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Coyote Mercury Posts

Weekend Hound Blogging: Tripping the Mouth Daphtastic

February 4, 2007 • • Leave a comment

We’ve been having work done on our floors this week, so we’ve had to send the pups to doggy daycare. Joey and Phoebe go twice a week, but Daphne has never gone. In the past we’ve tried to board her, and she spent the whole time cowering in a corner panting.

Not anymore. The new Daphne runs and plays with the other dogs. The new Daphne likes to go to daycare. I suspect it’s partially the influence of Joey, who also likes to run and play with other dogs. Still, it’s amazing that after four and a half years, our little spook is still learning to be a dog, taking mostly baby steps, but sometimes full greyhound strides.

Go, Daphne.

And cheers to The Family Guy for this little exchange (paraphrasing):

Stewie (the baby): You’ll wind up in a dumpster with a bunch of unwanted greyhounds.

Brian (the alcoholic dog): Hey, that’s not funny! That’s our holocaust!

[saveagrey]

So Long, Molly

February 1, 2007 • • 4 Comments

When I think of Molly Ivins, I think of the importance of laughing in the face of tragedy. That’s not what she was necessarily about, but two things come to mind when I think of her…

I listened to her critique the language of George W one September morning on my way to work. It was sunny and beautiful and I sat in the parking lot at school while she finished up. I went in laughing at her jokes and disgusted with our president. Later, that Tuesday had turned into 9-11 and I drove home wondering if I’d ever laugh like that again. But then, I remembered what she said – since forgotten – and laughed. It was probably the last time I laughed at Bush with real humor and not as a defense mechanism.

Jump to November 2006. We were fortunate to go hear Molly Ivins lecture about the death of journalism. You could tell it wasn’t easy for her, but she had the audience at Hogg Auditorium laughing as she shared some her best stories: the gang pluck incident, her first murder (covered, not committed, she pointed out). She talked about the need for locality in newspapers and how a good newspaper had to be of its community.

She made us laugh; she made us think, and it was easy to see she was fighting hard, that she was losing, that she damn sure wasn’t going to give up. Being a Texas progressive taught her to fight hard and do it with a smile, and it sounds like that’s how she fought cancer.

It was a weird night, and a week later a friend of ours lost his own battle against cancer. These things are all mixed up for me now, blended together into the swirl of memory, but one thing stands out when I think of Molly Ivins: Laugh. No matter what.

Links to other blogs remembering Ivins: In the Pink Texas, Off the Kuff, PinkDome, Bad Astronomy Blog, Brains and Eggs, Capitol Annex, Eye on Williamson County, Burnt Orange Report

Update: In the comments, Jessica suggested that this post wasn’t complete without some links to Ivins’ writing. Jessica is right, so here are some links:

WordPress 2.1?

February 1, 2007 • • Leave a comment

Blogging about blogging is close to the lowest form of blogging, but blogging about the behind the scenes aspects of a blog is like watching someone else’s cat spit up hairballs on the carpet, so as of this post, that kind of blogging will occur on my other blog, aptly named Coyote Mercury Test Blog, mainly because I’m using it to see if I can actually execute the upgrade to 2.1 and to find out if my theme and plugins will work.

If you’re using WordPress and considering the upgrade, you may find it useful or interesting. If not, you won’t.

In the future, I’ll probably use it for testing plugins, theme modifications, and any future upgrades. I doubt I’ll post there regularly.

Diver Down

January 31, 2007 • • Leave a comment

He could not so much see the fish as he knew they were there, surrounding him by the millions. He could not touch them, yet he knew they were as real as the sun behind them. As he fell deeper, the fish began to disappear and he saw stranger and more unsettling things that he could recall no more once they faded from his sight.

He knew he was an intruder in a place he did not belong. So long as no one found out and he was careful, he knew he would make it back to the other side, but for now he was gone. Missing in action and high in love with the nuances of every strange new sensation that gripped him.

Sticking to the dive plan was impossible. He couldn’t remember it anyway. Who knows where a moment will take one in a time of free-fall, when the body and mind wonder at a separate pace, abstractions real and reality a distraction. The only thing that mattered was resurfacing correctly when the time came. Come up slow, he remembered the dive master saying.

His mind raced sluggishly along the bottom. He watched as the blurry tornado of tropical fish was replaced by one of raw motion swimming to and fro in distinct packets for which he could find no name.

When he looked up through the clear water he saw every star ever recorded shimmering above the watery ceiling, and he alone beneath them. He released more air, negating his bouancy, and dropped again ever farther into the unfathomable deep, searching for the bottom.

It amazed him how much there was to see, how much he had not known.

Old Photo Friday

January 26, 2007 • • Leave a comment

One of my favorite central Texas hikes is the Good Water Trail that follows Lake Georgetown west as it turns into the North Fork of the San Gabriel River. My dad and I hiked the whole thing in the summer of 2002. It’s not too long, but it made for a good, hot and exhausting day.

This is a picture of the springs, the good water, I suppose.

Are Journalists Bloggers?

January 26, 2007 • • 4 Comments

There’s been talk about letting bloggers report from the floor of the Texas lege, an issue that’s coming up in other states as well, which has sparked some interesting posts about whether or not bloggers ought to be considered journalists and granted similar access. I followed the online discussion from Off the Kuff to “Are bloggers real journalists?” on Texas Politics, a mainstream media blog. The post noted that many journalists were taking up blogging and referred to the phenomenon in which old media co-opts new media.

I left a comment under the clever alias of JB (the name my good twin once went by but that’s a post for another time) wondering if journalists should be considered real bloggers. I pondered the wealth of smart ass comments along the lines of mainstream media blogs being nothing but the Green Day of the blogosphere. I thought about how mainstream media bloggers probably get paid to blog, can openly blog at work, still can’t say whatever they want, don’t have to build their readerships from scratch. I wondered if they could post pictures of their pets or throw bling into their sidebars, etc etc.

Seriously (sort of) though, it’s an interesting question. The most exciting thing about blogs, the ones that compete with news organizations anyway, is that they are truly independent voices, beholden to no corporate masters. I’m sure that this is what scares so many people, but I consider that the blogs’ greatest asset.

There seem to be some who think that only journalists have credibility, but the fact is, blogs live and die by their credibility and personal standards in a world that can be far less forgiving than one in which the medium is supported by monthly subscriptions and high dollar ad revenue.

I generally don’t read blogs affiliated with major news organizations. When I want news, I go to newspapers. When I want commentary, analysis, advocacy or humor, I go first to blogs – independent blogs – written by passionate, funny, interesting people who are often working for free (that last is probably the seed that will one day kill off the notion of professional columnists as much as I like my Leonard Pitts and George Will).

The personal and independent voices that are the bulk of online media have a heart-beating-to-that-iron-string quality that seems more honest and also more American (in a Ralph Waldo Emerson sort of way) than corporate blogging. So, to tackle the original question: are bloggers journalists? Yeah, some of them. Are journalists bloggers? Not so much. They strike me as journalists who blog, which is good thing. They should.

Regarding the bigger issue, that of access, this is a no-brainer. The mainstream media under-covers state legislatures. Why not let bloggers fill the void, and why not let those bloggers be people who are willing to bet their personal reputations on the worthiness of what they produce be it commentary, news, analysis, satire or any combination of the above? Blogs represent not just a new technological platform for writing, but a new style that doesn’t necessarily follow the exact traditions of journalism but still informs us about our political process.

With journalists blogging and bloggers journalisting, we all benefit from the increased light shone on our politics.

All of us except perhaps our politicians, but then that’s kind of the point too.

Friday Random Ten

January 26, 2007 • • Leave a comment

And so, the most recent ten, the last track of which had me unplugging the ‘pod and going for the actual CD.

  1. “Trouble” – Bugge Wesseltoft – New Conceptions of Jazz
  2. “Melinda” – Stan Getz – The Artistry of Stan Getz
  3. “Duet Solo Dancers” – Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
  4. “Doctor’s Orders” – Sonic Youth – Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star
  5. “Rainbow Babe” – Luna – Rendezvous
  6. “The Black Five” – Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Mystic Voyage
  7. “Summertime Rolls” – Jane’s Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking
  8. “Until We Have Enough” – Spent – A Seat Beneath the Chairs
  9. “I Walk the Line” – Johnny Cash – 16 Biggest Hits
  10. “A Perfect Lie” – Jerry Harrison – Casual Gods

I’ve always loved Jerry Harrison’s funky Casual Gods album. It’s so underrated, but I think when the Talking Heads broke up, the world was expecting something more, well, more like the Heads. Instead we got a cool little album that wasn’t at all ironic or even very hip. It was – gasp! – kind of sincere. It’s a shame that Harrison hasn’t done more solo work.

And If They Ban Me from Their Gym

January 25, 2007 • • 1 Comment

Just plodding along on the treadmill at the gym listening to the ipod go through the big shuffle, something happened when “Sailin’ On” by Bad Brains came screaming through the headphones. Perhaps it was the speed-of-light intensity of Dr Know’s guitar racing to the end of the world against HR’s vocals, but suddenly, I wasn’t moving.

When the song finished, I reprogrammed the ‘pod to play Rock for Light and immediately I was thrown into that chaotic world of early eighties hard core punk where no band seemed to ever play faster or with more passion than Bad Brains whose punk fueled Rasta love was the hardest, most searing music I’d ever heard. I kept speeding up the treadmill, and extending the time. The music kept me moving, a big takeover, and when I looked down my feet looked like they weren’t even moving so extreme was the disconnect between sound and light in that strange return to Heaven.

Not until I ran out of songs did I want to stop, but I ran much longer and much faster than usual. Good thing I don’t have the whole album on the ‘pod. I could see myself speeding the treadmill beyond all reason and flying off into the ski machines behind me. That would have been so punk rock stage diving cool in a suburban thirtysomething kind of way, but then they might have banned me from their club.