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i love my brothers on a saturday night
Note to self: As fun as it may be at the time, staying up until 4:30 a.m. is not good for my mental or physical health. I think fun was had by all, though.
I taped SNL and watched it this afternoon (after I woke up at 2). Best one in a long time. Ben Affleck might be totally lame now, but he's still a natural when it comes to live TV. Best moment, courtesy of Tina Fey on Weekend Update (loosely quoted):
"DirecTV has filed a lawsuit against O.J. Simpson, who allegedly pirated cable for his home in California. In unrelated news, DirecTV has been stabbed to death."
03-14-2004 9:39 PM - comments (4)
I am fascinated with Anderson Cooper, in a "what is CNN thinking?" kind of way. This article from the New York Observer is fairly eye-opening, and it makes me see the anchorman in a whole new light (Gloria Vanderbilt's son? Things just keep getting weirder).
Two critiques of the article:
1. Suck it, Choire Sicha. I like Bill Hemmer. I have a crush on the guy. Leave him alone. Maybe he's the vanilla to Cooper's, er, Neopolitan. So what?
2. Feature writers have this way of making people sound way more interesting than they actually are. It's like watching a somewhat realistic film; all of the boring stuff is obviously avoided, and the other stuff is glorified by ridiculous amounts. Profiles like this are evidence of the power journalists, especially feature writers, wield; I don't know that the average person is discerning enough to realize this story could have gone a dozen ways, each one leaving us with a different opinion of the guy.
03-11-2004 7:17 AM - comments (2)
The photo shoot we did at the Home and Garden Show at America's Center yesterday made the front page of the Post-Dispatch. Unfortunately, the only way to see it is to either find an actual copy of the paper or download the PDF of the front page. I would have written the cutline differently, but hey, I can't take a picture. Why should photographers have to be able to write good cutlines? (That's a rhetorical question.)
It's a funny picture--dolled-up models in wedding gowns standing near some lawnmowers. I think it must have been a slow news day, even if Rochell Moore poured a pitcher of water on the assistant superintendent of the St. Louis School District.
But in all seriousness, it's really terrific publicity for the magazine.
03-04-2004 9:37 PM - comments (0)
I heard "A Punchup at a Wedding" today on 93.3. Very cool.
P.S. Am I the only person who can't help but associate John Mayer with Norah Jones?
03-03-2004 10:10 PM - comments (4)
Last week, I finished up my monthly freelance work for A&D Watch. The very last thing I do after the dozens of hours I spend on writing news briefs on the financial side of the energy industry is write a column on something interesting that has happened in the past month regarding the financial side of the energy industry. This month, I chose to write about the future importance of Canadian oil sands reserves and the roadmap Alberta has developed to ensure that by 2030, production is at least 5 million barrels a day. Last month, I wrote about public service and supply companies making the lucrative transition to income funds. The month before, I explained the implications of Shell's overestimation of its reserves. I write about these things with some level of expertise--not nearly as much as my former boss can boast--but I'm most likely more well-versed on the subject of energy-industry related financial transactions than most people my age.
Anyway, I wrapped up the issue, sent it to my former boss, filled out a great big invoice for the work and proceeded to write an article about wedding registries and how user-friendly they've become.
That my day and night jobs differ so greatly has started to really get to me. Part of it is because people are always more impressed with my work with A&D Watch than they are with my work with St. Louis' Best Bridal and savvyfamily. When you throw around terms like "BOE," "upstream divestiture," and "overriding royalty interests," people think you might have half a brain.
The other part of it is that I am fulfilled in totally different ways from each job. Neither of those subjects happens to be my passion; I just like writing and editing. Writing wedding- and parenting-related stories is obviously a lot easier; everyone knows a little bit about those topics off the bat. It's certainly not like having to learn a new language, as writing A&D Watch was. My former boss has hired me month after month to write the issues because she can't seem to find someone who won't quit after a few days. It's tough work. And because it was tough, and because I was able to catch on fairly quickly, I felt like I had an ability beyond merely editing and writing. I felt irreplaceable. I'm not sure I feel that way now, but I am still happy to be where I am: helping coordinate photo shoots, creating editorial calendars and using my big red pen to butcher my writers' stories.
A year ago, I wouldn't have been able to fathom being either an oil industry reporter or a bridal magazine editor. I thought I'd be at a community newspaper, working my way up the ladder (which I suppose I inadvertently did). Some think I've sold out. Maybe they're right; I don't know. What I do know is that they flagrantly mislead you in journalism school; you do have options outside of the traditional ones. Almost no one I know who graduated from Mizzou is working for a newspaper or mainstream magazine. We're all taking weird paths that may or may not lead back to Time or the Post-Dispatch. But you know what? I have business cards, two steady and surprisingly substantial paychecks, and I still utilize my editing, writing and organizational skills, just not in the ways that I would have imagined. I'm not sure those are such bad things.