There was a night during my sophomore year of college where I was all sorts of banged up. High, hammered, or some combination of the two. It got to the point where my friends left me in a room with a trashcan in front of me so I could yack up my insides, while they partied in another room. On the television in front of me, per my request, was a New York Knicks game. They were up 14-18 points to start the 4th quarter, which was a miracle in itself because this was back in the Marbury, Steve Francis, Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford, Channing Frye, D Lee, Eddy Curry days. Of course the Knicks blew their big lead and lost the game. Shortly thereafter, as it was later explained to me, my friend Matty K said to my cousin who will not be named, “Somebody turn that Knick game off before he sees it or else he’s going to lose it.” I was in such bad shape that I didn’t even notice, but that’s how big of a Knicks fan I was back then when the team was about as atrocious as I was feeling that night.
So when the Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin took the league by storm a few weeks back many of my friends wondered why I had yet to write about it. I mean, the Jeremy Lin story wasn’t just a basketball story. It transcended sports. Everybody and their mother were talking about it virtually nonstop for a week and a half. Trust me, I know how pervasive the Lin coverage was. I work in sports talk radio.
So why did I wait this long to write about a frenzy involving my favorite professional basketball team? Well for starters I didn’t want to rush to judgment and proclaim Lin to be the greatest point guard in the NBA. I wanted to see how the story played out over time before weighing in. Plus I didn’t want to make a bad pun and lose my job. The Lin puns were running ramped and my brain thinks in bad puns. It’s both a blessing and a curse. I can’t stop my mind from conjuring them up. I swear, if this whole sports talk radio thing doesn’t work out I think I have a future in headline writing.
Alright, so now that I’ve given the story enough time to marinate, what do I think about the Lin story?
It’s an incredible tale of persistence and opportunity. He’s an undrafted Asian-American point guard out of Harvard. I’ll say it again. He’s an undrafted Asian-American point guard out of Harvard. The fact that he even sniffed the NBA is remarkable. He got an opportunity and he made the most of it. There were plenty of ups and downs along the way, but he never quit. Once he was given his chance he took advantage of it.
From the onset I thought that the race factor was hugely significant. Sure Yao Ming was a sensational player and Yi Jianlian has had a decent NBA career (by Chinese standards), but there has never been a noteworthy Asian guard in the history of basketball.
Why does this matter? It’ not like he broke a color barrier. Correct, but he countered the stereotype that says that Asians can’t drive. Seriously though, even at my level of intramural role player Asians players are thought less of. Jeremy Lin had to fight this stereotype every time he stepped on a basketball court and trust me when I tell you that this fight isn’t over. He’ll never feel like he’s completely proved himself because I’m sure that he’s heard the doubters his entire life. He grew up in Palo Alto and was the best player on his high school team who won the state title in California (they beat a team led by Tyler King, who shot every time he touched it in his freshman year at Duke and then transferred to Villanova and disappeared) and he couldn’t get a basketball scholarship from Stanford. In fact, a Stanford assistant said that he should play Division III basketball.
What I like about Lin is that he’s handled this whole media frenzy incredibly well. He brushes off the offensive headlines (“They apologized. I’ve moved on.”). He’s beyond humble and grounded when it comes to his play and the attention that it’s garnered. He praises his teammates after every win and takes the blame for when they lose.
Is he a product of the system? Sure, but the kid can still ball. He’s scoring at an incredible rate. Sure, most of his early scoring (before ‘Melo returned) was because he was a good player on a bad team (think about Chris Bosh’s numbers in Toronto), but no one else in the history of the league had a stretch like that to start their career as starters.
Lin is exactly what the Knicks and their head coach Mike D’Antoni were missing. The Tyson Chandler signing was awesome (and Chandler is easily my favorite Knick), but it left the Knicks with a gaping hole at the 1. Toney Douglas was an abject disaster. Iman Shumpert showed flashes, but he’s really just an athletic combo guard that thrives defensively. Carmelo became the point forward for a while and that was largely ineffective because he’s a pure scorer, not a distributor.
Lin’s strengths are getting to the rim and finishing, setting up his teammates, quickly and accurately reading the high screen and roll (the essence of D’Antoni’s system), and he has a high basketball IQ. He has a bit of a herky jerky game, but it catches defenders off guard and enables his knack for knifing through defenses. He also has an ever improving jump shot and a lightning quick release.
As good as he is offensively though, he’s atrocious on defense. In fact, the Knicks have said that they didn’t draft him because they didn’t think he could defend on this level. When the ’09-’10 Knicks don’t think you’re good enough defensively you must be terrible. And he is. Last week Deron Williams torched him not only with his scoring, but also in setting up his fellow Nets. There are a host of dynamic point guards in the NBA and if Lin can’t stay in front of them he’s going to be a liability. Tyson Chandler can’t mask all of the Knicks’ deficiencies on the defensive end.
What’s his future in the NBA? Well as long as Mike D’Antoni continues to give him carte blanche on the offensive end (no one that turns it over as much as Lin does would be allowed to stay on the floor for so many minutes) he’s going to get better. I think he can be the third option on a championship team. His ideal stat line is probably 15 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and 3 turnovers.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Oscars Primer 2012
The year in film will be celebrated this Sunday night as the 84th annual Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles. This, of course, means that it’s time for my annual preview/predictions post. Making predictions this close to the awards is pretty easy, but that’s not going to stop me from gloating about my 14 for 17 record over the past 3 years. Maybe next year I’ll actually challenge myself and make the predictions in the days after the nominations come out. Either way, I had seen 9 of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture before the Oscars last year and I only went 4 for 6 in my predictions (by far my worst performance). This year I’ve only seen 4 of the 9 films up for the biggest award of the night. The frontrunners at this juncture appear to be The Artist and The Descendants. The Artist is a silent film directed by a French film maker about the decline of silent film star in the 1920’s. The Descendants is about a man trying to keep his family together while his world is falling apart. Both films won Golden Globes, but they weren’t matched up as The Artist won Best Picture for Comedy/Musical and The Descendants won Best Picture for Drama.
Although Billy Crystal is back to restore some semblance of order as the host after last year’s Anne Hathaway/James Franco debacle, I think that this year’s show is going to have a foreign feel to it. It won’t be as bad as the NBA Draft usually is, but it will be close.
And now on to my preview/predictions…
Best Picture
The Artist
A silent film star struggles to adjust to the new era of talkies as a rising female actress starts to steal the spotlight. This film is the odds on favorite to win.
The Descendants
Definitely my favorite of the films I’ve seen. In it, George Clooney has to tell his friends and family members that his wife, who he recently found out cheated on him and is in a coma after a boating accident, is dying while simultaneously having to make an important decision about a large piece of land that’s been past down in his family for generations.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
People are really eating up this 9/11 centric film. I, for one, think it looks terrible, but it’s definitely not politically correct to say that this movie sucks because its plot is so tied to our jingoistic culture.
The Help
An up and coming writing decided to write a book about how the African American maids feel about their white employers in the 1960s. This film is definitely the dark horse (pun clearly intended) for Best Picture. After all, it did win the top prize at the Screen Actor’s Guild awards.
Hugo
Believe it or not this film has nothing to do with the famous author Victor Hugo (Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) like I originally thought. It’s a PG film with a child protagonist who’s trying to figure out a message from his late father, so in many ways it’s just like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, but Hugo was directed by Martin Scorsese.
Midnight in Paris
A Woody Allen film in which an engaged couple go with the bride-to-be’s parents on a trip to Paris. As the groom in waiting falls in love with the city’s nightlife he realizes that he’s also falling out of love with his fiancĂ©e.
Moneyball
For starters, I know it’s a nerd thing to say, but the book was better. That said, I’m impressed that a book, albeit a sports one, that was so numbers based was successfully turned into a decent film. I’m also glad that they didn’t alter the ending and have the Oakland Athletics win the AL or the World Series.
The Tree of Life
If someone could explain what the fuck is going on in this movie I would greatly appreciate it. I seriously haven’t seen a movie this bad since Joe Dirt (2001).
War Horse
One of my male friends told me balled his eyes out at this film directed by Stephen Spielberg, so I’ll assume that it’s awful. I’ve disliked people’s fascination with horses for a long time. For example, I never understood the public outpouring when the horse Barbaro had to be put down. How does a horse garner so many fans across the country? Like, who would send flowers to a horse that they’ve never seen in person?
Which film should win? The Descendants
Which film will win? The Artist
Best Actor
Demian Bichir in A Better Life- In this film Bilchir plays an illegal immigrant landscaper (stereotype much) living in LA who works tirelessly to provide a future for his son, but his son gets involved with some local gangs.
George Clooney in The Descendants- Clooney is the odds on favorite to win and if he does it will be well deserved. He nailed his character’s outward stoicism while also revealing the built up angst, anger, worry, fear, sadness, and exhaustion that his character was dealing with internally.
Jean Dujardin in The Artist- Some think that Clooney will edge out Dujardin for Best Actor because The Artist is going to win in so many other categories, but his performance was so unique that I think he’ll come out on top.
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- In this film Oldman plays a retired spy who’s brought back into the fold by the British government during the height of the Cold War to figure out which one of their current MI6 agents is actually working for Russia. This movie looks awesome.
Brad Pitt in Moneyball- I thought Pitt’s portrayal of Billy Beane was one of the highlights of the film, but I don’t think it was good enough to win Best Actor.
Which actor should win? George Clooney in The Descendants
Which actor will win? Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Best Actress
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs- She plays a female servant living in Ireland in the late 1800s who disguises herself as a man. That’s all you need to know.
Viola Davis in The Help- I haven’t seen the film, but I know that she’s going to win. Also, if I'm not mistaken she could be just the second African American woman (Halle Berry) to win the most prestigious award in acting.
Rooney Mara in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo- The 26-year-old actress with rich football blood played the title role in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo and she played it well. The character she knocked out of the park is a dark, deft, socially awkward investigator with an axe to grind.
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady- She plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Hence the nomination.
Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn- Back to back years with a Best Actress nomination for Heath Ledger’s widow (they were engaged, so is widow the right word?). Last year it was for her role in the indie film Blue Valentine. This year it’s for playing Marilyn Monroe.
Which actress should win? Rooney Mara in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo
Which actress will win? Viola Davis in The Help
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh in My Week With Marilyn- Branagh plays an English film maker who struggles to keep Marilyn Monroe in line as his lead actress.
Jonah Hill in Moneyball- He plays a sabermetrician, based on a real person, who inspires Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane to re-evaluate how he builds a baseball team. The film was flawed in many ways (no mention of Hudson, Zito, and Mulder?) and I personally didn’t think that Jonah Hill did anything to warrant an Oscar nomination.
Nick Nolte in Warrior- The man with the most famous mug shot of all time plays an alcoholic former boxer tasked with training his ex-patriot son who’s struggling financially to compete in MMA.
Christopher Plummer in Beginners- In this film Plummer plays an elderly man with terminal cancer who tells his son that he’s gay despite being married to his late wife for 40+ years.
Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close- Originally I thought this was the kid and I was going to rant about how it’s bullshit that he got nominated in this category because he’s the main character. Sydow actually plays a man who helps the kid figure out what his late dad’s message is and he apparently doesn’t speak. He has the word “Yes” written on one hand and the word “No” written on the other. If this fact didn’t prove how terrible this film is I don’t know what will.
Which actor do I want to win? Nick Nolte in Warrior
Which actor is going to win? Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo in The Artist- I haven’t seen the film, but she’s the female lead, so I’m going to go ahead and disregard her nomination.
Jessica Chastain in The Help- She plays one of the white women. She has no chance.
Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids- She won an Emmy last year for her role in the CBS comedy Mike and Molly (I know no one that watches that show), but she’s not going to win an Oscar for her role in Bridesmaids. She was funny, but I had heard great things and she didn’t live up to my expectations. Plus, female humor is not nearly as funny as male humor.
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs- She didn’t even make the first 15 actors/actresses listed on IMDB from the film, so I’m definitely rooting for her even though she’s British.
Octavia Spencer in The Help- She plays one of the black maids. She’s going to win.
Which actress should win? No clue and I don’t really care
Which actress is going to win? Octavia Spencer in The Help
Best Director (or as l like to call it- “The five movies that would have been nominated for Best Picture had the Academy stuck with the format of only nominating 5 films”)
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen, who’s 76 (I would have guessed 63), hasn’t won this award since 1978 (Annie Hall) and he’s not going to win it this year either.
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist- If you direct a silent film that garners this much critical acclaim you must have done something right.
Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life- There’s a 20 minute interlude that looks like a mixture of screensavers from 2003 about 20 minutes into this film that I don’t think I would understand even if Malick was in the room to explain it to me.
Alexander Payne for The Descendants- I think this movie was more plot driven than anything else. I guess it’s a compliment sometimes when you don’t notice the work of the director, but I don’t think that it’s the case here.
Martin Scorsese for Hugo- I’m sure that the film is great, but I get the feeling that Marty, and to the same token Woody Allen, gets nominated so often because of their stature. It’s almost like how Derek Jeter won a bunch of Golden Gloves even those he’s a horrendous defensive shortstop.
Which director should win? Michel Hazanavicius
Which director will win? Michel Hazanavicius
Although Billy Crystal is back to restore some semblance of order as the host after last year’s Anne Hathaway/James Franco debacle, I think that this year’s show is going to have a foreign feel to it. It won’t be as bad as the NBA Draft usually is, but it will be close.
And now on to my preview/predictions…
Best Picture
The Artist
A silent film star struggles to adjust to the new era of talkies as a rising female actress starts to steal the spotlight. This film is the odds on favorite to win.
The Descendants
Definitely my favorite of the films I’ve seen. In it, George Clooney has to tell his friends and family members that his wife, who he recently found out cheated on him and is in a coma after a boating accident, is dying while simultaneously having to make an important decision about a large piece of land that’s been past down in his family for generations.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
People are really eating up this 9/11 centric film. I, for one, think it looks terrible, but it’s definitely not politically correct to say that this movie sucks because its plot is so tied to our jingoistic culture.
The Help
An up and coming writing decided to write a book about how the African American maids feel about their white employers in the 1960s. This film is definitely the dark horse (pun clearly intended) for Best Picture. After all, it did win the top prize at the Screen Actor’s Guild awards.
Hugo
Believe it or not this film has nothing to do with the famous author Victor Hugo (Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) like I originally thought. It’s a PG film with a child protagonist who’s trying to figure out a message from his late father, so in many ways it’s just like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, but Hugo was directed by Martin Scorsese.
Midnight in Paris
A Woody Allen film in which an engaged couple go with the bride-to-be’s parents on a trip to Paris. As the groom in waiting falls in love with the city’s nightlife he realizes that he’s also falling out of love with his fiancĂ©e.
Moneyball
For starters, I know it’s a nerd thing to say, but the book was better. That said, I’m impressed that a book, albeit a sports one, that was so numbers based was successfully turned into a decent film. I’m also glad that they didn’t alter the ending and have the Oakland Athletics win the AL or the World Series.
The Tree of Life
If someone could explain what the fuck is going on in this movie I would greatly appreciate it. I seriously haven’t seen a movie this bad since Joe Dirt (2001).
War Horse
One of my male friends told me balled his eyes out at this film directed by Stephen Spielberg, so I’ll assume that it’s awful. I’ve disliked people’s fascination with horses for a long time. For example, I never understood the public outpouring when the horse Barbaro had to be put down. How does a horse garner so many fans across the country? Like, who would send flowers to a horse that they’ve never seen in person?
Which film should win? The Descendants
Which film will win? The Artist
Best Actor
Demian Bichir in A Better Life- In this film Bilchir plays an illegal immigrant landscaper (stereotype much) living in LA who works tirelessly to provide a future for his son, but his son gets involved with some local gangs.
George Clooney in The Descendants- Clooney is the odds on favorite to win and if he does it will be well deserved. He nailed his character’s outward stoicism while also revealing the built up angst, anger, worry, fear, sadness, and exhaustion that his character was dealing with internally.
Jean Dujardin in The Artist- Some think that Clooney will edge out Dujardin for Best Actor because The Artist is going to win in so many other categories, but his performance was so unique that I think he’ll come out on top.
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- In this film Oldman plays a retired spy who’s brought back into the fold by the British government during the height of the Cold War to figure out which one of their current MI6 agents is actually working for Russia. This movie looks awesome.
Brad Pitt in Moneyball- I thought Pitt’s portrayal of Billy Beane was one of the highlights of the film, but I don’t think it was good enough to win Best Actor.
Which actor should win? George Clooney in The Descendants
Which actor will win? Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Best Actress
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs- She plays a female servant living in Ireland in the late 1800s who disguises herself as a man. That’s all you need to know.
Viola Davis in The Help- I haven’t seen the film, but I know that she’s going to win. Also, if I'm not mistaken she could be just the second African American woman (Halle Berry) to win the most prestigious award in acting.
Rooney Mara in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo- The 26-year-old actress with rich football blood played the title role in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo and she played it well. The character she knocked out of the park is a dark, deft, socially awkward investigator with an axe to grind.
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady- She plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Hence the nomination.
Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn- Back to back years with a Best Actress nomination for Heath Ledger’s widow (they were engaged, so is widow the right word?). Last year it was for her role in the indie film Blue Valentine. This year it’s for playing Marilyn Monroe.
Which actress should win? Rooney Mara in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo
Which actress will win? Viola Davis in The Help
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh in My Week With Marilyn- Branagh plays an English film maker who struggles to keep Marilyn Monroe in line as his lead actress.
Jonah Hill in Moneyball- He plays a sabermetrician, based on a real person, who inspires Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane to re-evaluate how he builds a baseball team. The film was flawed in many ways (no mention of Hudson, Zito, and Mulder?) and I personally didn’t think that Jonah Hill did anything to warrant an Oscar nomination.
Nick Nolte in Warrior- The man with the most famous mug shot of all time plays an alcoholic former boxer tasked with training his ex-patriot son who’s struggling financially to compete in MMA.
Christopher Plummer in Beginners- In this film Plummer plays an elderly man with terminal cancer who tells his son that he’s gay despite being married to his late wife for 40+ years.
Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close- Originally I thought this was the kid and I was going to rant about how it’s bullshit that he got nominated in this category because he’s the main character. Sydow actually plays a man who helps the kid figure out what his late dad’s message is and he apparently doesn’t speak. He has the word “Yes” written on one hand and the word “No” written on the other. If this fact didn’t prove how terrible this film is I don’t know what will.
Which actor do I want to win? Nick Nolte in Warrior
Which actor is going to win? Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo in The Artist- I haven’t seen the film, but she’s the female lead, so I’m going to go ahead and disregard her nomination.
Jessica Chastain in The Help- She plays one of the white women. She has no chance.
Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids- She won an Emmy last year for her role in the CBS comedy Mike and Molly (I know no one that watches that show), but she’s not going to win an Oscar for her role in Bridesmaids. She was funny, but I had heard great things and she didn’t live up to my expectations. Plus, female humor is not nearly as funny as male humor.
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs- She didn’t even make the first 15 actors/actresses listed on IMDB from the film, so I’m definitely rooting for her even though she’s British.
Octavia Spencer in The Help- She plays one of the black maids. She’s going to win.
Which actress should win? No clue and I don’t really care
Which actress is going to win? Octavia Spencer in The Help
Best Director (or as l like to call it- “The five movies that would have been nominated for Best Picture had the Academy stuck with the format of only nominating 5 films”)
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen, who’s 76 (I would have guessed 63), hasn’t won this award since 1978 (Annie Hall) and he’s not going to win it this year either.
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist- If you direct a silent film that garners this much critical acclaim you must have done something right.
Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life- There’s a 20 minute interlude that looks like a mixture of screensavers from 2003 about 20 minutes into this film that I don’t think I would understand even if Malick was in the room to explain it to me.
Alexander Payne for The Descendants- I think this movie was more plot driven than anything else. I guess it’s a compliment sometimes when you don’t notice the work of the director, but I don’t think that it’s the case here.
Martin Scorsese for Hugo- I’m sure that the film is great, but I get the feeling that Marty, and to the same token Woody Allen, gets nominated so often because of their stature. It’s almost like how Derek Jeter won a bunch of Golden Gloves even those he’s a horrendous defensive shortstop.
Which director should win? Michel Hazanavicius
Which director will win? Michel Hazanavicius
Labels:
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The Oscars
Saturday, February 11, 2012
And now...
If you watched SportsCenter at all on Thursday you know that comedian Will Ferrell announced the starting lineups at Wednesday night's Bulls/Hornets game. In case you missed it, here it is...
Ferrell's intros reminded me of how I introduced the wedding party when my two friends got married last March.
It all started in November of 2010 when I got a call from my friend Grazi. Grazi is two years older than me and one of my brother Jimmy's closest friends. Although he's two years older Grazi and I are very close as well. His cousin Brady is my age and is one of my closest friends from high school.
So when Grazi called in November of 2010 and said, "So Maura and I have this wedding coming up in March" I immediately thought that he was going to ask me to be in his wedding party. Maura is a year younger than me and one of my closest female friends from high school. In fact, as Brady would point out in his best man speech, Grazi and Maura met at a party that my brother Jimmy and I threw at our parents' house.
Instead, Grazi asked if I would announce the wedding party. I used to work for Grazi's dad during the New York State Fair at the famous Villa Pizza Frite stand (fried dough) with Grazi. He made a bunch of CDs that blasted out from a speaker on the top of the triangular stand. On one of the CDs was the Chicago Bulls Entrance Music.
When the song played during the fair I would use by best announcer voice to announce our product as if it were a person...
"At guard, standing at an impressive 24 inches tall, it's hot, it's sweet, it's straight from the the fryer, it's Pizzzzza Fritttte!!!"
I would then mock introduce some of the people that were working with us.
So when Grazi asked me to introduce the wedding party I first asked who was in it and then what he had in mind.
He said, "You know, height, weight, college. At least that's what I told Maura."
"So you basically want me to rip people to shreds," I asked.
"Haha exactly."
A week or two before the wedding Graz asked for a rough draft which I emailed him and we were good to go. I'm fairly confident that he didn't show it to Maura. Nothing was that bad, but I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't have approved of everything.
After the wedding my friends and I went right to the hotel where the reception was to watch a Syracuse basketball game and we got wrecked pretty quickly. My buddy's dad started a tab at the hotel bar and things got out of hand in a hurry. I was hammered before we entered the actual reception.
During the cocktail hour Graz and I went into the dining area to run through the logistics with the MC. After he walked us through how things would work he handed me the microphone and began to give me some instruction, but I cut him off and dropped the most arrogant line of my life, "I work for ESPN Radio. I know how to work a microphone," or something to that effect.
Later on in the cocktail hour Grazi found me and told me to avoid Maura at all costs. Evidently she caught wind of something that I planned to say about one of her bridesmaids. This particular bridesmaid went to Notre Dame to play lacrosse and one night early in her senior year she got arrested for underage drinking at a house party. Don't ask me why, but her mug shot was posted online shortly thereafter. Now ironically enough, in the same week two other former athletes from my high school got in trouble with the law, so I decided to blog about it. 10 months later I got a call from her asking me to take down the post because her mug shot from this very blog was the first image that showed up when you googled her name. Despite Grazi and others telling me not to, I removed the post, but the image kept showing up (it's finally gone).
Grazi took me into the men's bathroom for a solid 10-15 minutes to hide from Maura. Brady was also in there rehearsing his best man speech, so it was quite a little meeting spot. Eventually we left and Maura caught up to us. She asked if I planned on mentioning her bridesmaid's arrest in my introductions and I told her that it wasn't bad and that no one would even notice. She asked if I would just say something else because the bridesmaid's mother would cry if I brought up the arrest. Behind her at the time was Grazi mouthing "do it" "do it" as his bride was asking me not to.
Eventually it was go time and I was more than sufficiently rocked. The intro in question just so happened to be the first one on the docket, so I didn't have the heat of the moment excuse. I didn't want to upset Maura on her special day, but I also knew that my joke was very tame, so I went with it.
The intros, set to the tune of the Chicago Bulls Entrance Music (Grazi extended the song significantly, so I didn't have to rush), went a little something like this...
And now the starting lineups for your 2011 Kenville-Zazzara wedding
Leading off, she’s got one of the best mugs around and he’s set to get married in 4 short months. The lovely Lauren Demello and Dave Marshall.
She’s from Boston College where they called her “sweats” and he’s the most pessimistic kid I know. It’s Katie Deblois and the Lycoming Warrior Tim Brown.
She’s a psychology major from Holy Cross and he’s got the brightest hair in the room (bright orange). Tracy Koval and Providence’s finest Ryan Kenville.
She’s straight off the boat from South Korea (she spent a year teaching English there and returned just in time for the wedding), in a few hours he’ll be a completely different person (he blacks out a lot and when he does his friends call him Mij), and he describes himself in just two words…”young” and “hot”. It’s Kim Jong SheIL-a Catanzarita, Jim Stanczyk, and Matt Cusano.
She’s from the front of the Villa and he’s straight from Mr. Hermo’s math class (my friend Hermo teaches math at our old highschool and he taught Grazi's little brother J.R.). Please give a warm welcome to Kathleen and J.R. Zazzara.
She’s Maura’s smoking hot friend from college (I knew nothing about her, but I had met her once and she's a smokehouse) and they call him “Trick Daddy”. It’s Katie Knudsen and Pat Kenville.
She’s Maura’s lovely little sister and he’s a wee bit Irish, it’s the Maid of Honor Clare Kenville and the Best Man Brady O’Malley
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for….
She’s the star of the day and he’s the luckiest guy on the face of the earth. For the first time ever, please give it up for Mr. and Mrs. Grazi Zazzara.
Ferrell's intros reminded me of how I introduced the wedding party when my two friends got married last March.
It all started in November of 2010 when I got a call from my friend Grazi. Grazi is two years older than me and one of my brother Jimmy's closest friends. Although he's two years older Grazi and I are very close as well. His cousin Brady is my age and is one of my closest friends from high school.
So when Grazi called in November of 2010 and said, "So Maura and I have this wedding coming up in March" I immediately thought that he was going to ask me to be in his wedding party. Maura is a year younger than me and one of my closest female friends from high school. In fact, as Brady would point out in his best man speech, Grazi and Maura met at a party that my brother Jimmy and I threw at our parents' house.
Instead, Grazi asked if I would announce the wedding party. I used to work for Grazi's dad during the New York State Fair at the famous Villa Pizza Frite stand (fried dough) with Grazi. He made a bunch of CDs that blasted out from a speaker on the top of the triangular stand. On one of the CDs was the Chicago Bulls Entrance Music.
When the song played during the fair I would use by best announcer voice to announce our product as if it were a person...
"At guard, standing at an impressive 24 inches tall, it's hot, it's sweet, it's straight from the the fryer, it's Pizzzzza Fritttte!!!"
I would then mock introduce some of the people that were working with us.
So when Grazi asked me to introduce the wedding party I first asked who was in it and then what he had in mind.
He said, "You know, height, weight, college. At least that's what I told Maura."
"So you basically want me to rip people to shreds," I asked.
"Haha exactly."
A week or two before the wedding Graz asked for a rough draft which I emailed him and we were good to go. I'm fairly confident that he didn't show it to Maura. Nothing was that bad, but I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't have approved of everything.
After the wedding my friends and I went right to the hotel where the reception was to watch a Syracuse basketball game and we got wrecked pretty quickly. My buddy's dad started a tab at the hotel bar and things got out of hand in a hurry. I was hammered before we entered the actual reception.
During the cocktail hour Graz and I went into the dining area to run through the logistics with the MC. After he walked us through how things would work he handed me the microphone and began to give me some instruction, but I cut him off and dropped the most arrogant line of my life, "I work for ESPN Radio. I know how to work a microphone," or something to that effect.
Later on in the cocktail hour Grazi found me and told me to avoid Maura at all costs. Evidently she caught wind of something that I planned to say about one of her bridesmaids. This particular bridesmaid went to Notre Dame to play lacrosse and one night early in her senior year she got arrested for underage drinking at a house party. Don't ask me why, but her mug shot was posted online shortly thereafter. Now ironically enough, in the same week two other former athletes from my high school got in trouble with the law, so I decided to blog about it. 10 months later I got a call from her asking me to take down the post because her mug shot from this very blog was the first image that showed up when you googled her name. Despite Grazi and others telling me not to, I removed the post, but the image kept showing up (it's finally gone).
Grazi took me into the men's bathroom for a solid 10-15 minutes to hide from Maura. Brady was also in there rehearsing his best man speech, so it was quite a little meeting spot. Eventually we left and Maura caught up to us. She asked if I planned on mentioning her bridesmaid's arrest in my introductions and I told her that it wasn't bad and that no one would even notice. She asked if I would just say something else because the bridesmaid's mother would cry if I brought up the arrest. Behind her at the time was Grazi mouthing "do it" "do it" as his bride was asking me not to.
Eventually it was go time and I was more than sufficiently rocked. The intro in question just so happened to be the first one on the docket, so I didn't have the heat of the moment excuse. I didn't want to upset Maura on her special day, but I also knew that my joke was very tame, so I went with it.
The intros, set to the tune of the Chicago Bulls Entrance Music (Grazi extended the song significantly, so I didn't have to rush), went a little something like this...
And now the starting lineups for your 2011 Kenville-Zazzara wedding
Leading off, she’s got one of the best mugs around and he’s set to get married in 4 short months. The lovely Lauren Demello and Dave Marshall.
She’s from Boston College where they called her “sweats” and he’s the most pessimistic kid I know. It’s Katie Deblois and the Lycoming Warrior Tim Brown.
She’s a psychology major from Holy Cross and he’s got the brightest hair in the room (bright orange). Tracy Koval and Providence’s finest Ryan Kenville.
She’s straight off the boat from South Korea (she spent a year teaching English there and returned just in time for the wedding), in a few hours he’ll be a completely different person (he blacks out a lot and when he does his friends call him Mij), and he describes himself in just two words…”young” and “hot”. It’s Kim Jong SheIL-a Catanzarita, Jim Stanczyk, and Matt Cusano.
She’s from the front of the Villa and he’s straight from Mr. Hermo’s math class (my friend Hermo teaches math at our old highschool and he taught Grazi's little brother J.R.). Please give a warm welcome to Kathleen and J.R. Zazzara.
She’s Maura’s smoking hot friend from college (I knew nothing about her, but I had met her once and she's a smokehouse) and they call him “Trick Daddy”. It’s Katie Knudsen and Pat Kenville.
She’s Maura’s lovely little sister and he’s a wee bit Irish, it’s the Maid of Honor Clare Kenville and the Best Man Brady O’Malley
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for….
She’s the star of the day and he’s the luckiest guy on the face of the earth. For the first time ever, please give it up for Mr. and Mrs. Grazi Zazzara.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
That's What He Said- Chapter 5
In case you didn't know, I'm writing a memoir about my senior year in college. Here's what you've missed so far.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
And now without further ado...
Chapter 5
This column didn’t exactly produce the same kind of reaction that my first two had. As far as I could tell people still enjoyed it, but they weren’t going out of their way to let me know it. It was a bit disheartening at first, to plateau like my third column evidently did, but I guess it was only a matter of time1. It would have been damn near impossible to continually wow my audience week in and week out. I guess it’s a little like when you first start dating someone. Those first few weeks of getting to know each other are great and it seems like the excitement surrounding the relationship will never fade, but it always does.
I thought that I had made some nice observations and blended in enough humor, but the problem, as Tim later explained to me, was that the column lacked what came to be known as ‘zingers’. Zingers are those statements or phrases that cause you to explode with laughter while at the same time thinking, “I can’t believe he wrote that and it was printed.” Although I tried to explain to Tim that zingers were not easy to come by, he went on to judge my remaining columns based solely on the presence or absence of them.
Even though my friends found themselves saying “true” as opposed to laughing out loud while reading my column at least one of my readers thought that I was still pushing the envelope. This is the email that Fran, my old News Writing professor, sent me that week:
Ok, Dan, I read this week's piece. Women and bowels and toilet paper all in the same column. Looks like the Race, Gender Class will be critiquing you again for homework. And I think you are now also on the agenda for the Women's Forum, the faculty monthly women's meeting...
"Shuttle bus to the cafeteria from the morgue." Ok, I laughed out loud
at that.
"Food gives up more runs than Kei Igawa," also funny.
Keep testing that "Free Speech" amendment I'm so fond of....
Fran
While it was nice to be reminded that I had gotten the faculty’s attention, I was more excited about her last sentence. It was one thing to hear it from Tim, but to hear it from Fran? A self-proclaimed feminist, no less. I don’t remember having any reservations about my writing, but if I did, that last sentence completely erased them. When it came to writing, Fran’s opinion was the one that I valued the most.
Like your typical guy, my interest in Communications was largely sports related. I mean, what kid born in the late ‘80s didn’t grow up with aspirations of becoming a SportsCenter anchor? Once I figured out that I actually wanted to work in sports media I had to think of something that sounded specific, but was still totally ambiguous to say to adults when they asked me what I wanted to do. I guess by the time you are a junior in college, many adults assume that you have your life figured out. My solution, in my opinion anyway, was brilliant.
By the time my junior year rolled around I was very much involved with the sports department of my campus radio station. I co-hosted a weekly sports talk show and announced men’s and women’s basketball as well as lacrosse games on the radio and internet (only men’s lacrosse- I’d rather watch paint dry than announce women’s lacrosse). While my radio gig was mainly a hobby, I decided that I should also try my luck with other mediums, namely TV and print. I figured that I would get my feet wet in all three and then pursue a career in the one that I liked the best. This showed adults that I had some sort of direction, but that I was trying to keep my options open in order to make an informed decision about my future. Like I said, brilliant.
As a part of my Communications major I was allowed to pick three elective courses that were in some way related to my chosen field. In the fall of my junior year I used one of those electives to take a class called Sports Broadcasting. This course not only gave me a little taste of what the television side of sports was like, but it also got me into a minor tiff with the women’s head basketball coach. After attending a pre-season practice, I asked the head coach if she thought it was justified, in our what have you done for me lately culture, that she was still coaching at Fairfield even though the men’s coach, who had a much better record than her in the previous 5 years, had been fired in the off-season. Naturally she didn’t take too kindly to my question and during an angry rant said that the comparison was like apples to oranges. I ended my report on the team by saying that the season better be fruitful for the head coach and the Stags (Fairfield’s mascot) or those apples and oranges that she spoke of might come in the canned variety. Let the record show that her ‘contract was not renewed’ after another dismal year.
Even though I knew it was a dying industry, I still felt like I should complete the media triumvirate and see what it was like to cover sports from the print side of things. Fairfield didn’t offer a Sports Writing course in the spring of my junior year, so I was relegated to taking News Writing. The course didn’t focus on sports writing in the least, but it was still the foundation for my brief stint as a sports writer.
As fate would have it, I learned more in that News Writing class than I did in any other class that I took in my academic career. If you had told me that when I walked in on the first day and saw a 4’10, 40-year-old woman with curly, grayish blonde hair that fell just to her shoulder in the front of the room there’s zero chance I would have believed you. Whether she knew she was doing it or not, Fran taught me three things.
First and foremost, she taught me how to write. It was in this class that I learned all of the technical skills, styles, and formats that I continue to employ today. Now I’m still no expert on grammar or punctuation, but I have a basic understanding of the structure and guidelines that one is supposed to follow when it comes to professional writing.
Next, Fran taught me the importance of keeping my audience in mind. It sounds so rudimentary, and I guess it is, but far too many people forget all about it. Fran constantly reminded our class to think about who would be reading our writing before we wrote our first word. The point being, if you know who your audience is you will be able to tailor your words in such a way that they will be able to better understand your point. I mean, I’m sure you are all a lot more conscious of your punctuation when you email your boss/professor than when you email your friends about what happened to you on Saturday night. Now I am by no means in the life lesson giving business, but I do think that this concept is applicable beyond News Writing. You have to constantly be aware of your audience in all aspects of life. It’s basically about how you present yourself in different situations. For example, you probably didn’t care if your cell phone went off during European History 101, but you better have it turned off during a business meeting.
Lastly, before I took News Writing I thought that I wrote in short, simple sentences (great alliteration, I know). After a week or two of getting to know me, Fran quickly debunked this hollow theory of mine. She repeatedly told me that my personality oozes out of my writing. According to her, the short, simple sentences that I thought I was writing were actually littered with my own personal style. After re-reading some of my work, I eventually started to see what she was talking about and I began to embrace it. Once I got in touch with this personal style of mine, my “writer’s voice”, my writing drastically improved. Again, this lesson is applicable beyond journalism. Your personality seeps out of you in all that you do. After every conversation that you have and every action that you take, your own personal stamp is left behind2.
While I initially didn’t have a good read on my writing style, I’m pretty sure I had a firm grasp on the entire scope of my personality. Or at least I hope I did. Ever since 8th grade I have been trying to creatively express who I am to my peers by way of social networking devices. Whether it was an AOL or AIM profile or my senior last words in high school I’ve had countless opportunities to sum up my being and show it to others my age. These attempts at a self portrait have been my way of presenting the specific aspects of my personality that I want others to see.
During the first few months of my freshmen year of college the juggernaut of these social networking sites, www.thefacebook.com, really took off. By my senior year the site had become an integral part of college life. Facebook gave undergrads a new language, a new way to interact with one another, and something new to gossip about. Its pervasiveness made it a natural topic selection for Jackie and me.
Facebook was great at first because it provided college kids with a way to keep in touch with their high school friends, to cultivate new friendships with their classmates, and to get a guilt-free glance at the lives of everyone else on their campus. All you needed was a valid college email address and you could sign up for a free account. Once you signed up you could upload a picture, fill out your profile (your birthday, relationship status, favorite movies, books, TV shows, hobbies, etc), and request to be “friends” with anyone else that had an account. Once you were “friends” with someone you could write them a message that only they could see or one on their “wall” that everyone that they were “friends” with could see.
I don’t want to say that Facebook unequivocally strengthened friendships because in many ways it cheapened them, but reminding its users when a “friend” had a birthday coming up was an overwhelming success. Admittedly, if not for Facebook, I wouldn’t know the birthday of most of my closest friends.
That being said, if you ask me, I think Facebook’s popularity was really propelled by pictures. I mean, everyone aimed to present themselves in the best possible light, but their favorite music and quotes were only going to get them so far. Facebook not only allowed users to upload a picture for their profile, but they could also upload “photo albums” of no more than 60 pictures (per album). Users could then “tag” any of their friends that appeared in the photos. The key here was that if you were viewing someone’s profile you could see how many pictures that they were “tagged” in and then look through those. As I’m sure you might imagine or already know there were plenty of girls that looked hot in their pictures on Facebook, but then not so hot in person. Also there were a few girls that looked great in person, but inexplicably didn’t look so great in their Facebook photos.
Shortly after Facebook took off quicker than Chia Pets, slap bracelets, and tamagotchis combined an unwritten etiquette seemed to develop. For example, any guy that consistently wrote on a girl’s wall without her writing back on his was deemed a “Facebook stalker.” Fun fact- There was actually a kid in my grade that was notorious for this. I swear if you looked at any attractive girl’s profile there would almost certainly be a post from him. In most cases there were multiple posts that looked they were written by a hormonal 13 year old. If I had to guess I’d say only about 10 percent of girls responded on his wall and usually only after he had written 5-6 times on theirs. The kid was a bona fide creep and for reasons unbeknownst to me his friends nicknamed him “The Gator.” I assume it had something to do with his predatory nature, but I’m not kidding when I say that he was one of the better known names around campus because of his ramped Facebook faux pas. Other Facebook no no’s included many areas of picture selection, any action that would suggest that you were constantly on the site (i.e. responding too quickly to a friend’s wall post), and having a fake relationship status with a friend of the same sex. The latter was a very popular move by many females that were perhaps embarrassed about being single.
By the time my senior year rolled around things on Facebook were starting to get a little absurd. Users were allowed to upload all sorts of applications that I found to be just plain stupid. For example, people could send their friends animated “gifts” like a cupcake or a palm tree. They could ask their friends to choose a side between the Yankees and Red Sox or even between two unrelated groups like pirates and ninjas. Users could also create quizzes about any topic of their choice (Harry Potter, old school Nickelodeon shows, etc.) for their friends to take. The results of said quizzes were then posted on the participant’s profile.
Even with all of the unnecessary applications Facebook’s popularity did not waver. In fact, it probably grew. There were applications for just about every niche you could think of. Facebook became such a part of the college culture that it was probably the most common bond among the entire student body. To put that in terms of numbers, Fairfield was roughly 88% white during my four years there, but I would argue that at least 90% of the population was on Facebook.
The Mirror on October 3rd, 2007:
Facebook
Facebook is the epicenter of our existence as college students. If it isn’t your homepage, it probably should be because it’s everyone’s most visited site. My excuse is that I check my email a lot. Whatever, it makes me feel better about myself.
Things are getting a little out of control with the applications. I will not be a ninja or pirate, so stop asking me, but let’s just let Mark Zuckerberg live for giving us the best thing since webshots.
Selecting your picture is crucial. If I see another picture of someone flaunting a keystone or a red solo cup I might vomit. We’re all in college. We all drink. Also, guys don’t use a baby picture of yourself. That just reeks of desperation. Scatter actual baby pictures of you and your cousin around your house like I do3.
Albums are priceless, but do we really have to name them after whatever rap song is popular at the time? “ThE gOoD LiFe” is embarrassing. Pick a case. 45 pictures of you changing the expressions on your faces while pregaming? Oh no, you forgot to do the kissy face. Take another one. You’re a joke. Am I the only one counting down the days until the spring break albums are released?
Friends of the same sex (I can’t believe some guys do this) that are in an open relationship/ it’s complicated with each other are about as funny as Jackie’s column and I’ll tell you something that isn’t complicated-the amount of friends they have-0. If you are actually in an open relationship have some self-respect and don’t put it on Facebook. Like don’t tell the world that your ‘girlfriend’ is looking to have sex with other people4.
I hate the “I’ve never facebooked anyone” guy. Not only have you done it, but you also probably suck at life and changed your privacy settings so people can’t see your profile. I understand why some babes go private, but guys, really? The only reason we even want to see your profile is to show others how much of a d-bag you are.
The wall-to-wall barely edges out the online now as my favorite feature. (It finally pays off to be at the end of the alphabet) If anyone has written on your wall 4+ times in a row you need to call a timeout and stop the mo. Speaking of which, beware of the gator.
1- I'm pretty sure that this chapter of the memoir plateaus as well , but whatever.
2- There's a fart joke in there somewhere
3- Tim and I had the following two pictures blown up and prominently displayed in our house.
4- I must give credit where credit is due. My buddy Glancy gave me that joke. More on him later.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
And now without further ado...
Chapter 5
This column didn’t exactly produce the same kind of reaction that my first two had. As far as I could tell people still enjoyed it, but they weren’t going out of their way to let me know it. It was a bit disheartening at first, to plateau like my third column evidently did, but I guess it was only a matter of time1. It would have been damn near impossible to continually wow my audience week in and week out. I guess it’s a little like when you first start dating someone. Those first few weeks of getting to know each other are great and it seems like the excitement surrounding the relationship will never fade, but it always does.
I thought that I had made some nice observations and blended in enough humor, but the problem, as Tim later explained to me, was that the column lacked what came to be known as ‘zingers’. Zingers are those statements or phrases that cause you to explode with laughter while at the same time thinking, “I can’t believe he wrote that and it was printed.” Although I tried to explain to Tim that zingers were not easy to come by, he went on to judge my remaining columns based solely on the presence or absence of them.
Even though my friends found themselves saying “true” as opposed to laughing out loud while reading my column at least one of my readers thought that I was still pushing the envelope. This is the email that Fran, my old News Writing professor, sent me that week:
Ok, Dan, I read this week's piece. Women and bowels and toilet paper all in the same column. Looks like the Race, Gender Class will be critiquing you again for homework. And I think you are now also on the agenda for the Women's Forum, the faculty monthly women's meeting...
"Shuttle bus to the cafeteria from the morgue." Ok, I laughed out loud
at that.
"Food gives up more runs than Kei Igawa," also funny.
Keep testing that "Free Speech" amendment I'm so fond of....
Fran
While it was nice to be reminded that I had gotten the faculty’s attention, I was more excited about her last sentence. It was one thing to hear it from Tim, but to hear it from Fran? A self-proclaimed feminist, no less. I don’t remember having any reservations about my writing, but if I did, that last sentence completely erased them. When it came to writing, Fran’s opinion was the one that I valued the most.
Like your typical guy, my interest in Communications was largely sports related. I mean, what kid born in the late ‘80s didn’t grow up with aspirations of becoming a SportsCenter anchor? Once I figured out that I actually wanted to work in sports media I had to think of something that sounded specific, but was still totally ambiguous to say to adults when they asked me what I wanted to do. I guess by the time you are a junior in college, many adults assume that you have your life figured out. My solution, in my opinion anyway, was brilliant.
By the time my junior year rolled around I was very much involved with the sports department of my campus radio station. I co-hosted a weekly sports talk show and announced men’s and women’s basketball as well as lacrosse games on the radio and internet (only men’s lacrosse- I’d rather watch paint dry than announce women’s lacrosse). While my radio gig was mainly a hobby, I decided that I should also try my luck with other mediums, namely TV and print. I figured that I would get my feet wet in all three and then pursue a career in the one that I liked the best. This showed adults that I had some sort of direction, but that I was trying to keep my options open in order to make an informed decision about my future. Like I said, brilliant.
As a part of my Communications major I was allowed to pick three elective courses that were in some way related to my chosen field. In the fall of my junior year I used one of those electives to take a class called Sports Broadcasting. This course not only gave me a little taste of what the television side of sports was like, but it also got me into a minor tiff with the women’s head basketball coach. After attending a pre-season practice, I asked the head coach if she thought it was justified, in our what have you done for me lately culture, that she was still coaching at Fairfield even though the men’s coach, who had a much better record than her in the previous 5 years, had been fired in the off-season. Naturally she didn’t take too kindly to my question and during an angry rant said that the comparison was like apples to oranges. I ended my report on the team by saying that the season better be fruitful for the head coach and the Stags (Fairfield’s mascot) or those apples and oranges that she spoke of might come in the canned variety. Let the record show that her ‘contract was not renewed’ after another dismal year.
Even though I knew it was a dying industry, I still felt like I should complete the media triumvirate and see what it was like to cover sports from the print side of things. Fairfield didn’t offer a Sports Writing course in the spring of my junior year, so I was relegated to taking News Writing. The course didn’t focus on sports writing in the least, but it was still the foundation for my brief stint as a sports writer.
As fate would have it, I learned more in that News Writing class than I did in any other class that I took in my academic career. If you had told me that when I walked in on the first day and saw a 4’10, 40-year-old woman with curly, grayish blonde hair that fell just to her shoulder in the front of the room there’s zero chance I would have believed you. Whether she knew she was doing it or not, Fran taught me three things.
First and foremost, she taught me how to write. It was in this class that I learned all of the technical skills, styles, and formats that I continue to employ today. Now I’m still no expert on grammar or punctuation, but I have a basic understanding of the structure and guidelines that one is supposed to follow when it comes to professional writing.
Next, Fran taught me the importance of keeping my audience in mind. It sounds so rudimentary, and I guess it is, but far too many people forget all about it. Fran constantly reminded our class to think about who would be reading our writing before we wrote our first word. The point being, if you know who your audience is you will be able to tailor your words in such a way that they will be able to better understand your point. I mean, I’m sure you are all a lot more conscious of your punctuation when you email your boss/professor than when you email your friends about what happened to you on Saturday night. Now I am by no means in the life lesson giving business, but I do think that this concept is applicable beyond News Writing. You have to constantly be aware of your audience in all aspects of life. It’s basically about how you present yourself in different situations. For example, you probably didn’t care if your cell phone went off during European History 101, but you better have it turned off during a business meeting.
Lastly, before I took News Writing I thought that I wrote in short, simple sentences (great alliteration, I know). After a week or two of getting to know me, Fran quickly debunked this hollow theory of mine. She repeatedly told me that my personality oozes out of my writing. According to her, the short, simple sentences that I thought I was writing were actually littered with my own personal style. After re-reading some of my work, I eventually started to see what she was talking about and I began to embrace it. Once I got in touch with this personal style of mine, my “writer’s voice”, my writing drastically improved. Again, this lesson is applicable beyond journalism. Your personality seeps out of you in all that you do. After every conversation that you have and every action that you take, your own personal stamp is left behind2.
While I initially didn’t have a good read on my writing style, I’m pretty sure I had a firm grasp on the entire scope of my personality. Or at least I hope I did. Ever since 8th grade I have been trying to creatively express who I am to my peers by way of social networking devices. Whether it was an AOL or AIM profile or my senior last words in high school I’ve had countless opportunities to sum up my being and show it to others my age. These attempts at a self portrait have been my way of presenting the specific aspects of my personality that I want others to see.
During the first few months of my freshmen year of college the juggernaut of these social networking sites, www.thefacebook.com, really took off. By my senior year the site had become an integral part of college life. Facebook gave undergrads a new language, a new way to interact with one another, and something new to gossip about. Its pervasiveness made it a natural topic selection for Jackie and me.
Facebook was great at first because it provided college kids with a way to keep in touch with their high school friends, to cultivate new friendships with their classmates, and to get a guilt-free glance at the lives of everyone else on their campus. All you needed was a valid college email address and you could sign up for a free account. Once you signed up you could upload a picture, fill out your profile (your birthday, relationship status, favorite movies, books, TV shows, hobbies, etc), and request to be “friends” with anyone else that had an account. Once you were “friends” with someone you could write them a message that only they could see or one on their “wall” that everyone that they were “friends” with could see.
I don’t want to say that Facebook unequivocally strengthened friendships because in many ways it cheapened them, but reminding its users when a “friend” had a birthday coming up was an overwhelming success. Admittedly, if not for Facebook, I wouldn’t know the birthday of most of my closest friends.
That being said, if you ask me, I think Facebook’s popularity was really propelled by pictures. I mean, everyone aimed to present themselves in the best possible light, but their favorite music and quotes were only going to get them so far. Facebook not only allowed users to upload a picture for their profile, but they could also upload “photo albums” of no more than 60 pictures (per album). Users could then “tag” any of their friends that appeared in the photos. The key here was that if you were viewing someone’s profile you could see how many pictures that they were “tagged” in and then look through those. As I’m sure you might imagine or already know there were plenty of girls that looked hot in their pictures on Facebook, but then not so hot in person. Also there were a few girls that looked great in person, but inexplicably didn’t look so great in their Facebook photos.
Shortly after Facebook took off quicker than Chia Pets, slap bracelets, and tamagotchis combined an unwritten etiquette seemed to develop. For example, any guy that consistently wrote on a girl’s wall without her writing back on his was deemed a “Facebook stalker.” Fun fact- There was actually a kid in my grade that was notorious for this. I swear if you looked at any attractive girl’s profile there would almost certainly be a post from him. In most cases there were multiple posts that looked they were written by a hormonal 13 year old. If I had to guess I’d say only about 10 percent of girls responded on his wall and usually only after he had written 5-6 times on theirs. The kid was a bona fide creep and for reasons unbeknownst to me his friends nicknamed him “The Gator.” I assume it had something to do with his predatory nature, but I’m not kidding when I say that he was one of the better known names around campus because of his ramped Facebook faux pas. Other Facebook no no’s included many areas of picture selection, any action that would suggest that you were constantly on the site (i.e. responding too quickly to a friend’s wall post), and having a fake relationship status with a friend of the same sex. The latter was a very popular move by many females that were perhaps embarrassed about being single.
By the time my senior year rolled around things on Facebook were starting to get a little absurd. Users were allowed to upload all sorts of applications that I found to be just plain stupid. For example, people could send their friends animated “gifts” like a cupcake or a palm tree. They could ask their friends to choose a side between the Yankees and Red Sox or even between two unrelated groups like pirates and ninjas. Users could also create quizzes about any topic of their choice (Harry Potter, old school Nickelodeon shows, etc.) for their friends to take. The results of said quizzes were then posted on the participant’s profile.
Even with all of the unnecessary applications Facebook’s popularity did not waver. In fact, it probably grew. There were applications for just about every niche you could think of. Facebook became such a part of the college culture that it was probably the most common bond among the entire student body. To put that in terms of numbers, Fairfield was roughly 88% white during my four years there, but I would argue that at least 90% of the population was on Facebook.
The Mirror on October 3rd, 2007:
Facebook is the epicenter of our existence as college students. If it isn’t your homepage, it probably should be because it’s everyone’s most visited site. My excuse is that I check my email a lot. Whatever, it makes me feel better about myself.
Things are getting a little out of control with the applications. I will not be a ninja or pirate, so stop asking me, but let’s just let Mark Zuckerberg live for giving us the best thing since webshots.
Selecting your picture is crucial. If I see another picture of someone flaunting a keystone or a red solo cup I might vomit. We’re all in college. We all drink. Also, guys don’t use a baby picture of yourself. That just reeks of desperation. Scatter actual baby pictures of you and your cousin around your house like I do3.
Albums are priceless, but do we really have to name them after whatever rap song is popular at the time? “ThE gOoD LiFe” is embarrassing. Pick a case. 45 pictures of you changing the expressions on your faces while pregaming? Oh no, you forgot to do the kissy face. Take another one. You’re a joke. Am I the only one counting down the days until the spring break albums are released?
Friends of the same sex (I can’t believe some guys do this) that are in an open relationship/ it’s complicated with each other are about as funny as Jackie’s column and I’ll tell you something that isn’t complicated-the amount of friends they have-0. If you are actually in an open relationship have some self-respect and don’t put it on Facebook. Like don’t tell the world that your ‘girlfriend’ is looking to have sex with other people4.
I hate the “I’ve never facebooked anyone” guy. Not only have you done it, but you also probably suck at life and changed your privacy settings so people can’t see your profile. I understand why some babes go private, but guys, really? The only reason we even want to see your profile is to show others how much of a d-bag you are.
The wall-to-wall barely edges out the online now as my favorite feature. (It finally pays off to be at the end of the alphabet) If anyone has written on your wall 4+ times in a row you need to call a timeout and stop the mo. Speaking of which, beware of the gator.
1- I'm pretty sure that this chapter of the memoir plateaus as well , but whatever.
2- There's a fart joke in there somewhere
3- Tim and I had the following two pictures blown up and prominently displayed in our house.
4- I must give credit where credit is due. My buddy Glancy gave me that joke. More on him later.
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