Bottlecaps

Adios, newsprint

On my 21st birthday, I became a copy editor and designer, working my first shift at The Battalion in an underground room in the ugliest building on the Texas A&M campus.

It was in the next few months that I would begin learning from the professor who would inspire me the most. Bob Rogers was not a lifetime academic, but a man who immersed himself in the newspaper business, starting in college. He had a fine and successful in-the-trenches career until, at 40 years old, he decided to do something else and became a professor of journalism.

That, I decided, was what I would do.

The first problem with that plan emerged about half a decade ago. I was in the process of preparing to get the necessary certification to become a teacher when I took a good look at that idea for the first time. And I decided I hated education.

Not really, but that was the gist of it. I had no desire to go back to school. No desire to enter another career where idealism is given a good stomping by money (and, additionally when it comes to education, politics). And what would I teach? Journalism? And spend my time quoting studies and statistics with lifetime academics? Not a chance.

Would I stand in front of Internet-raised kids and try to teach them English, as defined by the TAKS test? No way. History? Doomed to regret it. Geography? Shit. Today's generation couldn't cross the fucking street without a GPS-enabled iPhone.

But as the years moved on toward 40, I couldn't keep on as a copy editor. Becoming the old man of the desk: "Back in my day we had an onion on our pica pole …"

Well, turns out, I didn't miss it by much. On Monday, two weeks after my 40th birthday, I start my first new job in a decade, and my first ever that doesn't involve newsprint. (I'm not counting those two months as a construction worker. That was an experience, not a job.)

Yes, I will be an Online Producer. All the news that's fit to click "publish now." It will be a whole new world.

But this blog is a salute to the one I leave behind. I'm wrapping up my final week as a newspaper man. A last Page One done. One business section done. Five more business sections to go. For the record, the Aug. 1 "Tech Monday" will be my last two pages.

I'm not lamenting the end of my line-editing days. I may very well do that again. And my news job will involve plenty of news judgment, breaking news and the writing of headlines, cutlines and other display type, a specialty of mine.

But after Friday, I will not design another newspaper page. I'm sure of that.

Shannon cut short my nostalgia over the weekend: "You're still working for a newspaper." But, no, it's not really the same. I haven't opened my big box of saved newspapers (though, you can rest assured that I will), but I recall plenty off the top of my head:

"Tornado Roars Into El Dorado," and "The Storm." Fistfulls of Sunday Business sections from San Angelo, including the baseball card, the trains and Dollar Man! There's all those sports sections from Beaumont, as well as the Clinton impeached Page One. From San Angelo's Act II, there's the "Time of Drought" page, dozens of Music feature fronts and the 9/11 extra. Here in Austin, there's not as many that I individually recall, but plenty of good work.

I have a stack of stuff at my desk at work right now, ready to head for the box, if they make the cut. They'll be there waiting for an old man to peruse through them every decade or so. And then, ultimately, for his kids to say "what do we do with this shit?"

Don't get me wrong. I'm ready to do something new. Happy to be learning new skills. Absolutely thrilled to even have a new job in the face of copy desk consolidation.

But it's weird to think of a future where I won't be picking up a paper from the press, looking at it in my hand and telling myself, "yeah, I kicked the shit out of this one." (Because that's happened once or twice.)

Weird, yes. And a little sad, too, I guess.

The real question is: What will I design now?

Why is life so cruel?

Dear Abby …

It is 2 a.m. and I keep reaching for my beer with my left hand …

… only to find that the beer is at least six inches farther to the left than the spot where I reached.

Why is life so cruel?

Sincerely,

Mr. Bottlecaps.

The worst thing Al Gore ever did …

… was get involved in the global warming — pardon me, 'climate change' — discussion.

Now, because of Gore's association with Democrats in general and Clinton in particular, millions of Americans of a right-leaning political bent think that climate change is an issue of politics.

I mean, it's already a tough issue for Republicans because it involves the government urging or requiring big business to make changes that will hurt profits in the short term, but will help everyone in the long term.

(Of course, the stock market prevents companies from thinking long-term. "We've got to get every fucking nickel we can right now, now, now! Twenty years from now will be somebody else's problem!" Shit. Don't get me started.)

It's already a tough issue for Republicans, but now you've get people like Rush Limbaugh saying climate change is not even real. And once you've bought into that, it means you have to stick with it, no matter what evidence piles up. To even admit there's some sort of problem would be viewed as some sort of Democratic victory and shit, no, we can't have that.

I mean, there couldn't possibly be an issue that's more important than Republican vs. Democrat, right?

Now we've got devastating flooding in Pakistan, fires destroying crops in Russia … and these are two nuclear-armed countries. When they get desperate, things can't go wrong … right?

I don't know, maybe I've watched too many doomsday scenarios on the History Channel, but it's worrisome.

There's real problems in the world. And we continue to fight over the small stuff.

And of course the stuff that gets the most attention …

Yes, it's Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian and the like.

It's a small wonder I haven't become a hard-core survivalist. Yet.

Interpreting the beer commercials

I don't necessarily watch a lot of TV, but what I do watch — SportsCenter, football, basketball, etc. — exposes me to a lot of beer commercials.

A lot of beer commercials. And I'm mystified by the thinking behind some of them. Here is my knee-jerk reaction to their underlying meanings:

BUDWEISER

Underlying meaning: You love America. Drink our beer, damn it, or the terrorists will have won.

BUD LIGHT

Underlying meaning: Our beer is sweet and watery. That means you can drink a whole mess of it. But you are a fun-loving drunk, at least.

MILLER LITE

Underlying meaning: You an asshole. Our beer is perfect for you.
(Seriously, have you seen that inexplicable vortex bottle ad? The ad basically shows an insufferable prick being an absolute dick. Or is it the other way around? And this is supposed to make me want to buy your beer?)

COORS LIGHT

Underlying meaning: You are too stupid to know when your beer is cold.
Our beer will let you know.

MILLER HIGH LIFE

Underlying meaning: I'm not sure. But this guy kicks ass.

KEYSTONE

Underlying meaning: It's OK if you're not too bright. We love you anyway. Drink our beer.

NATURAL LIGHT

Underlying meaning: You are a hopeless drunk. Really, in about 14 hours you're going to wake up in a place you don't recognize. This is your beer. Try not to giggle when we add the "please consume responsibly" tag to our commercials.

CORONA

Underlying meaning: Never in a million years will you be able to afford this kind of peace and solitude in a place so beautiful. But you can drink our beer and pretend for a bit.

MICHELOB ULTRA

Underlying meaning: Let's face it, you don't drink beer. But if you get trapped in a social situation with some fat slobs, you can order one of these and nobody will accuse you of being "too good" to drink with them. Then you can leave and go run a 10k or something.

BUSCH

Underlying meaning: Don't need none. We haven't changed our advertising scheme in 100 years. Now let's get in the pickup, go kill a couple of small animals and drink tall boys until we get in a knife fight over who's the better arm wrestler.

RED STRIPE

Underlying meaning: It's beer! Hooray, beer! 

(Yes, it's the perfect beer ad.)

World Cup

I guess I better put my 2 cents in on the World Cup before the whole thing is over.

I've been paying attention from the beginning. I even made my own bracket and posted it in the kitchen so I can keep up with who's moving on and who didn't.

Not that I really watched the games much. I don't understand the non-scoring part of soccer, which kinda makes up about 98% of most games. Educated soccer fans can see the offensive and defensive schemes at work and can get excited about them.

Here's what I know about soccer: 1. Flopping to the ground after minor (or no) contact to draw penalties or milk the clock is wimpy, un-American and mildly entertaining. 2. Between the mysterious stoppage time and their ability to see or not see fouls where they do or do not exist, the referees have entirely too much power to control the outcome of the game. 3. The offsides rule exists solely to reduce scoring.

So why do I even bother to keep up?

Four years ago, I was at an airport in Chicago, on my way to a wedding in North Carolina (yes, I am not an experienced air traveler). I had a short layover.

There was this pseudo-bar just about 40 yards from my gate. It had beer, which was good enough for me. And it also had this crappy little TV, maybe a 23-incher. The TV did not have cable. No, it was getting its reception through a pair of rabbit ears on top.

The screen showed ghostly images in a field of static. Every now and then it came in a little bit clearer. Every now and then you couldn't see anything at all.

I wouldn't have bothered to look, except that the United Nations of fellow drinkers I had surrounding me at the bar were absolutely riveted. There was a couple of Asian businessman. Some Hispanic fellows. A couple of Germans (or some nationality that speaks something close to German). Some other Europeans.

And they were staring at the screen. Not because it was there — it was too fuzzy for just casual viewing. No they were working hard to make out what was happening. All of them were focused on that screen in the same way that I would be watching the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC championship.

It was the World Cup of course. And with every bit of action that could be deciphered, the guys would yell and groan. With nothing better to do, I did my best to join in. And I was distracted to the point that I damn near missed my plane, gulping down half a pint of beer and sprinting to my gate on the final boarding call.

(Some of you might have noticed that airports, alcohol and Mr. Bottlecaps is a combination that usually leads to trouble.)

Anyway, I ended up with a new perspective on the World Cup and soccer.

I'm still not really a soccer fan myself, but I appreciate what it means to much of the rest of the world.

And this is where this year comes in.

Too often I've heard from people who spend their time talking big about soccer, waxing poetic on the sport's subtleties and (this is the part that gets to me), looking down on those who don't understand the real football and only watch, snort, American football.

I know there are Americans who have been real soccer fans for years, but there are far too many people who have suddenly announced themselves as soccer connoisseurs in (this is my opinion) a sadly transparent attempt at making themselves look worldly and hip.

And the tendency to paint everyone in terms of soccer expert or knuckle-dragging American is just an extension of politics' and the 24-hour news media's ongoing tendency to make sure we only see the world in black and white.

The vuvuzela makes a great example: All the discussion centers around whether it is annoying or whether it should be banned. The truth is, it is annoying as shit, but it should not be banned. It's just a part of the World Cup in South Africa.

I want to be the first to say: It is OK to have a mild interest in the World Cup. It is OK to get excited about the American team's victory over Algeria, even if you don't understand what happened. (This is how many Americans look at most Winter Olympics sports, anyway).

There is nothing wrong with spending a month every four years getting to know a global phenomenon and then returning to our own national pastimes. You can dip your toes in the the pool, if you want. You don't have to jump off the high dive.

I'll be watching some portion of the World Cup final on Sunday. And I'll think it's pretty cool. But when it's over, I won't be thinking "we get to do it again in four years."

I'll be thinking "it's only 55 days until football season."

Austin traffic

If you drove in Austin today, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. And were between 15th Street and Slaughter Lane, please be advised that it's very likely that I called for the eternal damnation of your soul, your vehicle, your progeny and, in some cases, your ancestors.

Please don't take it personally.

I am in the process of retracting my requests and, depending on whether you pissed me off directly or just happened to be in the area, I will get to you soon.

Thank you for your understanding.

Mr. Bottlecaps.

Foto Friday: The Willie / Palin / JFKLN edition

I know the grandparents look forward to new photos of the boy every Friday. But I don't have new photos. I've been wounded.

But, to help ease the pain, we will illustrate today's assorted thoughts with borrowed photos.

First thangs first …

Happy 77th birthday to Willie Nelson

 

Doesn't look too old to me.

I'd say more. But it's Willie. You know. I know.

Only 65 days until the Fourth Of July Picnic, though.

And, for good measure, I'm converting a couple of my vinyl records ("Hello Walls," "Sweet Memories") to digital RIGHT THIS MOMENT. I'll burn a CD and be jamming, old-school style, on the way to work.

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According to today's newspaper, Sarah Palin was in town to give a speech, or collect some money or something sinister, I'm guessing.

And, the newspaper says, she began her remarks by calling Texas a "little sister state" to Alaska.

Oh no.

 

This woman called Texas a "little sister."

Let me put this in the most delicate phrasing I can use for such an insult:

Fuck that shit.

(That IS the most delicate. I'm thinking worse.)

Now you can tell that the reporter who wrote the story is not from Texas, because he did not mention how the crowd reacted to that slap in the face.

And I realize that the crowd was Palin fans, because nobody was willing to pay $50 to heckle her. And I realize I have my own specific thoughts about her:

 

 

But Texas pride has to come first with real Texans. You could ignore a small insult from someone you like, but not something like that. Never, never.

I mean, even if Merle Haggard …

 

… were giving a speech and Clint Eastwood …

 

… was patrolling the audience with a shotgun, even then if Haggard were to call Texas a "little sister state" to California, I WOULD BOO. And possibly give Haggard the finger.

And I think Haggard and Eastwood are the only two good things to come from California.

Little sister state. Piss on Alaska. We're not little sisters to anybody.

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Working at the Paper last night, I learned that Austin artistic legend Jim Franklin's latest adventure is living in a former Randall's-turned-Austin-crafts-village not too far up the road from me.

You can check out a good photo of Jim Franklin with Gary P. Nunn and an armadillo right here.

If you don't know Jim Franklin, we'll he's my favorite artist. And I don't mean favorite 1970s poster artist. I mean favorite artist. I wouldn't walk across the street to piss on Picasso if he were on fire.

Of course, he was a poster artist of top note:

 

He popularized armadillos in Austin back before anyone thought of 'em as anything but roadkill. He is why it was called the Armadillo World Headquarters. And I'm a big fan of armadillos.

He did the first Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic poster (I have an original, one of my favorite possessions) and four more Picnic posters. He also did a series of posters for Lone Star Beer in the 1970s called "Long Live Longnecks."

Because I'm too lazy to go upstairs and get a photo of my own poster, I tried to get a picture of one from the Google, but when I tried …

 

Look what popped up on the third and fourth photos. It's the boy!

Anyway, I think I'll have to stop by the Marketplace Austin Westgate and see what Mr Franklin is doing.

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The last word is still the most important: Happy birthday Willie. Let's hope he finds a suitable way to celebrate 77 years.

Welcome to SxSW

You might have detected recently a certain grumpiness on my part. This is common during the 3-pronged festival known here as South by Southwest.

This SXSW, for short, generates an intense amount of hand-wringing among the trendy here. A kind of neurosis in which people wonder whether they are cool enough to be hipsters or smug enough to be even more hip than hipsters.

And, oh yeah, the town is pretty much invaded by people who are even more foreign than what we deal with on a daily basis.

You might recall, we discussed hipsters last year.

If you know me, you know I've pretty much purposely chosen a non-trendy lifestyle.

I eat red meat in small-town establishments. I enjoy remote places. I listen to old music, sometimes on vinyl records (but always in a non-ironic way). I work on my own house, in my own yard (not as often as I should). I don't watch reality TV. I fail to see the usefulness of Twitter. I don't keep up with technology. I drink beer that is so common that one thinks it would not bear any discussion (seriously, if you like craft beer, then that's really great. Drink it, enjoy it, talk about it but shut the fuck up about my beer.)

Suffice to say, I don't really care about high culture, tech culture, or whatnot.

Now I've long since realized that Austin is not the hippie enclave with a reverence for its past that I thought it was when I moved here. I've come to accept that all that still passes for traditional around here will ultimately change to accommodate the bigger dollar of the tech-or-hip-or-fashionably inclined.

So I keep to myself on the outskirts of Manchaca, mostly.

But when I read that "Esquire" magazine is now an authority on Kreuz Market's barbecue; or that you can sleep in a $350-a-night room in Terlingua that offers espresso and brunch;  or that, Jesus, men's work clothes are now supposed to be "fashionable" …

Well, I don't much care for the intrusion.

C'mon, you good people of the Internet Age. I've ceded Austin to you. Drink its craft beer. Enjoy its fine restaurants. Party in its clubs. Twitter your tweets and appreciate your apps. Do your thing.

Just … sigh … get off my lawn.

 

San Angelo Lament, Reprise

A few weeks ago, a coworker passed along to me a link to this blog.

This fellow named Steve Greenburg had discovered that the Scripps company had decided to eliminate the copy desks at two California newspapers and one Washington State newspaper and send them to … you guessed it, Corpus Christi.

If this sounds familiar to some of you, you probably recall my own blog of that nature.

Greenburg lamented (a bit more poetically than me, I admit) that eliminating local copy desks eliminated the advantage of local knowledge. He did not take it quite as personally as I did, or condemn the Scripps officials to suffer eternally in hell as I have, but did note the short-sightedness of the decision.

I read his blog with no small measure of understanding, then I did something terribly unusual for me. I posted a comment on his blog, noting that this move came only after the copy desks of the Scripps newspapers in Texas were already consolidated to Corpus Christi (including my beloved San Angelo). Then I included a link to my blog.

Well, I got visitors. Lots of them. From across the country. Some of them, I'm sure, have explored the rest of my blog and were disappointed to find it was mostly me whining and moaning about football, or pictures of my kid.

Given that I wrote that San Angelo blog in the heat of the moment, after hearing about Scripps' decision about a year ago, these visitors might wonder if I still feel the same way. Though I spent the first three years of my desk career as a copy editor in San Angelo and another three years a bit later as news editor, folks might wonder if I have bowed to the business argument and drifted away from my personal feelings.

Hell no.

I stand by my open letter to the people of San Angelo, and I stand by my arguments. Not just that the copy editors in Corpus don't know enough about San Angelo (or Abilene, or Wichita Falls, or the Ventura County Star), but that they don't care.

So much of the debate over "desk consolidation" centers around local knowledge. Many point out that a commited copy editor with a deft touch with Google can do a good job working his or her way around that problem.

But the elephant in the room is that, over time, nobody in Corpus Christi is going to put in any love, any extra effort for the San Angelo product. Or some paper in Washington or California. These products are simply extra work for which they undoubtedly have not received enough (if any) extra personnel.

(I'm making assumptions here, but somebody in Corpus prove me wrong. Tell me how many extra copy editors and designers you will receive to offset the three new papers you will be producing. Tell me how many people on your desk have ever lived in San Angelo.)

When I was news editor in San Angelo, I loved that town. No, I'm not from there, but as an Army brat it was only natural that I would come to call some place home eventually. It was the pride of my career that I could inform the people of the Concho Valley after the Memorial Day storm ravaged the town in 1995 or after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The best configuration of employees I had was a fine team indeed for such a small paper in the middle of nowhere.

I had two lifelong residents of the area on my desk. One was a journalism veteran of many years. The other had started off working in the mailroom, working her way through the "paste-up" department before joining us as a "pagination technician." But both were incredibly valuable in helping the rest of us understand San Angelo's history, culture and geograpy.

We also had two large college graduates, one from a major journalism school who we were lucky to have and who stayed for 2 years before moving on, ironically, to Corpus Christi and shortly moving to Austin and marrying some fellow you might have heard of. The other was from San Angelo and had moved back, immediately raising the paper's quality with her fine work.

We had a graduate of the local college and another small college graduate — an idealist firebrand who had already worn out his welcome in Abilene, as I recall. We took him in and gave him some respect and he did great work. Last, but not least, was the non-journalist we hired from New Mexico who turned out to be a fantastic copy editor and designer.

Including me, that's a desk of 8 people, including 3 raised in the San Angelo area, who lived in that town, were committed to doing the right thing for its residents and really cared about making the San Angelo Standard-Times a fine newspaper.

You can't tell me that you can replace that with a few disinterested people in Corpus Christi.

To let the desk shrink with the paper's size and budget? Sure. No choice, I guess.

But to eliminate it altogether? Might as well buy a billboard on U.S. 87 that says "Your pathetic town merits no respect from us. Sincerely, Scripps."

Pretty damn shameful, I'd say.

Bonfire: 10 years later

Come Thanksgiving week, it'll be 20 years since I first saw Texas A&M's Bonfire burn, as a freshman Aggie … in the Corps of Cadets, no less.

That same week will mark 10 years since the Bonfire collapse that killed 12 Aggies. There has been no official Bonfire since then.

Bonfire will not return.

Nor should it.

Those lines will hurt my popularity among my Corps buddies. They won't make me any more popular with a lot of other Aggies, either. I'm kinda sorry to say it, I admit. But there's no sense in writing, if I can't be a little fearless.

Don't get me wrong. I truly enjoyed my time building Bonfire while at A&M. I truly appreciated the work, the tradition, the ceremony and the spectacle. A picture of Bonfire from my father's era hangs on my wall in my Man Room.

Now it's true, I am, and always have been, a bit of a tree-hugger. But while I was at A&M, the trees for the Bonfire came from land that was being strip-mined, I was told. Those trees were doomed to be cut already. I actually saw the strip-mining machine one afternoon, and it boggled the mind in its enormousness. We weren't saving the trees, but we were giving them a much more dignified death.

What did I do at Bonfire? As a short, stout guy, my job at the Stack was predestined. I led teams of freshmen and sophomores humping (carrying) logs from the unloading area to the Stack. You see, you needed short guys on the large end of the log to position it on the ground while the tall guys pushed the smaller end toward the stack.

For some reason, short guys in the Corps tended to be of slight build, which didn't mix well with very, very heavy logs. That made me pretty valuable, and I embraced my job, making sure that nobody got their foot smashed on my watch.

But, post-collapse, there's no question Bonfire wasn't terribly safe. And the atmosphere at the Stack site started at politically incorrect and went downhill from there. It was a 1950s scene, hanging on for all it was worth.

Even as an observer in the early 1990s, it was apparent to me that Bonfire was a tradition with a lifespan. It would not live forever.

Unfortunately, it came to a premature and tragic end. And Lord knows, I hate to see it go out like that. But Bonfire was always going to come to an end.

Will it come back? In this world today, you can't stand on a stack of logs in the midst of one of Texas' top universities and shout out sexist lingo as you build the hell outta Bonfire. In this world today, you can't put that much effort and natural resources into a project for the sake of setting it on fire … even if the trees are already doomed.

Don't like what I'm saying? Me either. I'm a traditionalist of the first order. Nostalgia is my thing. But, I'm also a realist. And the return of the Bonfire we knew is just not going to happen. If Bonfire were to return, it would be nothing like it was before.

And is that what we want? To carry on lamely, just to carry on?

For the past decade, I've challenged Aggies to come up with a new tradition. I'm more than aggravated that some official in this month's Texas Monthly article mentioned "Habitat for Humanity," because that has always been my example.

If Aggies set their mind to it, they wouldn't build just a house. They could build a neighborhood. Give it a couple years and their wouldn't be a homeless person in the Brazos Valley. 

The next tradition could be beyond amazing. And it is within the Aggies' grasp. All we have to do is decide to reach ahead instead of reaching back.