I am not sure I have often felt like I had a good story to tell out of the hundreds of these things I’ve written. For some reason, a few nights ago, I decided I wanted to tell you a story, one that would be fun to share, partially because I really enjoy making fun of myself, seriously. I was sitting upstairs at the brewery office, killing time until I had to be some place. I wasn’t sure how to spend the two, some odd hours of nothingness.
I decided I would take out the cut-and-pasted, printed sheets of paper for my next podcast, Mind and the Motorcycle/Real News Plus. First, what I am about to share, has been a weekly ritual for around a year now. During the course of a week, I take pieces of news I will incorporate into my audio newscast, loaded with commentary, the spontaneous reactions elicited while recording. I get together with my friend, Foster and we record each podcast. It is very informal, because the last thing I’d want to do is to be a voice taken seriously.
I was sitting at the desk, where I spend much of my daytime hours and decided to take out all those pieces of paper for my ritual, editorial deck-shuffling, which I always do at home. I am accustomed to sitting in my flannel, night shirt, reading each story and slapping a title on it. Then, I underline the editorial I want to cover. I had never done this exercise in any other place. There I was, black, felt pen in hand, quickly reading through the stories and underlining what I wanted to emphasize. Now, keep in mind, I have at least 25 disparate pieces of news, clipped during each week.
I have been doing this Dan Rather thing for quite a while and I have never thought it might be weird. I was sitting at that upstairs desk and shuffling through the news of the prior week, just like I was some news guy, putting his show together for the scheduled broadcast. All of a sudden it hit me, who the fuck does something like this without being remotely concerned about his audience size, let alone any idea of remuneration?
Along with shattering my pre-ordained routine of sorting out my stories for the first look, I decided to lay out all the paper on a picnic table, tucked away in the back of the brewery, again a departure from my home schedule. I was placing the different stories out on the table and grouping those that belonged together. Suddenly, the full cup of coffee i was nurturing, met up with an unintended gesture of mine and promptly tried to drown every piece of paper in its way.
I swear, my first reaction was, “Oh, this is going to be a great addition to the story I already want to tell”. Honestly, when I was sitting up in the office and laying out the flow of all these news features, it hit me again that it was kind of weird to be doing what I do each week with the news. For the amount of work I put in, you might think there is some kind of reward, and there is, but it’s a personal thing, in that I do it, because I have to.
It’s funny, when I was thinking about writing this story of my news gathering, I didn’t imagine the coffee disaster that awaited and yet it seemed like it fit perfectly into what I wanted to share with you. There I was, delicately picking up the coffee soaked stories and then placing them on a bench, where they could dry. It takes me days to put these stories together and when the coffee flooded all these papers, i thought somehow I would make it part of my story.
Who the hell reads the news everyday and selects stories he wants to include in his weekly podcast? As I was delicately picking up the fragile pieces of paper, underlined and titled, it hit me that I must be nuts and at the same time, scarily sane.
I have had this years long, Zen practice and sometimes wonder why the hell I bother? At the end of each sit, I recite several prayers in Japanese, having no idea what they mean. Then, I recite something called The Four Vows. The first one indirectly asks you to do something, anything, to reflect the necessity of bringing everyone to the other shore. Now you may ask, what is that other shore? I have no idea. It kind of asks you to be the mirror that helps people see who they are and asks them to look at why they are here. Any effort in that regard is deemed to be contagious, the good kind.
I have found that looking at the news the way I do, gives me a sense of responsibility to be truthful, not withholding my feelings. I have this strange feeling that if I don’t tell you what the hell is going on, who else will?
Carl Sagan is clearly to blame for the above sentiment. When I read about how the Golden Records were put together and that they are still traveling, on the surviving Voyager craft, somewhere in outer space, I felt I should do something like that. Now, what I mean by “something like that” is that the podcast is a record of what is going on right now, portrayed in a most unusual manner by yours truly.
I know it’s nuts, but it feels so normal. To my way of thinking, it makes me “A Lone Voice In The Universe” and I am OK with that.
Do you want to hear the news of the week, like you have never heard it before?
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1292459
Two guys, seemingly having nothing in common, put on a weekly show of what it’s like to be friends.