A quick post (OK, maybe not so quick) to let those who care know how my job situation has changed:
We had been told last month that Aug. 15 would almost certainly be the day Scripps would make the changeover to outsourcing the copy desk to Corpus Christi and therefore ending our jobs.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, they brought into the conference room and basically said, they ain't ready. Apparently, we don't yet quite have the technology and they can't make it better than it was before. The computer gobbledy-gook needed to transmit all this stuff back and forth between California and Texas isn't going as smoothly as they'd hoped. The only paper that's online with this thing is a considerably smaller paper in Redding and they're having a lot of trouble.
They didn't give us a new date for our demise, but I figure it has to be at least good for another month or two. On one hand, it's nice to still be employed for a while longer. I like that idea. So does my wife; it's the very thing she and her friends have been praying for (in fact, they're praying it gets so bad, they give up on the idea altogether and just keep the lot of us). On the other hand, this is making "leading us on" into an art form. It's hard to function well with something like this looming over you. It's nearly impossible to think about looking for another job until this one ends because if we leave early, we forfeit whatever severance package there may be (another thing they won't tell us much about).
I like what I do. I want to keep doing it. I like where I work and for whom. On many levels, things are very status quo. On other levels, they're anything but.
In the meantime, we have a great bunch of copy editors. The other night, when the news about the death of John Wooden broke at about 7:15, all of us plunged right in, ripping apart and rearranging not one, but two sections of the paper. I had already written an appreciation column the night before and two of our writers were able to get great local reactions. I told our news-side editor, only half-joking, that our coverage looked so good you would have thought Wooden had died much earlier in the day.
We are incredibly professional in a very trying situation. Nobody beats us on that. Our copy desk rocks.
And there are even things that have gotten better lately. I'm writing more than I ever have and getting more compliments about it, too. I'm going to get to cover the baseball All-Star Game in Anaheim next month, assigned to it by the managing editor (which means he has to be reading my stuff, right?).
And just when I think no one cares, I'm proven wrong. At church on Sunday, no fewer than three of the pastors asked me about my situation. Just out of the blue. Even when I'm not faithful, God is.
Waiting for God's timing is incredibly hard to do. God wants us to be patient while at the same time not making us that way. We have to fight our impulses in order to follow his. It's like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time.
Which I continue to do, with His help...
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
"Santa Clara State" and other Cal Poly adventures
Time to get this blog back to its stated reminiscing purpose. I was thinking the other day about my first real job out of college: sports information director at my alma mater, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The first year I was out of school I became the women's sports information director at Cal Poly. I did a really good job, considering it was 1979-80, women's sports were relatively new and I was the first person to ever hold the job. Cal Poly women's sports got a lot of media attention in the area that year and that was mostly because of me (and also because Poly had some pretty good teams). But at the end of the year, the women's athletic director decided to get rid of me, and this was mostly because I was male and she had already decided which female she wanted to replace me with.
So I became ... the men's sports information director. Not sure why, if I wasn't good enough to be the part-time women's SID I was good enough to be the full-time men's SID, but that's what happened.
They didn't make the decision to hire me until about a week before the first football game and I was never able to get up to speed. I was still trying to put together the football program for the second week of the season when I was with the team in Greeley, Colo., for the season opener against Northern Colorado. And of course, in 1980, this was anything but a computerized operation. I lugged my portable typewriter along with my suitcase while the entire team sprinted through the old Denver airport O.J. Simpson style because we had gone to the wrong gate while trying to get home.
My biggest adventures that fall had to do with getting the football programs printed. I had already sold all the ads during the summer while waiting to see if they would hire me full time. Most of the pages in the program stayed the same from week to week; others changed with rosters and stories for that week's game.
The biggest complication was that the printer was located in Santa Maria, 30 miles south. He was a booster and one of the few printers who could handle it. But this meant early deadlines and having to describe layouts over the phone to him (again, no computers, no e-mail. It's hard to imagine now how anything got done at all).
I had to drive down to Santa Maria to pick up the programs, about 1,000 of them, each week. I had commissioned an artist to draw portraits of the five players I wrote features on during the season. The covers looked great -- except the week I arrived and the printer told me he realized too late he had put the wrong name on that week's cover. Right picture, wrong name.
But he had a solution: He had made 1,000 stickers to put over the names. All I had to do -- for some reason, it was me who had to do this, not him -- was put the stickers over the name on each cover.
So that night, I licked stickers (yes, they were the lickable kind). And my parents licked stickers. And my grandmother licked stickers. And my next-door neighbor licked stickers. We got them all done and no one complained -- except the people who had done the licking.
Another week the printer said he was going to be a little later than normal with the programs and could I please come to his house that evening to get them. Well, that seemed OK since he lived in Nipomo, a little town about five miles closer.
Nipomo's a pretty rural place, or at least was then. I followed his directions and drove into this driveway to this somewhat rundown house. The only doorbell I saw was next to a sliding glass door. There was a long pause before the outside light was turned on and a woman opened the door. I asked her if this was the Smith residence (not their real name; I'm not trying to protect them; I just don't remember it!) and before she could answer, a man slowly emerged at the door from my right. He had a double-barrel shotgun.
He asked what I wanted. Surprisingly, I was able to tell him. I told him I was looking for the Smith residence, that he was a printer and had some football programs for me. He said he thought they lived across the road. I quickly, and as calmly as possible, said thanks and got in my car. All the time as I was backing out of the narrow driveway, I was saying quietly and rapidly to myself, "He's got a gun! He's got a gun! He's got a gun!"
The Smiths were very surprised to find out their neighbors across the road had a shotgun.
Cal Poly made it into the NCAA Division II playoffs that year and its first home playoff game was against Santa Clara. I suddenly realized I was going to have to come up with as many as two more programs. I called a few advertisers to see if they would continue for a smaller publication and I figured out what I was going to put on the cover for the game against Santa Clara. I sent the photo down to the printer and told him over the phone what the text on the cover was going to say.
That week I had 1,000 beautiful glossy programs. They looked great. But they said "CAL POLY vs. SANTA CLARA STATE." Santa Clara State?! Santa Clara is a Jesuit school near San Jose. My life flashed before my eyes.
I told the athletic director, who was a very kind, quiet man. He was the kind of man who, when he got angry, seldom showed it. He was angry. You could tell by his eyes. And maybe the wisps of smoke coming out of his ears. But he apologized to the Jesuits on behalf of his idiot 24-year-old sports information director.
There wasn't a single day the whole school year when I was SID that I didn't do something for that job. Saturdays, Sundays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, every day. It was very difficult to get a handle on a job I had been given only a week before the first football game. And when Cal Poly got into the Division II football championship game, it was even tougher. The title game was in Albuquerque, N.M., where I had relatives, but I don't think they even knew I was in town. I barely knew I was in town.
Cal Poly beat Eastern Illinois for the national championship on a game televised by ABC and I remember I got to join the team for a big dinner afterward, followed by the New Mexico-Arizona State basketball game at the Pit.
San Luis Obispo went bonkers about the Mustangs finally winning the title after having come close in the playoffs several times before. On top of that, SLO High won the CIF football championship that same weekend at Mustang Stadium. When our buses arrived on campus, there were a lot of people there that night to welcome us back.
Or I should say welcome them. All I did was get off the bus, go to my office and desperately try to put together a season preview for the basketball team.
The basketball coach and his team hated me. Mostly because they never saw me. I had been so busy with football I never had much of a chance to do much for basketball.
The basketball team was almost just as successful as the football team, advancing to the 1981 Division II Final Four in Springfield, Mass. It was televised by this fledgling new TV network, ESPN. The four sports information directors gathered at a Springfield to meet with Sam Rosen, the play-by-play announcer, and his analyst who had just joined ESPN, Dick Vitale.
Yes, Dick Vitale has always been that way: Loud, enthusiastic, over the top. I came to the Final Four with a "Postseason Media Guide," but it was really just a 10-page mimeographed news release. Looked more like a term paper than a media guide.
Cal Poly's president was Warren Baker, just hired then and soon to retire now. Vitale knew him from the University of Detroit where Baker had been president and Vitale had been basketball coach.
"You tell Warren Baker he needs to spend some dough to put out a media guide!" Vitale said. He was trying to rib his former boss, but Baker had nothing to do with it. It was my fault we didn't have a media guide.
Cal Poly wound up finishing third in the Final Four (they actually had third-place games in those days). After that game, we drove to New York City where our flight home was originating. We spent one night in the Big Apple, but I was sick as a dog. All I remember is driving in Manhattan in order to return the rental car and walking back to the hotel in less time than it took me to drive. I stayed in the hotel that night while everyone else was out on the town. I remember seeing Patton on TV that night. First time I'd ever seen it. Still one of my favorite movies, even though it brings back bad memories of my only time in New York.
They consolidated the two SID positions at the end of the school year and told me I'd have to reapply. I interviewed, but it was clear they didn't want me. I wound up leaving and getting my first newspaper job at The Daily Press in Paso Robles, where I was the sports editor and also the sports staff.
But that's a story for another time.
The first year I was out of school I became the women's sports information director at Cal Poly. I did a really good job, considering it was 1979-80, women's sports were relatively new and I was the first person to ever hold the job. Cal Poly women's sports got a lot of media attention in the area that year and that was mostly because of me (and also because Poly had some pretty good teams). But at the end of the year, the women's athletic director decided to get rid of me, and this was mostly because I was male and she had already decided which female she wanted to replace me with.
So I became ... the men's sports information director. Not sure why, if I wasn't good enough to be the part-time women's SID I was good enough to be the full-time men's SID, but that's what happened.
They didn't make the decision to hire me until about a week before the first football game and I was never able to get up to speed. I was still trying to put together the football program for the second week of the season when I was with the team in Greeley, Colo., for the season opener against Northern Colorado. And of course, in 1980, this was anything but a computerized operation. I lugged my portable typewriter along with my suitcase while the entire team sprinted through the old Denver airport O.J. Simpson style because we had gone to the wrong gate while trying to get home.
My biggest adventures that fall had to do with getting the football programs printed. I had already sold all the ads during the summer while waiting to see if they would hire me full time. Most of the pages in the program stayed the same from week to week; others changed with rosters and stories for that week's game.
The biggest complication was that the printer was located in Santa Maria, 30 miles south. He was a booster and one of the few printers who could handle it. But this meant early deadlines and having to describe layouts over the phone to him (again, no computers, no e-mail. It's hard to imagine now how anything got done at all).
I had to drive down to Santa Maria to pick up the programs, about 1,000 of them, each week. I had commissioned an artist to draw portraits of the five players I wrote features on during the season. The covers looked great -- except the week I arrived and the printer told me he realized too late he had put the wrong name on that week's cover. Right picture, wrong name.
But he had a solution: He had made 1,000 stickers to put over the names. All I had to do -- for some reason, it was me who had to do this, not him -- was put the stickers over the name on each cover.
So that night, I licked stickers (yes, they were the lickable kind). And my parents licked stickers. And my grandmother licked stickers. And my next-door neighbor licked stickers. We got them all done and no one complained -- except the people who had done the licking.
Another week the printer said he was going to be a little later than normal with the programs and could I please come to his house that evening to get them. Well, that seemed OK since he lived in Nipomo, a little town about five miles closer.
Nipomo's a pretty rural place, or at least was then. I followed his directions and drove into this driveway to this somewhat rundown house. The only doorbell I saw was next to a sliding glass door. There was a long pause before the outside light was turned on and a woman opened the door. I asked her if this was the Smith residence (not their real name; I'm not trying to protect them; I just don't remember it!) and before she could answer, a man slowly emerged at the door from my right. He had a double-barrel shotgun.
He asked what I wanted. Surprisingly, I was able to tell him. I told him I was looking for the Smith residence, that he was a printer and had some football programs for me. He said he thought they lived across the road. I quickly, and as calmly as possible, said thanks and got in my car. All the time as I was backing out of the narrow driveway, I was saying quietly and rapidly to myself, "He's got a gun! He's got a gun! He's got a gun!"
The Smiths were very surprised to find out their neighbors across the road had a shotgun.
Cal Poly made it into the NCAA Division II playoffs that year and its first home playoff game was against Santa Clara. I suddenly realized I was going to have to come up with as many as two more programs. I called a few advertisers to see if they would continue for a smaller publication and I figured out what I was going to put on the cover for the game against Santa Clara. I sent the photo down to the printer and told him over the phone what the text on the cover was going to say.
That week I had 1,000 beautiful glossy programs. They looked great. But they said "CAL POLY vs. SANTA CLARA STATE." Santa Clara State?! Santa Clara is a Jesuit school near San Jose. My life flashed before my eyes.
I told the athletic director, who was a very kind, quiet man. He was the kind of man who, when he got angry, seldom showed it. He was angry. You could tell by his eyes. And maybe the wisps of smoke coming out of his ears. But he apologized to the Jesuits on behalf of his idiot 24-year-old sports information director.
There wasn't a single day the whole school year when I was SID that I didn't do something for that job. Saturdays, Sundays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, every day. It was very difficult to get a handle on a job I had been given only a week before the first football game. And when Cal Poly got into the Division II football championship game, it was even tougher. The title game was in Albuquerque, N.M., where I had relatives, but I don't think they even knew I was in town. I barely knew I was in town.
Cal Poly beat Eastern Illinois for the national championship on a game televised by ABC and I remember I got to join the team for a big dinner afterward, followed by the New Mexico-Arizona State basketball game at the Pit.
San Luis Obispo went bonkers about the Mustangs finally winning the title after having come close in the playoffs several times before. On top of that, SLO High won the CIF football championship that same weekend at Mustang Stadium. When our buses arrived on campus, there were a lot of people there that night to welcome us back.
Or I should say welcome them. All I did was get off the bus, go to my office and desperately try to put together a season preview for the basketball team.
The basketball coach and his team hated me. Mostly because they never saw me. I had been so busy with football I never had much of a chance to do much for basketball.
The basketball team was almost just as successful as the football team, advancing to the 1981 Division II Final Four in Springfield, Mass. It was televised by this fledgling new TV network, ESPN. The four sports information directors gathered at a Springfield to meet with Sam Rosen, the play-by-play announcer, and his analyst who had just joined ESPN, Dick Vitale.
Yes, Dick Vitale has always been that way: Loud, enthusiastic, over the top. I came to the Final Four with a "Postseason Media Guide," but it was really just a 10-page mimeographed news release. Looked more like a term paper than a media guide.
Cal Poly's president was Warren Baker, just hired then and soon to retire now. Vitale knew him from the University of Detroit where Baker had been president and Vitale had been basketball coach.
"You tell Warren Baker he needs to spend some dough to put out a media guide!" Vitale said. He was trying to rib his former boss, but Baker had nothing to do with it. It was my fault we didn't have a media guide.
Cal Poly wound up finishing third in the Final Four (they actually had third-place games in those days). After that game, we drove to New York City where our flight home was originating. We spent one night in the Big Apple, but I was sick as a dog. All I remember is driving in Manhattan in order to return the rental car and walking back to the hotel in less time than it took me to drive. I stayed in the hotel that night while everyone else was out on the town. I remember seeing Patton on TV that night. First time I'd ever seen it. Still one of my favorite movies, even though it brings back bad memories of my only time in New York.
They consolidated the two SID positions at the end of the school year and told me I'd have to reapply. I interviewed, but it was clear they didn't want me. I wound up leaving and getting my first newspaper job at The Daily Press in Paso Robles, where I was the sports editor and also the sports staff.
But that's a story for another time.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Lingering Limbo
It's truly hard to know how to respond to what things are like at work right now. If you read this blog (and already we've reached the realm of fairy tales), you know our copy desk people at The Star were told in February that our jobs were going to be eliminated in May or June. For more than a month now we've been waiting for more news and Thursday we got some.
Or at least those of us who were there got it. News like this usually only comes when I'm off like I was on Thursday. But apparently, this was sort of an impromptu meeting. Those who were there were told -- I'm told -- that our jobs are now expected not to be ending until late July or early August.
In most ways, this is very good news; if you have to choose between being laid off and not being laid off, you'd pick not being laid off. But on the other hand, we're still not sure exactly when our jobs will end.
Not knowing is difficult. It's kind of like finding out a loved one is terminally ill. You're hit with sadness, maybe some denial, a few weeks of panic, but then realization there's no sense in panicking. What's going to happen is going to happen. You just don't know when it's going to happen.
So I guess what's happening now is like your loved one responding to chemotherapy -- at least for a while.
(My goodness, this is a depressing analogy, isn't it?)
There's definitely some relief. You feel like you've bought some time somehow and maybe you can even talk yourself into thinking you can cheat death.
OK, enough death analogy.
It's a strange existence we have at work these days. We're all, for the most part, still doing our jobs the same way we always have. I'm still writing my columns even though our primary -- and best -- columnist, David Lassen, has already been let go. I've got survivor's guilt even though I won't apparently survive forever.
Our routine is pretty much the same, although our work schedules have changed with only three of us in sports designing pages now. Consecutive days off still happen, but not as often.
Our sports editor, Jon Catalini, was also let go, so now our writers have been divvied up between two supervisors. However, we copy editors technically aren't anywhere in the organizational chart. We have no boss. We can do anything we want. Mm-hmm. Right.
At this meeting, our group was also told that if we reapplied for any of our jobs, which are being outsourced to Texas, we would make the same amount of money we do now. Unfortunately, we would still be in Texas.
One of the affected copy editors on the news side found out today he had won the annual chainwide headline-writing contest. Good for him. He won $1,500 for it. Apparently, he's good enough to be the best headline writer in our entire chain, but he isn't good enough to keep from being laid off.
Or at least those of us who were there got it. News like this usually only comes when I'm off like I was on Thursday. But apparently, this was sort of an impromptu meeting. Those who were there were told -- I'm told -- that our jobs are now expected not to be ending until late July or early August.
In most ways, this is very good news; if you have to choose between being laid off and not being laid off, you'd pick not being laid off. But on the other hand, we're still not sure exactly when our jobs will end.
Not knowing is difficult. It's kind of like finding out a loved one is terminally ill. You're hit with sadness, maybe some denial, a few weeks of panic, but then realization there's no sense in panicking. What's going to happen is going to happen. You just don't know when it's going to happen.
So I guess what's happening now is like your loved one responding to chemotherapy -- at least for a while.
(My goodness, this is a depressing analogy, isn't it?)
There's definitely some relief. You feel like you've bought some time somehow and maybe you can even talk yourself into thinking you can cheat death.
OK, enough death analogy.
It's a strange existence we have at work these days. We're all, for the most part, still doing our jobs the same way we always have. I'm still writing my columns even though our primary -- and best -- columnist, David Lassen, has already been let go. I've got survivor's guilt even though I won't apparently survive forever.
Our routine is pretty much the same, although our work schedules have changed with only three of us in sports designing pages now. Consecutive days off still happen, but not as often.
Our sports editor, Jon Catalini, was also let go, so now our writers have been divvied up between two supervisors. However, we copy editors technically aren't anywhere in the organizational chart. We have no boss. We can do anything we want. Mm-hmm. Right.
At this meeting, our group was also told that if we reapplied for any of our jobs, which are being outsourced to Texas, we would make the same amount of money we do now. Unfortunately, we would still be in Texas.
One of the affected copy editors on the news side found out today he had won the annual chainwide headline-writing contest. Good for him. He won $1,500 for it. Apparently, he's good enough to be the best headline writer in our entire chain, but he isn't good enough to keep from being laid off.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Surviving another birthday
Fifty-four.
That’s the age I turned Thursday, although the day itself aged me considerably more than that. It was almost comical. It WOULD be comical if I hadn’t been the one going through it. But since you’re not the one who went through it, maybe you WILL find it comical, and that’s why I’m writing about it.
It wasn’t a good week for someone to be entering his mid-50s. I kept reading about people in their mid-50s suddenly dying. Mosi Tatupu, who played football for the Patriots and USC, dead at 54. Yipes. Therese Rochette, the mother of Winter Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette, died suddenly in Vancouver of a massive heart attack at 55.
I had to work on my birthday this year, which isn’t all that unusual in my job. I’m certainly not complaining; I had two days off before my birthday and another after it. But Thursday was crazy.
I started writing my TV-Radio sports column for The Star as I usually do on Thursdays at about 7:30 a.m. I had to kind of rush it this week because I had a dentist appointment scheduled for noon. Whatever possessed me to schedule a dentist appointment on my birthday I don’t know, but it was one of the few days my hygienist had open, so I did it.
This week I was writing about the Universal Sports network. It’s a cable channel NBC owns part of, which has recently become based in our circulation area, in Westlake Village. The network is doing some Winter Olympic programming from both Vancouver and Westlake. I got invited to tour the facility and meet its president.
I had also hoped to talk to David Michaels for my column. He’s the executive producer of Universal Sports, directs NBC’s Olympic figure skating and gymnastics along with other things. He lives in Westlake Village, which makes him local — and is also the brother of NBC’s Al Michaels, which makes him even more interesting. David’s always been great to me and treats me like I work for the New York Times or something. But I knew he was busy — the women’s figure skating final was that night — so I wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer the e-mail I’d sent him.
I finished my column, and the TV notes that go along with it, without Michaels and scurried to get ready for my dentist appointment. I was almost literally out the door when my cell phone rang. It was David Michaels. I took out my recorder, put my phone on loudspeaker and did a quick interview. It was really cool that he called me and I think my wife Karen was kind of impressed that he would call me back like that and she also heard the friendly way he talked to me. You can always use some points like that with your wife!
Of course, there was a traffic jam on the 101 on the way to the dentist, making me about 10 minutes late. But I got there and found, to my chagrin, that everybody at the dentist’s office knew it was my birthday. The dentist, after telling me that before long I might need to have a wisdom tooth taken out (I’d rather leave them in if I can; I need all the wisdom I can get! Who knew wisdom came from your teeth?), brought me back two birthday “gifts” she found in her office: a little model airplane and a bottle of what she called “manly” body wash with the office’s logo on it.
This is all going on while I’m in the chair with the hygienist cleaning my teeth! The dentist noted that one of the ingredients of the body wash was goat milk. The hygienist then said something about how male goats attract female goats by peeing on themselves, so she wasn’t sure how good this “manly” body wash would be. Again, all this is going on while my mouth is wide open with instruments in it and the suction thingy hanging out of it. My eyes were getting wider with every comment, moving from one of them to the other.
I finally got out of there. They gave me a little bag for my stuff (toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, model airplane, “manly” body wash) and I headed for the office.
When I got to the office, I discovered a deflated Mylar birthday balloon and a stuffed monkey on my desk. Apparently, somebody was given this gift a long time ago and it has since then shuffled from birthday person to birthday person. It was nice, unless you’re sorta kinda trying not to draw a lot of attention to the fact that you’re now 54 years old.
I had to get in a little earlier than usual, partly because of stuff I had to catch up on, partly so I could incorporate David Michaels’ comments into my column. I got everything set up, then took out my recorder. To my disgust, I found that when I had put my phone on loudspeaker, it caused interference on my recorder and most of Michaels’ comments were unintelligible. I was able, however, to salvage a little bit of it and make it work.
With our staff being cut through sudden layoffs (our copy desk is being outsourced to Texas, which means I’ll be losing my job in May or June, and our sports editor was laid off effective immediately last week) and the Winter Olympics going on, our shifts have been pretty stressful recently. We were almost a half-hour late in getting the section done. By the time I left the office at about 11:45 p.m., my neck and shoulders were very sore.
Eesh. It definitely hadn’t felt like I’d had the previous two days off, but I’m really happy I have today off. As I write this, the plan is for my wife and son to take me out to dinner tonight and I’m thinking there will be some Wood Ranch beef ribs in my future.
The best thing about my actual birthday on Thursday? The amazing number of people on Facebook who wished me a very happy birthday. It was even more amazing when I went back today and counted them up.
Fifty-four!
That’s the age I turned Thursday, although the day itself aged me considerably more than that. It was almost comical. It WOULD be comical if I hadn’t been the one going through it. But since you’re not the one who went through it, maybe you WILL find it comical, and that’s why I’m writing about it.
It wasn’t a good week for someone to be entering his mid-50s. I kept reading about people in their mid-50s suddenly dying. Mosi Tatupu, who played football for the Patriots and USC, dead at 54. Yipes. Therese Rochette, the mother of Winter Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette, died suddenly in Vancouver of a massive heart attack at 55.
I had to work on my birthday this year, which isn’t all that unusual in my job. I’m certainly not complaining; I had two days off before my birthday and another after it. But Thursday was crazy.
I started writing my TV-Radio sports column for The Star as I usually do on Thursdays at about 7:30 a.m. I had to kind of rush it this week because I had a dentist appointment scheduled for noon. Whatever possessed me to schedule a dentist appointment on my birthday I don’t know, but it was one of the few days my hygienist had open, so I did it.
This week I was writing about the Universal Sports network. It’s a cable channel NBC owns part of, which has recently become based in our circulation area, in Westlake Village. The network is doing some Winter Olympic programming from both Vancouver and Westlake. I got invited to tour the facility and meet its president.
I had also hoped to talk to David Michaels for my column. He’s the executive producer of Universal Sports, directs NBC’s Olympic figure skating and gymnastics along with other things. He lives in Westlake Village, which makes him local — and is also the brother of NBC’s Al Michaels, which makes him even more interesting. David’s always been great to me and treats me like I work for the New York Times or something. But I knew he was busy — the women’s figure skating final was that night — so I wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer the e-mail I’d sent him.
I finished my column, and the TV notes that go along with it, without Michaels and scurried to get ready for my dentist appointment. I was almost literally out the door when my cell phone rang. It was David Michaels. I took out my recorder, put my phone on loudspeaker and did a quick interview. It was really cool that he called me and I think my wife Karen was kind of impressed that he would call me back like that and she also heard the friendly way he talked to me. You can always use some points like that with your wife!
Of course, there was a traffic jam on the 101 on the way to the dentist, making me about 10 minutes late. But I got there and found, to my chagrin, that everybody at the dentist’s office knew it was my birthday. The dentist, after telling me that before long I might need to have a wisdom tooth taken out (I’d rather leave them in if I can; I need all the wisdom I can get! Who knew wisdom came from your teeth?), brought me back two birthday “gifts” she found in her office: a little model airplane and a bottle of what she called “manly” body wash with the office’s logo on it.
This is all going on while I’m in the chair with the hygienist cleaning my teeth! The dentist noted that one of the ingredients of the body wash was goat milk. The hygienist then said something about how male goats attract female goats by peeing on themselves, so she wasn’t sure how good this “manly” body wash would be. Again, all this is going on while my mouth is wide open with instruments in it and the suction thingy hanging out of it. My eyes were getting wider with every comment, moving from one of them to the other.
I finally got out of there. They gave me a little bag for my stuff (toothpaste, toothbrush, floss, model airplane, “manly” body wash) and I headed for the office.
When I got to the office, I discovered a deflated Mylar birthday balloon and a stuffed monkey on my desk. Apparently, somebody was given this gift a long time ago and it has since then shuffled from birthday person to birthday person. It was nice, unless you’re sorta kinda trying not to draw a lot of attention to the fact that you’re now 54 years old.
I had to get in a little earlier than usual, partly because of stuff I had to catch up on, partly so I could incorporate David Michaels’ comments into my column. I got everything set up, then took out my recorder. To my disgust, I found that when I had put my phone on loudspeaker, it caused interference on my recorder and most of Michaels’ comments were unintelligible. I was able, however, to salvage a little bit of it and make it work.
With our staff being cut through sudden layoffs (our copy desk is being outsourced to Texas, which means I’ll be losing my job in May or June, and our sports editor was laid off effective immediately last week) and the Winter Olympics going on, our shifts have been pretty stressful recently. We were almost a half-hour late in getting the section done. By the time I left the office at about 11:45 p.m., my neck and shoulders were very sore.
Eesh. It definitely hadn’t felt like I’d had the previous two days off, but I’m really happy I have today off. As I write this, the plan is for my wife and son to take me out to dinner tonight and I’m thinking there will be some Wood Ranch beef ribs in my future.
The best thing about my actual birthday on Thursday? The amazing number of people on Facebook who wished me a very happy birthday. It was even more amazing when I went back today and counted them up.
Fifty-four!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Laid off
As some of you already know, I found out last week that my job is going to be eliminated in May or June. Although people may know that I write for The Star, my job is basically to be a copy editor. The E.W. Scripps Co., the chain that owns our paper, is consolidating all the copy desks (i.e., the people who design the pages and put the stories and photos on them) for the papers it has in the Western states into their paper in Corpus Christi, Texas.
What is happening is that in order to cut costs -- something all newspapers are desperately trying to do these days -- Scripps is eliminating all the copy desks at its papers in Ventura, Redding and Bremerton, Wash. The people being laid off are being offered jobs in Corpus Christi, but as you can imagine, few if any will decide to move to Texas.
It is definitely a shocking and rather incomprehensible move. Local reporters will be writing their stories here in Ventura County. Editors on the city desk will edit them and then tell people in Texas how they are to be laid out. It sounds so strange and so desperate.
On top of all this, we found out this week three more are being let go as well, including my boss and our sports columnist, who has been at the paper for 25 years.
This, obviously, is going to be a traumatic thing for our family as well as the 17 other people losing their jobs at The Star and I'd really appreciate your prayers. I've been at The Star for 26 years. We're fortunate that we've been able to save some money through various means over the years. We're not like a lot of other people who are living from paycheck to paycheck. But anything like this is very scary. The job market is very thin and even more so for journalists/writers.
A year ago last November, we had some other layoffs and at that time, I sent out an e-mail to the whole newsroom (a unusually bold thing for me to do) and told them "The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God can't keep you." I still believe that and know good things are in store, even though it may be difficult to see how now.
I'll write more later about the day it happened and feelings I have about all this. Not that you're necessarily dying to know all this, but it'll help me with the grief process (and isn't that one of the things a blog is for?). That process right now is still a little too raw to express, especially after the additional cuts this week.
What is happening is that in order to cut costs -- something all newspapers are desperately trying to do these days -- Scripps is eliminating all the copy desks at its papers in Ventura, Redding and Bremerton, Wash. The people being laid off are being offered jobs in Corpus Christi, but as you can imagine, few if any will decide to move to Texas.
It is definitely a shocking and rather incomprehensible move. Local reporters will be writing their stories here in Ventura County. Editors on the city desk will edit them and then tell people in Texas how they are to be laid out. It sounds so strange and so desperate.
On top of all this, we found out this week three more are being let go as well, including my boss and our sports columnist, who has been at the paper for 25 years.
This, obviously, is going to be a traumatic thing for our family as well as the 17 other people losing their jobs at The Star and I'd really appreciate your prayers. I've been at The Star for 26 years. We're fortunate that we've been able to save some money through various means over the years. We're not like a lot of other people who are living from paycheck to paycheck. But anything like this is very scary. The job market is very thin and even more so for journalists/writers.
A year ago last November, we had some other layoffs and at that time, I sent out an e-mail to the whole newsroom (a unusually bold thing for me to do) and told them "The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God can't keep you." I still believe that and know good things are in store, even though it may be difficult to see how now.
I'll write more later about the day it happened and feelings I have about all this. Not that you're necessarily dying to know all this, but it'll help me with the grief process (and isn't that one of the things a blog is for?). That process right now is still a little too raw to express, especially after the additional cuts this week.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Last Word on Late Night
I'm not telling anyone who watches late night TV anything they don't already know or anything they haven't already been told, but I do write about broadcasting and maybe that gives me a right. (OK, I write about sports broadcasting, but this is only a blog; lighten up.)
Late night TV has been important to NBC for almost 60 years. From Steve Allen to Jack Paar to Johnny Carson to Jay Leno to Conan O'Brien. All of them were broadcasters of the highest order and understood the importance of hosting live television 5 nights a week (or in Carson's case 4).
The last 5 years, however, NBC has done all it could to completely ruin one of the medium's biggest franchises. No, this didn't start in the last month; this started when NBC executives decided Conan should succeed Jay. For some reason, Jay agreed to it. Conan's run on "Late Night" was ended and the nearly talented Jimmy Fallon took his place.
Unfortunately, 5 years is a long time and by the time we actually got to it, Jay's ratings were still good and he decided leaving really wasn't something he wanted to do.
Also by this time, Conan was thinking this 11:30 gig was going to be really cool. NBC was right there with him. They moved his people to L.A. and built a enormous, cavernous studio for him, not in Burbank but at Universal City.
But Jay's griping about leaving -- and possibly going to another network -- scared NBC and started making the execs think of ways they could have their cake and eat it too.
At the same time, NBC, and its parent company GE, was slogging through a really bad time in prime-time ratings and, in this economy, losing money. It didn't matter that the amount of money NBC was losing was a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money GE makes every year; losing money was losing money.
Somebody thought of a solution to solve both problems: Put Jay on at 10 p.m. 5 nights a week instead of those really expensive prime-time dramas.
At first glance, I liked this idea, primarily I have decried the elimination of the network variety show, such as "The Carol Burnett Show." "American Idol" is as close as we come these days, and it's not close to being as good as the old shows were. Show business is on the decline and the end of the variety show a big reason why.
But it didn't work. Jay's show was awful. I have no idea why, but it was incredibly worse than his "Tonight Show." It was like taking a 1-man show that plays pretty well in a coffee house and putting it on Broadway. Exposed to the light, every flaw showed.
In time it might have done better. Meanwhile, Conan did OK. It was much better than the ratings showed, but I admit it: I was watching David Letterman more than I was Conan. Conan would've gotten more viewers as time went on. Jay had the same early growing pains that Conan was going through before he overtook Dave. Seven months was not long enough to evaluate what Conan's performance.
The thing that really forced NBC's hand, however, were the local stations. They had no problem with Conan; their problem was with Jay. Jay historically had done everything he could to boost affiliates; whenever he did club gigs in their towns, he'd go and meet the station GM and do some promotional work for them. But he was killing them now. The ratings for his 10 p.m. show were so much worse than what the prime-time dramas were getting, the local newscasts weren't getting any kind of carryover in the ratings. Some stations that were No. 1 in news at 11 p.m. were now No. 3. The affiliates were up in arms and some were threatening to put other programming on in place of Jay.
NBC decided they needed to pull the plug on "The Jay Leno Show." but once again, instead of just canceling the show and being done with it, it tried to keep everything: the dramas, Jay and Conan. And for some reason, Jimmy.
The execs’ solution was to put Jay’s show on for just a half-hour at 11:35, put Conan on at 12:05 and start Jimmy at 1:05. Jay bought into it like a good trouper, but Conan decided that to move “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 would really ruin everything the show has been since it started, i.e., the First Show of Late Night. Instead of moving the show, Conan decided he would move.
That has led us to the incredible amount of snippiness in the media we’ve all been a witness to and to the cancellation on Conan’s show, which ended Friday night.
OK, so let’s evaluate:
Jay? Good broadcaster (something I deem important), good guy, has only tried to do what the company wanted him to do. The easiest, and maybe classiest thing would’ve been for Jay to bow out gracefully, but he didn’t and really can’t be blamed for not doing it.
Conan? Also a good broadcaster, good guy, was promoted by the network with hype that no one probably could fulfill (how many people get a whole studio built for them?), and saw himself as custodian of an American treasure, even more than his employer did. Conan is the most talented member of this cast and NBC will regret getting rid of him.
NBC executives? While I had no problem with them taking the prime-time dramas off at 10 p.m., a lot of people did (especially the producers of prime-time dramas). Like I said, putting Jay on at 10 didn’t seem that bad to me, but it turned out horribly. Of course, once a show gets an reputation, it’s hard to break it. What NBC did was the stuff of clichés: They were guilty of wanting to have their cake it and eat it too and of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It’s a mess. We don’t know if Jay’s “new” “Tonight Show” will be as good as it used to be, now that his 10 p.m. has been so bad and we don’t know if he’ll get back to his Dave-beating days again. We don’t know what Conan’s next move will be. We only know he can’t say anything about NBC or give any interviews for a few months or start a new show on another network until September. Somehow, Jimmy survives, although I can’t figure out why. Dave enjoys higher ratings, but who knows for how long? Fortunately for NBC, the Winter Olympics will provide a literal cooling-off period.
But as I heard a TV critic say on the radio the other day: More people have been talking about all of this than have been watching it.
Late night TV has been important to NBC for almost 60 years. From Steve Allen to Jack Paar to Johnny Carson to Jay Leno to Conan O'Brien. All of them were broadcasters of the highest order and understood the importance of hosting live television 5 nights a week (or in Carson's case 4).
The last 5 years, however, NBC has done all it could to completely ruin one of the medium's biggest franchises. No, this didn't start in the last month; this started when NBC executives decided Conan should succeed Jay. For some reason, Jay agreed to it. Conan's run on "Late Night" was ended and the nearly talented Jimmy Fallon took his place.
Unfortunately, 5 years is a long time and by the time we actually got to it, Jay's ratings were still good and he decided leaving really wasn't something he wanted to do.
Also by this time, Conan was thinking this 11:30 gig was going to be really cool. NBC was right there with him. They moved his people to L.A. and built a enormous, cavernous studio for him, not in Burbank but at Universal City.
But Jay's griping about leaving -- and possibly going to another network -- scared NBC and started making the execs think of ways they could have their cake and eat it too.
At the same time, NBC, and its parent company GE, was slogging through a really bad time in prime-time ratings and, in this economy, losing money. It didn't matter that the amount of money NBC was losing was a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money GE makes every year; losing money was losing money.
Somebody thought of a solution to solve both problems: Put Jay on at 10 p.m. 5 nights a week instead of those really expensive prime-time dramas.
At first glance, I liked this idea, primarily I have decried the elimination of the network variety show, such as "The Carol Burnett Show." "American Idol" is as close as we come these days, and it's not close to being as good as the old shows were. Show business is on the decline and the end of the variety show a big reason why.
But it didn't work. Jay's show was awful. I have no idea why, but it was incredibly worse than his "Tonight Show." It was like taking a 1-man show that plays pretty well in a coffee house and putting it on Broadway. Exposed to the light, every flaw showed.
In time it might have done better. Meanwhile, Conan did OK. It was much better than the ratings showed, but I admit it: I was watching David Letterman more than I was Conan. Conan would've gotten more viewers as time went on. Jay had the same early growing pains that Conan was going through before he overtook Dave. Seven months was not long enough to evaluate what Conan's performance.
The thing that really forced NBC's hand, however, were the local stations. They had no problem with Conan; their problem was with Jay. Jay historically had done everything he could to boost affiliates; whenever he did club gigs in their towns, he'd go and meet the station GM and do some promotional work for them. But he was killing them now. The ratings for his 10 p.m. show were so much worse than what the prime-time dramas were getting, the local newscasts weren't getting any kind of carryover in the ratings. Some stations that were No. 1 in news at 11 p.m. were now No. 3. The affiliates were up in arms and some were threatening to put other programming on in place of Jay.
NBC decided they needed to pull the plug on "The Jay Leno Show." but once again, instead of just canceling the show and being done with it, it tried to keep everything: the dramas, Jay and Conan. And for some reason, Jimmy.
The execs’ solution was to put Jay’s show on for just a half-hour at 11:35, put Conan on at 12:05 and start Jimmy at 1:05. Jay bought into it like a good trouper, but Conan decided that to move “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 would really ruin everything the show has been since it started, i.e., the First Show of Late Night. Instead of moving the show, Conan decided he would move.
That has led us to the incredible amount of snippiness in the media we’ve all been a witness to and to the cancellation on Conan’s show, which ended Friday night.
OK, so let’s evaluate:
Jay? Good broadcaster (something I deem important), good guy, has only tried to do what the company wanted him to do. The easiest, and maybe classiest thing would’ve been for Jay to bow out gracefully, but he didn’t and really can’t be blamed for not doing it.
Conan? Also a good broadcaster, good guy, was promoted by the network with hype that no one probably could fulfill (how many people get a whole studio built for them?), and saw himself as custodian of an American treasure, even more than his employer did. Conan is the most talented member of this cast and NBC will regret getting rid of him.
NBC executives? While I had no problem with them taking the prime-time dramas off at 10 p.m., a lot of people did (especially the producers of prime-time dramas). Like I said, putting Jay on at 10 didn’t seem that bad to me, but it turned out horribly. Of course, once a show gets an reputation, it’s hard to break it. What NBC did was the stuff of clichés: They were guilty of wanting to have their cake it and eat it too and of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It’s a mess. We don’t know if Jay’s “new” “Tonight Show” will be as good as it used to be, now that his 10 p.m. has been so bad and we don’t know if he’ll get back to his Dave-beating days again. We don’t know what Conan’s next move will be. We only know he can’t say anything about NBC or give any interviews for a few months or start a new show on another network until September. Somehow, Jimmy survives, although I can’t figure out why. Dave enjoys higher ratings, but who knows for how long? Fortunately for NBC, the Winter Olympics will provide a literal cooling-off period.
But as I heard a TV critic say on the radio the other day: More people have been talking about all of this than have been watching it.
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