A Dilemma

We live on a quiet street in midtown not terribly far from Cooper and Young. It's a nice street with nice people living in the area. We have nice neighbors. Very nice neighbors. The neighbors, over the weekend decided to have a little block party so we would all get to know each other and start a little phone list which I thought was a great idea. Most everyone on the block stopped by at the very least to say "hello".

Eventually, the conversation turned to a resident on the street whose son was recently released out of prison for what we think is a drug charge. He's living with his mom there on the street and there are some nervous feelings about this.

This guy will have his buddies drop by to hang on the front porch doing God knows what.

Well, that was precisely what was going on when another neighbor, who has a police officer for a son, got nervy. She called her son, who was on duty, to stop buy with his partners to hang for a bit on her porch. As you can imagine, the miscreants got worked up over this and eventually left. This prompted the kids' mother to have a chat with the other lady about the cops.

She chewed her out. Something to the effect of how dare you threaten these boys, etc., etc.

As it turns out, the boy has some sort of brain damage. Probably from the massive amount of crack he's been smoking and made a comment to the effect of, "I may have to get my gun." Of course, he never did and no one knows for sure whether or not he actually has one. And frankly, no one around here wants to find out for sure. Hence the dilemma.

Dude and his mom rent this duplex they live in and conversations have taken place with their landlord allowing us to know that they don't really pay any rent and the old landlord hasn't kicked them out yet. Something along the lines of, "We haven't found a place to move to yet." Although the old guy who rents this place to them told me they were leaving.

Something is going to happen around here if they don't go. I can see my neighbors now, like the scene in Frankenstein when the villagers come out with pitchforks and torches and run this family out. Probably way better than the scene in High Noon when there's a shootout in the street. Either way, the landlord is the real douchebag for not doing anything about this idiot.

Maybe we'll win the lottery so I can buy this property out from under the old man and bulldoze the thing. Oh well, at least I can dream about a time when there are no brain damaged, gun wielding maniacs living in the neighborhood, can't I?

Se la vie...

TV News

Those who know me, know of my past in the television news industry. Those same people will tell what I think about the television news industry. For those of you who don't know, and not to put too fine a point on it, it sucks. As it is said, "It ain't what it used to be."

Self-centered reporters giving about one third of the truth on something that has NO relevance to you at the time. Making the story about themselves. Exaggeration. Indictments. It's all there and those are just some of the reasons why I don't watch it. TV news has a tendency to piss me off. Ed Murrow once said of television, "... this instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely lights and wires in a box."

When I was cutting my TV teeth at WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, I struck up a life long friendship with a man named Tom Dees. He was a photographer there and a damn good one at that. We spent a few years working together there uncovering all sorts of ugliness and "news worthy" things. To make a long story short, the day came when I left for greener pastures and Tom moved to the other side of the camera and became a great reporter.

Dees has since moved to Memphis and can be seen on Fox 13. He's been here for many years and he's easily the best interviewer in the business and has a certain knack for getting the best out of his subjects as the following video shows. He blames me for that. On a side note here: It's his fault I'm in Memphis, so there. We're even. Yet another long yarn for later.

Anyway, he has been able to do something I could never do in my brief TV career. He's an award winning TV guy and after some two Emmy awards later, Tom is putting together a great career in an otherwise slimy business. I give you the following example of one of his latest stories:



This, in my opinion is how TV news should be done. I think I smell another Emmy for Tom Dees... the bastard.

Nice job, Tom... "Good night and good luck."

Update: Horn Lake Lights

Eddie Middleton was on this morning to give us the FAA explanation behind the below video. They say that the lights are actually FedEx planes lining up for landing. I live in the flight line of the airport and I can tell you, those planes line up in 2 minute intervals, so it seems to me that the FAA's explanation is hooey.

Our thanks to Eddie and http://www.nightsearch.net/ for the head's up... so to speak.

Update II:

The link that was there regarding Rense was pulled since it is, in fact, anti-semitic. Thanks for the comment post hipping me to this nonsense. I was trying to post information regarding the sighting and I did it without pre-screening the link. My apologies. I personally don't condone any hate speech even though it is a fundemental right of Americans to have free speech. I just don't want that stuff here.

Frankly, Eddie should be ashamed of himself for associating himself with that stupid website.

Horn Lake Lights

Eddie Middleton emailed this into the show this morning and we never got to it on the air. Eddie is part of the UFO investigation team for the mid-south and a colleague of his captured this video. According to the email that was sent to us, last Thursday (21 May) around 10:30PM, some lights were seen over Horn Lake. Helicopters then flew into the area. Apparently, three more lights appear under the helicopters. There is some language on this video, so if you are reading this at work, be aware.

Memorial Day

This is one of those rare three day weekends. At least for those of us who have jobs. At 4:30AM I was wide awake and ready to head to work without the benefit of the alarm clock going off... that was appreciated. This tells me in 24 hours It'll be hell actually getting up to go to work. But to be honest, I'm looking forward to getting back on the air. Maybe it's the short week ahead.

But today is a free day. Sort of. There are a couple of projects that must be done around the house and with an eye to the weather, we'll actually see if the grill sees fire today. If not... we'll wing it. The bar is stocked enough for the day and with NASCAR being rained out yesterday, we have today to watch.

It's come to this

Yes... with the all the bitching and wrangling with the simple issue of privacy, it has indeed come to this, a blog. Away from the comfy confines of Rock 103, this is my way of releasing some of the stuff that happens off the air, hence the name of this blog. Not that it matters much, there were some requests from the faithful followers of the show that I venture into the world of Facebook or MySpace. Neither of which really appealed to me. But there appears to be some sort of interest of off air activities that "should be shared" and thus, this.

So, here's the deal... an agreement, if you will. You agree to deal with the occasional ramble in this blog and in exchange, I'll agree to answer (as best I can) any questions you might have regarding the job and other such inquiries.

What should be fun for all of us is that here I can expand a bit on the things we did, or as the case may be, did NOT do in the air. Yes, there is a blog at Rock 103's website which contains some "show prep" material for further reading but here, we should be able to delve deeper into the topic of the day and more. So, let's have some fun, shall we?

In the meantime, if you are on the Twitter, I can be followed there. The plan is to use Twitter during the show and I'll post there when I have updated here, ya dig?