuse it for their own purposes.

In time, however, I came to accept that this is not just the reality of how we're to find commentary, it's also valid journalistically. These quotes are not provided to the media, but if we can access them as easily as typing in a URL, they're fair game. Students know by this point that anything they say online is completely out in the open, and the newspaper can be no exception to that. The problem remains, though, that if I quote Jack Ripper's wall post, I've got no way of knowing that Jack Ripper is a real person, or that Jack Ripper himself wrote the wall post. Especially now that Facebook is open to anybody with an email address and not just an @.edu address, additional avatars beyond your actual name are easy to create and play with. (For example, my own mother wanted to explore Facebook, but instead of creating a page for herself, she created one for the dog.)

As a result, journalists still need to take with a grain of salt the use of many (if not most) social networking sites for quotes. But this raises the question as to whether there are degrees of acceptability in social network quotation. If a Facebook user's name is "Jack Ripper" and their listed email is, in fact, an @.edu address, does that make it more likely that Jack Ripper is legitimate? Does that likelihood decrease if the listed email is @.hotmail or @.gmail?

And then there's the application of that same principle to other social networking sites. An old editor of mine wrote me a brief recommendation on LinkedIn, but had to retract it when he decided that if he was going to use LinkedIn as a source, he could not be in the business of recommending people. I understand that fully, it's a conflict-of-interest if he were to endorse me and then use the same network to dig up information for an investigative article. I'm inclined to believe LinkedIn would be of greater validity for the purposes of quotation than Facebook or MySpace, but there's such less availability for usable quotes in LinkedIn that this advantage is meaningless.

But what about Twitter? I'm subscribed to the "official" Twitter feed for Gov. Deval Patrick. If I ask him a question on Twitter and he responds, can I use that as a quote? Does it become a story if what Gov. Patrick (or any other "official" feed) says does not mesh with what he/she says publicly or when asked for comment by a reporter? And do the rules change when a social media "celebrity" is involved? Say I want to quote Chris Brogan in an article I'm writing. Now, Chris is a big proponent of social media, but does that give me permission to quote his blog or a Tweet of his? After all, it's similar to the Facebook-wall-quote grab: once it's online, it's in the public domain.

I suspect that there is not yet any sort of code for how traditional media can exploit social media in this manner. Scouring Facebook or Twitter for sources to then call up personally is obviously fair game, but I wonder what an editor would say if I turned in an article quoting a Tweet.

Adam of all Trades

2009-01-19T12:26:00.004-05:00

Considering it's my last semester here at Northeastern, I picked my classes with an eye to studying what I'm interested in instead of what I thought I had to study. Consequently, I'm taking French for the first time in six years, I'm taking a microeconomics course (in no small part to re-brainwash me from the libertarian perspective of the course in Washington) and I'm taking a photojournalism course.

The first meeting of that course presented us with an interesting question: why are we taking it? Something like 75% of the class answered, "because I like journalism and I like photography". A fair answer; I'm not going to argue that they're wrong. I just happened to take a more pragmatic approach to the question:

"Because I know that given the industry's trajectory, if I can't take a half-decent picture, I'm not getting a job."

For whatever it's worth, the professor has mentioned that response two or three times since. Apparently the cynicism and pragmatism of knowing you need to have every tool you can in your toolkit has become an almost laudable awareness. But I look at the hoops I'm jumping through to attain those tools and I wonder just how many of them I'm going to need and which ones will prove to be the useful ones. I can already claim a familiarity with video production and editing, podcasting, various forms of social/new media, the processes for writing and editing a story to work for both online and print...but it's not enough, apparently. You have to be a one-man media unit in order to even dream of success in this new age.

Ironic, isn't it, that I maintain one foot firmly in the camp of traditional media while simultaneously doing all I can to ready myself to replace those who remain there?

Image courtesy of Flickr user rolands.lakis.

Unexpected.

2009-01-12T15:21:00.003-05:00

The other night I attended my sister's middle school performance of Les Miserables. I will admit that I was very apprehensive before sitting down; it's an epic musical and the most recent production of the school's had bored me. I was concerned that a bunch of 7th-graders would fail to do even remote justice to the beauty that is the story of Les Miserables.

I was surprised, then, that they rose to the challenge. Sure, there were parts that weren't great, but it was substantially better than I anticipated it being. It was an unexpected success.

That word, though. "Unexpected". I'd classify a lot of what is going on at the moment as "unexpected." On the positive, meeting Conor was unexpected. Being in DC for the election (and having it go the way I wanted) was unexpected.

However, it goes both ways. For example, I've got a phone call tomorrow to see if a particular job application I put in did me any good. It was somehow unexpected that I've not heard from the company in question since I sent in my resume and cover letter before the new year. I had such excellent luck in getting the jobs I wanted for co-ops and internships that the potential failure to get that first "good job" I found would be unexpected. I don't want to have to cross it off and move on, I liked what I saw as an entry-level job that paid pretty well, but that's a very distinct possibility come tomorrow.

I suppose that boils down to what some friends of mine have already discovered: "the job search sucks". It's not as though everything I wanted with respect to workplaces was given to me; I like to think I earned it. But in being conditioned to experience success when I decided I wanted it, I have to gear myself up more than might be normal for failure so as not to let it be discouraging.

Image courtesy of Flickr user eole.

A Boston "Dumbocrap"

2009-01-05T12:28:00.006-05:00

A couple of things happened when I returned from Washington a couple of weeks ago: one, I got to see more people of my own particular political ideology (most of the people in my DC program were markedly conservative); and two, I returned to working part-time at the Globe. I got a bit of a when-worlds-collide moment when a recent City Desk shift showed me an angry letter that was sent to the Globe. In part:

...you gay Marxist atheists at the Globe are really afraid of a small woman from the real world taking out the holy one, Half-Black Mohammed Islamobama and his anti-change partner, White Bread Joe Obiden....Dumbocraps like you fools never learn.

Yes, well. Setting aside for a moment the absurd assertions this particular "writer" makes, I find the letter interesting. This, the City on a Hill, my liberal sanctuary, yet houses types like the author of that letter.

What I'm particularly curious about, though, is why it seems as though the most virulently conservative members of our society are the ones who sit down and write something like that. Look at Boston.com's article comments - most frequently you'll find outlandish right-wing commentary provided on even innocuous articles. Why is it that this particular political ideology seems more mobilized to respond to mainstream media? It's not as if there are no left-wing bloggers and commenters out there, just look at Talking Points Memo, MoveOn, and to a lesser extent, Politico. But it's the right-wing that assails the press.

Is it because the press is viewed (mistakenly or not) as biased for the left? Is it because the left-wing bloggers are too busy patting themselves on the back for being on the "correct" side of the spectrum?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user kevindooley.

Resolve.

2009-01-01T21:06:00.003-05:00

Okay, putting aside for a moment the sublime cliche that is New Year's Resolution season, I'm going to make a simple one that I think applies across the board: resolution itself.

I've come to the conclusion that most anything can be accomplished by ingenuity mingled with a great amount of sheer will. Getting a job after graduation, maintaining my stable relationship, finding a decent place to live, continuing to wade into the waters of community theatre, reconnecting with and fostering old friends and expanding my network of people, all of these can happen with simple willpower and energy.

I therefore resolve to have resolve. When I commit to something, I will follow through on it, regardless of what it may be.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user vaXzine.

Is the honeymoon over?

2008-12-30T17:03:00.002-05:00

I came across C.C. Chapman's post today about the honeymoon of social media and marketing being over, and it now being time for the "work" part of the relationship to begin. I found myself unsure of whether I agreed with him or not; I can understand his point, but I'm not convinced that there are enough social media evangelists within the business world (or, in my case, the traditional media world) to even consider the two truly married.

A friend recently wrote a major paper for her journalism ethics class on the value of Twitter in journalism. Throughout the course, she told me her attempts to convince the students of social media's importance fell on entirely deaf ears. The professor pooh-poohed the choice of topic until she promised him she could find some legitimate research. I encountered the same resistance recently from colleagues at the City Desk - they could see no way in which Twitter (and I use Twitter as an example, rather than the end-all, be-all of social media) could serve any journalistic purpose.

This, I suppose, is going to be my greatest challenge as a believer in both "new" and "old" media. I still feel that newspapers are a valuable part of a society (everybody wanted a copy of USA Today from 11/5/08, not a printout of the website), but I've been on-board the social media's usefulness since early on. It's a matter of making those two perspectives gel.

But the point is - they don't yet. The majority of those in the field still find social networking to be a nuisance at worst and a casual association network at best. I can't classify it as a marriage - they're dating, perhaps, but nobody's proposed yet.

Million

2008-12-29T20:19:00.003-05:00

"Million", by Jawbreaker

Would that you could touch this angel in a clutch of snakes.
Oh pretty, pretty, I'm aflame.
So excited, so unslept.
Somewhat littered, so unswept.
You have to sleep before you wake.

I am spilled and poured.
I am peeled and cored.
I am hanging from the floor.
Flicker like a freak through a sleepless week
In a black cell of forever.

There's a point to this.
A point I think I often miss.
Oh clever, clever, where's your heart?
You can turn a phrase until it reads a million ways.
It makes no sense but it's as good as it is sad.

I am sad, elated.
I am segregated.
There's this stitching and it's itching.
All my friends are dead.
Asleep in distant beds.
At least these enemies stay close.

Take me to the pretty ones.
I want to be a pretty one.
Sign me to a nice girl so she can ruin me eternally.

They offered me a million bucks.
All I want's a steady fuck.
Oh steady, steady, where are you?
Channelsurf a sea of static,
See the prize but you can't have it.
There's something thankless in a wish fulfilled.

I am thrilled and bored.
I am unskilled, adored.
All of both and none of one.
I would kill for more.
I haven't killed before.
I could set this heart on stun.

Take me to the pretty ones.
I want to be original.
Sign me to a nice girl so I can sing her something meaningful.
In my perfect world I'd be assigned to a nice girl.
It would cost one million kisses.

---

It's from this song that I drew the title of my blog here.  Just thought I'd share it.

Million