Save the Bookstores!

Sadly, bookstores are fast becoming a dying breed in the United States.  Having grown up in a small farming community in northern Maine that had no less than three of them, I assumed that bookstores were a given part of the landscape of any city or town of any size and always would be, much like a post office, school, library or church.  Even as a kid, I could spend hours in a bookstore (and the local library as well), exploring books and topics I had often not even considered.  And any trip out of town inevitably meant a chance for me to check out the bookstores in other locales.  For that matter, it still does.

In the mid-1990s my eyes were opened to the plight bookstores face when I started dating a woman who worked in a terrific little independent one near where I lived.  It was a quirky little place, one of the first bookstores I knew of that served coffee and offered places to sit and read.  The selection was wide for such a small shop, and they enjoyed a small but loyal clientele.  It was the kind of place that people made a point to visit when they were in town, myself included.

My girlfriend was worried, however.  A new “big box” book superstore, part of a large national chain, had just opened in the next city over, offering even greater variety of titles than the little indie at which she worked, and at prices that were often quite a bit lower.  While the indie store’s base clients held firm, the casual book shoppers who often made the difference between the store making a profit or not in a given month were flocking to the superstore.  As much as I loved the little indie bookstore, I was a struggling young schoolteacher with a limited budget for books for my students, and found myself frequently shopping for classroom literature at the superstore as well, so as to stretch my dollars as far as I could.  I still patronized the little indie, but financial reality prevented me from doing as much business there as I would have liked.

A few months after my girlfriend and I began dating, that little indie bookstore where she worked went out of business.  The superstore ten miles away had won the battle.  In the final days of the indie, I spent a lot of money on discounted books at their going-out-of-business sale, and even purchased some of their fixtures for use in my classroom.  I had incredibly mixed feelings doing so, mind you.  It made me feel like some sort of vulture, scavenging from the remains of something that was once so vital.

By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, there were not nearly as many independent bookstores compared to just a generation earlier.  The large chain superstores had taken their toll and carved out a good chunk of the book-buying market.  Not only could they provide greater variety and lower prices for books, but they also had the room to sell music and videos, and to install full-service cafes as well.  They had the ability to set up discount clubs and to stage special in-store events on a regular basis with which most independent bookstores just could not compete.  

It wasn’t all wine and roses for the superstores, however.  The internet was taking a larger piece of the book sales pie.  Online-only booksellers with gigantic warehouses but no actual physical stores were growing in popularity.  If the chain superstores could deal with books in volume, the internet retailers, unrestricted by geography, could deal with them in MEGA volume.  You could shop for an almost infinite variety of books from your living room, and easily compare prices to get the very best deal.  E-books, which you could purchase usually much cheaper than a paper copy, and begin reading instantly, also grew in popularity.  That was and is a tough thing for any bricks-and-mortar bookseller to go up against, even a large corporate chain.  Several national chains went out of business, and others have closed stores or changed their marketing focus in order to try and stay afloat.  Unless you have a strong online component, these are very hard times indeed for booksellers.

Compounding the troubles is a problem faced by all booksellers, whether independent or chain, online or bricks-and-mortar, and that is the sad fact that people are just reading fewer books these days.  You don’t have to look very hard to see that more people, especially the under-30 crowd, are interested in television, video games, and interactive media than the “old-fashioned” linearity of a book as a means to pass the time.  It’s a seismic cultural shift.  I frankly don’t think it can be fully stopped, nor do I think it is entirely a bad thing, but I do think it can be slowed, and that we should be doing what we can to read more books ourselves and to encourage others to do the same.

I’ve had an e-reader for over three years now.  When I first got it, I used it almost exclusively for my reading.  Over time however, I’ve cut back on its use, and not intentionally.  I’ve just found myself drawn back to the sensation of having an open book in my hands.  I still read e-books, but the ratio of actual books to e-books for me has shifted to about 70% : 30%.  The whole e-books versus “paper books” debate is fodder for a separate post.

When I buy a paper book, I have been making an effort to do so from bricks-and-mortar retailers over the past few years, and avoid the online-only retailers when I can.  Bookstores still hold their allure for me, and I find myself drawn to them whenever I am nearby and have a free moment.  I travel around the state of Maine a lot, and make it a point to explore at least one or two bookstores on every trip.  Even if I have a stack of books still waiting to be read, I always buy at least one book when I visit a brick-and-mortar bookseller.  It’s not unlike buying a glass of lemonade from a child’s stand along the sidewalk.  Even if you are not thirsty, you want to support and encourage the effort.

To that end, I’d like to share a list of some of my favorite bookstores that I have explored in my travels in Maine.  Some of independent, some are parts of small regional chains, and a couple of part of large corporate chains.  

• Sherman’s Books and Stationery: A particular favorite. I’ve been to the stores in Bar Harbor, Freeport and Camden, and look forward to visiting their brand new store in the Old Port in Portland soon.
• Longfellow Books: For me, this is one of the very hearts of downtown Portland. I have yet to make a trip to the Old Port without stopping at Longfellow.
• Owl & Turtle: A cozy must-visit when exploring downtown Camden
• Stone Soup: Secondhand books galore in Camden
• The Briar Patch: Children’s books and toys in downtown Bangor.  A great place for gifts for the younger set.
• BookMarcs: A Bangor institution, featuring an extensive collection of Stephen King’s work, among numerous other titles.
• Barnes & Noble: While a different overall experience from the smaller bookstores, I really enjoy spending a few hours at B&N’s Augusta store whenever I get a chance.
• Bull Moose: With stores in Maine and New Hampshire, Bull Moose is my very favorite music store.  Their locations in Bangor, Scarborough and Mill Creek in South Portland have extensive book selections as well. Between the books and the music, I could literally spent a whole day at Bull Moose.
• Books-A-Million: Another national chain, BAM has stores in South Portland, Auburn and Bangor that I can explore for hours.

Fortunately, there are still many more Maine booksellers than these, though not as many as there once were.  I’ve chosen to restrict this list to my favorites that I have visited over the past few years.   With travel season not too far away, I am looking forward to visiting most of these again, and highly encourage you to do the same.  We are all better off for having thriving bookstores in our communities.

Little Chris and the Naive Politics of Black and White

Growing up in a small town in the 1970s, there were plenty of other kids with whom I could play.  It was a less worried time, when many parents would allow their kids to freely roam their neighborhoods and beyond.  For the most part, they did it without fear of anything more than the old lady down the street calling to report to them that their child was climbing on the roof of the toolshed.

When I was about five years old, I was the youngest member of a group of about a half dozen friends who lived in the houses around mine.  The acknowledged leader of this gang of kids was also named Chris like me, so he was called “Big Chris” and I was saddled with the moniker “Little Chris”, a nickname which I loathed and despised with a white hot passion.  Nonetheless, that’s how it was.

"Little Chris", from around the time about which I am writing.  And yes, turtleneck sweaters were considered "in" at the time.

As the youngest of the group, I was the least worldly, relatively speaking, and because of that naivety and my strong desire to be accepted by the others, I was prone to being put up to things.  It was never anything terribly serious, but I was a sucker nonetheless.  If they needed someone to swipe some apples from a neighbor’s tree, I was their man.  When they wanted to see if the wooden ramp they built for bicycle jumps was too high, I was their go-to guy.  And if they wanted to get some candy from Mrs. Johnson, who always had a bowl on her kitchen counter as treats for us kids, I was the emissary who was sent to ask for it, because I was not only the smallest and presumably cutest, but also they knew I would not refuse to go.

Yes, “Little Chris” was gullible, but as I got a bit older and gained some more life experience, that gullibility decreased rapidly.  Before too long, I was on to them, and not long after that, I could put others up to doing things if I chose.  As a little more light was shed on matters through time and experience, I saw things I hadn't previously, and it worked to my advantage.

I’ve been thinking about my days as gullible “Little Chris” lately as I have read and watched the news, both national and state.  It seems like many politicians, pundits, and media outlets these days are implementing a “Little Chris” treatment on you and me, and sadly, are meeting with some degree of success.

My intent in this post is not to single out a particular person or entity, so I’ll be dealing in generalities here.

We live in an age with an overwhelming amount of information at our fingertips.  There is such a high volume of data out there, much of it conflicting, that many suffer from fatigue in dealing with it.  It’s much easier just to have someone distill it for us.  And there is no shortage of talking heads who are willing to cherry-pick information and give it to us in a way that they want us to understand it.  It is made all the more persuasive when this cherry-picked information is given to us wrapped in emotion, drama, academic language, and/or pre-conceived ideas.  The overused term propaganda would apply here, though even it has become highly charged by some of the very people who use it, with direct connections often made to the wartime PR tactics of enemy nations.

This cherry-picking approach to politics and media bias would not be so pervasive if it didn’t actually work.  But it does.  Too many of us are easily persuaded.  Too many of us buy into what is being sold to us without asking ourselves if there is more to it.  The sins of omission seem far more frequent than those of commission in politics and media.

Let me give an example that I am just pulling out of the air.  Suppose a local media outlet reports on a horrific home invasion, where an elderly woman is beaten and robbed for drugs and money in her home.  It’s a terrible thing, and a legitimate news story, for sure.  Then, two nights later, the same media outlet starts airing a series of special reports on how you can protect yourself your loved one and your property from home invasions, complete with ominous music and scary clips from the most recent incident and others that have taken place in other parts of the country.  Interviews are aired with people who have experienced such a terrible thing.  Many viewers may become fearful.  It must be a problem, or else why would the news be devoting so much time and attention to it?  (Answer: Ratings.) Not only are viewers locking their doors and keeping their drugs secure, which would be sensible reactions, but some have also become frightened when they see an unfamiliar face in their neighborhood, and may even now refuse to go for a walk down their own street by themselves for fear of crime.  Some may go so far as to install an electronic security system in their homes.  Their fear has taken away some of their freedom, not to mention money.  And here’s the kicker: lost in the midst of it all is the fact that home invasions in that particular area are extremely rare, and the odds are greater that one would have a truck crash through their bedroom than that they would actually experience a home invasion.

I’m picking on the media taking something out of proper context in the aforementioned example, but politicians and pundits often do the very same thing.  It isn’t unusual for them to create a perceived boogeyman cloaked in emotional hot-buttons as they make their case for a particular candidacy or policy decision.  Their candidate or point of view is going to be the one to put a stop to this boogeyman (or “straw man” as it is called in debating terms), and therefore is the one with which all of us in the general public should be on board.  Welfare queens, big corporations, illegal aliens, religious fundamentalists, leftist whackos, right-wing nutjobs, the list of boogeymen goes on and on.  Some of these entities portrayed as boogeymen are actual problems, and some are not, depending on your own point of view.  If you don’t have your own point of view, politicians and pundits are more than willing to give you theirs.

So what’s my point?  It’s a very simple one: Despite what we are often led to believe, very, very  few issues in our society are black and white.  If something seems too clear, too cut-and-dried, then there is likely something we are missing.  Yes, there are people who abuse the welfare system horribly, for example.  But there are also many more on welfare who do not and use it as it was intended.  Yes, there are some large corporations that exploit their workers and plunder natural resources, as another example, but there are many more of them that do not, never have, and never will.  

In other words, don't be naive.  Do your homework.  Be skeptical without being cynical, especially when you find yourself automatically agreeing or disagreeing with something newly presented to you. 

Look at all sides before settling on a conclusion.  Don’t be satisfied with letting politicians, pundits, and the media feed you only the information they want you to have.  Seek out more for yourself. Consider the source of your information.  A press release from a lobbying group or political party headquarters may be “newsy”, but it is not necessarily news.  A pundit is not a reporter.  A letter to the editor is not a news article.  Opinions should be based on facts, but they are not facts themselves.  And don’t fall prey to hot-button terminology, especially in headlines.  Words like “terror”, “sex”, and “war”, among others, are often squeezed in there to capture your attention, even if they are not the best choices.

You owe it to yourself to be a cautious, media-literate consumer of information. Otherwise, you’ll likely end up like “Little Chris”, paying unintended consequences for being unquestioning and naive.

A Slight Brush With Greatness

Depending on where you conduct your life, you may or may not come into contact with influential people.  For some, standing in line behind a movie star at Starbucks is just part of a typical morning, while for others, attending a party where the mayor of your small town is invited might be as big a deal as it gets.  Here in Maine, we have a surprising number of celebrities for a small, relatively rural state, due in part to the large number of vacation homes situated here in “Vacationland”.  Stephen King, the Bush family, Martha Stewart, Patrick Dempsey and a number of others call Maine home for at least part of the year.

One of our more beloved well-known people was the late Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Skowhegan.  For those of you unfamiliar with her, she is in the American history books for a number of things, including being the first woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress,  and the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the American Presidency at a major political party's convention.  Her famous (and politically courageous) “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1950 was the beginning of the end for red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch hunts.  She was the first notable person to declare that essentially “Emperor McCarthy” wore no clothes.  After serving in Congress, Senator Smith retired to Skowhegan in 1972, where she became somewhat of a “grand old lady” of Maine politics, much beloved by most of her former constituents and especially by those in her hometown, where almost everything is named after her.  Members of both political parties held her in very high regard.  It was with Senator Smith that I had what I consider my most memorable brush with greatness.

In the summer of 1992, I was fresh out of college with an education degree, and had been hired for my first teaching job, which was slated to start that September.  During that summer, I got my first apartment, a second-floor efficiency, in the town of Skowhegan, Maine and prepared for my first year of teaching as I also adjusted to life on my own.  My personal funding would be pretty limited until I started receiving paychecks in September, so I spent most of my time getting my classroom and lesson plans ready, as well as exploring the Skowhegan area on my mountain bike.

Skowhegan, if you don’t know it, is a beautiful and historic town on the Kennebec River in central Maine, about an hour north of the state capital of Augusta.  A working class community of about 6000 people, I felt right at home there, as the town was very similar in size and character to my hometown in the County, from which I had just moved.  If the weather cooperated and I didn’t feel compelled to give in to my workaholic nature and head to the school, I often hopped on my bicycle to pedal around the tree-lined streets or dusty back roads.  There were cemeteries and historical sites to explore, as well as beautiful scenery and unique architecture.  Unless it was very hot of course, when all I would explore by bike was the road from my apartment to Gifford’s Famous Ice Cream, a well-known, locally-based dairy bar on Madison Avenue.

One particular afternoon, I got on my bike and followed my nose up a rather steep street called Norridgewock Avenue, which I had not previously checked out.  Knowing that the next town over was called Norridgewock, I figured I would follow the street to the town line and then turn around.  It was pretty hot, and before long I regretted biting off such a lofty goal, but I was young and stubborn, and had nothing else to do, so I powered on.  Before long though, I ended up getting off my bike and pushing it up what I later learned was called Neil Hill.  I was pretty exhausted from the heat by the time I reached the top.  As I stopped to catch my breath and take a drink of water, I saw a sign nearby that indicated I was across the street from the Margaret Chase Smith Library, which I knew was attached to the home of Senator Smith, who by that time was in her mid-90s.  While I was catching my breath, I caught sight of a figure dressed in a bright blue bathrobe sitting alone on a wicker chair inside a glass atrium and looking over at me.  It was a very slight, elderly lady with a head full of silver-white hair, sipping from a mug.  Before it clearly registered in my mind who this actually was, the lady in the blue bathrobe raised her hand and gave me a wave and a smile.  Suddenly it clicked in my oxygen-starved brain.  It was Senator Margaret Chase Smith herself!  Of course, I returned the smile and wave from the woman who would later be selected the most influential Mainer of the 20th century.  

Having caught my breath again, and not wanting to disturb Senator Smith’s privacy, I gamely mounted my bike again and continued on my way.  On my return trip past Senator Smith’s house heading home, she was no longer sitting in the atrium.  I biked past there a couple more times over the next few years, but never saw the grand old lady again.

Sen. Smith, as she would have looked around the time I saw her. I believe that is the very chair in which she was sitting that day. (Photo from Margaret Chase Smith Library website)

As “brushes with greatness” go, this could probably be considered a slight brush at best.  It wasn’t like I was seated next to Senator Smith at a state dinner and had a foreign policy discussion or anything like that.  It was just a simple, friendly wave and smile from an elderly woman to a stranger on a bike on the street near her home.  Nonetheless, it made an impression on me.  This important and influential woman who had dined with presidents, statesmen and royalty, who had the courage to speak up against a bully when almost every other leader in the country was intimidated, and who had made history by helping clear a path for future female leaders, was still “Margaret from Maine” who would smile and wave at a passing bicyclist.

The memory of that day has stayed with me all these years.  You don't seem to see many in positions of leadership like her anymore.  Maybe when we go to choose our leaders, we should be looking more carefully for people of character and courage, like Senator Smith.

Writing About Having Nothing To Write About

Lately, I've been going through a dry spell with my writing, which is not uncommon to many writers.  “Writer’s block” is the most often-used term, and I've got it bad.  My two works-in-progress are not inspiring me, and I am struggling to come up with posts to put on this blog.  Then, this morning, it came to me.  Why not write about having nothing to write about?

Contrary to what it may appear, I don’t just dash off whatever is in my head and post it to Wicked Awesomology.  Some bloggers treat their blogs almost like a web-based diary that the public is invited to read.  Not me though.  I treat mine like a regular column that I would contribute to a newspaper or magazine.  As such, I have to strike a balance in my posts between things I want to write about and things viewers will want to read.

That awareness of audience tends to be what stymies me the most.  Back when I was teaching, I constantly stressed to my student the importance of keeping your audience at the forefront when you compose a piece of writing.  I've seen 10 year-old-boys put together ten page stories about Pokemon characters that make complete and perfect sense to them, but without background information would make virtually no sense to most other people, not to mention be of limited interest to anyone but themselves.  When choosing a topic about which to write for this blog, there are certain things I try to avoid.

Complaining:  Writing can be cathartic, and there is a great temptation to sit down and rip something a new one just to get it off my chest.  And while it may feel good to put together a piece like that, I believe that readers will only put up with it from time to time.  After all, with all the whiners in the world as it is, who wants to sit down and read more whining for entertainment?

Repetition: There is such a thing as taking a good idea and beating it to death.  I've seen the statistics on viewership of my various blog posts, and noted what type of articles has garnered the most viewers.  In general, it has been my nostalgia pieces about my childhood and teenage years.  Those posts are fun to write, and serve a personal purpose for me in preserving my memories, but are not the kind of thing I would want to write and readers would want to read every single week.  The same applies to posts about my cats and my hillbilly neighbors.  While they provide ample fodder, you can have too much of a good thing in this format.

Sports: I am a huge sports fan, but only post about them on rare occasion.  Wicked Awesomology is not a sports blog, and many of my readers are not that into sports.  Those who are may not be into the particular teams, events, or athletes that I am.  As such, there is a risk of a sports post being a complete wash for a sizable segment of my readership.  That doesn't mean I won’t write about sports.  It merely means that I am choosy about the topic.   For those readers who do not care for the Boston Red Sox, be thankful for this.

Controversy: Some people write to be provocative.  I am not one of those people.  The purpose of this blog is to entertain and also to give me a forum for flexing my writing muscles.  I stick to that focus for a simple reason: In order to attract and maintain regular readers, I need to be providing a somewhat consistent product.  Going from a gently humorous reflection on an adventure I had with my grandparents as a child in one week’s posting to a screed on the gun control debate in the next is too wild of a swing for most readers, I feel.  Of course I have plenty of personal opinions about politics and current events, and sometimes share them in person and on my Twitter account.  Only rarely will I post about politics or controversial current events on this blog, and then I will choose my words carefully so as to state my case clearly while remaining respectful of those who do not agree.  That, of course, is a lot like work, so I usually avoid those topics.

Forced humor: One thread that runs through almost every post here is humor.  I don’t set out to be humorous when I write here, but my sense of humor permeates almost every interaction I have, so it comes through.  My posts are not too different from my personal conversations in that regard.  That said, there are some times and topics that just do not lend themselves to laugh out loud comments, so I either avoid writing about the subject altogether, or give it a straight treatment.  Trying to be funny when something just isn't a funny concept is a recipe for disaster.  A related issue is sarcasm.  I’ll be the first to admit to being a sarcastic wiseass, but that rarely comes across as I would like in my writing, so I have to put the brakes on sarcasm much of the time.

These self-imposed restrictions sometimes get in the way of finding a topic for a blog post, but they help maintain the quality of my posts, so they are not a bad thing.  I’d rather post nothing than post garbage.  I've had some ideas for posts lately, to be sure, but they've often fallen into the “complaining”, “controversy” or “repetition” categories, so I've nixed putting them on here.  

So there you have it: an entire post wherein I wrote about not knowing about what to write.  I've dealt with writer’s block before, and it never lasts, for me or for anyone.   The idea fairy will come for a visit soon enough and Wicked Awesomology will get back to my version of normal.  If she doesn't come soon though, I may have to resort to a slew of crazy cat stories.

The Rutabaga Dispensing Machine

Indulge me for a few moments.

As I walk out through the lobby of my apartment building one Wednesday morning, I catch something out of the corner of my eye.  In a once-empty corner, with tasteful potted plants on either side, is a newly-installed vending machine.  It’s a Rutabaga Dispensing Machine.

Now I do not eat rutabagas myself.  In my formative years, my family did not grow or eat rutabagas, so they are not really in my culinary repertoire and never have been.  I don’t care for the taste of them, and they give me gas.  So, most likely, I will not be ironing out dollar bills to slide into the slot for rutabagas any time soon.  Several other people in my building whom I consider friends DO like rutabagas however.  They are vegetarians.  Surely, this machine will be a boon for them and their cooking habits.

As for me, the Rutabaga Dispensing Machine is just there.  It is not in my way.  It is not gaudy or ugly.  It does not replace the lobby’s French Fry Dispensing Machine, of which I am quite fond.  And I am by no means forced to use either one.

This little story is intended to illustrate where I’ve landed on the issue of legalizing gay marriage in Maine, which I came to support in this election cycle and which was approved by a majority of voters in the state this week.  For me, legalizing gay marriage is analogous to installing a Rutabaga Dispensing Machine in my apartment building.  As long as I am not forced to use it and it doesn’t replace my French Fry Dispensing Machine, then I am fine with it.  It just adds to the freedoms available to Americans who choose to exercise them, without taking freedoms away from anyone else.

I suppose the analogy could be extended to other freedoms we have the option to exercise in this country if we choose: the freedom to choose our leaders, to bear arms, to voice our opinions, to listen to Carpenters albums, etc.  We are not required to do any of those things (most thankfully in the lattermost case), but we are not restricted from them either.

Freedom is just a part of what’s cool about this country of ours.  Never take it for granted.

Politics (Yes, I'm Going THERE!)

I tend to eschew controversy here at Wicked Awesomology, but once in a while I need to touch the third rail.  This is a rare post about politics.  However, take heart: I am not advocating a particular candidate or issue.  I am skewering the process as it currently exists.

As I write this, the political election season is reaching full screech mode, with mere hours left before voting at the polls begins.  Here in Maine, we voters have a number of choices to make, including who we want as our president, our representatives in the U.S. House, one of our senators, as well as state legislators and whether we want gay marriage to be legalized in the state.  The presidential race and the gay marriage referendum have raised the election year hysteria here this year from its typical “hyperactive preschoolers in a room full of sugary snacks” level to a new high of “Richard Simmons on crack”.  Intense media coverage and immense amounts of cash flowing in from every special interest for advertising and “special consultants” has turned many normally-taciturn Mainers, present company included, into raving lunatics.

When possible, I try to make lemonade out of life’s lemons, and one way to do this is to at least attempt to extract some lessons learned from things that have sucked out loud.  What follows are the five things I have learned during the 2012 election cycle.

Outside Influences Are Kind Of Insulting

A lot, and I mean a whole lot, of the advertisements, events, etc. surrounding this year’s elections in Maine have been developed and paid for by interests from outside the state of Maine.  I am sure that this is not unique to those of you reading in other parts of the country or world.  Now I am not talking about local candidates and advocacy groups intentionally hiring people from elsewhere.  I am talking about outside groups that have come into jurisdictions entirely on their own and tried to influence voters to go with their point of view: Political Action Committees (PACs)  It’s almost as if the PACs are saying “Oh you poor stupid people, let us tell you how you are supposed to think.”  Anyone with even a third of a brain knows that it is nothing more than a bald-faced attempt to increase their own power in some way.  Even when one of these PACs is advocating for a candidate or position that I support, I still resent the hell out of their interference.

While I am sure that this type of outside influence rubs many people around the country the wrong way, it really, really, really doesn’t fly in a place with people as self-reliant as most Mainers.  It is not only possible this interference by PACs can backfire in Maine, it is likely.

Politics and Religion Are A Miserable Combination

Religion and politics just do NOT mix well at all, and I am saying this as someone who goes to church every Sunday and takes his faith seriously.  Every candidate holds varied positions on varied issues.  How on God’s green earth are we supposed to vote only for candidates who support the tenets of our particular faith?  Is it okay to vote for a candidate who is in favor of abortion and yet also pledges to protect programs that provide direct aid the poor and elderly?  What about someone whose policies decrease the level of government interference in our lives and private institutions (including religious ones), and yet at the potential cost of decreased access to healthcare or harm to the environment?  We are told to love our neighbors, and yet oppose gay marriage?  Religious leaders tell us it is our moral duty to vote, and to do so in concert with the faith we have been taught, and yet I am not aware of a single candidate for any political office who completely “lines up” with a given religion on every issue. Every candidate and most positions seem like a Catch-22 when viewed through the lens of religion.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“He’s Worse Than I Am” Is A Lousy Strategy

The old saw “you attract more flies with honey than vinegar” has been around for such a long time because it is true.  And yet, the majority of political ads I have seen or heard this year have not been telling me what is right about a candidate or position, but instead what is wrong with the opposition.  It’s hard to deny that negative content tends to garner more attention, and the fact that it stokes the fires of fear among the less-informed is another point in favor of negative ads.  Fear is a powerful motivator.  However, if I were a politician or advocate for a side in a referendum, I would much rather want to win because the voters supported me, and not that they were merely voting against the opposition.  In other words, I would want voters to like me more than the other side, not hate me less than them.  Being the “lesser of two evils” is hardly a mandate.

Taking Politics Personally Is Pathetic And Sad

I have friends who are flaming liberals.  I have friends who are ultra-conservatives.  To say that I don’t entirely agree with either group of them would be a major understatement.  Nonetheless, they are my friends and I genuinely like them.  It’s okay if they think and vote differently than I do.  I find it terribly disturbing that so many people these days make political discourse into personal grudge matches, delighting in the prospect of bad things happening to people who don’t believe in the same political views that they do.  In my opinion, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, for example, are both decent men who love their countries and their families.  While I lean more toward the views of one than the other, I don’t for even a second think that the candidate with whom I do not align deserves to have anything bad happen to him or his supporters.  The politics of hate has always been with us, but it has become much more pronounced over the past twenty-five years or so, since the rise of talk radio and 24-hour cable news which give those views a platform. These media entities often do so under the cover of “free speech”, but it is more often simply a means to drive up ratings and to fill time. I saw it from the inside at the beginning of that era, when I was working in radio myself.

Getting "Out There" Counts For A Lot

If you really want to attract my attention to your position or candidate, do not have a robot call me on the phone.  Instead, get yourself out there so I can come to you.  Walk in a parade in my town.  Hold a “meet & greet” in the area.  Talk to my local newspaper, radio or TV station.  Respond personally to tweets or Facebook posts.  Show me your face, shake my hand and make it personal!  Those things are going to cause me to take you much more seriously than someone who hides behind a barrage of carefully scripted advertisements, brochures, signs, and debates.  I feel that this applies to all candidates and positions, but especially to incumbents who think they can take votes in certain places for granted.
 
          And above all, no matter how disgusted you are with all of it, please, please, a thousand times PLEASE go out to vote on November 6th!

            We now return you to our regular blog programming.

The Hits from Coast to Coast: A Tribute to American Top 40

There are many, many things that make the weekend better than weekdays.  One of those, for me at least, is radio countdown shows.  I love them, and always have.  They are fewer and further between on the air these days, but if you know where to look, you can still find them.

Radio, for those of you under age 30, is a device from which music, voices and other sounds being broadcast from a remote location are emitted for entertainment or information purposes.  It’s like an iPod, only you can’t control the programs, and there are commercials.  Sounds crazy, I know.  Ask any of us senior citizens born before the Reagan administration if you want to know more.

Radio has always played a large part in my life.  As soon as I got my first transistor radio (another term you young-uns will have to Google) around age 6, I always had it on when I could.  I actually worked as a professional announcer and board operator for eleven of the most formative years of my life, from age 15 to age 26.  While I only worked part time in radio, I had offers to go full time on numerous occasions once I graduated high school.  I chose instead to go another career path, but radio is always going to be the “road not travelled” in my life.  It made an indelible impact on me. 

My earliest radio memories involve a radio countdown show, American Top 40, with legendary host Casey Kasem.  American Top 40 made its debut in the world just a few months after I did, in the summer of 1970.  As with most things, it started small, but it caught on quickly.  Casey’s engaging personality, the interesting anecdotes and facts about the songs and artists, long-distance dedications, and of course the countdown of the music itself, propelled the show to worldwide popularity within a few years. At one point, it was heard on over 500 stations worldwide.

Casey Kasem (photo from Premiere Radio Networks)

I remember being very young, probably around five years old, and playing outside at my house one Saturday afternoon while my parents were doing some kind of work in the yard with the radio on in the background.  Our local radio station had been a real “Heinz 57” jumble of all sorts of programming for many years, but it had just begun to smooth out into a more consistent format of pop music, interspersed with news, sports and weather.  Young people like my parents were beginning to listen for longer periods of time.  I think American Top 40 was new to the station at that time, maybe even making its local debut, which may have been why my parents were listening to it that day.   For some reason, Casey Kasem’s voice caught my ear.  Most likely, the fact that he was also the voice of Shaggy on my favorite cartoon Scooby Doo Where Are You? played a part in it.  But the music intrigued me too.   I vaguely recall an Eagles song playing, I think it was One of These Nights, and really digging it.  It’s all a jumbled haze of memories, but I’m pretty sure that’s the moment when I got hooked on radio. If the radio wasn’t playing in the house or car after that, I was often urging my parents to turn it on, especially on the weekends for Casey’s show. 

By the time I was eleven, my weekly ritual was to listen to American Top 40 with Casey Kasem every Sunday night from 5:00 to 9:00. I’d disappear into my bedroom, turn on the radio, and just absorb it every week.  Few things before or since then held my short attention span quite like that.  If I had to be somewhere during those hours, I made sure to bring a portable radio to keep up with the countdown.  I didn’t want to miss out on even a few songs.  At school the next day, American Top 40 was always a major topic amongst us kids.

At age 15, I was old enough to work, and I got a part time job at that local radio station.  Starting out, I was to work two shifts on the weekends, one on Saturday afternoons, where I would host my own show, playing pop music and reading the news and weather, and another on Sunday evenings, where I was to engineer the broadcast of American Top 40.  Little did my boss at the time realize that, as far as my Sunday shift was concerned, he was paying me to do what I would be doing on my own at home anyway.  At that time, American Top 40 was supplied to radio stations on four long playing records (another one to Google, kids!).  My job was to put the records on the turntables in the correct order, and to insert local commercials during the breaks.  And to listen.  It was a great situation, and I loved it.

1988 was a time of change for both me and American Top 40.  I was graduating from high school and going on to the University of Maine, and Casey Kasem was leaving the American Top 40 that same summer.  Unable to work out a contract agreement with the company that produced American Top 40, Casey was offered a lucrative deal to do a new but similar countdown show for a competing company. Even though Casey was going to return to the air at the start of 1989, I knew it just wasn’t going to be the same, and it wasn’t.  The new show, Casey’s Top 40, was too similar in some ways to American Top 40 and too different in others (if that makes any sense).  It ran for nearly 10 years, but never really established its own place in the hearts of many listeners.  Casey’s replacement on American Top 40, Shadoe Stevens, was very good, with a deep, resonant voice, but he just wasn’t Casey.  Many others must have felt the same way, because the show struggled after Casey Kasem left.  1988 marked the end of what might be considered the “golden age of radio countdowns”.

I still listened to the weekend countdown shows after that, though not as faithfully.  Radio programmers smelled blood in the water after the hosting turmoil at American Top 40. In addition to Casey and Shadoe, Rick Dees and Dick Clark were also hosting popular countdown programs in the late 80s.  After a while, when I started working full time in education, I drifted away from the weekend countdown shows entirely.   

As for Casey himself, he returned to his original seat at American Top 40 in 1998, and remained there until he retired in 2004. The show never really returned to its original form though, partly because the popular music of the day, which was increasingly rap and hip-hop oriented,  just didn’t mesh as well with Casey’s voice and personality.  He was then in his late 60s and early 70s, and hearing him introduce songs like Move Bitch by Ludacris featuring Mystikal & Infamous 2.0 (it’s a actual song, really!) was rather jarring.  It was time for it to end.  American Top 40 is still on the air, now hosted by the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest, about whom I will refrain from comment or ridicule (for now).

In recent years, I have come back to radio countdown shows, thanks to the internet and satellite radio.  While the music and personalities on the current version of American Top 40 are not my cup of tea, rebroadcasts of Casey Kasem’s original programs from the 70s are on satellite radio every weekend, and his 80s countdowns are streamed on the internet and broadcast by some local stations.  In addition, several satellite radio stations broadcast countdowns of the hits from this week in a given year from the 1980s or 90s, closely emulating the format that Casey Kasem pioneered.  I can’t get enough of them.

On weekends, when I have time to relax, I like to hop in my car and ride the back roads of this beautiful part of the state, reliving the old days with the countdown shows on satellite radio. Or sometimes I’ll fire up the laptop, take it to the back deck or the living room, kick back, open a cold one, and listen to Casey count down the hits from the old days once again.

Casey is 80 years old now, and living in quiet retirement.  Apart from an interview on his daughter’s podcast in 2009, he has stayed out of the spotlight.  As a huge fan of radio in general and countdown shows in particular, I will always be grateful for the hours and hours of enjoyment and inspiration Casey’s programs gave me.  They still do for that matter.

He ended every show with the same line, which also seems like a darn nice way to end this post:

“Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.”

Attack of the Grand High Twits

Last Friday evening, a certain popular social media network, the one that allows users to post 140-character ditties for followers interested in what they have to say, decided to suspend my account.  For the purposes of this posting, I will refer to this network as “the social media network in question”.   I will also be referring to the powers-that-be at this network as “The Grand High Twits”, which is probably a step up from my original choice of “Stupid Bastards”.

I started using “the social media network in question” about two years ago, and was slow to take to it.  The first year I was on board, I rarely checked it more than once a week, and had no more than a few dozen followers.  Once I saw its power as a means for networking with other writers and creative-types, thus giving my writing a much-needed kick in the pants, I began to use it more regularly.  “The social media network in question” is now my go-to social media site.  I’ve built my following to nearly 500 people, and follow around that same number.  It is modest compared to some I know, but I have been choosey about both the people I follow and those I allow to follow me.   Like a tiny seedling in a quiet patch of earth, I’ve nurtured my account and coaxed it, tending it constantly, weeding and pruning, until it has become something special.

Then the Grand High Twits in charge at “the social media network in question” came along last Friday evening and, like a big smelly St. Bernard, took a massive dump on my little seedling by suspending my account.

Let me give you a little context.

My use of “the social media network in question” has always been conservative at best.  Typically, I will post when I have updated my blog or am looking for some feedback on a writing-related issue.  I like to share my thoughts on the Boston Red Sox and the lighter side of Maine politics, and sometimes re-post links to interesting news articles or the thoughts of others whom I follow.  Some weeks, I’ve also been known to give shout-outs to aspiring writers who are also on “the social media network in question” on Wednesdays, and to other non-writing people who interest me on Fridays.  On a given day, I average probably around five or six postings.  I’ll occasionally reply to postings made by people I have followed for a while also.

The accounts I follow fall under two categories: those who provide information of interest to me (e.g.-news, sports, weather, etc.), or like-minded creative types such as writers, actors, musicians and the like.  Some of the latter are super big-time people who don’t even realize I am alive, but most are more like me: relative small timers trying to get off the ground and share what they can do with others who might be interested.

For example, I follow and am followed by a talented young man who had one big break in Hollywood some time ago and is now looking for the next big thing in his career.  Trouble is, he’s a genuinely decent guy who loves his family, takes his studies seriously, plays sports, has hobbies, goes to church every week, etc.  You get the picture.  Not exactly the Hollywood type.  Plus, for an actor, he’s a little shy, and very normal in appearance. You’d probably not pick him out of a crowd, and in Tinseltown that is not an asset.  He deserves more, and I am genuinely interested in what comes next for this guy.

I also follow and am followed by a very talented woman here in Maine who blogs on the outdoors.  She writes passionately and with authority on any number of topics related to hunting, fishing, wildlife, outdoor recreation and the like.  Her love of the subject matter oozes through in her work.  I originally met her on “the social media network in question”, and it is the means by which we banter back and forth on occasion.  She has been very supportive of my writing, and I can’t say enough good things about hers.  Recently, she was picked up by a major newspaper in the state to provide outdoor columns.  It couldn’t have happened to a better person, and I am dying to follow her progress as she takes her writing to the next level.

As far as those who follow me, I don’t have an iron gate in front of my account.  The only things I ask if you want to follow me are: a) don’t be a purveyor of sexually explicit material and b) post your own personal postings once in a while.  Don’t just follow me and disappear, or worse yet, repost the same thing over and over.

I've become quite attached to the people I follow, as well as those who follow me, in a weird, 21st century kind of way.  In some ways it is like the relationship somebody might develop with a character in a book or a television show: not a personal one necessarily, but one with meaning nonetheless.

Which leads me to last Friday evening.

My personality might best be described as “gently cynical”. My buddies used to compare me to the Matthew Perry character Chandler on the TV show Friends back in the 1990s.  Like Chandler, I’m not going to plow anyone down with overt nastiness, but I do have a hard time keeping snide comments to myself, especially when something offbeat is right in front of me.  Plenty of aspects of the Olympic opening ceremonies in London last Friday fit that description, and since I found myself alone while watching them, I decided to let my thoughts loose on my followers.  Some examples:

“Am I the only one hoping for Mr. Bean to be the one lighting the Olympic cauldron? #openingceremony”

“Call me a philistine, but Kenneth Branaugh is always going to be a Hogwarts professor to me. #OpeningCeremony #OlympicCeremony”

“If there was a gold medal for running too many ads, NBC would have already won it. #OpeningCeremony #OlympicCeremony”

“ ‘Queuing’? ‘Telly’? Matt Lauer's been into the bangers and mash again. #openingceremony”

Get the gist? I put up about 35 postings of this type in the space of about 90 minutes.  Nothing offensive, nothing that tried to sell or promote anything.  Then, all of a sudden, a banner shows up on my account stating that it had been suspended, without explanation.  I went to the link provided, tried unsuccessfully to figure out which rule I had broken, and then immediately wrote to contest my suspension, using polite but strongly-worded terms. I got a robo-reply that they had received my objection, but no explanation of what I had done that fell outside their lines or when they would get back to me.  Some legwork online revealed that much of the suspension work done by “the social media network in question” is done by “bots” which scan accounts for anomalies and summarily suspend (have you read George Orwell’s 1984, by the way?), leaving the flesh and blood tech support people to sort it all out later.

I expected a top-tier outfit like “the social media network in question” to have tech support staff on-hand 24/7, and expected a resolution within a few hours, if not by the following morning. Nope.  Nothing from them the next morning, or the next, or even the next.  It wasn’t until Monday evening, and then only after a series of pointed inquiries by me into the status of my account, that I got the following reply from the Grand High Twits, in which I have edited only the real name of the social media network:

“Your account was suspended for posting multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic, which is a violation of the *****er Rules. You can find the more information about Trending Topics here:

http://support.*****er.com/articles/101125

I have now unsuspended your account. Repeat violations may result in permanent suspension.

Thank you,

Support”

That last line made me feel exactly like I was an eight-year-old kid in parochial school again, and not in a good way. Essentially, the Grand High Twits were saying “I will let it slide this time, but if you do it again, you are going to get severely punished.”  Yes, Mother Superior.  Thank you, Mother Superior.  I’ll never do it again, Mother Superior.

I was tempted at that point to tell the Grand High Twits to shove my account right up their cyber butts, but thankfully cooler heads prevailed.  It still took them another 24 hours to fully restore my account, by the way.

So I’m back on “the social media network in question”, but some questions remain:

·         What determines “unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic”? Did they see the opening ceremonies?  Nothing was related to anything else.

·         For that matter, what determines “multiple”? Is it two?  Twenty?  Two hundred?

·         Was there a connection between my suspension and the fact that my postings were about the Olympics?  Especially given that the social media network in question and the broadcaster carrying the games here in the U.S. have a recently-minted partnership in place? 

·         Are the Grand High Twits really as stupid as they appear?  The network is under a very bright spotlight with the Olympics underway, and liberal interpretation of their rules as a means of suppressing opinions contrary to their own is really, really bad thinking.  After all, they have proudly touted themselves as a major instrument for communication and organization in the “Arab Spring” protests against dictatorships in the Middle East last year.

This article from the New York Times about the suspension from the social network of British journalist Guy Adams for posts critical of the U.S. broadcaster is rather eye-opening.  Adams was suspended at almost exactly the same time I was.  His account is back now too. You can follow him at: @guyadams.  And if you don’t already, I’d be grateful for a follow on my account at “the social media network in question” as well: @countofbluecars.

Just think of following both of us as a way to stick it to “the man”.

The Traditional First Year Anniversary Gift Is Paper, So Send Checks

This blog, Wicked Awesomology, has hit the one year mark, so I’m going to do what so many other media entities do on a significant anniversary: toss out a retrospective episode.  It’s either that or put together something entirely new, and frankly, that sounds like work to me.

Wicked Awesomology started as nothing more than a personal creative outlet for me.  I had no real long-range plan for it beyond its merely being a place for me to flex my dubious writing muscles and do some frivolous stuff while working on longer, more serious pieces offline for publishing purposes.  To use a music metaphor, posting to this blog for me was to be like a rock band doing nightclub performances between recording sessions on their new album.  (For you younger readers, you may have to Google the terms “rock band” and “album”.  I’ll be over here weeping copiously for the future while you do so.)

As fate would have it, I started taking my Twitter account (@countofbluecars) seriously at about the very same time I started Wicked Awesomology, and my blog posts became frequent fodder for Tweets.  And it all took off from there.  My readership started to grow, and after a time it got to the point where people would contact me with questions  if I went too long between posts.  After a while, I ran out of good excuses.  One can only use “the cat threw up on my keyboard” so many times before skeptics call you on it, I’ve found.  So I more or less committed to a weekly posting schedule, and things have continued to grow.

What follows are some behind-the-scenes tidbits about Wicked Awesomology.

Where the name came from:

“Wicked awesome” is an expression that has been used by kids in Maine since I was very young, and probably even before that.  I’ve heard that it has spread to use by some people beyond the borders of the state in recent years, but it remains a statement of the superlative here as it always has.  Along with “cool” and “gross”, it is probably my longest-used slang term, and seemed well-suited for the name of a blog that aspires to be “wicked awesome”.

Most popular post:

To go by the statistics, the most popular post is The Accidental Coffee, written last winter.  Because I post on Blogger, which is a subsidiary of Google, the contents of blogs often turn up in Google searches. “Coffee” and “funny” are wildly popular search terms, and somehow my blog post got caught up in the slipstream of those terms and piled up a bunch of hits.  Things subsided when I took down the photos I posted to accompany it, which apparently were driving a lot of the traffic.  I’d love to think that all those people were looking to read the post, but, come on. Who would I be kidding?

Favorite post:

Quite a few of the posts on Wicked Awesomology rate especially high with me.  Adrian and the Cannibal’s Internet Connection is special because it was the first piece of fiction I’ve thrown out there on the blog, and fiction writing is my thing.  Heartbeat City Here We Come is one of my more introspective pieces and taps a side of me that I don’t let out in my writing often enough.  And Eye Cooties was fun because it allowed me to make a mountain out of molehill in a way that many readers found entertaining. One Tweet I got in response to it said “I can’t believe you got an entire blog post out of catching conjunctivitis, and that it was one I actually enjoyed reading!”.

But my personal favorite is Out Home at Christmas with Bing.  The post was one of those that just dropped into my head while driving one winter afternoon, and it practically wrote itself when I set my fingers to the keyboard.  It’s essentially a collection of sentimental (in my own way) recollections of childhood Christmases as they related to my paternal grandparents.  I was very close to them growing up, and the times I spent at their place in the country are among my fondest recollections of being a kid.  My grandmother died in 1995 and my grandfather in 2000, so writing about them and putting it out there for the world to read about keeps their memories alive in a way.  I’ve written about them since (see: Gone Fiddleheadin’), and based on the enjoyment I get from doing so and the positive feedback I get from my posts featuring them, I likely will again.

Least favorite post:

Easy one! I Don’t Know If I Want You To Read This Yet, which went live on the blog just a couple of weeks ago.  It’s another short story featuring Adrian McAllister, a character I was “getting to know” through writing some short pieces.  Adrian is the protagonist of a mystery novel I am working on, and I thought I could learn more about him by putting him in situations that are not necessarily part of the novel in progress.  My first attempt, the aforementioned Adrian and the Cannibal’s Internet Connection turned out quite nicely, I thought, and ranks as one of the most popular posts on Wicked Awesomology.  The second one, simply entitled Confession, where Adrian goes to confession at a Catholic church and is given learning how to surf as a penance still sounds like a great premise to me, but I don’t feel like I pulled it off successfully in the short story format.  The supporting characters I included needed more development than that format would allow.  I gritted my teeth, polished it up, and put it up on the blog not so long ago mainly to get it out of my hair. It’s not terrible.  I wouldn’t have posted it if it was.  But it’s not an example of my best by a long shot.

Strangest post:

The Accidental Coffee  was an odd post inspired by an odd problem I had one night.  I accidentally made a pot of coffee, and didn’t have the heart to just dump it out.  On the other hand, I couldn’t drink it, or I’d be up all night.  When I mentioned the problem to a friend, he said, and I quote, “That’s the kind of problem only YOU would have!  You ought to blog about it.”  You’ll have to read the post for the details, but it turned out quite well, I think.  It was one of those great times for a writer when the words were coming to me faster than I could type them.  Other than a cursory check for grammar and spelling issues, I didn’t even tweak it after I was done.  I just put it together as fast as I could and got it out to the world.  It’s gotten more hits than any other posting on Wicked Awesomology to this point, though I do think some funny business with search terms on Google artificially inflated the numbers.

Post that spurred the most feedback:

Give It Up, a post from April about giving things up for Lent.  Most of the feedback I get on Wicked Awesomology does not come in the comments section, but rather through Tweets and e-mails.  Because this post touched on a religion-related topic, it stirred some things amongst my readers.  To everyone’s credit, all the feedback I got was respectful and polite.  Nonetheless, it reminded me that posts on religion, politics, and sometimes even sports, can be polarizing.  I have plenty of forums available to me for airing my own opinions on those topics, but I do not choose to have Wicked Awesomology be one of those.  If I post on any topic that can be polarizing, I do so in a lighthearted way that is not meant to alienate anyone.  This blog is not my soapbox.  It’s more of an observation deck.

Other backstage stuff:

I try to post something new at least once a week, if possible.  It’s taken a while to get to that routine, but it seems to be one that works well for both me and my readers.  I really don’t know how some bloggers can post daily.  I just don’t have that much to say that is worth reading!  Unfortunately, neither do some of them, but they haven’t figured that out yet.

If I post a book review, it usually means that the great god of writing inspiration has taken the week off and is down the street drinking Lowenbrau in a seedy bar, trying to forget that I exist.  At this point though, I feel a commitment to providing fresh, quality content on a regular basis to my readers, and posting a past book review of something I’ve read and previously posted on Amazon or Goodreads.com is a good way to do that when the spirit doesn’t move me.  I’d much rather take that route than post garbage.  The book reviews I post are for books I’ve really, really liked though.

My offline writing projects sometimes take up a lot of my time and creative juices.  I have been working on a collaborative novel with a very talented author (whose identity I am presently keeping secret to protect the innocent) for about nine months now.  I also have a “solo project” underway featuring Adrian McAllister, as I previously mentioned.  These are a very different type of writing than blog posts, requiring a lot more planning and infinitely more revision and editing.  A blog post typically takes me a couple of hours, whereas a single chapter in either project can take several days just to attain finished first draft status.  When those projects are bearing down hard on me, you are likely to see a book review post too.

Wicked Awesomology is a balancing act for me as a writer.  It’s a forum for me to toss my writing experiments into, but it has also become a place with a reliable core of readers who have come to have certain expectations.  Your comments, questions and suggestions on blog posts (content or style) are very valuable for me.  Unless you want to tell me I suck.  The little red devil on my shoulder tells me that on a regular basis. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment on the post itself, or via Tweet or e-mail.

At this point, I’ve got just over 8000 page views on Wicked Awesomology in the past year.  It’s not huge, but much more than I would have expected.  The graph thingamabob in my statistic section shows strong, consistent growth over time.   It’s very gratifying.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and stay tuned.

Talking Top Trending Twitter Topics Today!

A few months back, I wrote about my thoughts on Twitter, as you may recall.  I still feel like the most clueless guy on there, but I am up to more than 300 followers at this point, so I must be doing something right.  Never mind that half of them are motivational speakers, for some inexplicable reason.  Do my posts and tweets sound like I need an emotional revving up?  Maybe I ought to get an electric Prozac diffuser or something.

One of the most entertaining aspects of Twitter is “Trending Topics”.  It’s a continually updated listing of the ten most popular phrases and hashtags on Twitter. Hashtags are key words preceded by a pound, (like #squidmuffins).  They help you see, and be seen by, others using that same hashtag, even if they don’t follow you.  If I want to connect with other Twitterers while a Red Sox game is being broadcast, for example, I’ll search #redsox to find out who is tweeting on that topic, and will include that hashtag on my own Red Sox-related tweets so it too can be seen.  It’s a good way to find like-minded people to follow, as well as to gain new followers.  Even if they are in this case Red Sox fans, a group only marginally more rational and articulate than a basket of rabid lemurs.

Without further ado, I am going to list and comment on the trending topics on Twitter in the United States, as of early evening, March 11, 2012.

·         #SXSW (Promoted): Like it says, this is promoted.  That means that no one really cares about it, but the people behind it paid Twitter biggish bucks to stick it at the top of the list.  I hate these trending topics, and would not search or comment with them if someone was hanging me upside down over a vat of live electric eels.

·         Kobe to Bynum: Like I mentioned, it is popular to tweet to fellow fans of a sport while watching a game.  Evidently, in the current game between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant is making a lot of passes to Andrew Bynum.  So much so that tweets about it have caused this phrase to trend.  As a Celtics fan, I feel that this #sucks #a #lot.

·         #SelectionSunday: Another sports trend.  I am speculating that this has something to do with the March Madness college basketball tournament, an athletic event I just cannot get interested in.  (Others include golf, tennis, and competitive dwarf-eating.)  I’ve tried to before, but the number of competitive college basketball teams overwhelms me.  It’s hard to get excited for East Overshoe Tech when you’ve never heard of them, don’t know any of the players or coaches, or even know where the school is. The whole event is just too big to get my head around.  Maybe I’m just bitter because my alma mater hasn’t had a winning season this millennium.  This is something I could use one of those motivational speakers to help me with, I think.

·         #twitter_movies: This is one of those fun “microfad” trends.  In this case, people rename popular movies so they relate in some way to Twitter.  You’ll see such things as "I Know What You Tweeted last Summer", and “A Tweetcar Named Desire”.  They can be fun, though when you read down through a list like this, if becomes abundantly clear that not everyone is born with the humor gene. Or the grammar gene.

·         Greg Gumbel: I’m going to go out on a limb here and surmise that Greg Gumbel is hosting the March Madness Tournament selection program.  Who would have guessed 20 years ago that Greg would be the most popular and visible Gumbel on TV today, and Bryant would be managing a car wash outside of Dayton?

·         Bracket Time: Another March Madness trend.  Are you seeing why this is the one sporting event that gets on my nerves?  I just don’t get it, and yet it is everywhere, making me feel like everyone but me understands and enjoys it!  (Maybe statements like this are why all those motivational speakers follow me.)

·         #GoForth: I have no clue what this trend is about.  Could be a reference to the biblical book of Genesis, but more likely it is a tagline from an advertisement for potato chips or a new car, western culture being what it is these days.

·         Steve Alford: Had to Google this one.  Mr. Alford is the coach of the University of New Mexico men’s basketball team.  The Lobos (that’s the team name) are probably going to the March Madness Tournament, if the other popular trends tonight are any indication.  You think the teams that the Lobos play refer to them as the Bozos behind their backs?  I bet they do.

        Kurt Busch: Kurt Busch is a mediocre-at-best NASCAR driver who is a master at self-promotion by using the method of having the mentality of an angry 13-year-old boy who hasn’t taken his Ritalin. He’s a creep, but he gets attention, hence this trending topic.

·         One Direction Giveaway: This is not a sponsored trend, but it is an example of marketers hijacking Twitter for their own purposes.  I guess I am okay with that, given how often I pimp this blog and my other projects on Twitter myself.  One Direction, and I had to Google this one too, are a British-Irish boy band who finished third on the seventh season of The X Factor in Britain.  Given that I have a strict policy of not listening to any musical acts whose combined age does not total that of my favorite pair of sneakers, I have obviously never heard of them.

Twitter is a lot of fun, and I have met some really great people on it.  If you haven’t tried it, go ahead.  Follow me at @countofbluecars, and I’ll be sure to mention you to all the motivational speakers following me.