Tuesday Musette
This is weird.
I met the deadline for that long piece and now I'm actually missing doing the work. I feel curiously unfocused because that process of interviewing, making notes, doing transcripts, reading tons of background material, and finally sitting down to write the beast totally consumed my time and attention for a few weeks. I hated it and I miss it. I don't like deadlines and writing 'serious' stuff requires enormous amounts of time and preparation. It really doesn't pay well if you consider it on an hourly basis. Comedy is so much easier because I can simply make things up. That's not an original thought. Patrick McManus wrote it.
A few minutes ago, my crew chief announced that we will not be working overtime this Saturday. Hooray! I've been in the shop every Saturday since the Fourth of July and it's getting old. Sure, the money is nice, but having some time off is nice too. I'm thinking about going downtown Saturday morning in order to photograph some Art Deco since Tulsa has a wealth of it. And of course, since it's right nearby, I'll look for some Route 66 photo opportunities too.
Meanwhile, there's a piece to finish for the Red Dirt Pedalers and a whole lot of catching up to do on the Examiner. The admittedly modest income from the latter is my slush fund for camera purchases, so the catching up is important. I've spent too much on Ebay recently.
Jay Cronley did his annual "bicycling is scary" piece in the Tulsa World today. This time it didn't totally suck. Wait. I went back and re-read it, and now that I've done so I must revise my opinion. It sucked. I really don't mind if someone is completely ignorant of simple ways to make riding on the street easier or even pleasant. Ignorance is what it is, and changing it can be difficult. But this guy is supposedly a writer and, to my mind at least, he should have an inquiring mind. He doesn't. Instead, he's content to write an annual piece bitching about motorists and how frightening it is to ride around them instead of looking into learning how to ride on the street safely. That learning process is another opportunity to find some column fodder and actually inform readers. But I guess if I can piss and moan about writing 'serious' stuff and the time it takes, I should give him a pass for taking the easy way out too.
Nah.
I met the deadline for that long piece and now I'm actually missing doing the work. I feel curiously unfocused because that process of interviewing, making notes, doing transcripts, reading tons of background material, and finally sitting down to write the beast totally consumed my time and attention for a few weeks. I hated it and I miss it. I don't like deadlines and writing 'serious' stuff requires enormous amounts of time and preparation. It really doesn't pay well if you consider it on an hourly basis. Comedy is so much easier because I can simply make things up. That's not an original thought. Patrick McManus wrote it.
A few minutes ago, my crew chief announced that we will not be working overtime this Saturday. Hooray! I've been in the shop every Saturday since the Fourth of July and it's getting old. Sure, the money is nice, but having some time off is nice too. I'm thinking about going downtown Saturday morning in order to photograph some Art Deco since Tulsa has a wealth of it. And of course, since it's right nearby, I'll look for some Route 66 photo opportunities too.
Meanwhile, there's a piece to finish for the Red Dirt Pedalers and a whole lot of catching up to do on the Examiner. The admittedly modest income from the latter is my slush fund for camera purchases, so the catching up is important. I've spent too much on Ebay recently.
Jay Cronley did his annual "bicycling is scary" piece in the Tulsa World today. This time it didn't totally suck. Wait. I went back and re-read it, and now that I've done so I must revise my opinion. It sucked. I really don't mind if someone is completely ignorant of simple ways to make riding on the street easier or even pleasant. Ignorance is what it is, and changing it can be difficult. But this guy is supposedly a writer and, to my mind at least, he should have an inquiring mind. He doesn't. Instead, he's content to write an annual piece bitching about motorists and how frightening it is to ride around them instead of looking into learning how to ride on the street safely. That learning process is another opportunity to find some column fodder and actually inform readers. But I guess if I can piss and moan about writing 'serious' stuff and the time it takes, I should give him a pass for taking the easy way out too.
Nah.
posted by Ed W at 7:36 PM
3 Comments:
It may have always been so, but to me it seems I read more and more unthinking, uninquiring stuff. I think blogs are partly to blame; they have encouraged many to simply generate content, the easier to create the better... or I could just be feeling like a crabby old man.
Between the article & the comments, apparently, the lousy Texas drivers move up your way and become Okies. ;-)
If the reporter know ahead of time what the drivers are going to do, what's the scary part?
Post a Comment
<< Home