Thursday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Thursday

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17
May 12

Hey look! Something shiny!

I was going to write a bit about baseball tonight, and all through Saturday. That was originally the plan. The grading is almost done. The weather is just agonizingly perfect. That’s not a good description. Let me try again.

You know that one moment around Christmas that you aren’t obsessing over presents, traffic, wrapping paper, relatives or cooking? That moment where the moment settles on you nice and quietly? That’s the same moment you get on mild Fourth of July evenings if you get a gentle little breeze. That bit of easy peace, that’s what the weather feels like right now.

It’ll be in the 90s next week, but what we have now we have to soak up, low 80s, light breezes, beautiful skies, brilliant sun, quiet nights. Perfect springtime weather.

So the weather is behaving marvelously. I’ve made serious headway in the grading. (Almost done in fact!) This is the last weekend of regular season baseball. Our plan was to eat a lot of peanuts.

And before I could even zoom in:

Florida had a 5-0 run by the time Auburn collected their fifth out of the game. One of those nights.

This might have been the highlight:

Creede Simpson got back to first safely. On the next pitch he’d bluff a steal. The catcher threw down to second, missed the shortstop and the ball sailed into center. Simpson stayed at first. He was, literally, staring at his shoes.

So it was that kind of night. But Florida is the second or third ranked team in the nation depending on which poll you use. These guys are almost a AAA team. Oh, look, something shiny!

That’s hanging from a crane over the lot that formerly was Sewell Hall behind right field. They tore that old dorm down for a new one recently and the work crews are quickly building a new one. There are three cranes on the job right now, that’s hanging over the pine trees tonight.

Florida won 6-0 over Auburn. It was a game where not much went right. But there’s always tomorrow.

And there’s the new decoration for the top of the blog that came out of the game:

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10
May 12

The nonexistent slings and unpainful arrows

For those who have never been to Price’s Barbecue House — I’m sorry and you should fix that as soon as possible — they are set up to take your order at the counter, hand the ticket to their right while you get settled at a table. After an appropriate amount of time spent thinking about the delicious food you are about to receive one of the nice guys running the short order grill calls your name. You go collect your food and eat this delicious meal they have prepared for you.

Mr. Price sometimes takes the order. More often than not, of late, one of the ladies working there is running the front counter. Mr. Price, as I’ve mentioned here before, remembers me. I visited the place so much during undergrad that last fall he asked if I was back or just visiting. That was more than a decade and thousands of customers ago.

(I’ve eaten a lot of food here. And, while it is still sensibly priced, I just had a flash of memory: is it possible that my breakfast here once cost $2.17? Surely not. That seems shockingly low, even for a century ago, especially for the golden age of the 1990s. Another number pops in my head: $5.45? My memory can’t be trusted. That was in the last century, mind you.)

Anyway, Mr. Price remembers me. The ladies, one of them at least, doesn’t recall my name, but she remembers the usual breakfast we order. This new lady, though … Last week she wrote my name as she did above. I thought that perhaps she spelled it phonetically. Perhaps, I reasoned, a little of my north Alabama accent had slipped into my name as I told her the order. Maybe I’d done as much of my family does and made it sound like an I. Today I was very deliberate with the pronunciation, just out of curiosity.

“Kenny.”

And, again, she wrote: Kinny.

And that might have been the worst thing that happened today.

I’ve got it made, I tell ya.

Also, I have a big stack of papers to grade. So, if you’ll pardon me …

site / Thursday — 1 Comment
26
Apr 12

Pain in the neck

Much as I like to complain about this sort of thing, I haven’t done so. Until now, of course.

Three weeks ago I narrowly avoided broadsiding an SUV on my bike. I’d been in the saddle for three or four hours. I was back in the neighborhood, but was dragging. My head was down. A lady turned right in front of me. I looked up just in time to yank my bike over hard.

I missed her handsome SUV, but strained my neck. It stretched out just fine that afternoon, so I figured I was dehydrated.

Two weeks ago, in San Antonio, I slept on a poor bed in a shabby room. On Saturday I stood up from breakfast and everything in my neck suddenly felt weird. I took a few extra hot showers that day and everything stretched out, improving so much that I’d all but forgotten about it by dinner time.

And that’s when I played with our friends’ four-year-old. We were doing that thing where you swing the kid’s feet over his head by his arms. He loved it. Four or five times his father and I pitched him in the between us.

Suddenly there was a blinding, white light. Put the kid down, deal with this strangely powerful pain in the neck.

I’ve been fighting this, and losing, ever since. The odd thing is that it moves around. One day it is on the right side of my neck. The next day it could be on the left side. I look like a zombie in the mornings. There’s no turning of the head, and I’m trying to do everything from my waist. It loosens up as the day progresses, but there’s always some point I can’t move beyond. Looking down is pretty much impossible. Tilting my head back is about the worst thing imaginable.

It has moved to my back. Everything from my shoulder blades up is suspect. My trapezius muscles don’t know what is going on.
Tuesday I complained about a spasm in my right shoulder that almost turned me into a one-handed individual. So The Yankee booked me a bit of soigneur-style therapy.

Which was great. Nice lady. She was from Pennsylvania, studied in South Carolina. Found her way to Birmingham … “There was a boy.”

A familiar tale. But I didn’t press for details. As I sat on the table and as we talked my left shoulder spasmed up. Interesting sensation.

So I must, somehow, change the way I sleep. Do this, do that; come back if you aren’t better in a week or two.

I’m tired of this. I’m not interested in giving it two weeks. Sleeping is tough, waking up is worse. Can’t ride my bike. Turning around in the car is a bit painful, making some intersections uncomfortable.

This is approaching miserable, but it could be worse. Then again I could also not hurt.

iPhone / journalism / links / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
19
Apr 12

Just because you read it

Board members from the Alabama Press Association were at Samford today talking to JMC students. Their advice: journalists are generalists, don’t limit yourself to print or video but get a bit of both, separate yourself from your competition.

The board members were passionate, optimistic and dedicated to helping their community and their industry. They gave good advice for students, both in the Crimson office, and in Dr. Jones’ print practicum class.

Dr. Jones got the ball rolling: “What skills do these students need?”

The consensus response? “Everything.”

Sounds familiar. We talk about that all the time at Samford, where our program endorses a broad-based approach. It helps make interns and graduates look more valuable to potential employers.

After that, the students have to take it upon themselves, but to get that encouragement from the faculty, to hear it from the pros — and to see how the industry is coming around to that reality, is a great thing. We’re doing it right.

And then there’s the latest from Pew.

The report goes on to say that 32 percent of these people say the disappearance of their local paper would have a major impact on their lives. Among people who aren’t that interested in local news, about half say their lives wouldn’t change at all if they didn’t have a local paper. Good, for newspapers, right?

But look at it another way: That means 68 percent of local news enthusiasts don’t believe the disappearance of their local paper would affect their lives in a major way. And 34 percent of such enthusiasts say the disappearance wouldn’t affect their lives at all.

This likely reflects local news enthusiasts’ reliance on TV; Pew reports that 80 percent of them use broadcast TV on a weekly basis, compared to 48 percent for newspapers, 52 percent for radio and 57 percent for “word of mouth.” TV was also the preferred source for weather and breaking news, the two issues local news enthusiasts follow most closely.

Believe being the key word. Look, the more media the better, and not just for our students’ sake. If I may return to my watchdog roots for a moment, someone has to watch the politicians and agencies and the occasional white collar bad guys.

And if papers go away, how will you get your comics?

One of the publishers today told the students he’s done everything in a newsroom, report, write, layout, copy editing, emptying garbage and writing the horoscope when it didn’t make it in on time.

So keep that in mind the next time you have a glance at Pisces.

Lessen’s tonight’s fortune somewhat, don’t you think?

I posted that on Facebook. A friend commented ” I got that one once. Three years later, I know my time is coming!”

Not everything you read is worth taking to heart.

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12
Apr 12

Signs of downtown San Antonio

Took part in a roundtable panel on the presidential primary season. I made a great Rick Perry joke.

“There were a couple of problems there. The back surgery, the painkillers and … well … I forget the other one.”

Brought down the house. If anyone remembers anything I said on that panel, it won’t be the analysis but the joke.

We got the chance to walk around downtown a bit. Here are a few signs from the area:

The Aztec opened in 1926. It cost $1.25 million, which would be something like $22.6 million today. You wonder what the owner thought a few years later when the Depression landed on him:

In response to competition from other theatres, a magnificent chandelier was commissioned and installed, in only 35 days, in the main lobby in 1929. Weighing over 2,000 pounds, this ornate, 2 story, 12 foot in diameter fixture was billed as “The largest chandelier in the largest state in the Union”.

This says something about the barber, or the client, or both:

We were trying to resolve the mystery when we noticed they also had a foosball table inside.

This sign isn’t old, but I love it like it was creaking from decades in the sun and wind:

This isn’t a sign, but I would like to point out that this is the level of ornamentation they’ve put into a parking garage:

This theatre, The Texas, competed with The Aztec:

Also built in 1926, in the Spanish Colonial and Rococo style, it cost $2 million. It closed in the 1970s and was razed a few years later. The facade, though, lives on as part of an office building. (More here and here and here.)

I love this, because it is a neon sign evocative of one of my favorite songs:

Today we had lunch at a place I’ll write about tomorrow. We had dinner on the River Walk, the touristy part. The enchiladas were good, though.

And now I must return to my notes. I have three panel sessions to participate in tomorrow.