Hording

I’ve moved in with Ryan Nilsen. Last week was a little odd. I hadn’t taken everything down yet, so was caught inconveniently between home and the apartment. Now that I have moved ‘everything’ down, I realize how much is still at home. It is really amazing how much stuff I have. Taking Mom’s wheelchair downstairs and storing it last night with Dad, I discovered I have stuff in every closet at home. Craig’s, Janean’s, Robin’s, Kristin’s, the nursery (my old room). How is that possible?

I am a dedicated Thoreau-ite: I follow the admonishment of Thoreau. Live simply and within your means. Seek primarily for food, shelter, fuel. What more does one need than a simple cabin by Walden Pond?

Moving this time, I vowed to cut down, sort, and rid myself of all unneeded accumulations. Having now moved I have yet to thrown anything away. My piles of boxes still crowd Janean and Craig’s basement bedrooms. Carload after carload has been transported to my apartment and efficiently stored; still there is more. But do I really need it?

Probably Not.

But I can’t get rid of it. I might, just might, need it sometime in the future. My piles of stuff may be useful once or twice a year. Half of it I may have even forgotten. Yet when I open a box, the decision to throw out its contents is not even an option. Who knows when I’ll need a broken prop SLR or 8mm movie camera? Or my two old TVs (one of which is European and takes an RF adaptor); or my Panasonic editing monitor I saved from the rubbage pile when I worked for the Church.

I yearn to live a life of frugality and simplicity. I want my own cabin at Walden Pond. But apparently I am a Thoreau-ite by intention only. And my cabin will have to come with a basement with many rooms in which I can stuff all my boxes.

Adams Cabin 2006

Introducing you to a new segment you can expect to see from time to time: Old Memories Relived. These will be videos and slides shows from adventures, or entertaining daily life, I have had. I am sorting through my gigabytes of pictures and video clips and realized that I need to share these.

American Idol

I worked for American Idol this week. They held a whirlwind audition here in Salt Lake City. I was excited merely for the value of their name. I can now say, hey, I worked on the production crew of American Idol.

I don’t watch the show. I think it is boring and the fanaticism it receives is verging on, ironically, idolism. All most workers cared about on the production was whether or not Simon, Paula, and Randy were going to visit. Would we meet them? Well, I met Ryan Seacrest. He alone came to visit. We were lucky for that. He only comes when he has time and only visits a few of the tryout cities.

But like I said, I didn’t really care. I was more impressed and excited about meeting the producers of the show. For three days I got to work with the people who make American Idol. I mean really make it, and make more than $2 billion a season. They hire the crews, work the cameras, plan the tours, schedule the talent, seek the sponsors; everything. And they work insanely hard schedules. My shift was around fifteen hours a day. Theirs started before mine and ended long after mine. They are just ordinary people. They were nice, funny, tired.

Once again, whether you watch the show or not, love it or hate it—I heard plenty of both, there was something there I hadn’t expected. I had my suspicions about the shallow Hollywood production that seemed the epitome of capitalistic business and marketing driving out what art and purity there was left in the entertainment world. But as I walked the line of thousands of people waiting to enter, I found that something more. They played guitars and sang. They laughed with one another, complete strangers mere hours before. It was a party atmosphere. Everyone was accepted. If you were in line, you were now part of the American Idol family.

The motives of the top executives may be questionable. But the show really has created a movement on the public level. Democrat, Republican, black, white, Jew and Christian; it didn’t matter. The problems of the world drifted away; all that mattered was singing. And for three days I got to be a part of it.

Obama and the Media

In May I did a quick study of political coverage in all the main news sources I follow. I had a hunch. Everything I read or heard seemed to be about Obama or Clinton. Clinton has since dropped out.

Some of the sources I tallied, for an idea, were BBC World News, CNN Politics, KSL, MSNBC, NPR, Washington Post, Yahoo, etc.

What I found was that since March 2007, Obama had cornered 30 percent of all political stories. John McCain had only 22 percent. That may not seem like much, but the difference over one year is quite large. It equates to more than 1000 stories about Obama than McCain. Counting Hillary, the Democratic party received 61 percent of the news. The Republicans, less than 39 percent.

Glenn Beck stated for CNN today, "According to the Tyndall Report, a service that monitors the three network news broadcasts, ABC, NBC, and CBS have spent a total of 114 of their national airtime minutes covering Obama since June. They've spent 48 minutes on his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain." So Obama is getting over double the airtime.

Who is the media's baby?

I find it odd, though, that the media has so happily fawned around Obama, the same media that attacks big business and complains frequently about an interfering federal government. The irony being that Obama is funded solely by big business and promises to give the federal government more control of our daily lives.

"He's [Obama] been on the cover of U.S. News and World Report, GQ, Rolling Stone, US Weekly (twice), Time and Newsweek (a combined 12 times) and will soon be on the cover of Men's Vogue for the second time. To be fair, Men's Vogue also did an in-depth story on John McCain but, strangely, a photo of McCain didn't make their cover.

"Why the disparity? According to Men's Vogue deputy editor Ned Martel, there's a simple explanation: Obama 'is what is called in the magazine world an "interest driver." ' Translation: Obama sells magazines."

Of course. It all comes down to ratings and money. The media, in general, doesn't care about Obama. He is simply their new cash cow and they are milking him for all he's worth. What bothers me is that by doing so, they are avoiding many other important issues. I know very little about McCain because what little I find in the media is a cowering shadow of the many news stories on Obama. I know when and how Obama exercises, I know his favorite drinks; all thanks to the in depth media coverage. But with McCain, I barely even know his entire platform. To find it, I have to actively search for it.

"We've become a country that continually chooses the sizzle over the steak. McCain may not get my vote, but he gets my admiration for at least offering some substance and new ideas when he speaks. Obama, meanwhile, is like the rock star who's realized that he can just scream unintelligible words into the microphone between songs, and the entire stadium will still scream. When your fans already love you, there's no reason to risk it by offering anything that might be controversial. Remember the Dixie Chicks?

"As candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain are ironically a lot like the way the media treats them: Obama is the glitzy magazine cover that screams for people to buy the issue, and McCain is the fact-filled article buried inside that makes you glad you did."

For the full article, see http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/23/beck.obama.media/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular

And did you know Ralph Nader is running for President? I didn't. I found that he received .3 percent of political news coverage. That is 36 stories in the last year to Obama's 4000. In these same news sources I found Jesus Christ in 222 stories, or 1.7 percent of the political news. So He is getting better coverage, and at this rate, I'd say has a better chance of becoming the next President than Ralph Nader.

Ralph, buddy, you've got to get your message out there better.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3827127

Fear on the Cliff

Saturday morning Tom Powell and I went rock climbing. Tom led and anchored the route that included a huge overhang. I tied in and climbed up to right below the overhang without a problem. The overhang was around five feet. That is pretty serious. It takes incredible muscles just to hold your body to an overhang, let alone move along it and clamber over it. Think of not just holding on to the ceiling now above you, but pulling your body up against it, flat, so you can use your feet along the ceiling. You are fighting gravity and 168 pounds, in my case. The overhang didn’t cut straight across the cliff face; it was jagged so with a little traversing (climbing sideways instead of up) you could then climb into a little cove; in the sense that the five foot overhang was still above you, but also overhung you vertically to your left and right. In this little fold there was a good crack diagonally to your side. From here you could squeeze into this crack and use this thin area of the vertical overhang to get a hold and move yourself around and over. So you didn’t need the strength or skill to go upside down and fight gravity.

I put some chalk on my hands and went for it, deciding to just muscle my way up. I pushed off the wall and up into the crack using just my arms. I ended with my head and right shoulder pinned to the rock hanging above me. The crack was smaller than it had appeared and I was not going to fit so far in. My feet were dangling in the air and unable to touch stone. I would have to move to the edge of this little crack and then try and fit up through it. But to do that I needed my feet. So I frantically pulled my left leg up and clawed at the rock with my foot trying to find a tiny disturbance that I could catch my toe on and hold. I found one and was able to free my head and shoulder and shift my body out away from the cliff to where the crack was wider. I shifted my right handhold exactly as my left toe slipped off the overhang. My body jerked down but my hands held. I was now holding myself by my arms again.

This is when the fear hit. I was hanging out well from the wall. Tom was forty feet directly below me. I was sweating. The wind was gusting terribly and knocking me about. And I realized I had to pull myself up on this thin little corner of rock and slide out and around the overhang. I had no idea what was around the corner; where would I put my hands? I was going to fall. Fear. What if Tom didn’t catch me? What if the rope sawed free on the rock ledge and I dropped? What if I broke my sunglasses? Fear.

But I took a breath and told myself ‘so what?’ I stopped my mind and said, ‘if any of that happened that would be bad. But none of those are very likely. I am not falling. Why fear what is not happening?’

I immediately analyzed my options to move upwards and started attempting them. As soon as I focused my mind on finding a foothold, then shifting my weight so I could lift my left hand over the edge and find a handhold, then getting my right arm over, then bringing my right foot up so it was no longer dangling in the wind, my fear completely vanished. I was left alone on the rock ledge. I felt the wind. I felt the hot sun on my neck. I felt the rock under me. And I moved forward and upward. I didn’t think about how amazingly I had just erased my fear but wasted no more time distractedly thinking about unlikely possibilities. I got to the top and came back down without another problem and it rocked. Pun intended.

Greetings

Hello everyone. Most of you are mildly aware of my blog Worlds of Written Words (www.writtenworlds.blogspot.com). I decided it was time to set up a non creative blog. Yes, this blog will not be creative in any way. For the cleverness and creativity you have come to expect from me please check out my other blog. Here you will find drastically cynical, irate, and sometimes outright dull comments about the world around me, a world we are all forced to live in. I am looking for an outlet for my nonfiction writing. This outlet will serve three primary purposes, but only two I care about. First: it will help keep you, my friends and family (and any strangers), up to date on my life and what I am thinking about my life. But the two purposes I care about are: Secondly, to keep me writing and to better my writing. Yes, this is the same purpose for my other blog. Thirdly, to lower my blood pressure by allowing me to get my anger out in writing. I am hoping that doing so will lower my likely-hood of road rage. You see, I am trying to make the world a better place.

So enjoy. Please, comment. Let this be a forum of sorts. We can discuss topics, share thoughts, laugh together and cry together. I will tell you now that I intend to invite other writers to join this blog and post their views and reactions to the world around them. These writers will be screened, tried, probed, and d by me vigorously before they are allowed to post. They will be friends whose insight I believe worthy. Family, this includes you. So let me know if you want to be part of the blog and occasionally react to something in your life.