Foam and Words

2 September 2010

Drinkin', Writer | Comments (3)

So I have this new gig, and it’s ridiculous. I am now getting paid to write about alcohol. As with all my writing endeavors, I’m making very little – less so in this case because I have to go to places, imbibe, and then write about it, so foom! There goes my paycheck! But it’s fun. It’s my name in places. It’s my ego arching its back and rubbing its head against the leg of the kind publication that has let me do something so crazy insane awesome. It’s me, forever indebted to the Universe. It’s the job every shiftless, overeducated and unemployable liberal arts graduate thinks he should get to have.

It’s me telling my twenty-one year old self, after he got rejected from Teach for America and the Peace Corps, that things really do end up working out, at least a little, and have a drink because later you’ve got some writing to do, mister.

The other thing about it is that it’s really steady work. One of the weirdest things about being a journalist is the Black Hole – as soon as something’s filed you have to turn right back around and churn out something else, or guess what? NO MONEY FOR YOU. Sometimes the other side effect is NO PAPER FOR ANYONE ELSE! I always tried to drill this into journalism students’ heads when I was Teaching Assistanting them, but I’m not sure how many of them got it. No resting on your laurels! No patting yourself on the back! Wake up, get yourself some hair of the dog, and get right back out there, Mary! Work work work! Drink drink drink! Chug chug chug! Write write write! Lather, rinse, repeat.

Almost all my other gigs have been jobs of convenience. I could write when I had time and the world wouldn’t stop when I didn’t. Now, I find myself scratching and clawing to keep up with the pace. The weirdest thing of all is how much I love it. This week a piece of mine got rejected. Straight-up rejected and sent to be with Jesus. But in corresponding with my editor I realized – this is going to make me better. What’s happening right now will not happen again, because I’m better now. I know how to do this – or, I know more.

So – beer me!

Wherein I’m On The Side of America’s Small Business Owners

11 August 2010

Oklahoma, Writer | Comments (0)

Oklahoma Gazette readers are once again subjected to my words this week, as I offer my take on the whole Iguana-Taco John’s debacle:

This is the kind of thing that local businesses are up against. It’s also why they are almost always better. The restaurants; the stores; the little, out-of-the-way places owned by your neighbors; the people in your neighborhood; the people you go to church with — they have to be a hundred times more creative, a hundred times more resilient and persistent and straight-up good, because they don’t have zillions of dollars for next-to-the-highway real estate and ad time during “The Bachelorette.”

The whole article is over at their website or, if you’re lucky enough to live in the OKC, in print.

Seriously, people. I know the Olive Garden has unlimited salad and breadsticks. Of this I am aware. But maybe the last thing America needs is "unlimited" anything – go to Flip’s. Falcone’s. Zorba’s. Nomad. Sophabella’s. Deep Fork Grill. Trattoria il Centro. The list of awesome locally-owned establishments in Oklahoma City is literally endless; keep the money local, people.

One great way to do so? Try as many of aforementioned Gazette‘s "Best of OKC" picks. They’re listed right here.

The Selman Bat Watch

15 July 2010

Oklahoma, Travels, Writer | Comments (0)

This week at This Land Press, I take a week off writing about sports and share some thoughts about the road trip that Brian, Sam and I took this past weekend. We visited Canton Lake, Alabaster Caverns State Park, and – the purpose of the trip – the Selman Bat Watch near Freedom.

Then, a cloud like a dark river emerges from the direction of the cave. A few bats – mostly newborns who’ve just learned to fly, Hickman tells us – fly over in our direction, breaking from the massive formation. It twists and writhes through the air, marginally resembling the smoke monster from Lost. When it passes overhead you can hear the rush of the bats’ wings beating the air; it sounds like a river. Even the bugs seem to go silent. Here and there a hawk or an owl strikes at the dark column, nabbing a bat in midair and dragging it away.

Full disclosure: we were told that hawks and owls hunt the bats, and we saw the hawks circling, but we missed out on getting to see an actual strike. Everyone was bummed about this.

Seriously, though, you must put this on your list of Oklahoma things to do in your lifetime. It’s awe-inspiring.

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