The Giants Fall

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/

Denver based newspaper that survived the Civil War, a flood and lots more closes under this shitty economy. The New York Times shall be soon.

Ford, GM and Chrysler won't last much longer even with the bailouts.
Same goes for Fannie and Freddie and Washington Mutual.
What's next? Will we see Yahoo! go under? Wal-Mart?
Will Nike lose stockholders and file chapter 11?

Facebook? What would you do if Facebook no longer existed?

We live in an age where the corporate giants will tumble. Anything can happen and anything will. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Day Fifty Three: Soothsayer

Cutter, the reporter that left, is a curse to the paper, but a blessing to me. The other reporters have to pick up his slack but that means I get to do stories no one else has time for.

Today I spent my shift writing a feature story on the blueberry economy of New Hampshire. As boring as it was to write, I loved every moment. I had to make a dozen phone calls and quickly got used to calling strangers. The finished product probably blows, is probably worse than the most hideous of my feature stories, but I don't care. I liked the feeling so much. I wasn't just typing up press releases, like I have been.

I was so excited I made myself some coffee and poured in chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry. It tasted amazing, especially that cherry which stews in the coffee and absorbs all the creamer and sugar and chocolate. Best taste ever.

I've become friends with everyone in the office, I make jokes and I love it. Vickie Guay, who sits behind me, is such a pleasure to work with. She has a great sense of humor and often makes me laugh. She was a great help on the blueberry coverage.

Gail, who sits in front of me, is pretty ballsy. She calls the mayor of some town and swears like a sailor at him, in a joking way. Gail has a voice like someone chewing gum and different syllables pop and snap, and I can't listen to her without amusement. She also reads Hunter S. Thompson, which surprises me and also doesn't.

She shared Hells Angels with Geoff, a kid with greasy blond hair and a sense of humor that instantly reminds me of Beck and my old friend Waid. Geoff was the one that covered the stolen snake story two weeks ago.

But then there is the Soothsayer. She is an old police scanner who sits in the corner and we get every single bit of chaos that is happening in this state. Sometimes, she has a sense of humor but today, she is a harbinger of doom and decay. Today, she tells the story of a man who was working under his car, when the jack slipped out and crushed him. Crushed his ribcage and possibly his heart.

Gail perked up at the news and said the address aloud. "That's just around the corner. Alright, who's going?" Someone, probably an editor said, "Take the rookie." Gail looked at me and said, "No. You do not want to go." She says, "You'll have to do this kind of traumatic work eventually. Put it off as long as possible."

Geoff ended up covering the story and took pictures on his digital camera. He was told to get back and was nearly arrested but got the scoop. The victim was dead on arrival and still, staring at those images didn't phase me as much as my sick fascination with the story itself.

Tomorrow it will be front page news.

Day Forty Three: Shit List

I am officially a journalist*. I want to carve the word into my arm and then everyone will know. They will also know I am self-destructive and that could be good or bad, but at least it's honest.
(*I don't count the Lumberjack work I did as journalism. I don't know why, besides the obvious. It really only got me this internship with the Citizen.)

This is one step toward one dream. The biggest question my internship is supposed to answer is "DO I REALLY WANT TO DO THIS WITH MY LIFE?" I don't want to answer early, because this has only been one day, but so far, yes. Get back to me when I've had a really tough day and we'll see if I want to work through this til I retire.

Anyway, this work is pretty easy and fun. I work from 11AM to 6PM, meaning I get to sleep in a little and work less. I get paid the same and all I did today was write. I did about 7 or 8 feature stories. At Financial Resources, I was given all the shit jobs that no one there wanted. It's the same here, only I don't mind doing them. I'm trying to be Mr. Brightside, I guess, or maybe really, I just don't know what's real anymore.

I sat at some ancient computer that has Windows '98 on it and sent the files to a server far, far away. No spell-check. I was sitting next to a poster that said "IS THIS GOOD FOR THE COMPANY?" My co-workers are vulgar, dirty, realistic, genuine people. And because I'm the intern, they're shedding all this career wisdom on me. I like everyone I work with.

Most of the stories I wrote seemed kind of boring and . . . old. For example, I wrote up a piece celebrating of some random couple's sixtieth wedding anniversary that was in May. If the feature I wrote goes to press tomorrow, it's still two months late.

I also got to write up the DWI (Driving With Influence, instead of 'Under' like it should be) shit list. A police record of everyone who was arrested for drunk driving gets published in the paper so as to embarrass and ruin the reputations of hundreds of people. Wrong or right, what did I care? It's a job. I don't know anyone around here. So I got to put my name under it. And under my name is the label, CITIZEN INTERN.

I like that. Citizen Intern automatically makes me think of Citizen Kane which automatically makes me think of Jimmy Kane and then I think of Citizen Insane and I just feel really rebellious inside, when really it's two separate words. I'm making a big deal outta nothing.

I also got to write the crime log, which is somehow separate. NAU's paper 'The Lumberjack' has a crimelog and it's written so badly it's tragic. Altho not the worst, here is an awful example. Read the line that says, "It is suspected the suspect. . ." Almost as classic as "Today's News TODAY!"

Writing the crimelog for myself was refreshingly the most boring part of the job, but many of the 'crimes' were hysterical. People were hitting bears, deer and moose with their cars. Someone stole gas, a motorcycle, even a headstone. Unfortunately, I forgot most of the others.

I get a free paper everyday, so I can save all my precious clippings and move up this demented media ladder. I'm trying to think of some newspapers I would one day want to work for that don't suck. Maybe someplace in Chicago or Portland or wherever the Washington Post is.

I feel filthy and tired and sick.

I'm mailing you a body.

Day Sixteen: Showoff

Note: I was unable to post last night because of a thunderstorm power outage. Actually, my grandparents just unplugged the internet router.

I woke up in one of my token hate-the-world moods. I don't know why, but I'm blaming you.

I went to the interview early. Thirty minutes, giving me time to wander around downtown Laconia and take snapshots. I took 189 pictures today, most of which I deleted and not all from downtown either. I haven't uploaded even a quarter of the total I've taken here, averaging about 50 pictures a day.

The interview went well. He was pretending to be nice to me, I was pretending to be a hard-worker. Showing off. I am already very familiar with how a newspaper works and all, so I kept spouting off random jargon. AP Stylebook. Feature story. Word-count. They seem to want to baby me, which I'm fine with. But still, I want them to know I can write the news. They asked if I could sometime do an online feature with a less professional, more personal spin. "You mean a blog?" I do that in my free-time, for fun!

So I easily got the internship. It pays. I didn't ask how much.

I took way too long to apply for this position. I wasn't really sure I wanted it. I wasn't really sure I wanted to even work as a writer anymore. For a couple months, I was having some serious doubt about where I wanted my life to lead. But today I was so excited and happy and at peace with myself for this minor accomplishment. I think I was right about this, at the very least.

I will be doing two primary things: data entry, which I am already doing for my uncle's company. Which I hate. Which is mind numbingly boring. But I'd much prefer doing it for the Citizen than the Man.

It's been hot and humid lately. My cousin Matt came over and we swam in the lake. It was still cold for me and gross as usual. Big oil spills of pollen were gushing everywhere and it got all over me. I poked at a dead fish. It looked cut up from a boat rudder, its guts unfolded, its eyes missing.

Later, my cousins and I took another bike ride. We set off firecrackers. For a Desert Child like me, where these toys are illegal, I was really excited. I love being destructive. We took our canes and hit them at each other, spraying sparks at our knees. We tried to make a few modified firecrackers, but they barely worked. Except when Mark taped a dozen sparklers together and lit them and it launched into their trashcan and set it on fire.

Most of these crackers were bells and whistles. Showing off. Nothing special. They make these things too safe nowadays.

I drove home, as the clouds were lighting up with a thunderstorm. Showing off. But not entirely. It's raining now, and there's that occasional clap, and this is the sound I will fall asleep to.