Category Archives: Personal

Cindi’s very kind words today (and Bob’s last week)

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Don't know if you saw Cindi Scoppe's very touching column about me today. I pass on the link in case you missed it.

It means even more to me than you might think because, as she notes, she's not the sort to butter up the boss (certainly not one who's leaving), or anybody else. Cindi refers to herself as the "designated mean bitch" around here, which of course is entirely (or almost entirely) inaccurate. I prefer to think of her as tough-minded, which is what makes her one of the best in the business.

I'll tell you a little anecdote — Cindi was the first person (and just about the only one) to welcome me my first day on the job here. As Gordon Hirsch (a frequent commenter here) informed me, I was regarded as the "Knight-Ridder spy" because I was the first editor to come from another KR paper. It didn't matter that I had left Wichita the way Lot left Sodom. It was a lousy working situation, and I never looked back. But many here were convinced I was the corporate guy, so I got a lot of suspicious looks. (When I explained to Gordon how ridiculous it was, he shook his head and said none of that mattered. Far as scuttlebutt was concerned, I was the spy, so I might as well get used to it.) But Cindi, all of 23 years old at the time, strides through that cloud of suspicion right up to me, sticks out her hand and makes it clear that she, for one, was glad to have me here.

So it's fitting that she should bid me a public farewell. She didn't care who knew she was glad to meet me, and isn't a bit shy to let folks know she's sorry to see me go. And I've appreciated it both times.

While I'm thanking people, I have to apologize because in all the craziness of last week, I never got around to thanking Bob McAlister for the kind words that he wrote on his blog, which we published as an online-only column (online-only because we had recently run a column of his in the paper, so he was under our "30-day" guideline).

Bob, as I recall, regarded me a good deal more warily than Cindi, upon first meeting me. He was the communications chief — later chief of staff — for Gov. Carroll Campbell. It was his duty to be suspicious. But over the years we've fought a few battles together and become good friends. Bob is one of many such friends who have reached out and offered to do whatever they can to help in recent days, and in his case has actually taken action to ease my transition to … well, to whatever comes next.

Anyway, I wanted to be sure to thank both Cindi and Bob for thinking so kindly of me, from their differing perspectives.

The news about Robert Ariail

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Several of you asked whether my great friend Robert Ariail would be laid off. Well, today you got your answer. The delay because Robert was mulling an offer to stay on part-time, which he decided to decline.

Read Chuck Crumbo's story about Robert here. An excerpt:

Ariail, who joined The State in 1984, said he planned to continue
his work through United Media syndicate, which serves more than 600
newspapers and magazines.

“I
hope to find another job in editorial cartooning,” said Ariail, whose
last day at The State is Thursday. “I’m 53. It’s difficult to remake
myself, and I don’t want to.”

Among those laid off was Ariail’s boss for the past 15 years, vice president and editorial page editor Brad Warthen.

“Robert is probably one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with,” Warthen said.

One of Ariail’s strengths is his ability to needle and criticize leaders of all political persuasions, he said.

“Even
people who hate everything else on the editorial pages have to throw
him bouquets,” Warthen wrote in a forward to cartoonist’s 2001 book
“Ariail!!!,” a compilation of cartoons published in The State.

I'll post more about Robert later. I just wanted to go ahead and get this up, to give y'all a place to comment.

Thanks for all the kind words, folks

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    Yes, blog regulars, you did read much of this piece earlier in the week. But people who don't do blogs (a much larger number among newspaper readers) missed it, and there is some new material in it, at the beginning and the end. Not much, I'll admit, but some…

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
ONE OF THE tough things about getting laid off in a very public way is that you can’t get your work done — you can’t even walk down the street — for all the wonderful people who come up to you and say kind things. (Never mind the phone calls, e-mails and letters.)
    Of course, it’s also the best thing about the experience, so don’t stop, folks. It doesn’t get old.
    I’ve heard from everyone from Gov. Mark Sanford (yes, he was very kind and cordial, despite all those things I say about him) to old friends I worked with decades ago, far away from here. And I appreciated every one of them.
    For those of you who missed it, I was in the news last week, along with a lot of my colleagues. To quote from thestate.com:

    The State Media Co. today announced the layoff of 38 people — 11 percent of its work force — and wage reductions ranging from 2.5 percent to 10 percent for the rest of the employees.
    Among those laid off were three vice presidents including editorial page editor Brad Warthen.

    My last day is March 20.
    For those of you who ask “why,” the answer is simple: The money’s just not there, and somebody had to go. I was one of the 38. You might say, to borrow a phrase from the Corleone family, this isn’t personal; it’s strictly business.
    I’ve tried to keep readers on my blog in the loop about the profound changes going on in the newspaper industry, which have been accelerating. I’ve written about everything from the departures of longtime friends and colleagues who are not replaced, to the horrific news sweeping the industry more recently, with some newspapers going under.
    This has not been a comfortable thing for me to do. For one thing, I always wonder how much my readers will care. Someone I respected in college — actually, he taught a course in editorial writing that I took — warned us that when one talks about one’s own industry, one runs the risk of boring one’s audience.
    (So, what I try to explain when I do talk about it is that this is about you, too. Newspapers reflect their communities in more ways than simply publishing news and commentary. We also reflect our surroundings economically. Newspapers went into this recession in a weakened condition, and now we’re like the canary in the coal mine. If you’re hurting, we’re hurting. And vice versa, whether you realize it or not.)
    For another reason, I recognize my own lack of detachment.
    Finally, there is such a delicate balance to strike between telling all that I know or imagine I know, which is my instinct as a journalist, and respecting the confidentiality of things I know only because I’m an officer of this company — which gives me both an unfair advantage and a responsibility to those I work with. It can be awkward.
    Anyway, in spite of that, I’ve tried to be frank about the situation whenever I’m asked — and on the blog, even when I’m not.
    I leave here with a deep love for this newspaper, which I hope has been evident over the past couple of decades. It seems to have been evident to my boss — President and Publisher Henry Haitz — judging by the kind and gracious things he had to say about my service in his note on this page on Wednesday. (Sample: “He is a remarkable journalist and writer, with keen understanding of the issues most vital to our community and our state.”)
    And I appreciate that.
    What will I do next? I don’t know. I’ll be spreading my resume around, online and otherwise. In the meantime, give me a holler if you hear of a suitable position. One advantage I have over so many people who are looking for work now — more than 200,000 in South Carolina, I heard last week — is that a huge portion of the state has watched me on the job and formed a pretty detailed impression of my capabilities. (Of course, whether that works for me or against me depends on the individual reader.)
    I can tell you this much — I have zero intention of “relocating,” to use an ugly word. When I came to the state of my birth in 1987 after years in this business in Tennessee and Kansas, I did so with the intention of staying for good. My days as a newspaper vagabond were over. Either things worked out at The State, or I would find some other line of work. And the thing is, things worked out very well.
    The day I was interviewed here (for the job of governmental affairs editor), I told then-Executive Editor Tom McLean that my ultimate goal was to become editorial page editor. I believed that position offered the greatest opportunity to serve my state, which I believed needed its largest newspaper to have a strong, frank, lively editorial page. Thanks to Tom, I got my chance to do just that 10 years later, and I could not be more proud of the team I have had the privilege of working with, or the excellent job they have done — and that those who remain will continue to do, if I know them. (And I do.)
    Obviously, this is a stressful time, but beneath it all is something that I don’t quite know how to describe, a sort of anticipation driven by curiosity. I wonder, with great interest, what will happen next. (That sounds either terribly trite or unintelligible; I can’t tell which, but I explained it as well as I could.)
    So much for this subject today. This will not be my last column. For one thing, I promised you last week to write something about U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett’s candidacy for governor. I was going to do that for today, but I got distracted again. I’m sure you’ll understand.

For now, please visit thestate.com/bradsblog/ for more about this subject and everything else. Watch there to learn about my future blogging plans.

St. Paddy’s at Yesterday’s

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Here I am standing at the bar in Yesterday's. So where are y'all?

This is not the usual crowd. Very young, very green, quite drunk, generally speaking. I'll need at least another pint before I can tolerate them. I think I'll have one of those Bud Lights in the special St. Paddy's green aluminum bottles. I don't like light beer, but one must bow to the conventions of the day.

"Born Under a Bad Sign," which I must add to my playlist, was just playing on the rather loud PA. Before that, it was "Up On Cripple Creek," which can't be beat, anyway you cut it. Levon Helm!

Anyway, I'm not going to be here all night, so if y'all want to hoist one with me, you'd best shake a leg. Quick's the word and sharp's the action. Time and tide wait for no man, and so forth.

See, I'm just taking a beer break in the middle of cleaning out my office. I'll be doing it all weekend and much of the week — 22 years of accumulation, or accretion, or whatever (I'm a notorious pack rat) makes a heap o' cleaning up. My task is like that of Hercules in the stables, or, if you're not into classical allusion, that of the noble wee machine, Wall-E.

Some silly bugger knocked his beer over so hard it splashed on my hair — and worse, onto the Blackberry. Drunk as Davy's sow, he must have been.

Somebody passed the word for Duncan, and he came to join me. I broke the news to him about my leaving the paper. He was disappointed to learn it. Duncan's a great guy. While he was here, a young guy who knows my daughter stopped by to say he's a fan. Of course, he doesn't take the paper — he reads my column at his parents' house on Sundays. Which is one of our problems.

I'm going to have a Yuengling before I go back to the office. Then I've got a lot of work to do. See ya.

I infiltrate the unemployment system

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How dedicated am I to my craft? This dedicated: with the conflict between the governor and the Employment Security Commission being a burning issue in our state, I went and got myself laid off so I could go undercover and find out how the unemployment system in this state really works. I'm a regular Alec Leamas or something. That's my story anyway.

I learned an awful lot about it today — so much that I'm too tired now to sort through it all; I'd be writing all night. But it will produce a lot of fodder for the blog in the coming days, I expect. For tonight, I'll just pass on this tidbit…

The State invited representatives from various agencies who provide unemployment services — Employment Security, Commerce, and another program that I need to go back and clarify under which umbrella it falls — out to the paper to get the 38 folks laid off started on filing for help in finding a job, retraining, and getting those checks the ESC processes if you don't find a job right away. (And believe me, those checks are so small that you don't want to be unemployed and dependent upon them for five seconds more than absolutely necessary; they're a tremendous motivation to find a job.)

I spent about three hours with these various folks, and took copious notes. And I want to say that they were all very helpful and knowledgeable and professional and encouraging, which really helped me learn a lot for only three hours spent.

But you should get a chuckle out of this part: Someone was explaining to us about WorkKeys. Do you know about those? Basically, you take a battery of aptitude tests, and you get scores on a range of skills, and employers tell the gummint they want X number of workers who have scored at least a 4 in each category, or whatever, and you get matched up.

The gummint administers the test for free, and will even help you get training to get a higher score where you're lacking. You get certified, I think he said, with a rating of Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum. (There aren't many platinums, he said.)

But here's the best part. He said, "You also get a certificate, signed by the governor, saying that you are work-ready."

Now see, if I'd known this yesterday when the governor called me, I could have saved myself the time it will take to take those tests. I could have pointed out that if anybody knows what I am capable of, it's the governor. He probably would have whipped me out a certificate of work-readiness on the spot. So I guess I missed my chance.

Have a heart, Mayor Bob

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When I get home tonight I'm going to be in trouble with the lady who writes the checks at my house. She was already ticked that I got a parking ticket yesterday. One day I lose my job, the next I bring home a ticket. Her position is that it's not that hard to avoid them. I was determined not to get another.

So on the way into town, I stopped to get a dollar's worth of change at Food Lion. So I was set.

The following things happened:

  • I parked a block and a half from the federal building, but fortunately there was 54 minutes left on the meter, which was great. Despite my misadventures, I got back in time.
  • Then I went to get breakfast, and as I dug in my pocket for the four quarters, and it was empty. Yes, when I got my keys and phones and such out of the little tray after going through the metal detector at the federal building, I had left the quarters. So I ran in and ate and got back to my truck within 15 minutes, and no ticket. Good.
  • I had a lunch appointment with Bob McAlister (who has written a column that is sort of about me, which we will run online tomorrow) at the Summit Club (where he is a member and I am not, so I was his guest). I started to leave the office with plenty of time to get there, but I got slowed down by friends wanting to wish me well on my way out of the building. I finally got to the truck, and realized I had no change. I went back into the building, got two dollars worth, and another friend offered best wishes.
  • I parked in front of Trinity Cathedral. Figuring on an hour, I put in enough for an hour and twenty minutes (that is, a dollar), and ran to meet Bob.
  • One hour and twenty-four minutes later, I got to my truck and had a ticket.

I'm not sure what I'm going to tell Mamanem about this. It's not like I can sneak this by her; she keeps the checkbook.

You know, Mayor Bob (and council), you might lighten up just a LITTLE in this awful economy. I'm trying to keep the meters fed, I really am. But I can only move so fast sometimes, and I can only spend so much of my life thinking about making sure to have change in my pocket. I spent WAY too much time on that today, and still failed to avoid the wrath of Lovely Rita.

Get a Social Security card NOW

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I've spent much of today in a series of meetings learning about the various services that the S.C. Employment Security Commission and other state agencies offer to folks in my situation. Yesterday, when I made the appointments, I was told to bring my Social Security card.

Uh… I haven't had a Social Security card for about 35 years, since I was in college. I don't know what happened to it. (At first, I said 25 years, but my wife says I haven't had one as long as she's known me, and we've been married 34 years.)

And in all these years, this is the FIRST time anyone has asked to see it.

Oh, I've meant to get it replaced over the years — at one point years ago, it occupied a "to do" list slot on my old Palm Pilot for more than a year before cleaned the list up and deleted it. I thought it might be important to have one at some time — theoretically — so I should get one someday. But it was very, VERY easy to put off. I downloaded the form once or twice, and even filled it out, but never got it down to the Strom Thurmond Bldg.

A few words about that form, which you can find here:

  • The actual form is one page. But there are four pages of instructions preceding it.
  • You can't fill it out electronically. You have to print it out, and fill it out by hand (with a blue or black pen), which to my mind is just a step or two removed from having to chisel it on a rock.
  • Not all of the answers are immediately obvious — to me, anyway. For instance, they want your full name at the top. Fine. Mine is Donald Bradley Warthen. Then, near the end, it wants you to state your name as it appeared on your old card. Well, I don't have the slightest idea, after all these years, whether that original card said my full name, or "Brad Warthen," or "Bradley Warthen," or "Donald B. Warthen," or "D. Bradley Warthen," or "D.B. Warthen," all of which I have used for various legal purposes in the past.

On that last point — I asked the guy at the window at the Social Security office, and he said it was OK that I didn't fill it out. In any case, he was able to confirm that it was my full name. So I worried over that needlessly. But the thing is, I DO worry about things like that, which is why I really HATE filling out forms, especially if there is no one at hand to ask such questions of. And when there IS someone to ask questions of, I drive them crazy. Because I can always see way too many possible ways to fill out a form. That's how my mind works. When I'm writing a column, I see lots of ways that it could go, lots of possibilities for each word of it — but then I just pick the ones I want. With a form, you have to pick the ones THEY want. What if I screw up? They might do something awful to me — like make me fill out another form.

I did that blasted form three times. Once, I messed up and put my mother's married name instead of her maiden name. Then I filled out another copy, and did it fine, but left it at the office — and I planned to go by the SS office on my way to work this morning. So I printed it out last night at home, and did it again.

Then, I started obsessing about my passport. Near as I could tell from the instructions, I didn't NEED that, since I'd had a card before. I just needed a photo ID. But what if I got an extra officious clerk? Wouldn't it be nice to have backup? I think I was feeling guilty about having let this go for 35 years, and I felt like they would make me pay for my laxness or something.

So I tore up the house last night looking for my passport, finally finding it at the very bottom of a box full of junk I had filled one time when cleaning out my briefcase and clearing my desk. It had a five-pound note in it (in case I ever took it to Britain). I wondered whether leaving the five quid in the passport my grease the skids when I presented it, but decided I'd better not.

When I got to the federal building this morning, my papers clutched in my hand, I emptied my pockets into a little tin plate before going through the metal detector. The guard looked at the itty-bitty Swiss Army knife on my keychain, and said "You can't bring that in here." I asked if I could leave it with him. He said no. I asked what was I supposed to do — I had had to park a block and a half away. He said it didn't matter what I did, as long as I left it OUTSIDE the building. So I went outside, took the knife off, and stashed it under a concrete bench. Then I went back in, and in those few seconds, a line of four or five people had formed at the metal detector.

One of them was a homeless guy (I'm assuming here), who had to take off two layers of coats and other stuff, with a discussion about each layer, and then still set off the machine, and they had to use the wand on him.

So by the time it was my turn, I was ready. I put in my two cell phones, my weaponless keys, my belt I was told to take off, a pen, and four quarters I had for parking meters.

As I was stepping onto the elevator to go to the 11th floor, my Blackberry rang, and it was Nikki Setzler, calling to express his condolences and support. I warned him that he might be cut off in the elevator, just before he was cut off.

Finally, I got upstairs to the SS office on the 11th floor. As you walk in, a security guard tells you to turn off the ringer on your cell phone(s), and if you have to make a call to do it out in the hall, then explains how to take a number. I waited in a short line to get my number, got it, and went to find a seat at the back of the room.

Seeing that there were several customers ahead of me, I did what I ALWAYS do when I have to sit still for a moment. I took out my Blackberry to get some work done — check e-mail, read this or other newspapers online, check my schedule for the day, etc. Trying to decide which was more urgent, it hit me that poor Nikki, my senator, had been cut off. So I called to apologize, and we talked for maybe 30 seconds, when the guard yelled across the room, "Sir! Sir! I told you no calls in here." I told Nikki I'd have to cut him off again, thanked him, hung up, and explained that I had misunderstood; I thought the problem was RINGING… then, as soon as I said that, I remembered the part about having to go into the hall if I needed to make a call.

I saw the sign saying no cell phones, and wondered why. Did it interfere with some delicate equipment, or did it just irritate someone? It's not like this was a restaurant or something (where I agree that phone talking is extremely rude). This was a busy waiting room. But I decided I was in enough trouble; no point asking "why."

So I started to check my e-mail, all the time wondering whether this would get me into trouble, too. And I glanced around my extremely institutional surroundings — saw the homeless guy and the other citizens, looked at the multiple windows and saw the electronic display with our numbers, heard the loudspeaker summoning the next number in harsh tones, and for some reason thought of the film version of 1984, with John Hurt and Richard Burton. I watched a big chunk of it one night recently online at Netflix. And I began to mutter inwardly to myself, "I love Big Brother. I love Big Brother…" Just to get my mind right, you know.

Then my number was called, and a very nice guy was helpful and assured me that I had filled it out fine. It was even OK that I had started to put my mother's maiden name AGAIN and scratched it out and corrected it. We talked a bit about music — he's really into it. And when he found out where I worked, he told me he had been trying to find something in old newspapers about a concert Led Zeppelin did in Tampa back in 1977. I offered to see what I could find for him, although urged him not to be too optimistic, since that was way before newspaper databases went online. He gave me his address. (And no, I wasn't currying favor with Big Brother; I do this kind of thing all the time. Over the weekend, my Dad and I played golf with a guy who flew jets in the Navy over Vietnam, who was asking my Dad if he knew how he could look up information on a guy he flew with who he thinks later went MIA. I interrupted to ask, "What's his name?" He told me, and I found a bunch of stuff about him — a Medal of Honor winner, by the way — on my Blackberry while we waited to tee off. I later e-mailed it all to him. I like doing stuff like that for people, and in this case it was truly an honor.)

Finally, my card was ordered. It'll take two weeks. In the meantime, the nice guy gave me an official document to prove my Social Security legitimacy, which came in handy later in the day.

Yes, there is a point to this story: If you've lost your Social Security card, go ahead and get it replaced. Don't wait until you need it. You don't want all that hassle at that time, no matter how much you love Big Brother.

Can you believe this guy? (I mean that in a NICE way)

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Sorry not to have posted today. Aside from doing the work I usually do to get the opinion pages out, I'm dealing with a lot of e-mails and phone calls related to my personal and professional news — mostly very kind and thoughtful (although not quite all — hey, you know my public).

When I came in this morning, I was going to write something about our governor's latest, which is pretty wild and crazy and outrageous. I decided the headline was going to be, "Can you believe this guy?" I was going to say, he only wants the stimulus on his terms? Oh, yeah, it's all about him, all right, yadda-yadda…

But before I could write it, I got a call from the governor himself, in which he was very kind and gracious — which actually didn't surprise me a bit. On a personal level, I think he's a fine person, even though I wish he weren't our governor. Can you follow that (because a lot of people have trouble with it)? I said so here on the blog back when we endorsed his opponent in 2006:

If we went on the basis of who we like, I'd probably have gone with
Sanford. I know him, and I personally like him. I really have to force
myself to look at what he's doing (and not doing) as governor and shove
aside the fact that I like the guy.

I mean, I was kidding around a little when I said I was willing to put my life in his hands back here, but I was also being serious. The fact is that on a personal level he is a fine gentleman. Hand in hand with the fact that he places WAY too much faith in the private sector is the fact that in his private LIFE I see him as a good father and husband and so forth.

Anyway, he was very gracious in saying this morning that while we have had our differences, he had a certain respect for me and my colleagues, and he went on to pay us a compliment that you might find curious, but which I appreciated.

He cited the Teddy Roosevelt saying that "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena." Now, if I stopped there, you would think he actually meant to malign me and aggrandize himself, because here is the context of that portion of the speech TR delivered at the Sorbonne in 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

As you can see, it would be easy to cast me and those like me as the "critic," and the governor as the man in the arena.

But his purpose in saying that was to say that he sees me — and my colleagues on this editorial board — as also being in the arena, as among those who take risks, who strive valiantly, "who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause." I thought that was very generous of the governor, and perceptive, too — in that it's smart of him to know that I would LIKE to be described that way.

When I was 22 years old and starting out in this business, I wouldn't have wanted a politician to suggest I was in the arena. I was filled with all that J-school stuff about detachment and objectivity, and would rather have been cast as the critic. But along the way, I started to CARE about what happened to my community, my state, my country, the world — which ruined me as the kind of journalist I once aspired to be, but which I truly hope made me more useful to society. I have worked hard with that goal in mind — that of being useful, of trying to make a difference.

And I truly appreciate the governor recognizing that, and taking the time to tell me.

So, can you believe this guy? Only in this case, I mean that in a nice way.

Bothering seagulls

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My wife and I were walking on the beach this afternoon, and we saw this flock of seagulls — the birds, not the guys with the weird hair — snoozing on the dry sand, up above the tide line. It was cool walking into the wind, warm walking with it.

My wife mentioned that if Morgan were with us, she'd be scattering the gulls. That was one of her favorite activities. You remember Morgan — I wrote about her back here. Best dog ever.

Anyway, the gulls seemed to be in such a torpor there in the sun that I thought they might let me get really close with the camera. Which they did, although their patience had a limit.

No, I didn't hurt them, so get outta my face. I just thought they were beautiful, and wanted to photograph them. Is that so wrong?

By the way — a few feet away from the gulls was this concentrated pile of shells. They could not have collected this way on their own. My wife's theory is that someone, probably a child, had accumulated this collection in a pail, but had brought them back to the beach and deposited them here.

Giving back to the beach — I liked that thought.

I spent everything I had for this hat

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Finding myself at the Surfside Pier this afternoon, and having forgotten to bring a hat (having the sun glaring down in the gap over my shades drives me nuts), it occurred to me that I had never, in all these years, bought a hat that said "Surfside Beach."

And "all these years" is a lot of years. My grandfather bought two lots down here in about 1957. He built a little cottage on one of them. In about 1968, he built a house on the other lot, which is on a freshwater lake about two blocks from the ocean. He sold the other one to a friend of the family, and the lady lived there for about the next 30 years. Then it was sold and torn down to make way for TWO houses of the tall, skinny, stilted variety that started cropping up around here about 15 years ago. Here's a coincidence for you — Tim Kelly has stayed in one of those houses, which are right across the street from the "new" house. Very small world.

Anyway, needing a hat, I spotted this beauty. I hope you like it, because it cost $8.99 plus tax (see the price tag still on it, my little tribute to Minnie Pearl), and I only had a sawbuck in my wallet.

In fact, I had to take $2 out of my wife's purse to buy coffee at this coffee shop so I could come post this. I didn't want the coffee, but you have to have cover. Speaking of cover, as I've mentioned before, this coffee shop is actually sort of a front. The real business is a commercial bakery in the back. Zoning rules required that it be a retail business, so they put in the coffee shop as a sort of retail fig leaf. A few minutes ago, the young counterwoman said she was leaving, but I didn't have to leave; I should just let the guy in the back know when I leave. Very casual. I'm glad I'm not keeping her, the way the old man did the waiter in "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." She had enough on her mind because she was trying to keep tabs on a little boy out in front of the cafe, in the bright sunlight. She had to keep telling him to get out of the street. She had been sitting in the sun in front of the place when I arrived, and it was easier to keep track of the boy that way, so I felt bad that she had to come in on my account. I felt worse that she had to brew decaf for me. She said she didn't mind. But it occurs to me that she would have been perfectly happy if I had just come in to use the internet connection rather than insisting on buying something. Since the main business is in the back and all.

She's getting married soon, so I congratulated her.

By the way, I didn't really come in just to post this. I came in to get my column ready to post tomorrow. What, you think I don't have better things to do?

Working out is hard to do

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Set that headline to the Neil Sedaka tune, which seems appropriate. After trying to get back into working out the last couple of days, I feel about as macho as Neil Sedaka. Not to cast any aspersions, but I haven't exactly been coming on like Ah-nold. I look in the mirror in the locker room, and I see a flabalanche.

How bad is it? It had been so long since I had worked out — maybe once or twice the middle of last year, I guess — that it took me at least 10 minutes to remember my locker combination. That has never happened to me before since I first learned to work a combination lock in the seventh grade. I've had this lock for years, and there I was sweating over the fact that I knew there was a 35 in there somewhere, and I had a general idea (within two or three numbers) of what another number was, but I had no idea in what order. And as it turned out, I was somewhat wrong about the 35, as I learned on about my 30th guess.

Anyway, on Monday I did 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer, and one circuit of light weights, then some stretches to close, and was worn out. Then Tuesday, I did 35 minutes on the elliptical, followed by five or six minutes on the rowing machine. And I experienced new vistas of being out of shape. That first day, the last five minutes on the elliptical — the cool-down, during which I reverse the action just to work different muscles — was ridiculously hard.

The only good news is that when you're 55, if you go by the charts, it's REALLY easy to reach your target heart rate.

Why do I mention this to you? Because I figure if I mention it to somebody, you'll help hold me accountable. I AM going to work out again today. Y'all hold me to it, please. To paraphrase John Winger in "Stripes," if I don't get into shape, I'll be dead before I'm 30. Or however old I am.

‘That stupid ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX!’

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I just retreated up the stairs to my home "office" — one of the rooms my kids have moved out of over the years — because my wife was yelling about struggling to figure out "that stupid alternative minimum tax." She was telling me that if I wanted to do something useful, I could do something about that.

Mind you, this is about five minutes after we were having a conversation about how people are always coming to her with things they want ME to do something about, like the editorial page editor is in charge of the world or something. She said I have no idea how many things like that she deflects for me. I said I probably DO have an idea, because I get it all the time myself. It's weird. It's sort of like being the Godfather, with people coming to confide a problem, and you're saying in soothing tones, "What can I do for you, my old friend?…" It would be a big ego boost if I actually thought I had the power that some people seem to assume I have.

Anyway, five minutes after she's acknowledging how silly it is that people think I can do all of these things, she's asking me to do something about the alternative minimum tax. Hey, I don't even fully understand what it is. You know why? Because my wife does our taxes. Thank God.

Maybe, when things calm down a little downstairs, I should go down and think of something to do or say to express my appreciation for that, huh?

Maybe I'll tell her I gave that alternative minimum thing to one of the congressmen on the family payroll, and he's going to take care of it. That's what the Godfather would do…

My band’s playlist

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You know that event over the weekend I mentioned attending back here? It was a fund-raiser for Hand Middle School over at Gallery 701. And while a lot of folks did come up and converse with me about newspaper business, our dialogue was somewhat constrained by the fact that it was hard to talk over the sound of the band.

The band was a group of local lawyers who call themselves The Sugardaddys, as in the candy. That, of course, is not nearly as cool a name as what one of the band members told me they thought about calling themselves, which was “Lawyers, Guns and Money.” That band member, by the way, was bassist James Smith, also known for his nonmusical work at the S.C. House and in Afghanistan with the National Guard.

The band was pretty good, and in fact their opening number was one I think I’ll add to my band’s playlist — The Band’s “The Weight.” That song would fit right into my band’s ouevre, or idiom, or what have you.

Oh, you don’t know about my band? Well, it’s just in the planning stages, where it’s been since about, oh, 1971. The thing is that first I’ve got to come up with a cool name for it. I mean, you’re not going to see me settling on something like “Sugardaddys” just to move things along. No, I’m taking my time; I want to get this right. For awhile there I was sort of enamored of “Wireless Cloud” as a name, but I’ve moved on. Suggestions are welcome (up to a point). I may end up with the one that a friend suggested many years ago, after inadvertently learning my first name: “Donnie B. and the All-Night Newsboys.”

But I did draft a preliminary playlist of cover songs a couple of years back. I meant to post it on the blog, but didn’t get around to it or something. I ran across it the other day, and here it is:

  • Don’t Look Now
  • Can’t Be Too Long
  • Paint It Black
  • I’ve Just Seen a Face
  • Simple Kind of Man
  • Bring It On Home
  • Mustang Sally (but only if I can line up the Commitmentettes)
  • Knocking on Heaven’s Door
  • Hard-Headed Woman
  • Soldier of Love
  • Lawyers, Guns and Money (hey, it was on the list before James mentioned it)
  • The Pretender
  • Desperado (Don’t know how this got on here)
  • One More Cup of Coffee

This list, now that I look back on it, is WAY incomplete and poorly thought-out. For instance, as I say, I don’t know how Desperado got on there (watching too much Seinfeld, maybe). If I went with anything Eagles-related, it would have to be Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” And when it comes to Beatles covers, I’d do “I Should Have Known Better” way before the one listed above — or “Eight Days a Week.”

And this doesn’t even get into my original material (perhaps mercifully).

Anyway, once the name is set and the playlist is all worked out, I’ll see about trying to line up some actual musicians. Oh, and a manager. Don’t be bugging me with gig requests; that’s for the manager to deal with. All in good time.

ANOTHER social networking site? ARRGGGHHH!

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Just got this press release:

Hi Brad,

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to let you know about a unique social news service that just launched – BUUUZ.com.

Have you ever wanted access to a community of people who have the same interests as you? Where you can share artistic visions, muses and styles? Many people find social websites like Facebook and MySpace invasive and difficult to navigate. At BUUUZ registration is simple and members create virtual "islands" based on subjects of interest (islands are populated with news from websites across the internet as well as BUUUZ community discussion). Creating an "island" for a topic is as easy as picking a few keywords that best describe your interests.

As an example, if you love to oil paint like I do, you can use favorite artists, museums, etc. as island keywords to be alerted on stories and member conversations mentioning them. Then you instantly become a part of a worldwide conversation through this new service, where you can find and interact with new friends who have the same interests.

In light of the Facebook Terms of Service uproar from last week I wanted to mention:

– BUUUZ's subscription revenue model, makes it so they do not have to "fight" with the users about owning their data.
– At BUUUZ, when a user deletes their account, and their data is completely deleted
– BUUUZ has also set up automatic deletion of old messages

Please feel free to take a look at the service at BUUUZ.com and reach out if you would like images or have questions.

Best Regards,
Brent

Brent Bucci
FortyThree PR

… to which I can only say, "ARRGGHHH!" Or, perhaps, "AIIIEEEE!!!" Or somewhat more sedately, "Please; not another freaking social networking site."

Since I did that column over the holidays about Facebook, I have had even MORE "friend requests," and some of them have been from being I actually felt obliged to say "yes" to, so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. (And yes, some of them were people I'd actually like to maintain connections with, but not all…) And some of them were … a tad… weird. Like, if I thought myself a target for such things, I'd think "stalker." Which is not a good feeling.

Who's got time for all this socializing? Hey, you've got time on your hands, go read a newspaper. And then, go to the mall and buy something, and tell the merchant to buy some ads. Make yourself useful.

Fair warning: I’m back on the hard stuff

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Remember the miracle nose-drying drug I told you about yesterday? Well, forget that. I spent the night snuffling, blowing, practically drowning. And this morning I had to hold my breath to eat, because I couldn't breathe through my nose at all.

So nothing had worked. Not the zyrtec, not the allegra, not the Alka-Seltzer Plus, not the diphenhydramine, not the Afrin, not the celebrated ipratropium bromide, even in various combinations.

Those of you who have suffered, really suffered, with hay fever probably know what that means. Yes, I had to Go Nuclear. I called the doctor's office, and they told me to go ahead and take the prednisone that I keep on hand for severe asthma — but which will work just as well on hay fever, itchy eyes, etc., when you run out of other options. I took 60 mg. (six pills) as soon as I got off the phone, and will take another 40 tonight, and then it will take nine more days to taper off of it. You can't just quit this stuff all of a sudden.

This is the second time in two months, after I'd managed not to resort to it since 2007. Dang.

You ever take this stuff? I don't know what it does to you, but it jacks me up. As an uncle once said when he first took it, "It revs my motor." It stimulates appetite (causing weight gain), interferes with sleep, and has various other effects on the bod that are less than pleasant. Although it's not a hallucinogen, for some reason it puts me in mind of what Wolfe wrote about Owsley Blues: "with a picture of Batman on them, 500 micrograms worth of Superhero inside your skull." Or imagine swallowing little Three Mile Islands and feeling them start to glow inside you…

But I exaggerate. Of course, that's one of the side effects.

So I thought I'd warn you that posts such as this one, written on my last prednisone experience, could be coming at you.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it freaking works. It always does. Also, it's cheap — like aspirin. You just hate to have to resort to it.

The UnParty’s big (hypothetical) opening

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Did you see that Ted Pitts might run for lieutenant governor? Do you realize the implications?

Ted Pitts is MY representative. So theoretically, it's time to make my move and run for office on the UnParty ticket. This is my big chance.

Except, of course, I can't. Newspaper editors aren't allowed to run for office, not if they want to keep on being newspaper editors. And I can't sing or dance, so I'll have to put the campaign plans on hold.

Dang.

Keep a clean nose

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Here's a little news-you-can-use info.

You remember how sick I was before Christmas? Well, I never really got over it. I had the usual resolution to start working out in the New Year, and still haven't done it once, because I haven't had a day when I didn't feel like total crud, Ferris.

It's morphed. Started out as upset stomach, turned into bronchitis, followed by asthma, followed by recurring bouts of the worst head cold/allergy symptoms I've experienced in many a day. I've done two courses of antibiotics, been on prednisone over a week in between, and in the last few weeks have been taking antihistamines and associated remedies every four hours, including in the middle of the night, and STILL haven't been able to stop my nose from running.

And when I talk runny nose, I'm talking incapacitating. Like you can't do anything but blow. Night before last, my wife was leaving the kitchen and asked me to mash the potatoes she had just cooked. I said I couldn't. Feeling guilty, I TRIED while she was out of the room, but it went like this — blow nose (and I'm talking fire hose here, not some dainty dabbing), throw away the tissue, wash hands, dry hands, pick up fork, turn to the potatoes, DROP fork, grab tissue, blow just in time, and so on. Had lunch yesterday with Clemson's President James Barker, and it was really embarrassing. I must have gone through half a box of tissues; poor President Barker.

I was taking antihistamines (diphenhydramine, Alka-Seltzer Plus) on top of other antihistamines (zyrtec, or, when I lose faith in that, allegra 180) and still couldn't stop it. The only way I could go to sleep was stop up my nose with cotton balls. Yeah, way more than you wanted to know; I getcha.

But I say all this not to gross you out or cry the blues, but to tell you about the drug that my allergist's office called in yesterday. It was a nasal spray called ipratropium bromide, the generic name (and of course, I got the generic) for something that is marketed as Atrovent.

It worked unbelievably well. No, I still don't feel great; my sinuses still hurt — but my nose is no longer like a busted fire hydrant. It's dry. I'm able to use my hands for extended periods for something other than reaching for the Puffs.

And I'm sort of shocked that in 55 years of fighting severe allergies, with all the major hay fever bouts I've had, I've never run across this before. Or if I did, I'd forgotten it.

So, in case you have similar problems, I thought I'd let you know about it. Look on this as one of those "ask your doctor about…" ads, except that I'm not getting paid for it. Which shows you what a terrible businessman I am. Maybe I should get an agent.

There's one cool side effect. All of a sudden, I understand "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Maybe that's what I've got. Seems as good a diagnosis as any. Just follow the links:

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough

Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when

But you're doin' it again…

Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows…

The slowdown: What are YOU seeing?

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Peggy Noonan had an intriguing column Saturday, about what she was seeing in Manhattan in terms of real, street-level effects of the recession. Here's an excerpt:

    This is New York five months into hard times.
    One senses it, for the first time: a shift in energy. Something new has taken hold, a new air of peace, perhaps, or tentativeness. The old hustle and bustle, the wild and daily assertion of dynamism, is calmed.
    And now Washington becomes the financial capital of the country, of the world. Oh, what a status shift. Oh, what a fact.

Here's what struck me about that: She implies that — because of the stimulus, the TARP, etc. (I guess) –  the hustle-and-bustle that's missing from the not-so-mean streets near Central Park has somehow been transferred to Washington.

And yet, weirdly enough, I had been talking to someone else last week who had made a similar observation about a loss of activity in Washington. It was USC President Harris Pastides. When he came to see us with Mayor Bob and the gang last Monday, he had just stepped off the plane coming back from D.C., and his impression was that it felt dead, deserted. Of course, he acknowledged that the contrast was particularly sharp because he had last been there for the Obama inauguration just weeks earlier, but he seemed to be suggesting that he was seeing was a loss of activity from the norm, not just from the inaugural excitement.

(I heard that with particular interest because one thing that had always struck me when I visited D.C. — and mind you, I haven't been there in years and years — was something that my libertarian friends can identify with. I thought, crowded onto a metro platform with well-dressed commuters, or walking past swanky shops, "There's too much money in this town." Of course, part of that is the sheer size of the gummint, a good bit of which should be devolved. But part of it is the amount that the private sector freely spends on lobbying. I have no idea how to separate it out. But I know that in my limited experience, the lobbyists are snappier dressers.)

I haven't been to New York in almost a year, and I last went to D.C. in 1998 (yes, more than a decade). I don't know what impression I'd have if I visited either today (although I'm pretty sure NYC won't be as busy as when I made this video). Come to think of it, I don't know what impression I have of right here in the Midlands. For instance:

About three weeks ago, I went to the Lowe's out on Garners Ferry for the first time since before Christmas. It was late on a Sunday afternoon. And I was shocked, because when I walked in, there were about a dozen or more of those carts you use to stack your lumber on — the kind that when it's busy, you've got to hunt around for — lined up in a neat row in the lumber aisle before me. So there were at least that many carts free, and an employee had had time to gather them and make that neat row. Then after I left and got to thinking about it, I thought I had seen about as many employees as customers.

I've mentioned that several times since then, and sometimes people nod their heads and sometimes they dispute it. For instance, Cindi said she's been to Lowe's (including that particular store) maybe six times in the last few weeks, and it's always been busy.

Then when she said that, I suddenly remembered that I went out to Harbison Saturday, and the traffic was the worst I'd seen in several years. I thought I'd never get there, or get home. And the stores I went into were at LEAST as busy as the norm, if not more so, so I don't think it was just a matter of my having hit the traffic at a bad time.

From where I sit, there's plenty of evidence of our economy tanking in the aggregate, from the state unemployment figures to the horrific effect that reduction in advertising has on newspapers and TV. We can quantify the cuts that have occurred already and are coming in state government, or local school districts. And I know of quite a few specific cases of people close to me — personally and professionally — who have lost their jobs or are facing the high probability of such losses.

But then we still see the anomalous things, such as all that activity out at Harbison. And not just there. Over the weekend I thought, not for the first time, that the Vista is just TOO successful. Yes, I'm being ironic, but it's frustrating when that district has become so popular that you can't park within a block of Starbuck's.

So I'm wondering — what are YOU seeing out there, as a worker, as a businessperson, as a consumer? What's the true picture of what's happening thus far in the Midlands? Maybe we can get a snapshot — or better yet, a panorama — of that right here on the blog. So how about it? What are you seeing?

Troubles in the private college sector

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You know about all the budget cuts that have hit USC and other state institutions, but I was just talking to Caroline Whitson, president of Columbia College, and trying to operation a private college is no bed of roses these days, either. She had called me earlier in the day, and I got her back on her cell while she was walking the dog…

Most of the college's funds come from tuition (I had guessed it was from gifts, but I guessed wrong), and that's not exactly the most dependable funding stream at the moment. With so many families hurting, and student loans harder than ever to get, she said she's "not sure what enrollment is going to look like in the fall." So the college is looking at all sorts of contingencies.

As for gifts, well… whether your name is Pastides or Whitson, you tend to hear from a lot of people that their portfolios are down, and this just isn't the best time…

Me, I find it hard to imagine being in that situation, because I've never had a flippin' portfolio.

Real life anecdote follows: As I was getting off the phone with Caroline, my wife called on my cell to remind me that she'll be home late, so I might want to stop at the grocery on my way home if I want to eat. And I should remember that there is $15 in the checking account until I get paid, so don't go over that. Of course, as I recall she told me the day after I got paid LAST time — after she'd paid the bills — that there was only $11 in the account. I guess the additional $4 is all that's left from her pay after we paid some MORE bills.

You know how they say you should always have two months salary in an accessible account in case you lose your job? That always makes me laugh maniacally, because the only time I ever have two WEEKS pay is for about five seconds after I get paid every two weeks (and of course I never have two weeks gross, just net). And no, I'm not complaining. I know I'm well off. All I have to do is look around me — at work, in the community, among friends and family — to see how well off we are. But how other people build up portfolios, I don't know. Somehow, the world always knows EXACTLY how much is in my paycheck, and all the bills add up to that amount — give or take $15. I don't know how they coordinate it. Actually, I don't think they do. You know what I really think it is?
God doesn't want me to have money — he knows me too well, and doesn't trust me with it or something. I'm not being facetious. I'll explain my theological view on that another time.

Oh, and when they call from our alma mater — Memphis State, which has changed its name — seeking contributions, I do not laugh maniacally, but only because I'm polite.

If you want to be a hero, then just follow me…

My measly 1.5 Million looks sort of sad now

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You know, I was going to brag on the blog today because I just noticed that, at 1,473,925 and climbing, this blog will soon pass the 1.5 million-page view mark. Like, within the coming month — maybe two weeks, maybe three.

I thought that was pretty cool because it took three whole years to reach a million, and here we are at half again that much just nine months later.

But then Tim Geithner comes out with that 1.5 Trillion number, and I just don't feel so special anymore…