M&M

How to save newspapers

2009-03-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

Final P-I grace notes

2009-03-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

I'm still making my way through Tuesday's final print edition of the Seattle P-I, and there's some great fine-print stuff hidden in there among the big-headline commemorative features I highlighted last week.

Buried on Page A32 with the rest of the obits -- between "PETERSON: Susan A." and "RASKOV: Marcia C." -- is this two-line listing under "King County Deaths": "POST-INTELLIGENCER: Seattle, 146, of Seattle, March 17.

And then my favorite, in the Sports section's agate-type transactions column -- where, for example, you might normally learn which spring-training baseball players were cut from their major-league rosters -- the Monday transactions include "Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sports Department." Listed there are the "released" sports editor Nick Rousso, who joined us for Friday's M&M poker game, and baseball reporter David Andriessen who, in the jargon of the form, is said to be "placed on irrevocable waivers for the purposes of granting him his unconditional release."

Everyone in the sports department is given a similar send-off. Funny, sad, classic gallows-humor stuff.

The best transaction report, though, is the final entry, which doubles as a parting shot at the new, skeleton-crew online P-I:

"Optioned Gerald Spratt (night editor) and Greg Johns (reporter) to their minor-league camp."

Spratt and Johns are staying on at SeattlePI.com.

Family Movie

2009-03-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

I made this little video of the girls (using the iSight camera on the MacBook 13'') during our Thanksgiving trip to Grandma Rita's house. I finally got around to getting permission from Jon Brion's people to use his beautiful song "Little People" with the video, so can finally post. Enjoy!

...

(Sorry, I had to remove the video. I only had the right to use the Jon Brion music for a little while. Thanks Jon Brion!)

Inaugural M&M home game

2009-03-22T16:43:00.001-07:00

Never play poker with a guy named Doc, they say, so maybe our first mistake was inviting Rayo “Doc” Inouye to our little card game at Casa M&M on Friday night.

Rayo, a retired copy desk chief at the Seattle Times, is now a semipro poker player whose identity as Doc is so ingrained in local card rooms that, as we laughed about again the other night, he was once called upon to perform CPR at a table-side medical emergency. He’s a fun guy to have in a home game, full of stories about the old days in newspapers and gambling halls.

It was about time that Michelle and I reciprocated by inviting some journo friends over for a game here. We’ve been mooching off pals like P-I managing editor David McCumber and Seattle Timesers Jim Simon and Jack Broom for years -- in fact I played with Jack and Rayo in a regular game 20 years ago -- and when we lived in LA we had a semi-regular game that always seemed to be at the home of our friends Donna Wares and Ed Humes, never at ours. Some kind of Matassalosi aversion to cleaning, I suspect.

This time Broom, Simon, Rayo, McCumber and former P-I sports editor Nick Rousso all came out to West Seattle -- and everyone brought something to eat or drink, including some splendid salmon and delicious salami under McCumber's arm. It was quite the party.

Also a great seven-handed poker game. Michelle, unsurprisingly, drank the other six of us grizzled old-school reporter/editor types under the table and took our money too. My kind of chick.

Doc made it through the night without being called upon to practice medicine. But his poker skills were scalpel-sharp; he was the game’s biggest winner.

We’re hoping to make it a regular M&M event, even if that means we have to tidy up every few weeks.

Jefferson, improvised

2009-03-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Now that I have received permission from Flickr user little.brain (Paul Fankhauser, until this week a P-I tech expert), here is the photo I mentioned yesterday of Thomas Jefferson's famous quote about newspapers. The quote, painted in a P-I newsroom stairway, was modified by a commenter apparently unhappy with the paper's online future.

By the way, there was some speculation online that this is a Photoshopped picture, with the snarky amendment to Jefferson added digitally. Paul assures me the sign was real, that it was still taped to the wall late Monday night but was gone when he arrived at work on Tuesday.

The P-I, going and coming

2009-03-17T17:09:00.001-07:00

From my old office at the Seattle P-I you could see the reflection of our iconic P-I Globe overhead in the windows of a building across the courtyard. We used to joke about checking to make sure the world was still turning, figuring that’s how we’d find out if they decided to shut the paper down.

Now that the print version of the P-I really has closed, it’s meager comfort I suppose that the red neon “It’s in the P-I” still spins around the neon globe. Coverage of today’s final edition was at once mournful and celebratory, appropriately, with highlights being Carol Smith’s excellent obit of the paper and Lewis Kamb’s fine “tick-tock” accounting of the final day in the newsroom, along with Curt Milton’s terrific video capturing staffers’ final thoughts, and a couple of nice photo galleries at both the P-I and Seattle Times sites.

Last night Michelle and I went to the paper’s unofficial bar in lower Queen Anne, Buckley’s, for a fun, drunken wake that was primed by loose change in the newsroom’s “Flower Fund” and replenished for hours, incredibly, by people around the country who heard about the party on Facebook or Twitter and phoned donations directly to the bartender. A couple hundred dollars worth, I heard.

Newspapers may die, the economy may tank, but generosity abounds ... or at least appreciation of a good excuse to throw a few back.

There was an undercurrent of tension at Buckley’s last night as, I understand, there has been at the P-I these past couple of weeks. Not just the bad feelings about the paper’s demise, I mean, but mixed feelings about its future. The P-I is not going away completely. As widely reported -- even in the lead spot on the New York Times site last night -- a small, online-only operation will survive, led by Michelle. That’s good for us personally (it’s nice to have one income between us) and for the couple dozen people who will join her in the new venture. I also believe it’s good for journalism. As newspapers struggle to stay afloat and new news models pop up, all eyes will be on SeattlePI.com to see if it can figure out how to commit journalism and make money at the same time.

But there’s a palpable backwash of resentment too among those 150 or so P-I journalists not staying on board for the next phase. Some of the online staffers, already suffering survivor’s guilt, told me they’ve been guilt-tripped further by former colleagues for accepting less pay to remain with the new venture while others were passed over. “I got the full ‘Norma Rae’ treatment,” one said.

A friend of ours, political reporter Angela Galloway, was quoted this morning describing the feeling last week when online execs trolled through the newsroom asking to speak to certain staffers about joining the new crew.

"Waiting for them to come out and pull in their latest hire was like sitting through a game of Duck, Duck, Goose," Angela said.

I saw a photo online this morning that also suggested some doubts about an online-only model: Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote about newspapers, as painted on a P-I newsroom wall, with a little jab at the new model tacked on.

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter," Jefferson said. Added, on printer paper: "Or at least on online version with a greatly reduced staff and lots of links."

Isolated misgivings notwithstanding, I think most of the old P-I gang wishes the new venture well. Even some who are talking about starting a news site of their own -- which they initially viewed as competition for the P-I -- are now coming around to the smart (I think) realization that two (or more) sites could complement and help one another.

Meanwhile, it’s been kind of fun for me to watch Michelle become an online news rock star. She was all over the Internet yesterday and in publications from The Stranger to the New York Times. One Twitterer, relaying a link to her description of the new online P-I, referred to “Nicolosi’s St. Crispin’s Day speech.” As a fan of Henry V -- the play, not necessarily the king -- I thought that was cool.

I feel bad for all my friends at the P-I, and for the loss of the paper itself. I loved working there and made many enduring friendships. I’m forever indebted to the now former managing editor, David McCumber, who has become a good friend and who wrote this sweetly sentimental departing column, for taking a chance and hiring me and Michelle five years ago, getting us back to Seattle from Los Angeles. He made a tremendous difference in my life.

Given the scrappy and positive outlook of my colleagues at the paper I have every confidence they’ll emerge from this sad day with exciting new professional or personal ventures.

There’s a lot of good will in this town just waiting for them. Last night, after the Buckley’s fest, I dropped Michelle off at the P-I to pick up her car. We were accosted at the garage by a middle-aged couple who said they just stopped by -- this was 11 o’clock -- to pay their respects.

They left this little shrine to the P-I.

Here are a couple more links from today's coverage:

Seattle P-I through the years (Seattle Times photo gallery)
Vintage covers from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle Times photo gallery)
Under the Needle: P-I had a cast of characters, with storied histories, by Mike Lewis
Last day at the P-I (P-I gallery)

Photo credit: Spinning globe, top, by Flickr user Helpcraft
Franny and Gina from another era, 2005, in my P-I office.

The premiere of Greg In Hollywood

2009-03-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

Of all the thousands of journalists to lose their jobs lately, few can be luckier than our friend Greg Hernandez. Offering to help -- and meaning it! -- was an incredible posse of talented friends: one of the world's leading Internet search experts, a brilliant web designer, an expert web engineer and a marketing guru.

The result: A week after losing his job at the Los Angeles Daily News, Greg today launched his new venture, Greg In Hollywood, a site that has the feel of an instant winner.

Greg and Michelle are close friends so I'll let her tell more about his story and their common friends who helped launch GIH, but the site's only been up a few hours and I wanted to post a quick shout-out.

Good luck, Greg. I'm sure you'll rock in the new gig. I wish you equal measures of success and fun.

No news, which is bad news

2009-02-28T19:25:00.000-08:00

This is one of a series of posts by Chuck Taylor and me about the decline of the newspaper business and what that means for Seattle journalism. Chuck last posted at his Seattle Post-Times blog, and I wrote previously here.

While I admire the hard work and can-do sense of optimism that have gone into events like Thursday night’s “No News Is Bad News” panel, the recent spate of discussions on Seattle’s journalism future have left me frustrated, and a bit winded.

For all the motion I don’t sense much movement. The conversations, though pinging among smart, involved people, tend to be circular -- and repetitive from event to event. Yes, it’s a drag that newspapers are dying; and yes, it’s important for society to save, replicate or replace the vital reporting function that metro dailies have provided lo these many years.

But listening in the other night to a live-stream of the NNBN event (video here) I found myself wishing we could stipulate those and a few other points:

* Newspapers have brought some of this shit on themselves, through arrogance, laziness, fear of technology and collective head-in-sand disease.

* “Newspapers” do not equal "news"; nor for that matter does “mainstream media” equal “journalism.”

* Bloggers are people too. Blogging is a platform, not a (lacking) style of reporting or writing.

* That said, not all bloggers or citizen journalists practice the kind of fact-checking that distinguishes the best of legacy professional journalism.

* Whatever comes next, a viable business model is key.

OK. So now what do you want to talk about?

For a few minutes the other night the discussion did swing around toward business models for news outlets -- panelist Art Thiel’s pitch for a Green Bay Packers-style community ownership plan, for example. Somebody else ignored an official admonition and uttered the word micropayments. But none of that talk got too far, nor was there much exploration of what readers actually want to see in their newsiness publication, whatever form it may take.

At one point I tried to interject via Twitter. “Question for #nnbn: Moving on, what will/should local newscape look like post-PI, or post-newspaper?” And I was pleasantly surprised that emcee Dave Ross picked up my question and repeated it to the panel. Alas it didn’t really go anywhere.

Now, I understand, the NNBN folks are talking about putting together a second event to continue the discussion, this one focused more on business considerations. That may prove helpful, but -- I’m sorry -- I’m dubious. And Chuck, I see that you’ve launched a nifty wiki to take on some of the same questions. That strikes me as a cool tool, essentially an extension of the public-meeting discussions, but from the comfort of our homes and with no closing gavel. Personally I’ve never felt comfortable contributing to wikis, but I like the concept and I’m sure some good thinking will surface there. I’ll be watching for sure.

Like the old-school, curmudgeonly dinosaurs lamented in these recent panels, I find myself naysaying a lot of stuff without offering any genius ideas of my own. One difference, maybe: I welcome the new. In fact I launched my own online news digest site 10 years ago, worked for MSNBC.com at startup three years before that, and have been a big advocate for Web-first, blog-centric and Twitterific reporting ever since.

But where does all that leave us? I still worry that whatever emerges from the ashes of dailies like the P-I will need some time to get its act completely together.

For instance, as much as I read and admire West Seattle Blog -- Tracy Record’s work ethic shames nearly every newspaper reporter I’ve ever known -- I got in WSB's virtual face a couple of weeks ago regarding a crime report that I thought was irresponsible in its description of a suspect. As much as I respect Cory Bergman, of MyBallard fame, I disagree with his premise -- noted in a comment on your recent post, Chuck, -- that what’s needed is a breach of the “Great Wall” between journalism and the business side of news operations. Actually, disagree is the wrong word. I’m not even sure what he means. But I know I believe in that wall.

This week, Eli Sanders at The Stranger speculated a bit about what the next, online-only P-I might look like: a lot of aggregation, he supposed, including links to formerly competing publications including the Seattle Times. That seems logical and even smart to me, although I know there’s a lot of angst about it among soon-to-be-former P-I staffers.

What do you think, Chuck? And what’s your take on the emerging news sites taking off around town -- PubliCola, Seattle Courant and the various neighborhood blogs? I have some thoughts on those, but I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and those of our readers, first.

For every down, an up

2009-02-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

Needing a break from the failure of newspapers, hassles of health care and annoyances of unemployment, yesterday I took the bicycle out. My sister Michele and I had a great ride down the hill to Alki Beach, with its beautiful views of downtown Seattle on one side and the Olympic Mountains on the other, and enjoyed a nice fish-and-chips lunch at Sunfish.

Of course then it turned out that if you ride down to the beach you also have to pedal up the hill to get home. Still, all good.

A little exercise and fresh air on an usually pleasant, spring-like February afternoon. We agreed it was good day to not have a job.

Here are a few pics, beginning with Mich saddling up at my house.

Party for the PI's Reader Bloggers

2009-02-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

A great time was had by all at the party for SeattlePI.com reader bloggers at Buckley's in Queen Anne tonite. Star PI reader blogger Jacob Metcalf was there, along with the awesome women behind Lemon Margaritas, Beast Mom, Woman at the Table and the late, great Educating Mom blogs. I'd guess in all maybe 30 or 40 bloggers turned out, including a number of PI staff bloggers. Here's Jacob:

Thanks everyone for coming!

News news, news talk

2009-02-25T15:41:00.001-08:00

With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the brink of folding and several local groups meeting to discuss the future of news in Seattle, Chuck Taylor and I are joining the fray here and at Chuck's site Seattle Post-Times.

Periodically -- we haven't set deadlines or a time frame for this series -- we'll both post on both blogs our thoughts about the city's changing newscape and about the discussion tracking it. Chuck and I are friends, longtime former colleagues at the Seattle Times and parallel but unconnected travelers in the world of online news. We're also simultaneously (temporarily?) unemployed journalists.

Although there's nothing new about blogged conversations, this format is new for both M&M and Seattle Post-Times. Please feel free to join in with comments at either or both sites, and let us know how we could improve the format.

Thanks for joining us. -- Mark Matassa

Chuck,

Ever since Hearst announced last month that it would likely close the Seattle P-I in mid-March, Seattle journalists, bloggers and even public officials have been abuzz with concern and -- in some quarters, I suspect -- excitement: What if the Seattle Times closes too? We could go from a two-newspaper to a no-newspaper town inside of one year!

To buck each other up, rally the troops or maybe just find a shared room to stew in their shock and sadness, several groups have organized public forms on the future of the Seattle news business. There’s one tonight at the University of Washington, in fact, sponsored by the Online News Association, with a nice mix of panelists from print, online and radio.

Tomorrow night, Thursday, an ad hoc group of mostly bloggers is putting on an event titled “No News Is Bad News” at City Hall, promising to address the rather unfocused question “Seattle as a No-Newspaper Town?”

A couple of weeks ago City Councilman Nick Licata convened a hearing on the same subject, with some of the same folks involved. You not only attended that one, Chuck, but covered it live on Twitter and later posted about it on your Seattle Post-Times blog. Last week was yet another forum, this one by CityClub.

All well and good. And this subject of the changing news landscape has gripped the national media and blogosphere as well. The discussion as I’ve been following it seems to break into a couple of branches: wailing and navel-gazing by old-school newspaper loyalists who complain about short-cutting bloggers and who bemoan their own companies’ failure to stave off death; righteous attacks on those head-in-the-sand “curmudgeons”; and sometimes hopeful, sometimes heated arguments about which financial models might or might not save the news biz.

So, as a means of kicking off our own conversation, let me ask you:

Will you be attending this week’s events? And does tomorrow’s group even have the title right? That is, assuming the P-I does in fact close (and even if the Times follows suit), will that constitute “no news”? If so, would that be bad news?

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Mark

SOML

2009-02-24T18:54:00.001-08:00

President Obama is about to deliver his first speech to Congress, an appearance they’re not calling a State of the Union address -- or SOTU, as headline writers sometimes abbreviate it -- but that will feel like one. Last month, here in Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire gave the first State of the State (SOTS) of her second term, and a week ago today Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels offered his own State of the City (SOTC) address.

It’s that time of year. So, in the spirit of the season I’m pausing a minute for a personal assessment: the SOML, or State of My Life. Ahem. Lapel pin adjusted. Ready the teleprompters!

Although the SOTUs themselves can drone on, presidential speechwriters often include one line that cuts to the chase. Something like: Tonight, the state of the union is ... sound, challenged, hopeful, whatever the case may be.

Tonight, the state of my life is ... a mix of chaos and stasis. Staos?

In some senses very little has changed, or changes. Approaching two and a half years now since I left work to deal with my health, I remain unemployed, on medical disability, seeing doctors, popping pills, checking months off my chemo calendar. At the same time life feels like it’s changing crazily. The Seattle P-I, where I used to work and Michelle still does, is likely to close in a few weeks. But we have no official word about whether an online version of the paper will survive as rumored or, if so, whether Michelle will grab one of the few musical-chair jobs left to be had.

It’s impossible to say with any certainty what we’ll be doing three months from now or even where we’ll be living. We’re both looking for work here in Seattle, where I have family and prefer to stay, but we agree that this is no time to insist on a specific job in a specific city. As cool as the Excellent Element is, neither of us wants to live in it. So we’re looking elsewhere as well. Turbulence creates downdrafts, and I wouldn’t be surprised if M&M winds up relocating, maybe back to Los Angeles, as early as this summer.

All that’s enough to give a guy a case of the chaotics.

Partly to brace for the financial hit, and in recognition that the various federal bailouts will bail out every sector except that of dopes like us who bought a house we could afford on a loan we were qualified to receive, Michelle and I have reassessed our household budget and made significant cuts in our lifestyle. Again stupidly responsible, no doubt. To be clear, I don’t mean to whine, as we’ve merely ratcheted down to moderately conservative from comfortably affluent. I mean, we are the rock’n’rollers who spent two Pie in the Sky months on the road last year, just a couple of months after spending two weeks in Paris and Rome. We’ve had it pretty good. Ew, did you drop your caviar in my champagne? But we have made adjustments. We’re not taking any trips this year that weren’t already planned, like the April pilgrimage to New Orleans for Freda’s 70th birthday. We’re limiting ourselves to one movie outing a month. We cut back to basic cable. We’ve stopped dining out. We’re making each gin bottle last twice as long (ouch). And I’ve stopped playing poker, on the theory that you should never bet what you can’t afford to lose. That one really hurts.

In support of the new budget plan we’ve combined finances more fully than ever before. That’s a net financial gain for me but a change that makes me cringe. I’ve been financially independent now for more than 30 years and hate to surrender the feeling. Ving Rhames tells Bruce Willis in “Pulp Fiction,” “That’s pride fuckin’ with ya,” and I know that’s true. Still.

I could go on. There are indignities on the job-search front, worries on the family front, frustrations on the medical front.

A friend asked the other day about my health, and I described how at this point the effects of brain cancer feel less physical and more psychological and emotional. I struggle sometimes to think of myself as the same capable, confident person who 17 months ago spazzed out of one familiar life and into this new weird one.

Even so, as I’m sure the president is saying right about now (we’re Tivo’ing the non-SOTU), out of hardship comes opportunity. Hope and recovery are ahead. Trite as these pat lines are, I believe there is truth in them, for the individual as well as the nation.

Personally, I have much to give me strength and hope. Despite some growing pains of adolescence Gina and Franny are awesome, inspiring kids and actually fun to be around. Lovergirl Michelle and I remain totally solid, in spite of the understandable stress we both face.

I don’t know where we’ll be this time next year -- or next month for that matter. But we’ll be here. M&M abides, and the SOML is, staotic though it may be, still pretty good.

OK. Off to watch the speech. Good night, and God bless America! Please comment on Obama’s address here.

Photo credit: Top photo via whitehouse.gov on Creative Commons license.

Well aren't you saucy?

2009-02-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a review of our dinner last night from the fabulous Franny:

Well aren't you saucy?

Dinner at the Matassa's tonight was rice bowls. "rice and beanies" as they call it. What started as a saucy mix of red beans, chicken stock, sausage, and various veggies, turned out to be a wonderful and delicious dinner served over rice. With comments like "good and spicy and good" "this is tasty" and "BEANIES!" I would say this dinner was definitely a hit. I founded myself getting up to get more against my better judgement because i knew i was already full. It takes some serious foodage to make that happen. However if you try to make this meal at home take note of the coke and baget served on the side.
I give this meal two brain tumors up :)

Thanks Fran!

The envelope please ...

2009-02-21T21:55:00.000-08:00

Even before foot No. 1 has stepped onto this year's red carpet I already suspect I'll wind up disappointed in the Academy Awards tomorrow night.

Whatever movie wins best picture will be a rip, since three of my tops of the year -- "Revolutionary Road," "The Wrestler" and "Synecdoche, New York" -- aren't even nominated. The smart money for the best picture Oscar is on "Slumdog Millionaire," the feel-good love story set in Mumbai, India, and told through the lens of a popular TV game show. That's fine, I guess. Michelle and I just saw "Slumdog" last week, and while neither of us felt it deserved all the hype I certainly get why people like it. In down times like these, it feels good to feel good.

Other overrated films getting a lot of attention, in my view: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (gimmicky storytelling, OK popcorn flick, but not all that), and "Doubt" (great performances, but stillborn cinematically as a play that didn't quite make the turn). We didn't see "Frost/Nixon" as a movie, but did catch it on Broadway with the original cast -- superb! -- and I was afraid the hamfisted director Ron Howard would ruin the memory for me.

"The Wrestler" should definitely be nominated for best picture, but since it's not I hope the star Mickey Rourke wins best actor. He deserves it. Another favorite performance (and film) around here was Sean Penn in "Milk," a movie that I found strangely uplifting, strangely being that it's a true story about bigotry and assassination.

I'm not as invested in the Oscars this year as I somtimes am, at least not financially. At work I always participated in the office Oscar pool -- won it the last year I was still at the P-I, in fact, scoring some free movie tickets and popcorn certificates -- but I haven't been tracking all the odds and prognostication this year.

One of these days I expect Michelle and I will be in the Kodak Theater on Oscar night, waiting for her name to be called in the original screenplay category. Or maybe to watch Gina grab a statue for best director, or Franny for best actress.

Whatever the outcome this year, we always enjoy watching the Oscars around here and I'm sure we'll be tuned in tomorrow, with the Tivo set as a backup. I'm also hoping to check in at The Cooler, where Jason will be live-blogging the show and, as a bonus, signed up his friend Allison, of the riotously entertaining blog Tales From LaLa Land, to cover the red carpet pre-show. Check it out.

Will you be watching? What are your picks for the big categories? Let the bickering begin!

Something to get the argument started: the trailer for "Synecdoche," which no one seemed to like but the Matassalosis.

Byrne Pix, redux

2009-02-21T00:59:00.000-08:00

I took another run through the 150 pix I posted the other day, narrowed down the selection and made a slideshow with bigger pix. If you still care, you can see it here.

Same as it ever was

2009-02-20T22:25:00.001-08:00

So what did you get for your last birthday? A new tie? Maybe a nice dinner out? A piece of chocolate cake? I've got a girlfriend better than that, and nothing is better than this: David Byrne at Benaroya Hall.

As you know, Michelle took me to Byrne's Seattle concert on Wednesday night, my birthday, and it was one of the all-time great presents.

Michelle is such a huge fan of Byrne -- and especially of his groundbreaking 1970s and '80s band Talking Heads -- that she was afraid I'd consider the tickets a gift for herself. Like if I took her to a Bob Dylan show for her birthday (which I might have done, come to think of it). But no, I always loved the Talking Heads too, and except for the famous 1984 movie "Stop Making Sense" I'd never seen Byrne in concert.

Wednesday's show was everything I hoped. He brilliantly mixed classic Talking Heads stuff with music from last year's album "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today." (That's a terrific record, by the way, one of my favorites of the year. I was surprised to find just now that I didn't include on my Best of 2008 list, but now I remember I put the list together before I heard it; a friend, responding to my list, turned me on to "Everything That Happens.")

At 56 now, Byrne has barely changed from his classic "Stop Making Sense" look and sound, except for his now-white hair. Still whip-thin, constantly in motion, fluid and jangly, he looks like he could still rock a really big suit. I thought about wearing my own big suit to the show, but somewhere along the line it turned into a really small suit.

The Talking Heads may be no more, but the instrumentation, staging and showmanship Wednesday night were all vintage. Byrne played electric or acoustic guitar most of the night, backed by bass, keyboards, two drummers, three backup vocalists and three remarkable dancers. All 11 wore white (slim white pants and shirts for the men; short white dresses for the women), and they executed precise, intricate and energetic moves throughout the two-hour show. Every second seemed choreographed, and beautifully. His collaborations with Twyla Tharp weren't for nothing.

You may ask yourself, is this my rock venue? Benaroya Hall, normally home of the Seattle Symphony, turned out to be a wonderful host for a new-wave concert. The place is beautiful, and it held its great sound from the standing O that openend the show through the four encores including the scorcher "Burning Down the House."

Byrne's voice was supple and rich as it ever was. The concert goes in my Pantheon for sure. Thank you, baby, for an awesome birthday.

Last year we went to Paris. Gosh, what'll we do when I turn 50?

Here's a taste of Byrne back in the day, "Girlfriend is Better," from "Stop Making Sense."

David Byrne Rocks Seattle

2009-02-19T01:09:00.000-08:00

Quickie photos from the David Byrne concert in Seattle a few hours ago.

As many of our eight readers know, I shot the Talking Heads almost 30 years ago in New Orleans for my college paper, The Driftwood. And also, for myself. Awesome to see him again, for the 3rd time, tonite. The show was great and excellent. How awesome to have a birthday boyfriend who loves the same things I do. Happy birthday, Mark Matassa! How does it feel to be 49?

(Check back later for some scanned B&W photos from back in the day.)

For bigger photos go here.

Almondy!

2009-02-19T00:12:00.000-08:00

We're just back from the incredible David Byrne concert -- more to come on that, including the terrific slide show Michelle is working on now -- but first I wanted to note the day's other highlight, an afternoon visit by Gina and Franny. They came bearing a cute birthday card and, better than a cake, my favorite treat from West Seattle's Bakery Nouveau, an almond croissant. Around here, those go by the shorthand nickname "almondy!" so when they arrived we all three shouted in unison: "Almondy!"

Very tasty with a cup of coffee. We also played four highly competitive games of Wii bowling. "Throw it hard and crash the pins," as my brother-in-law Manuel used to say at a real bowling alley. Those girlies crash the virtual pins pretty hard.

I'm having to resort to tricks to stay a few pins ahead. Look, over there, the Jonas Brothers!

One thing planned, two to go

2009-02-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today's my birthday and among several nice greetings I received was this note from my friend Denny Heck in Olympia: "I challenge you to do three fun things today -- three things you wouldn't ordinarily do!"

Well, OK then. I like that. An unusual birthday wish and a challenge to boot.

For my birthday Michelle is taking me tonight to a David Byrne concert here in Seattle. I'm really looking forward to that. I love his music but have never seen him live. So that's one fun thing I wouldn't normally do.

I'm still accepting suggestions for two other things. So far all I've been able to come up with is: Do an honest day's work and get a good night's sleep. Nothing ordinary for me about either of those, although it's already too late in the day to pull off the first.

I need to run out now and get a blood draw and buy some overpriced anti-seizure drugs, but I don't think those errands count as unusual or especially fun.

Hit me with a couple of ideas before tonight's concert!

President of Goofing Off

2009-02-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

For Presidents Day today I took the day off, as usual, while Michelle went to work as usual. (I don't blame her; these holidays are good for getting some work done, and then you can save the day for another time.)

It was a pretty day here in West Seattle, and I was just getting ready to take the underused bike out for a spin when she called and suggested meeting at Than Bros. in the Junction for a bowl of pho. Yum, sounded good. I hopped on the ol' Giant, rode up the street and just beat her there by a couple of minutes.

Afterward, I coasted down California to Cupcake Royale, the girls' favorite hang, to see if they were around. I ran into Franny and Gina's friend Katy. They told me Gina had just left to walk down to the beach. They didn't feel like walking but were about to take the bus and meet her there.

By the way, Gina showed us a rough cut last weekend of "Stella," the not-quite-finished movie that she and Katy wrote and directed and that stars Katy, Franny and a bunch of their friends. Very impressive -- even better than I expected, and I figured it would be pretty good. Amazing the quality you can get with a regular video camera and the editing software that everyone seems to have now.

I can't wait for the final cut.

Coolerversary

2009-02-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

What with our job hunts, health concerns, ennui about the dying newspaper business and the stolen attention of Michelle's new journo-training blog, Print to Online, it's been awhile since we've given more than a passing glance at M&M. Both of our readers have pointed this out. It's too bad too, since there is actually stuff to talk about here sometimes. I vow to be a more regular visitor to this site.

For now though, I just want to send a quick shout out to my friend Jason Bellamy over at The Cooler, my favorite film site, which this week celebrated its one-year anniversary.

In his birthday post the other day Jason gave me a smidge of credit for encouraging him to launch The Cooler. That's nice of him, but having read his ink-on-paper film criticism I thought Jason and blogging were a no-brainer combo. As I said in a comment over there I'm not surprised he has turned out to be such a good blogger, but really The Cooler is better than I thought it would be. In addition to regularly and insightfully reviewing new releases -- check out his takes on "Revolutionary Road" and "The Wrestler," two recent 4-glioma flicks on my scale -- Jason has found interesting ways to develop and engage an audience. He discusses filmmaking with other critics, invites readers to debate and help solve mysteries like "Where's Chigurgh?" and, during down periods at the multiplex, recommends DVD rentals in an ongoing feature called "Queue it Up."

All great stuff. Along with The Night Note -- updated almost as sparingly these days as M&M -- it's one of the few personal blogs on my must-read list.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check it out. Congratulations, Cooler!

Belated happy inauguration day

2009-01-24T17:07:00.000-08:00

In honor of Obama's inauguration the other day I went to Obamicon.me and made these images in the style of candidate Barack's famous "Hope" poster.

Apparently a lot of people have had the same idea. I keep seeing Facebook friends who have changed their personal photos to Obamicons, and an email from the Obamicon site tells me it's catching on:

"We knew we had a fun idea when it hit us, but we had no idea we'd get this kind of response. In less than two weeks, we've had millions of page views and nearly 200,000 Obamicons have been created--and activity grows by the hour."

I enjoyed watching part of the ceremonies and parade at Mich's house, over a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich, and Michelle and I watched the Tivo'd Obama speech at home later Tuesday night. Very good, I thought: just the right stern, serious tone to lay out the problems and yet with a believable sense of can-do optimism. (Aretha, sadly, was not as awesome as her hat.)

A bunch of friends went to Washington for the inauguration. My friend Jason, who lives there, spent the day on the Mall and posted some great photos over at his site, The Cooler. Check them out.

Did you watch the ceremonies? Your thoughts? Also, if you have your own Obama-style photo, please send it along; we'll post an M&M-icon gallery.

Crappy things come in threes

2009-01-18T19:18:00.001-08:00

The announcement on Jan. 9 that the Seattle P-I, my place of employ, will likely close in 60 days, was accompanied by a deep burning sensation in my chest that lasted for three or four days. My best description for it would be a "heart-attacky feeling."

I had to cancel the doctor's appointment I already had scheduled for Jan. 9 because all of a sudden I was just too busy for that kind of thing, but I had my make up visit this past Friday. The news was not good: I have high blood pressure now for the first time in my life -- literally, I have never exceeded 120/80 blood pressure.

Now my blood pressure is what the doctors officially call "very high." So I find myself thinking for the first time about cutting salt from my diet, and thinking more seriously about dropping these 15 pounds I've picked up since Mark got sick.

Some surprises: Dang, my favorite cereal, Basic 4, is high in salt. Man, sardines, oatmeal, tuna, flour tortillas -- some of my most basic food groups, all are secret salt bombs. Dang. OTOH, Jelly Beans: No salt. And Quaker makes a low salt oatmeal. I'll adjust.

Anyways, I came across a great heart healthy resource online tonite, Eating Well has a great lineup of recipes for High BP cretins like me.

Know of any other great online resources for nonsuck low sodium recipes? Post in the comments please!

Oh, and what was the third crappy thing that happened, besides the High Blood Pressure and the announcement that the PI is being put up for sale, and could close if a buyer isn't found?

Saturday I got my federally-required WARN notice, telling me that I'm probably jobless by April 1 at the latest.

Save the News

2009-01-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

Last night Mark and I went to the Save the News event at Oddfellows Bar in the trendy Capitol Hill area of Seattle. It was organized by local blogger Dylan Wilbanks of metblogs and attended by about 25 bloggers and interested persons.

It was cool to meet a lot of the local bloggers working at Seattlest and Metblogs and other local independent publishers. We met Clark of miscmedia.com, I met again Cory Bergman, who runs myballard.com and a number of other local blogs, I briefly met Justin who runs a collection of blogs here, Dylan from Metblogs, and Mike, the editor of Seattlest.

Everybody drank some beers and then Dylan organized a group of people to organize an event for sometime next month to discuss the future of news in Seattle. A wiki and a Twitter feed have since been set up.

Here's a couple photos of the event.

Happy Birthday, Gina!

2009-01-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this long lull in blogging to post birthday wishes for daughter No. 1, Gina Matassa, who turns 16 today. Incredible.

A year ago I noted Gina's smarts, independence, writing ability and interest in movies. All that has deepened in the past year, as she and her friends filmed a remake of "Sweeney Todd" (unfinished), wrote and filmed an original movie, "Stella" (in editing now), and began work on another screenplay, as yet untitled. She can talk movies all day and identify composers mid-film without seeing the credits, as she did last week when we saw "Revolutionary Road" (score by Thomas Newman, it turns out). She and Michelle have really connected on the craft and pursuit of screenwriting. Gina's favorite Christmas present: Charlie Kaufman's original screenplay of "Synecdoche, New York."

She also has turned into quite the cook. With occasional help from her sister Franny or from Michelle or me, Gina whips up delicious and healthy meals, often without a recipe or in an untried cuisine. A couple of weeks ago, a terrific Thai dinner. (Gina just now texted me from school to say she was eating an "awesome pasta salad" that she made herself for lunch.)

As my dad would have said after his trademark birthday question ("How does it feel to be 16?"), "What a beautiful age!"

It is. And as Grandma Rita always says, "Live it up!"

Do that, Gina. Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

(I took the above photo of Gina last June while they were shooting a scene for "Stella" in Pioneer Square.)

A screenwriter's guide to working through crisis

2009-01-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

You may or may not know by now that the SeattlePI -- my employer -- is being sold. If no one buys it, it could shut down. Or maybe Hearst will decide to take it online-only -- that's up in the air.

Natch everyone in the newsroom is drifting around in shock. We were told today that the WARN notices alerting us that our jobs could end in 60 days were being sent to all of us in the mail. Great.

So I'm blowing time and trying to forget about everything by reading the backlog of stuff in my Google Reader, when I come across this post in one of my favorite screenwriting blogs, SchererJoyOfWriting (Sherer is the writer's name).

"Okay, your protagonist’s Ordinary World has been shaken to its very foundation ... Is your Hero afraid? Scared? Of course she is. fear? ... She must handle that fear. But how?"

Okay, I think. You got my attention.

"1. Your Hero must take small steps. The New World your protagonist finds herself in can seem overwhelming at first and can almost feel like a flight or fight-response. Don’t let the Hero take too large a step right from the git-go."

At this point, I'm licking the pencil tip and taking notes. No ... Big ... Steps. Got it. Next?

"2. Get your Hero some concrete and positive motivation. Here is where your Mentor can play an important part in pushing the Hero in the right direction. This sets the stage so the Hero feels she needs to do something."

There's more ... all of it feeling a bit like the steps that a "hero" in a movie might take to solve problems seems like it doubles pretty well as good advice for people who just lost their job or whose "Ordinary World has been shaken to its very foundation" in some way. Read on here.

Two Guys and their Wild Lion

2009-01-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

Man, no wonder this video was the most watched video on MSNBC last year. It's footage of two guys who raised a pet lion from the time it was a little baby until they had to release it into the wild after it got too big. A year later, they wanted to visit their lion, but they were told it had gone native -- it was the head of a pride, and was dangerous to visit. Here's the video of their reunion. Awesome. Love the music! Thanks to Lost Remote for the link.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Mother Flippin Rhymenoscerous

2008-12-27T12:34:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about the awesome viral campaign Flight of the Conchords -- my favorite band and TV show -- are running. They're asking fans to create videos of themselves lip synching to the Conchords song, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. Of course we had to create a MatassaLosi version. Here it is, starring Gina and Franny.

No Eggs, No Coke

2008-12-25T23:34:00.000-08:00

Went shopping yesterday to buy eggs so we could have breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve. But lo, they were out -- out of eggs, out of Coke -- the basic staples. Not only that, but the snow meant that a number of our gifts didn't arrive, so we gave each other coupons!

Nicolosi Kid Photos

2008-12-25T20:11:00.000-08:00

My sister Renee got an awesome photo scanner for xmas, and scanned in these old negatives of a trip we took to Britain when we were kids, given to her a few years ago by my Great Uncle John.

To see the version with bigger pix, go here.

Here's some more Nicolosi kid pictures, from the Fabled Italy Days.

To see the version with bigger pix, go here.

Internet Overtakes Newspapers As News Source

2008-12-24T17:49:00.000-08:00

Amazing chart from a Pew study published yesterday: For the first time since Pew started asking, the number of people who say the Internet is their main source for national and international news is larger than the number of people who say the newspaper is their main source.

I've been thinking lately how funny it seems that most newspapers have 90 percent of their staff pointed at paper tasks, and maybe 10 percent pointed mainly at the web. It really feels old school to me right now that that formula hasn't been flipped yet. I'm guessing in the next five years we're going to see more news staffs start to designate the bulk of their people "online-only" and start to have 10 percent of their people working to repurpose what's been done on the web and put it together in a tidy package for the paper.

Kind of boring Christmas Eve ruminations, I guess. The fun never ends!

In other news, waiting for Domino's pizza to deliver our xmas eve dinner. Yum.

Why I don't drive in the snow

2008-12-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

I telecommuted to work Thursday and Friday, and here's why:

I saw this video last year, and man, has it ever stuck with me. Snow driving is crazy! Even when you think it's going to be normal, because the roads are cleared and blah blah, what have you, you never know when -- blammo -- you're going to be the one hitting that weird patch and -- slammo -- you're driving like one of these guys. I've only tried driving in the snow twice, and both times had horrible close calls. Scary yo. Not. Gonna. Do it.

It's been hard to run a rapidly moving story from home though, so I'm going to try to get into work on the bus tomorrow. More later.

Humor. It's all relative.

2008-12-20T19:15:00.001-08:00

One of the fun aspects of surfing the health-care industry is switching to a new insurer when the old work-based health insurance runs out. That's especially true when the new individual health plan includes a drug "benefit" that uses the word as loosely as my new provider, Group Health Cooperative, does.

I can't say I was surprised at the expense today when, credit card in hand, I ventured out onto the snowy roads to pick up my monthly round of chemotherapy. I had researched all this a month ago before I switched insurers. Even laid it out in a spreadsheet to suss the damage. And reconfirmed it on the phone earlier this week. But still, when they say the words, the copayment of $865 kinda bites. Catches you up short.

At the Group Health pharmacy in Burien it took three stops at three adjacent windows to complete the transaction. At Window 1, I gave the grim old clerk my ID number and she tapped her keyboard. "OK," she said, "I see this is a new order. Did they tell you about the copyament on this?" She had a sick, worried look on her face.

"Yes," I said. "They said it would be 20 bucks."

To me this is hilarious, just to watch the lady's face contort as she prepares to break the news about the actual price.

"Well, no," she said, wincing. "I'm afraid it's a bit more. It's going to be, um, eight hundred sixty-four dollars and ninety cents."

Yeah, I know, I said, I'm just kidding around. Haha. But she wasn't amused. She glared at me and told me to sit down and wait for my name to be called, since the pharmacist would want to discuss my prescription with me.

Ten minutes later someone called me to the next window and the young woman, all business, asked if my doctor had explained to me the procedure for taking the chemo. (It's a ballet of timing, waiting a certain period after eating, popping some nausea drugs at another certain time, downing the chemo and then hoping you can get to sleep before ralphing. So far, most months, I've been pretty lucky on that count.)

Oh sure, I said, I've been taking this for a year and a half (actually longer). No sweat.

The druggist looked annoyed, and groused a bit about preparing all the explanatory material for nothing. To give her something to do, I offered that although I was experienced with the chemo it was my first time paying this much for it, so I could maybe use a little counseling on that score. Always thinking of others, that's me.

"I'm sorry, honey, I wish I could help," she said. She directed me to Window 3, next door, to pay my bill.

When yet another woman appeared to ring me up she did an actual double-take at the invoice printout. "Wow, I can go home early today," she said brightly. "I think I've met my sales quota for the day."

Now this, to me, is not funny. More like rubbing it in. Some people have no sense of humor.

Gamely, I asked her how my total compared with other pharmacy sales. She did a little whistle through her teeth. Sometimes at the end of the year people on Medicare will exhaust their benefits and have to pay as much as $200 or $250 for their medication, she said.

My chemo, I was given to understand, was a record in her experience.

So, Merry Christmas, Group Health Pharmacy. And bah, humbug, with an extra lump of coal, to your stupid copayments.

Jingle Bell Run!

2008-12-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

About a block into this morning's Jingle Bell Run through downtown Seattle, on a slight incline up Fifth Avenue, I pulled out a stock M&M joke: "Who put this giant hill here?"

Franny, with the hubris of youth: "Dad, it's barely even a hill!"

That was the last time I saw her. She bounced off up ahead of me and disappeared into the sea of Santas, elves, penguins, gift boxes and other cleverly costumed runners.

No shock there. Last weekend, Fran joined Michelle and me for a one-mile practice run around our neighborhood -- or, really, she didn't join us, she just sprinted through the loop and waited for us back at the house. So this morning, before we started, I asked her if she was going to run with me or go fast and leave me in the dust.

"I'm not going to go fast," she said, "but I'll probably still leave you in the dust." Ho ho ho. Can you put a kid on the naughty list for telling the truth?

With the timing of a practical joker or old St. Nick himself, this year's Jingle Bell Run happened to coincide with what the Seattle Times might call "a significant weather event" -- snow, ice and, they tell us, the coldest temperatures forecast around here since 1990.

Truth is, the ultra-frigid temps haven't materialized yet, but Franny and I did wake up to several inches of snow and slick sidewalks and roads. We'd already paid our entry fee for the 5k run -- that's 3.1 miles to you and me -- and we weren't about to pass on the "free" long sleeve t-shirt. We scraped the snow off the car and headed into town. Gina and Michelle had contemplated joining us but thought better of it and stayed tucked snugly in their beds.

The Jingle Bell Run is a great event, one Michelle and I have run together a couple of times. Except for a few dedicated racers who get their own starting gun 10 minutes before everyone else, the focus is on fun, costumes and the spirit of the season, not on running. They hand out little jingle bells that everyone ties to their shoes, so the run lives up to its name. When the course enters a tunnel, runners spontaneously break into a group singalong, "... jingle all the way ..."

Now in its 24th year, the event is a fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation, which expected to collect a quarter of a million dollars today. Runners go off in three groups. The serious competitors wear red number bibs and start first, followed by the vast throng of green-bib joggers like us, and then the white-bibbed walkers and baby strollers.

Without the pressure of keeping up with Franny, I slowed down, dropped back and stopped several times to walk or take pictures. Between the early hour, the icy patches, the crowd, the years, the gut and last night's gin (a key part of my training regimen), I probably only ran half the course. It was cold, but dressed in multiple layers I got warm fast, even at my slow pace.

At one point the course turns and doubles back on the same stretch of closed-down freeway express lanes, so I thought I might see Fran coming back the other way -- especially when I spotted a running gift box that started the race right next to us. But no. She was too fast and long gone by the time my straggler group hit the turnaround.

In fact I looked up eventually to see a bunch of white bibs around me -- the walkers! who started after we joggers! -- and decided I needed to kick it back into gear. I finished strong, by which I mean I jogged the last block or so to the finish line.

Afterward, panting and sweaty, I found Franny back at our meeting place, downstairs at Westlake Center. She was fully rested and told me excitedly about her adventure -- only stopped briefly once or twice, found herself competing with a little group around her -- and we drove home to an awesome "victory breakfast" of eggs, bacon and blueberry pancakes, by Michelle and Gina.

Very fun day.

A visit to the rainforest

2008-12-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

For a slideshow with larger images go here.

There's audio with this one, so lissen to it!

My Job is So Awesome Sometimes

2008-12-12T14:12:00.001-08:00

Today I spent 20 minutes or so judging seattlepi.com's Holiday Pet Photo Contest. Here's one of my favorite pet photos ever, of a golden retriever names Stelah:

Come on, is that AWESOME or what. Can you say "new desktop art?"

See the rest of the awesomeness at myseattlepets.com.

The coolest viral thing I have ever seen

2008-12-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

O my god, This is the most incredible piece of viral marketing I have seen in 28 years -- no wait -- make that my whole life!

Wow. Flight of the Conchords, my favorite band and TV show, is inviting fans to lip synch to their song, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. They'll edit them together to make a "megamix" fan piece, and air the best of on HBO Jan. 18th. They're calling it the Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece. I am a fan and I approve this message! Check out the other fan vids so far here.

Dorky words I use now that I'm a dork Internet manager

2008-12-08T20:34:00.000-08:00

Soon after I left newspapers for online lo these many years ago, I noticed that the online people love to use ridiculous words to talk about ordinary things.

I'm trying to remember now what word it was the marketing lady at HomePage.com was always using -- I couldn't stop rolling my eyes at her.

But now, nearly a decade later, I'm using silly words left and right. At first, I used them to make fun of people. Then, I used them ironically. Then, I'd use them and think, hey, I just used that word -- not ironically. I'm a dufus just like that marketing lady.

Now, I just use them, and hardly even notice. The transformation is complete.

I can't remember if I've posted this before -- maybe so. But tonight I was thinking again what a silly talker I've become. And so, I thought I'd slap a few of my silly words together for your pleasure today:

1. Robust. As in "We need to create a robust user experience." Wouldn't good suffice here? I don't know. My mouth keeps saying robust. This was the word that was making me realize today what a silly talker I am.

2. UI. This isn't really a word, but I use it like it is. As in "that lady has bad UI." (as in, user interface.)

3. Effort. As in "We're going to effort that photo." If you say effort, then later, when you don't end up getting the photo, you're not in as bad of trouble as you would be if you had said you were going to get it, right? I got this from the news meetings at the PI. I really hate myself when I say this one. I mostly am able to stop myself.

4. Monetize. As in "we'll never monetize that!" (make money off it. Yeah. I know.)

5. Deploy. "We'll deploy that by March." Uh, yeah. Publish. Post. What have you.

6. Iterate. "We'll launch and then iterate." Um. Modify.

7. UGC. Yeah, I said it. User generated content. Stuff the readers posted.

8. Uniques. That's what we call readers now.

9. ROI. This is my personal ROLF.

10. Optimize. 'That person isn't really optimized." (Being put to highest and best use.)

Got some dorky terms you personally use? Let's hear 'em. Janice, let's get some good lawyer terms in here. Val -- I'll go for either techie or fly boy terms -- both if you got 'em.

West Seattle Xmas Tree Lighting

2008-12-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

Much fun had by all at the West Seattle Christmas Tree lighting tonite, where Tracy Record and fam of West Seattle Blog did the honors. Here's a gallery of pix, with a special focus on excellent hat fashions.

For a slideshow with larger images go here.

Handy notes for SealBeachDaily denizens: Use free VoiceNotes program on IPhone to record audio. Open GarageBand on the mac, delete the default track, drag your audio file into GarageBand. Click Share, send to ITunes, save as MP3. Import into Soundslides.

What are you thankful for?

2008-11-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

One thing I like about Thanksgiving is that you never have to worry about wishing someone a happy one. There are few religious or cultural considerations that can lay political-correctness mines. Almost everyone participates -- whether they take time to reflect on their blessings, spend the day watching football and gorging on food, or like my whack sister Lisa preparing for a post-turkey, pre-dawn Black Friday trip to the mall.

It's not a "happy holidays" holiday, but Happy Thanksgiving. That's cool, I think.

This week, my old LA Times colleague Steve Lopez -- the best newspaper columnist in the country -- spent an afternoon at Farmer's Market near the old M&M domicile in Los Angeles. He sat down with a cardboard sign asking "What are you thankful for?" and waited for customers.

The response made for a typically Lopez-esque stew of lyricism, emotion and humor. It's a great read.

One older gentleman said he was thankful for four things. Family. Health. "And I'm old, and I forgot the other two."

Me, I'm thankful for all the things I mentioned last year, plus a few more: our cool Pie in the Sky road trip; reconnection with more old friends in the past year, including Jason over at The Cooler; and the vast medical bureaucracy, without which I wouldn't have much to keep me busy during those long hours that Michelle's at work.

What are you thankful for?

"Happy holidays" to all of M&M-ville, regulars and lurkers alike.

Geeks rap about upgrading

2008-11-26T20:03:00.000-08:00

This is so stupid, yet I couldn't look away.

Albums of the year

2008-11-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

After our discussions here earlier about desert-island movies and music, I've spent the past couple of weeks thinking about my favorite albums of 2008. I even bought a few hit records I hadn't listened to before, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

For the most part, no.

So, here's my list, a mix of new releases by some old favorites and a few by younger acts. As always my taste tilts toward singer-songwriters and thrashing or psychedelic rockers, with just a taste here of jazz, blues and country.

What are your favorite 2008 albums?

Bob Dylan. “Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8.” This collection makes two great points: that Dylan’s later period, covering the albums “Oh Mercy” to “Modern Times,” includes some exceptional songwriting, and that both the songs and the singer are wonderfully versatile. Just listen to the two alternate-take versions of “Mississippi” included here, as well as the original on “Love and Theft,” to hear how much Dylan can get out of one song (and vice versa). A treat of a peek into a master’s creative process.

Calexico. “Carried to Dust.” Like a top-down, windows-open road trip across the desert. With the group’s trademark mariachi-style horns and alt-rocky guitars the sound can turn dark and moody, as on “Man Made Lake,” or like something from a Tarantino soundtrack, as on “Writer’s Minor Holiday.” Whatever the destination I’m happy to be along for the ride.

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. “Two Men With the Blues.” To me this is what a collaborative or duet album should be: two outstanding artists from different genres bringing sensibilities that change and enhance each other’s music. (Last year’s Robert Plant/Alison Krauss release is another good example.) I love how Willie’s laid-back voice floats above the locked-in New Orleans sound of Marsalis’ band.

Lucinda Williams. “Little Honey.” After reading some mixed reviews I’m almost surprised by how much I like this album. I was afraid that her marriage and reported happiness would take the grit out of Lucinda’s songwriting. Instead it’s just more material, and there’s plenty of dark, bluesy alt-country goodness here too. Great mix of sounds and moods, although it all feels like one piece.

Radiohead. “In Rainbows.” Maybe the best band working right now. Aside from the music, which I love for its pulsing, dreamy intelligence, props to this record for widening the distribution possibilities, or at least popularizing the idea that different models can work.

Lou Reed. “Berlin: Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse.” Lou Reed still puts the rock in art rock. I’ve been a fan since the “Transformer” days, but if anything I think Reed is getting better as he gets older. Still biting and intelligent, but he seems less self-consciously arty or shocking here and more about the music, which is muscular and clear. I love the urgency on “Caroline Says” and the way the song’s two parts bracket “How Do You Think It Feels” and “Oh Jim.” My favorite concert album of the year.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks. “Real Emotional Trash.” Cool Hendrixy psychedelic sound and dynamic, inviting vocals. It’s pop with an edge and some wit and intelligence.

The Raconteurs. “Consolers of the Lonely.” Driving, high-energy, chops-tastic rock, as classic as a Led Zeppelin guitar riff and as fresh and unpredictable as Jack White’s askew point of view. The sound is great, the writing diverse and engaging. Also, they played a great set at this year’s New Orleans Jazzfest.

The Pretenders. “Break Up the Concrete.” Cool as ever, Chrissie Hynde brings her signature combination of feistiness, brains and sexiness to a new group of musicians who deliver a powerful, vintage Pretenders sound. From the fun romp of “Boots of Chinese Plastic” to the mournfulness of “One Thing Never Changed,” this is an album worth waiting for.

Jackson Browne. “Time the Conqueror.” In a sense, the wisdom of the title track is belied by the album as a whole. Jackson Browne conquers time, not the other way around, with a sound that feels as fresh and relevant today as it did in his easygoing ‘70s-troubadour heyday. Thoughtful, political, engaging, easy-to-listen-to music, and Browne’s voice has never sounded better.

Jessica update!

2008-11-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

After my big weekend of Jessica Simpson reporting last week, here's what finally made the pages -- at least the web pages -- of Us Weekly:

Madonna's soon-to-be ex-husband Guy Ritchie wants serious cash. "Guy is going after money now," a source told Us. "He wants to be paid back for these ridiculous expenses he had to help pay for."

Plus, Jessica Simpson couldn't resist gushing about her boyfriend Tony Romo at a packed casino gig in Seattle. "I just got off the phone with my boyfriend!" she gushed. "He's at home in my bed right now. I hope he's not going through my journals! But everyone knows what kind of girl I am. He should know what went on in the past!"

Watch above for details on Kate Walsh's fried-food diet, why Jennifer Aniston won't sleep at John Mayer's house and inside scoop on Anne Hathaway's low-key new love.

I wrote a lot more than that. Let that be a lesson to me.

Desert Island Discs

2008-11-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Between Jason's cool Movies A-Z challenge and a question in a job application I was looking at, I've found myself thinking about my favorite music. A long time ago Rolling Stone used to have a regular feature, Desert Island Discs, that invited readers to submit a list of the five albums they couldn't live without -- the essential recordings they would take along if they knew they'd be on a desert island for the rest of their lives.

This job app I've been thinking about asked for a list of 10 favorite albums from the past year. I found that a bit intimidating. I listen to a lot of music and even buy quite a bit of music, but a lot of my purchases are back-catalog releases or new recordings by old favorites. Much of the cool music the kids are listening to now doesn't really do it for me.

So, as a warm-up exercise for myself I decided to list my 10 favorite albums of all time, not just this year. That extra freedom, if anything, made the challenge tougher, and it sure didn't make my taste seem any less fuddy-duddy.

For my DID list, as with Jason's movie challenge, I wanted a little bit of variety but didn't attempt to collect the "greatest" or "most important" or "most influential" recordings. These are just the albums I most enjoy and keep coming back to.

(Click on album cover for a link to the iTunes store.)

Bob Dylan. “Time Out of Mind.” I’m a huge Dylan fan and could enthusiastically pick any number of his records from the past five decades. This 1997 release feels perfect to me, from the angry heartbreak of “Love Sick” to the enchanting storytelling of the long closing track, “Highlands.”

Mavis Staples. “We’ll Never Turn Back.” The real deal. Nobody conjures the soul of soul music or the Stax legacy for me like Mavis Staples, and her honesty, emotion and political righteousness come through on every cut of this powerful 2007 album.

Various Artists. “I’m Not There.” The soundtrack from the 2007 film “I’m Not There” is a terrific compilation that not only shows many Dylan favorites in a new light, but also turned me on to several artists whose music I didn’t know well previously, including Stephen Malkmus and Calexico.

Art Tatum. “The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Vol. 8.” One of the great overlooked jazz discs, originally released in 1956. Tatum’s superb jangly piano melds beautifully with Ben Webster’s fluffy tenor sax.

Buddy Guy. “Bring ‘Em In.” Guy is a national treasure who has famously inspired blues contemporaries and rockers for decades. (Check out the reverence on the faces of the Rolling Stones when he makes a guest appearance in the concert film “Shine a Light.”) Of Guy’s many tremendous albums, I love this 2005 release for its fiery, melodic guitar work and its both pained and funny vocals, especially on “Now You’re Gone,” “Somebody’s Sleeping in My Bed” and “Cheaper to Keep Her.”

Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt. “Sonny Side Up.” Another brilliant and, I think, under-appreciated jazz album, from 1957, combining the similar but distinct tenor sax styles of the two Sonnys with Diz’s beautiful bebop trumpet. “After Hours” is one of the all-time great jazz recordings.

Elvis Costello and The Attractions. “Blood & Chocolate.” Of the many fine Elvis albums this one, from 1986, is my favorite. It feels like a compilation of classics to me – “Uncomplicated,” “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” “Blue Chair.” And even in this great set, “I Want You,” full of pain and longing, stands out. That may be my favorite Costello song.

Frank Sinatra. “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers.” When I was a kid and scoffed at Sinatra my parents assured me I would come to love him someday. I hate it when they’re right. I dig many of Frank’s great records – I used to sing my own kids to sleep with “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” – but his second album for Capitol, released in 1955, is just pure, swingin’ fun.

Prince. “Sign O’ The Times.” If nobody swings like Sinatra, nobody grooves like Prince. Or nobody this side of James Brown anyway. I’ve been a Prince fan since “1999” – the album, not the year – and own most of his stuff, but this 1990 recording is the one I keep coming back to for the kicking mix of hot dance tracks and slow-love ballads.

Patti Smith. “Horses.” This album had a profound effect on me, rocking my small-town high school world when it came out in 1975 – not to mention helping birth the punk movement. It never gets old. Patti’s 30-year “Horses” anniversary show at the Crocodile Café in Seattle was the best concert I ever attended.

What do you think of this list, and what are your own favorites? Please post your DIDs in the comments. It could make for a great discussion thread.

Happy surgeversary to me!

2008-11-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

At the risk of whining even more about my stupid health, I guess I want to note that today is Surgeversary, the second anniversary of my first brain surgery. Woohoo!

I went back and read last year's post about the day and was struck again by how chill I was on the morning of the surgery -- and struck even more by how cool I was last year when blogging about it. Maybe I'm catching myself at a bad time, but it seems the farther I get from the original grim diagnosis -- and despite my generally improving health -- the less sanguine I am about the whole deal.

Part of it is stress. My health insurance (the federally guaranteed 18-month extension of my old work benefits) is expiring at the end of this month, so I've been shopping around for an individual health insurance plan. Man, what a racket. And confusing, even for people with a full-size brain, I'll bet. Not to mention expensive. There were so many options, each with so many variables, that it was impossible to tell by eyeballing the plans which was the best deal.

Timing the switch is critical. Normally when you buy an individual health plan you have to complete a comprehensive health screening and wait nine months, to make sure you have no pre-existing medical conditions, before receiving coverage. That would screw me, of course, but fortunately there is an exception for people like me who are exhausting their Cobra (extended work) benefits. In that case, there is no pre-condition screening and coverage begins right away. The catch is that there is a one-day window to make the insurance switch. If the Cobra benefits expire on Nov. 30 as mine do, the new plan must start on Dec. 1. Any earlier or later, even by a day, and the nine-month waiting period becomes active again. I get sweaty just thinking about it.

Eventually I decided to approach the problem as if it were a newspaper assignment. I broke out a spreadsheet to analyze the coverage options like a state budget plan, creating Excel formulas to account for various premiums, deductibles, co-pays and benefit maximums, being sure to double-check the insurance company formularies to see if my drugs were covered (yes here, no there), reporting at the source to determine the full cost of all the prescriptions plus the MRI scans and weekly blood draws, and charting it all out for the rest of this year and all of the next.

It's the kind of reporting I always liked. But I have to say it's more fun when the bottom line shows merely the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars about to be wasted and not the tens of thousands about to come directly out of my own pocket.

Complicating the calculation further was that some of my doctors are part of one plan's preferred network of providers but not the other's, and vice versa. More potential charges to account for.

In the end the spreadsheet was a big help. I determined, to my surprise, that a local HMO, Group Health Cooperative, was a better deal for me than the seemingly richer plans offered elsewhere. So I mailed off my application last week, confident that it would be approved in time to take effect on Dec. 1.

A few days later a Group Health packet came in the mail. It wasn't my new coverage packet, as I expected, though, but a notice informing me that without an official letter from my previous insurer certifying that I was exhausting my Cobra benefits I wasn't eligible for the waiting-period exemption.

Damn! I had the official letter but had neglected to include it with my app.

Michelle, equally nervous (or more) about the upcoming deadline, persuaded me to drop off the application at Group Health in person rather than relying on the mail. OK, good thought, so off I drove on Tuesday to Group Health's campus in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

After paying for parking and being misdirected three times I found the business office, where a woman informed me that she "can't process the application manually" and she instead would have to mail it to the co-op's processing center. Argh! Furthermore, since it was Veteran's Day there was no mail service and my packet wouldn't go out until Wednesday. Double argh!

So now I'm waiting to see what piece of red tape I overlooked or what fine print the insurance company can unearth to justify denying my claim.

I'm sure that if they took my photo and vital signs today as they did on Nov. 13, 2006, I'd look nothing like that cheery dip in the above picture.

The difference between jazz and blues

2008-11-12T23:27:00.000-08:00

Noon. That was the time of my scheduled brain scan today, my bimonthly MRI, to be followed by a quick blood draw and my monthly appointment with the neuro-oncologist -- well, actually, his trusty nurse practitioner Jennifer -- at 2.

So dutifully I headed out to the UW Hospital, making sure to get there 20 minutes early and checking in at the Radiation desk. I filled out the standard form -- no, no bullet fragments, pacemaker, tattooed eyeliner or penile implants that might screw up the MRI magnet -- while I scanned the waiting-room denizens: a couple of women with their head buried in books, a man reading the Seattle P-I and commenting to a stranger about a story on the front page, a man instructed to drink two chalky milkshakes as prep for some test, a lady complaining about claustrophobia and popping anti-anxiety pills to steel herself for her scan, a 30-ish guy in a wheelchair, so pale he looked transluscent, breathing through an oxygen tank. And more.

A lot of people, which explained the long wait.

An hour passed before they called my name and I went into the bowels of Radiology, to a smaller waiting area, where I put my stuff in a locker and waited for someone to give me an IV for the mid-MRI contrast dye. This whole IV thing is a fairly recent protocol in Radiology and one I don't appreciate, mainly because the techs there have messed it up more often than not, poking me multiple times, spilling blood and, one time, leaving a needle that another nurse roughly ripped out of my arm later. Better to just administer the contrast dye during the MRI, I've always thought, rather than add the extra IV step.

But today the IV tech never came. Instead another half-hour passed -- we're at 1:15 p.m. now -- before a nice woman fetched me and walked me past the MRI room, through long twisty corridors, outside, and to a second, remote MRI machine. There I waited again until a bad-leg patient was wheeled out of the MRI room and I was ushered in.

What, the tech lady said, no IV? That's OK, she said, we can take care of the dye injection here.

Fine by me. She put me on the table, gave me my earplugs and headphones -- the MRI machine is extremely loud -- and asked if I wanted some music. Sure, I said, got any blues? "Is that like jazz," she asked. Well, I made the mistake once before of asking for jazz and got some Enya elevator music, so I changed direction and asked for classic rock. Ah, Hendrix and BTO!

As the automated table slid me into the big MRI magnet tube, the tech lady shouted a question: "What's the difference between jazz and blues anyway?"

Uh.

"Is one more up-tempo than the other," she asked. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, that's it.

After the scan, 1:50 now, I trundled up to the lab to get the regular blood draw before my 2 o'clock oncology appointment. No luck. They didn't have my paperwork on file. Another 20-minute wait while the clerk paged Jennifer and waited for a fax of my orders.

OK. They figured out who I am -- M-A-T-A-S-S-A, 2-18-60, I confirmed -- and they sucked my blood. I walked over to Neurology, 20 minutes late now for an appointment scheduled two hours after the 30-minute MRI for which I was 20 minutes early.

Jennifer said everything looked fine and sent me on my way.

That, I though to myself, is jazz. It's all about improvizing.

Whereas what I have is the I-hate-brain-cancer blues.

The one explains the other

2008-11-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

[Dear readers, This is a re-post of an item that appeared here Saturday. I took it down at the request of an editor, mentioned below, who didn't want to tip off her competition before their deadlines, today. -- Mark]

I've now done the top two things I never thought I would in my life: get a lobotomy*, and pay $200 to see Jessica Simpson.

Longtime M&M readers already know about the brain surgery, but the Jessica Simpson episode may come as a surprise. I know it did to me.

To back up briefly, it's been two years now since I last worked for a living. The break was good for my health, but what with the eventual boredom and lack of purpose -- not to mention the expiring health insurance and the threatened end to my disability payments -- I've been casting about lately for some paying work. My timing's a bit off. As we know, it's a tough time in the ol' news business. A couple of nearby newspaper gigs that I thought would have been a natural fit didn't generate so much as a return phone call.

But I've nevertheless managed to snag some offers. For work, that is, just not for pay. Of the four recent opportunities that have come my way, one would have paid $200 a week for full-time employment. The other three would have paid nothing but the joy of seeing my name in pixels. I tried to be polite as I declined the generous terms of those proposals. (Sorry to the regular M&M readers on the other end of those conversations if I didn't come across that way.)

So, when my email inbox dinged the other day with an inquiry from an old colleague in Los Angeles I was ready to consider most anything.

"Hey Mister," said my friend Martha, "you know anyone who would be interested in doing a little reporting for me in Snoqualmie Casino, Snoqualmie, Washington? Jessica Simpson is performing."

That rang a bell. The Snoqualmie is the new, long-awaited tribal casino located 30 miles east of Seattle, just a smidge closer than my standby the Muckleshoot, and its grand opening was Thursday night. Simpson was headlining the venue's inaugural concert on Friday night. I'm not much of a Jessica fan, I told Martha, but I'm a total casino whore and planned on checking out the place anyway, so bring on the details.

Martha and I worked together at the LA Times, but she has since moved on to Us Weekly magazine, where she is West Coast news editor. As a celebrity-focused mag, she said, Us Weekly was not much concerned with the casino or even the performance and instead interested primarily in the latest Jessica "news": Was her boyfriend Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback, traveling with her and was there any talk of marriage? Stuff like that.

No, it wasn't blogging about the election, or becoming a local media critic, or covering the environment or technology, or reviewing books or writing snarky, misanthropic essays for a startup publication. But it was a paying gig -- at many times the rate of my best previous offer -- and it included mileage to the casino. Deal me in.

And so I found myself offering up my credit card for a ticket to the big show (on the promise that Us would reimburse). I've attended a lot of concerts and seen a lot of big acts in a lot of top-tier venues, but I can't remember paying anything near the $175 they were charging for Jessica's casino show (plus a $23 Ticketmaster surcharge). But pay I did, withstanding a lot of strange looks from box-office workers, ushers and fellow audience members as a single ticket holder, a middle-aged man, sitting alone, to watch this pop-music screamer turned reality-show star turned tabloid fodder turned, now, country-music screamer.

Honestly I didn't know even that much about Jessica Simpson before a long day online reading about her, listening to her music and watching videos in preparation for my assignment. What a story! Always something new! The Nick romance, marriage and divorce. The brief John romance. The dad/manager influence. The sister angle. The new Tony romance. The paparazzi clashes. The best friend/hairstylist who got whacked in the face last week protecting Jess from photographers. And this is only one celebrity. You can see why entire magazines spring up to cover this stuff.

It seemed the only consistencies in Jessica's career were her bouncy blond locks and her ability to keep her name in the press. Plus she can rock a low-cut shirt.

Anyway, Jessica didn't disappoint. She scream/sang, she talked about her love life, she spilled provocatively out of her black sequined top. She even ditzed out, in character, forgetting the words to one of her own biggest hits. [I took the above illegal concert pic with my iPhone; for a professional's view see the P-I's fine concert photo gallery.]

I wrote it all down and emailed it off, with passages like this: "Tony does not have to prove anything," Jessica said. "He's amazing."

My editor Martha responded right away: "Hey Mark, you are a natural!"

So that's one thing. I mentioned the lobotomy*, right?

[* Editor's note: Michelle informs me that technically I did not get a lobotomy but a partial resection of the right frontal lobe. Close enough if you ask me, but whatever. For precision's sake, please read this as "brainectomy."]

Best movies, A to Z

2008-11-10T22:05:00.000-08:00

In another nod to The Cooler (and because I feel guilty about not participating in the awesome Politics & Movies Blogathon), I recommend checking out Jason's latest meme, a list of favorite movies, by letters of the alphabet.

It's tougher than it sounds. Forces some difficult choices.

Here are mine. Feel free to add yours here or over at The Cooler. Or both.

Annie Hall
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Chinatown
The Deer Hunter
Easy Rider
Fargo
The Godfather
Heat
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The King of Comedy
Lawrence of Arabia
Magnolia
North by Northwest
On the Waterfront
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
Raging Bull
Singin' in the Rain
Taxi Driver
Unforgiven
Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
X, Malcolm (a cheat, I know, but I'm thinking of the poster)
Y Y tu Mama Tambien
Zodiac

And a bonus, beginning with a number:
2001: A Space Odyssey

Is it wrong that I think this stuff is funny?

2008-11-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

Politics & Movies Blogathon

2008-11-08T17:45:00.000-08:00

Over at The Cooler, my favorite film site, Jason and Co. are five days into an awesome six-day blogathon on the subject of politics and movies.

Jason conceived this as a post-election release, to fill the empty space he imagined in all our lives with the end of nonstop campaign commercials and cable-news punditry. Instead, Cooler readers could write about movies and politics, quenching the election jones and hitting the blog's target topic all at one time.

He came up with the idea a month ago, and I've been remiss in not promoting it here earlier. With only a day-plus now left in the blogathon it's getting late, but there's still time to participate. The rules are pretty simple and inviting. The subject of your post doesn't have to be a political movie, such as Robert Redford's "The Candidate," pictured above, but it can be. Or it can be about any other film subject that tangentially touches politics. So far, in addition to explicitly political movies including "JFK," "Nixon" and "W.," there are nice essays on assassination films, Godard, movie posters and much more.

As Jason says in his original blogathon announcement, "The parameters are these: Your post must deal with politics and movies. Simple as that."

He has details there about how to participate. I've been meaning to write something for the blogathon myself but haven't gotten around to it. I hope you'll join the fray, or at least check it out. There's some good reading and fun conversations going on over there.

Blog on!

Yes We Can video

2008-11-07T19:39:00.000-08:00

First ladies (and other first residents)

2008-11-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

With a new First Family headed for the White House it's important to put the moment in context.

Take Michelle Obama's election-night dress. A forum on its stylishness or suckishness was the most read item at the Seattle P-I for a day-plus. But how did all those other first ladies look? Fortunately here comes Us Magazine with a "First Ladies Through the Years" photo gallery, including President William Henry Harrison's wife Anna, above.

And what kind of puppy will those Obama girls get? NPR noted today that dogs have been regular White House residents, and it's got its own photo spread to prove it: "Presidential Dogs through History." Here are the Kennedys and their brood, two- and four-legged.

So now a dog, two kids and a stylish (or not) first lady, how will the Obamas get around? The LA Times comes through with photos of all the First Rides -- "Presidential cars then and now." Here's Warren Harding, the first president who knew how to drive before he entered office, and his Packard Twin Six.

Obama Gear

2008-11-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

I spent part of the day today working up a new Cafe Press store for the Seattle P-I, putting our awesome day after election day front page on everything from cooking aprons to magnets and tshirts. Check out the stuff.

Awesome Report from Philip K

2008-11-05T23:56:00.000-08:00

This from last night, from Best Bud Philip:

"It's after 1 a.m. and since 11 pm people have been streaming down 14th street sometimes by the tens, by the hundreds and several times by the thousands complete with police escorts and with cars honking non-stop as everyone heads down to the whitehouse, which is about 6 blocks away. In my 20 years in the city, nothing like this has ever happened.

Truly amazing. Even more so when I think of the story my landlady told me when I moved into my apartment, about how she watched 14th street burn for three days as she hung out in this very same apartment soon after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot in the late 60s.

I'm glad I'm getting to witness and participate in a celebration tonight...while listening for the first time in my memory, a president-elect holding out a hand across the aisle.

Philip."

*The photo is a view from Philip's apartment, which I took last May, when he graciously let us stay at his pad for a few days on the Pie in the Sky Tour of America.

Newspapers Win!

2008-11-05T15:35:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened on the way to newspapers' funeral: A bunch of news broke out, in the form of yesterday's historic election, and people decided they wanted a paper. Not just the paper's "content" -- usually available free on their websites -- but the actual, old-school newspaper.

My friend and former colleague James Grimaldi posted on his Facebook page this morning that he noticed a long line of people outside his Washington Post office waiting to buy a paper. Then he updated his post, with vintage Grimaldi salesmanship: "(I) just spoke w/ some of the hundreds waiting to buy a copy of today's paper and told them we would have happily delivered one to their home this a.m."

The Post must have gotten the word. It soon announced it would print a special edition of today's paper -- an "Extra!" like in the old days. And a bunch of other papers followed suit: The Chicago Tribune, New York Times and LA Times were among those printing more copies, according to this Top of the Ticket report.

With a nod to this cool post (Google Reader-noted by both Michelle and Kaye) capturing last night's "historic home pages," I flipped through the Newseum's roundup of today's newspaper fronts. It's pretty cool to see all 714 of them in one spot.

Some trends emerge. A lot of straightforward "Obama wins" headlines, and more of the New York Times' simple and dramatic "Obama" heds than I would have expected. Also many versions of the "Change has come to America" speech snippet that both Seattle papers used, and quite a few of the reversed-out image scheme that the P-I employed.

I'm no designer, but one of the most arresting pages, I thought, was the full-page, sepia-toned "Mr. President" image of the Chicago Sun-Times.

And I got a kick out of the New York Daily News, which must not have gotten the memo. It stuck with its apparent mission: "Sports and crime, all the time."

(Great post on this subject over at VisualEditors.com. I just noticed it, thanks to Michelle's Reads.)

'We all rise'

2008-11-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

Among the many celebrations today and the abundant fine news coverage, this CBS News Early Show piece stands out, with 50-plus years of historical context and an excellent brief interview with the poet Maya Angelou. Good get, as they say in the TV biz.

Hat tip to the LA Times' Top of the Ticket blog for pointing me to this.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Election Day at the SeattlePI

2008-11-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

I got to work at around 10, and my friends Candace and Sarah were standing around talking about heading out to score some of the free election day stuff we blogged about at the SeattlePI.com.

They invited me to go along, so, just like Mark, we hit the Cupcake Royale for a mini cupcake. The place was packed with people scoring a free election day cupcake, and responding well to the upsell prompt: want some coffee with that? The workers wouldn't let me take their picture, because they said the owner wouldn't want me to. So I took Candace and Sarah's picture instead.

We get back in the car and Candace informs me we're headed next to Babeland Sex Toys, which is giving away Silver Bullets and Mavericks to voters. One of them, I can't remember which, informs me that these make excellent gifts.

We find another half dozen voters at Babeland, including two ladies who giddily tell us they're on a democracy tour of Seattle. Here they are with their Silver Bullets:

The ladies behind the counter have No Problem with us taking their picture. They were busy as hell today, and gave out hundreds of toys to other voters making the free voter stuff rounds today.

Then finally the coffee. I asked this lady in front of us at the Starbucks if she was in line for her Freedom Coffee, and she said yes indeed. Like me, she insisted that they give her something other than Pike Place, because it sucks. This chick's even more adamant than me and Mark about the pure suckage of the mild, mealy-mouthed, milquetoast Pike Place blend: She even went to a stockholders' meeting to complain about its suckiness. They wouldn't bend, she said. Instead, they showed a video explaining how Pike Place was great.

Then back to work, to go over our plans for the online play of the election. Sarah and producer Curt watch as the first results hit the TV in the afternoon:

Then, oy, this election is bad for my diet. How was I to resist the amazing McCain and Obama cookies the PI bought for employees?

I just finished eating my Obama cookie. Mmm, sugary goodness. Obama's talking now. Yes we can, he says. Yes, we can.

Election Day in West Seattle

2008-11-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

Even for homey, good-vibey, community-y West Seattle, today felt especially celebratory.

I took a long Election Day walk around our neighborhood this afternoon, running a couple of errands, voting and scoring a freebie E-day cupcake and coffee, and everywhere I found people like this bike lady, totally into citizenship and encouraging others to join in. (When I took this photo, in the Junction, the bike lady's chain had just broken. If she took that as a metaphor or bad omen she didn't let on.)

It's a liberal hood, so I wasn't surprised to see all the signs of support for Barack Obama. Pretty strong though. With the exception of a couple of yard signs and bumper stickers touting John McCain, or the odd one regarding a statewide race or local ballot measure, the public displays were overwhelmingly Obama's. In the Junction -- the "downtown West Seattle" intersection of California Avenue and Alaska Street -- drivers honked their horns and waved to the Obamiacs on every corner. Before her chain broke, Bike Lady rode up and down the street, getting toots of support from nearly every passing car.

I'm registered as an absentee voter, but instead of mailing my ballot I walked it up to Schmitz Park Elementary, where Gina and Franny went to school through the fifth grade. Not the big crowds reported elsewhere in the city, but when I dropped my ballot in the box a poll worker told me it had been busy all morning.

At Schmitz Park I ran into our friends Angie and Lew, who also live nearby and also were there to vote. They let me hold their new baby Finn. Cute kid, even if he looks like Lew.

A new trend, or at least one I never noticed before, is businesses offering free stuff on Election Day. Starbucks was giving away a free cup of coffee all over the country, and here in the Junction the awesome Cupcake Royale served up a free "babycake" to anyone who said they voted.

Cool, deal me in. My only gripe was that C-Royale and Starbucks are about a 15-minute walk apart, so I couldn't enjoy the cupcake and the coffee together. I also needed a blood draw today, so I thought maybe there'd be an Election Day special at the lab too. But no, just a regular ol' nonpartisan, full-price needle poke. As Kaye said: Communist blood-suckers!

As a political reporter and editor for most of my life, it's weird for me not to be working on Election Night. Michelle and I planned to continue the newsroom tradition of ordering pizza while the returns come in. She's not even home from work yet and the networks have practically called the race for Obama -- NBC has it at 200 electoral votes to 90 at this moment -- but there's plenty of news to come. And you can't go wrong with a slice and a beer.

Here are some other pics from my afternoon walk.

Spazzinersary Weekend

2008-10-31T21:30:00.001-07:00

Happy Spazziversary Weekend everybody!

As you may remember from last year's posts or earlier events, it was two years ago tomorrow -- Nov. 1 -- that I seized out, leading Michelle to save my computer (and me) and to many other excellent adventures.

Last year we celebrated with a trip to the Oregon coast. This weekend we're spending on the Olympic Peninsula. First stop, tonight: lovely Port Townsend. Tomorrow a hike in the rain forest.

A more complete report, with Michelle's tasty photos, to come when we get home Sunday.

Bad Trip*

2008-10-27T17:11:00.001-07:00

(* Or, How I Kinda Halfway OD'd on the Wrong Meds)

Last week I was sick. It was a chemo week, so I expected to feel crummy, but this was worse than usual.

On Sunday, the first night of my five-day course, I woke up in the middle of the night barfing. All the next day and really for the rest of the week I felt either drunk or hungover: headachey, listless, loopy, uncoordinated, dizzy, sick to my stomach.

This is the 19th month now of the 24 months of chemo my doctors have scheduled for me so I'm used to some ups and downs. The side effects vary from month to month, but generally I can count on heavy fatigue, a general nauseous feeling and digestive troubles, lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks.

To combat the effects of the chemotherapy drug, Temodar, I take an anti-nausea medication, ondansetron, a couple of small, round, off-white pills, about half an hour before I down the pink and white chemo capsules. All that in addition to the oblong Keppra pills that I take twice a day to stave off seizures. You're supposed to take the Temodar right before going to bed, and my routine is to take the Keppra at noon and midnight, so on chemo weeks the last hour or so before bedtime is a flurry of ringing alarms and pill-popping.

No wonder that there might arise a little confusion, right? That's all I'm saying.

When the mail-order pharmacy sends me my monthly Temodar supply they always ask if I need more of the nausea meds. Over the months I'd managed to squirrel away a few pills here and there, and so for a couple of months in a row I declined the ondansetron refill and saved on the co-pay. In fact I rounded up several unfinished bottles of the nausea meds and put them together on the little desktop where I keep all my drugs so that when it was time I could just grab a container and go.

That was the mistake, I guess.

On Thursday, the last night of my chemo round, I reached for the nausea meds and happened to glance at the label. Wait. This wasn't ondansetron but Lorazepam, a muscle relaxant and anti-anxiety drug -- basically Valium -- that my doctor prescribed, before our big road trip, to take if I had a seizure and couldn't get to a hospital.

Damn! No wonder! Not only was I getting all the weird spacey "benefits" of Valium -- at twice the recommended dosage, since I normally take two nausea pills -- but I wasn't getting any of the anti-nausea medication.

In the above picture, the Lorazepam is the small white pill on the left; the ondansetron is the very similar (right?) off-white pill in the middle. The Keppra's on the right.

Michelle noticed that the prescription label says the original Lorazepam pill count was 15, but there are only six pills left in the bottle, so I must have been taking those suckers all week. What an idiot.

Michelle did me a favor and hid the rest of the Valium. Somebody lock up the Drano.

148 years of Times endorsements

2008-10-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

At a time when many newspapers are debating whether they should make election endorsements, the New York Times not only presents its strong case for Barack Obama today, but also puts up a nifty online feature with every presidential endorsement going back to Lincoln's first, in 1860.

The page, "New York Times Endorsements Through the Ages," offers a timeline of those 38 elections, with color-coded squares indicating which party got the nod (and which was elected), a photo of the endorsed nominee, an excerpt from the endorsement and -- here's the real treat -- a link to the original editorial, usually in the .pdf format.

It's fun to look back and see where the Times was in sync with the electorate and where it wasn't -- no fan of Teddy Roosevelt, these guys.

Scanning through big batches of them you can see when the editors really believed in their pick (on Lincoln, "we shall have honesty and manliness instead of meanness and corruption in the Executive Branch"), and when, as with John Kerry in 2004, they were clearly holding their noses and making the best of a bad choice.

(The above photo, lifted from Wikipedia, is of John M. Palmer, the National Democratic Party nominee in 1896 whose candidacy wasn't helped by the Times endorsement. He lost to Republican William McKinley ... and Democrat William Jennings Bryan.)

Not for the first time ...

2008-10-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

As regular M&M readers know, "unprecedented" is one of those words that drives me crazy. I've managed to read right over it nearly every day for the past year or so, since I last registered my gripe, without complaint.

But my kettle boils over. After finding two instances of "unprecedented" today in the same story -- an otherwise excellent essay by Time's Joe Klein about Barack Obama -- I've decided to start a new M&M category -- unprecedented -- to track appearances of this misused word.

The rules: I won't go looking for "unprecedented" but if I run across it I'll note it here.

That's some stare decisis shit right there, so other writers should get with the program. You might have to go back to Marbury v. Madison to find a decision of such significance.

So with that, I present Exhibit A, from Klein's "Why Obama is Winning":

But the Senator from Illinois had laid down his marker: if elected President, he would be in charge. Unlike George W. Bush, who had given Petraeus complete authority over the war — an unprecedented abdication of presidential responsibility (and unlike John McCain, whose hero worship of Petraeus bordered on the unseemly) — Obama would insist on a rigorous chain of command.

And Exhibit B:

But one of the more remarkable spectacles of the 2008 election — unprecedented in my time as a journalist — was the unanimity among Democrats on matters of policy once the personality clash between Obama and Hillary Clinton was set aside.

Two unprecedenteds in one story. Not unprecedented, but not a good example.

More to come, usage geeks and fellow crabs.

Silly Movie of the Week

2008-10-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

A man in flames goes flying down the elevator shaft.

"Jesus Christ! It's one of our men!"

"Oh God!"

The dialog is very cheesy. The effects are cheesy.

"It's pretty bad," Mark says.

"It's an inferno. It's a towering inferno."

In the pocket

2008-10-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

I've never been a big believer in the liberal-media conspiracy.

Despite conservative complaints now as predictable as lousy voter turnout, the vast, vast majority of reporters and editors work hard to keep any kind of bias out of their stories, particularly in election coverage. If anything, liberal bias is more likely to creep into coverage of tangentially political topics, like environmental reporting.

I say that even though I do believe that most reporters and editors, in their hearts, lean to the left, and I think that many influential editorial boards are liberal, even if their mega-corporation publishers are not. Same goes for most TV news. But political reporters are equal-opportunity skewerers. The bigger problems among this lot are pack mentality and conventional-wisdom-itis.

And yet. Sometimes I'll see something in the paper that makes even me slap my forehead. Something I know will give the media-bashers some well-braised lib loin for their conspiracy stew.

Take today's Seattle Times. Given the placement, the headlines and the lead paragraphs of all the A-section stories about the presidential race, I don't see how a John McCain supporter could help thinking the paper was in the pocket of Barack Obama.

On the front page is a top-of-the-fold story headlined, "U.S. tax formula already spreads wealth." Here's the lede: "John McCain's condemnation of Barack Obama's call for shifting more wealth from richer Americans to poorer ones wins applause at campaign events, but it ignores the nation's long tradition of redistributing huge amounts of wealth through tax and spending policies."

That Associated Press story jumps to A3, which also features a large "CloseUp" centerpiece takeout story by McClatchy Newspapers under the hed, "Socialism: It's part of America's fabric." The top of this story: "'Make no mistake,' Republican activist John Hancock told a John McCain rally in this St. Louis suburb, 'this campaign is a referendum on socialism.' Republicans have been pounding that theme in recent days, even though Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama hardly fits the classic definition of a socialist."

A boldface pullout quote in the middle of the page underscores the point: "The answer is clearly no, Senator Obama is not a socialist."

Turn the page for more election news on A6, a feature about Obama's sick grandmother, "Toot," as she's called in the headline. "Barack Obama's mother was an adventurous woman who took her son around the globe," says the lede. "His grandmother was a rock of stability, giving him the American roots that would ground his teenage years as well as his career in politics."

Finally, on A7, some news about the Republicans. Two stories in fact. "McCain's Pennsylvania push not paying off." And, "Alaska paid for travel of Palin kids."

And that's it, the sum of the day's presidential election coverage for Seattle Times readers. Now, I know that news decisions like where to play a story and what hed to give it depend on a lot of factors, like the timeliness of a folo or the availability of a comebacker on other campaign developments, and that the stories themselves, in this case, are all written or compiled by wire services rather than local reporters. And sometimes the news is the news and the chips fall as they fall.

Still, wire editors here can change, rearrange or accetuate with some care, and with more in mind than the one specific story on the screen in front of them. In this case, the A1 and A3 CloseUp stories seem redundant to me, and the "Toot" story could have been dialed way, way down.

I see why conservative readers might smell a rat.

In today's New York Times, two front-page stories offer a different but equally (at least) troubling injection of bias. In these stories the problem is reaching too far to convey significance.

The Times' lead story, about how consumers appear to be taking less prescription medication as a way to save money (interesting!), isn't satisfied to leave it there. Here's the reach: "The trend, if it continues, could have potentially profound implications. If enough people try to save money by forgoing drugs, controllable conditions could escalate into major medical problems. That could eventually raise the nation's total health care bill and lower the nation's standard of living."

Wow! From -- we learn later -- a less than 1 percent downturn in the use of prescription meds during the third quarter, our entire standard of living is at risk. Note to NYT: Yeah, it is anyway.

In the off-lede story, about a big investor selling off a large stake in Ford, there's a similar overreach: "The falure of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler would have far-reaching economic and social consequences. Together, the automakers employ more than 200,000 workers in the United States and provide health care and pensions to more than a million Americans. In addition, their operations are lifelines to 20,000 auto dealers and countless suppliers, and the source of major tax revenue to states and local governments."

Double-wow. Putting aside the fact that the story doesn't persuasively make the case that Kirk Kerkorian's divestment will kill Ford, let alone the other automakers, it feels like a pretty long stretch to the collapse of my local city hall.

This kind of stuff bugs me, and it would no matter whose political party or economic interest were getting gored or whored.

It's a tough time for newspapers and the news business, as we know. Readers are dropping by the hundred thousands. Untold news meeting hours are wasted counting clicks and tweetering twits in a vain attempt to win them back.

My idea for a simple (and inexpensive) way to earn back some trust: Tell the news straight. Leave the overanalysis and the overwriting for the doofuses on the editorial page.

Congrats, WSB!

2008-10-21T11:38:00.001-07:00

Looks like Tracy Record of the awesome West Seattle Blog is about to be named one of Seattle's 25 most influential people.

Well deserved.

Do you have any McCains?

2008-10-19T15:03:00.001-07:00

Franny invented a new form of Go Fish. Twos are McCains, Eights are Obamas, aces are MacGrubers.

That's what we get for making her watch Meet the Press and SNL.

Laurie Anderson and the state of things

2008-10-17T12:28:00.001-07:00

It was a treat last night to see Laurie Anderson at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, performing all new material from her upcoming album "Homeland." (Thanks to Michelle for scoring us the tickets.) As always, Anderson was topical, political, philosophical, provocative, challenging and almost intimidatingly artistic and intelligent. When was the last time you were at a concert where Kierkegaard was not only a topic but the setup for a joke?

I find it best not to think too hard on any one aspect of her music but to let it all wash over me and then sift what I'm left with. At one point last night, in one of her spoken/sung essays, Anderson sighed, "Ah, the state of things," and that struck me as a pretty good distillation of her "Homeland" themes.

In that respect her central message hasn't changed much from the breakthrough success of "O Superman" and "Big Science" more than 25 years ago: a slightly sad, homesick review of present-day popular culture and politics, infused with unexpected moments of humor and hopefulness. Last night there were dreamy musical meditations opposing the Iraq war, torture, economic disparity and more -- all delivered with just enough imprecision of detail that they're likely to sound relevant in another 25 years -- along with funny observations about the ubiquity of TV/computer screens and advertising ("Underwear Gods") and our reliance on talking heads ("Only an expert can deal with a problem," unusually catchy).

The content certainly wouldn't be for everybody. I don't think Anderson will need to worry about John McCain illegally sampling her music for campaign ads. We saw several people get up and walk out, and I've read that the same happened in Europe where Anderson was playing near a military base and some in the audience objected to the Iraq message.

Also, with the exception of "Only an Expert" these aren't songs you're likely to walk out of the theater humming to yourself.

If you don't know her music Anderson can be hard to describe. She came to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a performance artist, although that term, which I've never liked, feels like it shorts both her art and her performance. She doesn't sing her songs so much as speaks them melodically, using an incredibly expressive and elastic voice, sometimes supported by electronic tricks including looping, doubling, echoes, reverb or digital alteration. She performed last night behind a small keyboard or digital console of some kind, with a laptop (a MacBook Pro, I think) to her left, and accompanied by a woman playing cello and three men on violin, bass and keyboards. Anderson herself, who is known for inventing electronic instruments, occasionally played what looked to be a miniature electric violin or ukulele, and she pulled out a microphone contraption that turned her head into a booming percussive instrument. Trippy.

The stage was minimalist groovy, with a dozen naked bulbs hanging from above almost to the floor, perfectly matching the tone and brightness of a sea of candles surrounding the musicians. A large, lit backdrop bathed the stage in mood-setting colors.

Musically, with the strings and the psychedelic wash, the pulsing rhythms and vaguely techno feel, the overall effect was something like David Byrne meets the Moody Blues or Kronos Quartet by way of the Eurythmics. Philip Glass would dig it.

I know Michelle and I did.

Before the show we ran into P-I art critic Regina Hacket in the lobby. I was happy to see she quickly posted a review on her blog, by about 1:30 this morning. (Note to P-I: Why not pull that out and promote it from the home page?)

For more Laurie Anderson background, here is her official site and Wikipedia entry. Also, check out the video of her signature piece, "O Superman":

Poker and politics

2008-10-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago, after the first presidential debate but before the veeps traded winks and gaffes, I sat down at the poker table next to Lynn, a 60s-ish regular player who always wears an oversize Barack Obama campaign button. Well, I said, how do you think he did?

She knew immediately that I was talking about Obama's performance in the debate and didn't miss a beat.

"He was OK," she said, "but I think it was a missed opportunity."

That had been my take too, just as a nonpartisan political reporter type, and I was struck that a true-believer fan would reach the same conclusion.

Our little exchange -- and that's about all there was to it -- touched off a few minutes of political table-talk, which is unusual in a poker game. At one point, a bit later, someone called the dealer Wilma by name but sort of mumbled it.

"Did you call me Obama," she asked. "Am I that bad?"

That led to a few oohs and ahs and a cross-examination of Wilma, who reversed course and said she liked Obama a lot; in fact she had just registered for the first time in her life so she could vote for him.

A few minutes later, as the conversation continued, Wilma seemed a bit embarrassed about having revived the topic.

"I'm probably going to get in trouble," she said. "They tell us there are three subjects we're not supposed to talk about: politics, religion and ... I can never remember what the third one is."

At that, a 20-something kid -- kind of an angry-looker with a little hipster stache/beard and barbed-wire tats on his biceps -- volunteered the missing subject. "Prolly women's rights," he said, and he got up to go have a smoke.

Uh, that would probably qualify as politics, I said as he walked away. Wilma, nervous: "Yeah, that wasn't it."

Whatever training the dealers get, this week the players again had politics in mind. Or at least the economy. In one game I asked my casual friend Stan, a financial adviser, how the market collapse and bailout were likely to affect his business. "People are nervous," he said. "I think it'll be good for business; everyone wants a new financial adviser. In fact, I should be at the office right now instead of playing cards."

That prompted a bit of speculation around the table about the economic elasticity of the casino biz. "This place is recession proof," someone said. "No matter how bad it gets people will think they can get lucky and win it all back."

Nods of agreement. Tales of woe. Someone mentioned the progressive bad-beat jackpot in the poker room, now up to an enticing $40,000 or so. The middle-aged grouse in Seat 9 looked at the number flashing on the screen and shook his head.

"Even if I won it," he said, "it wouldn't make up for what I lost in the market this week."

Everybody sighed. I was having a losing session, and after a couple of big winners got up and cashed out it seemed like everyone else at the table was stuck.

I have an idea, I said. At the end of the night let's see if Congress will pass a new bill and bail us all out.

The great thing about Americans

2008-10-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

I stopped at our favorite Junction bakery tonight before dinner to pick up some bread, and for the first time since it's been open I was the only customer. So I asked the guy at the counter how business has been.

Fine, he said. Really, the global economic meltdown hasn't crippled the croissant market?

"The great thing about Americans," he said, "is that they don't think. They just want to eat. I think we'll be fine."

'Our Times'

2008-10-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

Highlight of the weekend, following Kaye and Val's departure, was our excursion yesterday afternoon to see my friend Denny Heck's play, "Our Times."

The play is a reflection on Washington state history from 1975 to 2005, a period that includes my years as a newspaper reporter covering state government and politics, so I was very interested from the get-go. One nice touch: Playing me onstage was Brad Pitt. (I guess Denzel was booked.)

OK, that last part isn't exactly true. In fact it's a one-man play, with Denny playing an older version of himself, 30 years in the future, and looking back on his time in Olympia. Although I don't make an appearance as a character in "Our Times," I felt like I could have been there. A lot of the people and big issues Denny recalled -- Linda Smith, Booth Gardner, the Initiative 601 budget restriction, the rise of women in state politics -- were also my reporting subjects. As personal work history alone, it was a fun trip down memory lane.

The pleasant surprise for me, though, was how well the show worked as a show. Denny's wife Paula, who is credited as producer and director, made a short speech before the play began thanking the audience and reminding us that Denny is neither a professional actor nor playwright. She needn't have apologized. The writing was tight and engaging; and Denny -- dressed, made-up and acting like an old guy -- made for a very effective storyteller and a totally believable version of himself.

"Our Times" uses a very simple set -- a couch where Denny does most of his reminiscing, and a screen for nicely coordinated yet unobtrusive slides -- and a simple, straightforward structure: The old Denny receives a letter from a college student doing research, and the memories start flowing. There's just enough humor and light moments to keep the material from sounding like a classroom lecture, yet none of it is tarted up or exaggerated to stroke egos (including Denny's) or to settle old political scores. It feels true.

I was struck again by how involved Denny has been in so much of the state's late-century story, by how many people he knows so well and, as Michelle pointed out afterward, by what a modern Renaissance man he is. Government, politics, public television, journalism, the tech boom, fiction writing and now play writing and acting; he's a guy with wide interests who seemingly just decides to do something and then goes out and does it. Very cool.

There were a couple of funny moments in the performance we saw in Tacoma, which is likely to be the show's last. One of the politicians singled out for special praise in "Our Times" is Norm Dicks, a longtime congressman and truly one of the state's political giants. Dicks is a big man -- famously a former Univeristy of Washington linebacker, which helped launch his political career -- so it was impossible not to notice him in the audience, a head taller than his neighbors, as Denny talked about him and his picture appeared on the big screen.

I'll bet he never misses a performance, I said to Michelle.

The other cool thing is that this play has been solely a benefit for various charitable causes, including a fund established by the Hecks to help Olympia school principals buy basic supplies for their students (I believe Paula is a middle-school principal there). So far the play has raised $26,000 for charity.

Yesterday's wrap-up performance was a benefit for the Obama presidential campaign. As working and semi-retired (but maybe not forever) journalists, Michelle and I didn't feel like making a political contribution, so we wrote our check instead to the Olympia school fund, and we were happy to do so. If either of us ever winds up covering the Oly school district we'll remember to declare our conflict of interest.

Thank you to Denny for a wonderful afternoon and for many years of rewarding friendship.

(Above photo from photographer Bill Cawley, via Denny's official "Our Times" site.)

A natural politician

2008-10-05T13:00:00.001-07:00

Bruce could out-debate any of these clowns. Out-speech 'em too. Not to mention singing.

This is from a rally yesterday in Philadelphia.

Fish Nazi and The Unabomber

2008-10-04T15:30:00.001-07:00

With Kaye and Val in town, we went yesterday afternoon to one of our favorite West Seattle hangs, Sunfish on Alki, for a lunch of oysters and fish and chips.

I love the cod there, fresh and flaky, and the simple atmosphere of the small beach-side space. But there's something about the brothers who run the joint that always has reminded me of that famous "Seinfeld" episode, "The Soup Nazi" -- about the demanding guy with the perfect soup who would punish offending customers by shouting, "No soup for you!"

Here's a sample:

Nothing quite that extreme at Sunfish, but the brothers (I'm sorry I don't know their names) are pretty stern dudes, and woe betide the poor newbie who whips out a credit card or asks for more than one tartar sauce.

The last time I was there, a month or so ago, the owner was unaccountably nice to me. Nothing unusual by normal business standards, but he smiled and asked how my day was going. I even mentioned it to Michelle that night, that's how out of character it was.

So cut to yesterday. As I put in our order, the Fish Nazi smiled again (what?) and asked if I like to go to Las Vegas and play in poker tournaments. Wowie, he's looking into my soul! But then I remembered I was wearing my gray hooded sweatshirt with the World Poker Tour logo. When I said that yeah, I do like to play cards in Vegas, he got all excited.

"You're that guy with the sweatshirt, on the TV. With the name ... what is it?"

Oh, I said, you mean The Unabomber? That would be Phil Laak, the poker pro known as The Unabomber for his standard getup of hoodie and sunglasses. Other than the sweatshirt there's really not much resemblance and I told Fish Nazi that I'm not him, but he got all excited and asked a bunch of questions about poker and pointed me out to his brother, busy cooking.

"It's that poker guy."

Weirdly, the little episode of mistaken identity made my day. That and the fish and chips and the nice company. I went out to the Muck last night, while Michelle and Kaye were having a girl date, and nobody there mistook me for a poker pro. If anything I was the fish with chips. I lost nearly $150, never really got close to winning.

No soup for me.

Music deal o' the week

2008-10-04T11:13:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted any music reviews, and it's too bad because I've bought a lot of great music over the past months (and a couple of clunkers) that I should be noting.

But this one is so good, and the deal is so good and so short-lived, that I want to pass it along right now. It's "Two Men with the Blues," the unlikely combination of Wynton Marsalis, the great jazz trumpeter, and Willie Nelson, the great country crooner, troubadour and bitchin' pothead. Recorded live at Lincoln Center, part of Marsalis' regular jazz orchestra series there, the album is a wonderful mix of old-style New Orleans jazz and blues and Nelson's effortless lilt floating above.

I'm amazed at how well their styles blend. It has fast become one of my favorite records.

Now here's the great part. In an effort to nudge into iTunes' giant lead in the music store business, Amazon has started a really cool feature: Every Friday, it offers five albums for sale, via download, for $5. It's a great deal, I've downloaded several cool old records this way, but the thing is, each week's sale only lasts until Monday.

So go now, and check this one out. You can play short samples of the songs before you buy.

Four gliomas for sure. You can thank me later.

Photos: Our visit with Kaye and Val

2008-10-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

Val made us a delicious dinner, we took long walks on the beach, and much fun was had by all.

For a slideshow with larger images go here.

The debate, you betcha!

2008-10-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

We could go round and round on last night's VP debate -- as Kaye, Val, Michelle and I did last night over our conversation enhancers of choice -- but hell, this flow chart is so much better.

Thank you to Jason for passing it along.

'You could literally register to vote ...

2008-10-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

... while pooping.'

Martha Stewart living

2008-10-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

The comedian Rob Becker used to have this bit about coming home from work one day to find his roommate scrubbing the bathroom. "What," Becker would say with concern, "we're moving?"

That comes to mind because I'm suspending the morning news meeting to spend a few minutes picking up crap and, if I get really ambitious, maybe break out a broom. No, we're not moving, but we've lived here for more than four years now so it's about time to tidy up.

Besides, our friends Kaye and Val are arriving tonight, part of the awesome Big Graze road trip they've been chronicling over at The Night Note. These guys, real foodies and high-life appreciators, could have their own show. They know how to travel.

The other night Kaye sent a note suggesting that Val, a tremendous cook, fix us dinner here at our house on Thursday. What, I said in my best Rob Becker imitation, you don't like Raisin Bran?

Stories and photos of their visit to come. First I have a few hundred newspapers to put in the recycling ...

Behind the meltdown

2008-09-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Total collapse. Complete loss of confidence. Little faith in even the idea of a bailout.

No, for a minute, we're not talking about the economy and the mess in Washington and Wall Street, but that other horrific collapse: the Seattle Mariners baseball team.

Upon revival of the M&M morning news meeting last week, regular commenter Jason assigned a story in a comment thread: "I'd like a column on how to save the Mariners and where they rank against some of the other pathetic MLB franchises."

Excellent idea, and I've been watching the local papers with an eye out for just such an analysis. No luck.

First, if you haven't followed Seattle's dismal baseball season, the Mariners set a new record for futility: Their 101 losses weren't the most ever -- the not-yet-lovable Mets of 1962 still hold that honor, with 120 -- but the M's were the first team to lose in the triple digits while also paying their players at least $100 million. Do that for 7,000 straight years and you could pay for the Wall Street bailout, but I digress.

Anyway, last week the Seattle Times seemed to promise the kind of takeout Jason suggested with a five-part series, "Rebuilding the Mariners." But what a disappointment. (The P-I, which seems to have given up on baseball coverage, didn't even attempt a meaningful season wrap-up. And U.S.S. Mariner, a blog with the best local baseball coverage, hasn't taken a comprehensive stab either.)

In the Times, instead of doing what the series title implies, breaking down the team's strengths and weaknesses and mapping some sort of route out of the woods, writer Geoff Baker burns through many expensive pages of newsprint to make some obvious points: Big contracts will make it tough to reshape the team; the Mariners don't have enough good hitters; they do have a couple of promising pitchers; the ownership group hasn't been brilliant, but it isn't going anywhere; the field manager, promoted at midseason, brought a little old-school discipline but no more success than the guy he replaced.

OK, fine. Anyone who has spent more than three innings at Safeco Field or tuned into FSN this year knows all that already. So now what? Baker doesn't get much beyond noting that that will be a big challenge for the next general manager, to be hired soon.

Baker also ruined much of his credibility as a reporter, at least in my eyes, by writing last week that the Mariners' franchise player, Ichiro Suzuki, is so disliked in the clubhouse that team meetings were convened and at least one player had to be held back from fighting him. Trouble is, Baker attributes all this to one unnamed "clubhouse insider." When the story was predictably denied Baker offered the lamest defense: "You'll just have to trust me on the anonymous source."

Trust me: Anonymous sourcing is weak, in sports no less than in politics, and hanging a story -- especially one this explosive -- on just one unnamed "insider" is unacceptable. Go back and watch "All the President's Men":

Ben Bradlee: Bernstein, are you sure on this story?
Carl Bernstein: Absolutely.
Ben Bradlee: Woodward?
Carl Bernstein: I'm sure.
Ben Bradlee: I'm not. It still seems thin.
Howard Simons: Get another source.

But back to baseball. Anybody who has seen my fantasy-team moves up close, and that includes at least three of our regular readers, knows that I'm no more qualified for drafting a Mariners blueprint than Bill Bavasi, the moronic general manager they just fired.

But I'm no less qualified either. So here's my prescription.

When faced with a massively bad team like this one, there are three basic options: Blow the team up and start over, which usually means a long, slow painful "youth movement"; try to win right away, usually by hiring a couple of genius free agents to fill holes and turn things around; try for some modified, middle-course rebuilding program.

Baseball's full of success stories employing all three strategies. I'd go here for Option 3, mostly because the M's have too many overpriced and under-contract players to pull off a full-blown, Florida Marlins-style nuke job.

My basic principles would be that, with a few exceptions, no player is off limits if a decent trade becomes possible; no jobs are guaranteed; and the rebuilding plan should emphasize pitching and defense first. I'd look to dump salary where I could, and not mislead fans with happy talk about being "competitive" this coming season.

Given that, the untouchable players on my Mariners would be promising young pitchers Felix Hernandez, Brandon Morrow and Ryan Rowland-Smith, along with Ichiro. Whatever Geoff Baker says about him, Ichiro is one of the few Mariners who can put fans in the seats, and at 200 hits and 100 runs scored a year for eight years (the only other player to do that was Lou Gehrig) he's no slouch on the field.

Elsewise, around the horn, I'd try to make the best of a bad situation at catcher, where the Japanese ownership insisted on a three-year, $24-million contract for the inept Kenji Johjima, by making Johjima the backup to up-and-comer Rob Johnson. Move another catcher, Jeff Clement, to first base, giving up on midseason call-up Bryan LaHair (who was an improvement over the hated Richie Sexson). Keep Jose Lopez at second and Yunieski Betancourt at shortstop, with the option of moving either of them if needed, and hang on to Adrian Beltre at third base. Expensive he may be, and somewhat disappointing at the plate, but he's a rock defensively, never misses a game and remains one of the few power threats in the lineup.

In the outfield, look to trade left fielder Raul Ibanez, even though he's the team's most productive hitter. He's got value on the trade market, which is rare on this team, and he'll be too old to be useful by the time the team is good enough to win. Move Ichiro to center, whether he likes it or not. Give Wlademir Balentien a chance to win the right field job, with Jeremy Reed, Mike Morse or open tryouts all available as backup options.

Build the rotation around Felix, Morrow and Rowland-Smith, with the other spots an open competition among Erik Bedard and Carlos Silva, the disappointing acquisitions from last winter, along with Ryan Feierabend, Jarrod Washburn, R.A. Dickey and whoever else shows up next spring with a pair of cleats and a jar of Ben-Gay. The bullpen can sort itself out from the dregs and the hungry prospects in camp.

Will the team win? No. It's pretty much the same gang of losers who have been out there all season, with the subtraction of a couple of lameos already discarded and, one would hope, the motivation that no job is safe.

As for the second part of Jason's assignment, comparing the Mariners' prospects to those of baseball's other bad teams, I presume he means his hometown nine, the Washington Nationals. I don't know much about the Nats, except that Michelle and I saw them play this year at their new stadium, along with Jason and his girlfriend. Not a great-looking team.

I do know that even in their ineptitude the Mariners are inept: Incredibly, they won the last three games of the year to finish a game and a half better than the Nationals and thus not quite the worst team in the majors. Meaning Washington and not Seattle will be rewarded with first pick in the upcoming amateur draft.

So, with the second pick, some patience and maybe a giant rescue plan from Congress, I suppose it's possible the Seattle sports pages will be worth reading again in a couple of years.

In the meantime, a final suggestion for the Mariners: Keep the hot dogs. They're pretty good.

Here's what I'm talking about

2008-09-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Harry Shearer, on Huffington Post: "As an American typically ignorant of the arcane ways of the financial wizards, what was missing for me in the scare talk last week was somebody who could put the danger in concrete terms."

Good piece, with a nice title: The Failure of 'Because I Say So.'

That's a lot of zeroes

2008-09-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

As we speak the House just rejected the big bailout plan and congressional leaders are trying to line up a second vote. I'm no economist but I'm sure not convinced that this plan is a good idea, and I still haven't seen anyone attempt the story I suggested last week, explaining in simple terms what would happen if we taxpayers don't give these well-dressed thieves $700 billion or more of our money.

There were a couple of smart op-ed columns in the New York Times last week at least raising questions about all of this.

Thomas Friedman made the good point that one of things weakening the U.S. economy is that it's built on fluff, not stuff:

We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering. We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream — a house with a yard — because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a “liar loan” from an underregulated bank with no money down and nothing to pay for two years. The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement.

And Maureen Dowd had a smart observation: "Who would have dreamed that when socialism finally came to the U.S.A. it would be brought not by Bolsheviks in blue jeans but Wall Street bankers in Gucci loafers?"

What I do know is that $700 billion is a lot of money. That's $700,000,000,000. A 7 with 11 zeroes. Yike. Here in Seattle, where officials and voters have been wringing their hands for years about how to replace the crumbling highway on the downtown waterfront, you could buy 300 new viadcuts for $700 billion.

As Jon Stewart famously put it last week (mocking a real TV news report, actually), that figure amounts to 2,000 McDonald's apple pies for every man, woman and child in the United States. Michelle and I don't eat at Mickey D's, but putting it in terms that matter to the M&M economy, our "apple pie" share of the bailout equals 10 buy-ins to our regular poker game, 10 bottles of Bombay Sapphire (the good shit, in the big bottle), 50 pounds of Starbucks French Roast and one iPhone for good measure. Each.

So, like, a couple of weeks of fun.

I know the world financial markets may hang in the balance, but I'm not sure it's a good trade.

In case you missed it, here's Stewart's riff from last week:

Update: Oh my god, I watched this and found myself agreeing with George Will. "We're getting dangerously close to the truth," he said in this panel discussion, "which is that the sainted American people are the problem here."

Will mentions the 105 billion credit cards held by Americans, the self-reported credit card debt of $12,000 per household, and the fact that total household debt is 139 percent of household income.

"The refusal to defer gratification is a fundamental attribute of childishness," he said.

This show, "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," was pretty good show all around. More clips here. I wonder whether now that Russert's gone Stephanopoulos will take over as the must-see Sunday morning news show.

Sunday news meeting, comedy edition

2008-09-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

For the second week in a row, the opening of "Saturday Night Live" last night was an all-time keeper featuring Tina Fey's dead-on impression of Sarah Palin. This one, recreating Palin's interview last week with Katie Couric, is funny not just for the impersonation and the jokes, but also because, if you saw the Couric interview, it's only barely an exaggeration.

Pretty good trick when you can make the news funny without even changing anything. Check them both out here.

We also watched Chris Rock's new HBO special last night, "Kill the Messenger." Rock's in-your-face, politically incorrect and often X-rated humor might not be for everybody, but he totally cracks me up. In this concert film, culled from appearances in New York, London and Johannesburg, Rock hits a lot of his favorite topics -- racism, relationships, politics, music -- always with sharp points that everyone else somehow seems to have missed.

Barack Obama, he said, "is so calm and cool sometimes I think he doesn't even realize he's the black candidate. Like he thinks he's gonna win this thing fair and square! Like he thinks having the most votes is gonna mean something!"

And: "Is America ready for a black president? We should be. We just had a retarded one."

Rock snuck in a bit of his concert material last week on David Letterman's show, when he followed an appearance by Bill Clinton and hilariously made the point that many others have noticed: Clinton's support for Obama seems pretty soft.

Check that out here.

All in all, a good week for political comedy. The late-night shows had a field day, with highlights captured here on Huffington Post.

A cool hand

2008-09-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Presidential debates come and go, but there will be only one Paul Newman. I find his death to be far bigger news today than the snoozefest that was last night's McCain-Obama matchup or (espeically) any of the post-debate analysis.

There are a lot of good Newman remembrances out there already. I especially like Manohla Dargis' slide show at the New York Times, and I'll point you also to my friend Jason Bellamy's nice look back at The Cooler.

As long as the spirit of debate is still in the air: What is your favorite Newman film, or what do you consider his best role? I hope you'll answer in the comments, M&M'ers. Here's Newman's IMDb page for reference.

Jason's already on record at his site with "Hud," from 1963. A good one, for sure. I noticed an online poll at the L.A. Times that, when I last saw the results, had "Too many good choices to pick one" with a sizable lead over "Cool Hand Luke" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." (The above picture is from a scene in "The Sting.")

I like all of those, but I think Michelle and I will probably kick off our Newman retrospective film festival tonight with "Cool Hand Luke," which we happen to own on DVD. "Butch Cassidy" is also queued up on the Tivo so that will get a viewing soon too. And I'm always ready to pair up "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money." But what I'm really looking forward to is going back to see three of his middle-to-late period movies again that are among my favorites. I really appreciate Newman from about the late 1970s on, because his looks have faded from godlike to merely extraordinarily handsome, and so he's forced to rely a bit more on his great charm and intelligence and other skills. I can relate.

And so, in this period I recommend "The Verdict" (1982), his incredible portrayal of a washed-up lawyer hoping to salvage some self-respect; "Absence of Malice" (1981), one of the better newspaper movies and maybe the only one that can make me root against the reporter (Sally Field); and "Nobody's Fool" (1994), which might be Newman's most subtle, affecting performance as an actor.

As for a verdict in the presidential debate, most of the commentary last night and this morning ran along predictable lines, with conservatives praising McCain's toughness and confidence on foreign policy, and liberals touting Obama's cool presidentialness and relaxed intelligence. Fine, but to declare a "winner" in a tit-for-tat talking points exchange seems silly to me.

Going by Judd Legum's guide to scoring the debate, which I linked to yesterday, it's hard to claim the meter moved toward either candidate. Call this one a draw and get back to me, candidates, when you've got an idea about fixing the economy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

2008-09-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Every day I try to write a page or two after work on my new screenplay project, which I guess isn't all that new anymore. I can't remember exactly when I started it (it's probably noted somewhere here on the blog) but I'm up to 35 pages, and into the first section of the second act.

Right now I'm doing what professional writers call "procrastinating." Still others call it "blogging."

Three weeks ago and counting I sent my last script off to an agent, who promised to take a look at it in "2 weeks."

You know, agents, right? Of course two weeks doesn't mean two weeks. But I can't help myself. At the end of every day I say sadly to myself, my agent didn't call me again today. Sigh.

(I'm hoping that if I keep calling him "my agent" the power of my words will magically sway him across the thousands of miles to actually agree to be my agent and sell my screenplay to somebody.)

Every once in a while I go back and check the cheery email in which he promised to get to my script, like I said, in "2 weeks" just to be sure I'm not mistaking the date. September 3. That's right. At least a whole week more than two weeks.

As a friend at work would say, Chillax! I mean, he'll probably say no, right, so what's the point of getting all worked up?

As you can see, I just can't help myself. Look there. Now it's been three weeks, two days and 11 hours since he said he'd take a look.

Another week gone, and still no call from my agent.

Sigh.

Brain cancer in the news

2008-09-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Kathi Goertzen, from komonews.com

On the off chance that your giant headache today isn't caused by the economic meltdown or presidential politics -- more about both in a minute -- I want to pause briefly to consider brain cancer in the news.

I always flinch when I see stories on this topic. Too much of it is the maudlin, over-the-top "Gloria"-style coverage I can't stand. But even when it's straight-ahead, brain cancer news feels like it's hitting too close for comfort. A couple of months ago, when conservative pundit Robert Novak announced that he had a brain tumor -- and said it explained why he ran over a pedestrian the week before -- a friend wrote to me, full of outrage on my behalf: Doesn't it piss you off that this idiot gets all this coverage and you get nothing, my friend said.

Well, no, not really, but I do get tired of seeing brain cancer everywhere. Is it just me, or is this disease more in the news than it used to be? And often with a kicker that makes me feel bad, one way or the other.

First there was the University of Washington football player who was diagnosed about the same time I was. That killed his football career, but by the following spring, hey, he had recovered and made the UW baseball team! The M&M Pie in the Sky tour hit the East Coast about the same time Sen. Ted Kennedy was found to have a brain tumor, and that news was inescapable for a few days, along with opinions of his "grim prognosis." At Barnes & Noble one day I noticed that Bobby Murcer, the longtime Yankee player and broadcaster, had written a book and I couldn't help rolling my eyes as I read about his brain cancer being a blessing in disguise, or the best thing that could have happened, or some such nonsense. He died in July.

Anyway, this week, the popular Seattle news anchor Kathi Goertzen, pictured above, underwent her fourth (!) brain surgery in the past decade, partially resecting, again, a tumor that keeps growing back. This P-I report says the surgery lasted eight hours. God. For some reason, though, this ongoing story hasn't make me wince like cancer coverage usually does. Maybe it's that I've met Goertzen several times and like her. It's true what they've been saying in the local reports about her warmth and dedication to her craft. She strikes me as a good and brave person, and I'm wishing her well. That's all.

In economic cancer news, I loved these two news-ish takes on the Wall Street meltdown.

First, with typical editing aplomb Jon Stewart compared President Bush's speech on the economy the other night with his strikingly similar warnings years ago about terrorist attacks.

Then, CNN's Campbell Brown dropped all pretense of objectivity in ripping Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson a new one. Again, the juxtaposition of old and new clips is what makes the case.

Planning to watch the big debate tonight? Now that John McCain has backed back in everyone's back to preparing their debate preview pieces. I've scanned a few of them, and for my money the best guide is this piece by Judd Legum at Huffington Post.

Legum, whose old job was monitoring post-debate punditry for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said the main thing he learned was that pundits are full of it (duh). Turn off the post-game analysis, he advises, and figure it out for yourself. He offers a few useful rules for doing so, with examples from previous debates.

Finally, could any morning news meeting be complete without a little dig at one or the other of my former local employers?

Try this local-front taste test and tell me which lede makes you want to read the story.

Newspaper A:

BLAINE -- The second gubernatorial debate of the Gregoire-Rossi rematch proved to be another bare-knuckles slug fest, this time before a pro-business crowd that gave Republican challenger Dino Rossi a home field advantage.

But while several of Gov. Chris Gregoire's positions received icy receptions -- her support of Washington's estate tax, for example -- she touted her accomplishments with optimism and confidence.

Newspaper B:

BLAINE — Gov. Christine Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi both pledged Thursday not to raises taxes to make up for the state's projected $3.2 billion budget shortfall.

But even on that point of apparent agreement, the rivals found plenty of room for dispute during a heated hourlong debate sponsored by a business group.

To my eye, the second story, by the Times, gets quicker to the point -- breaking some news with the tax pledge -- and tells what happened instead of characterizing it, as the P-I does with its it cliched "slug fest" take.

My lesson here: Write the news plain, people.

Even blessed with a brain tumor, I can see that much.

Return of the morning news meeting

2008-09-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Flipping through the M&M archives I noticed it was one year ago today that we posted our first morning news meeting, a little pre-workday back-and-forth between Michelle and me about the Seattle papers' front pages: on that day, coverage of the new "Halo" video game, a rant about the Seattle Times' ongoing disease-of-the-week barf-fest and a tandem head-scratch about the P-I's lame centerpiece feature.

Actually, we had dabbled with a morning news meeting precursor a couple of other times. But it was on this date last year that we gave the feature its name, and it was something I kept going pretty religiously for a long time. Eventually, I guess, it began to feel like an obligation and I gave up doing it regularly.

Lately I haven't been doing much blogging at all. I haven't felt well and I just haven't been into it. But in honor of the M&M MNM-iversary, and with all the news out there right now, I decided to cast my grumpy eye on the day's headlines.

Predictably, the local papers and big sites are all leading with some combination of the Wall Street bailout and the McCain debate pullout. As they should. But so far I haven't seen the story I'd like to see someone tackle: What, exactly, would happen if Congress doesn't approve this $700 billion, kingmaking, unreviewable checkbook for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson? Yes, I heard President Bush say last night that "our entire economy is in danger" without the public money. But how? What does that mean? What are the steps of the implied collapse? I imagine trouble for the last standing investment banks and for big institutional investors. But then what? Do local banks go down, small businesses close, people lose their jobs? Why? How? When? I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone try to run these questions down yet. About the closest thing I've seen is today's New York Times op-ed column by my friend Tim Egan, who does it by implication, retelling some tales from the Great Depression.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, losing 40 percent of its value over a brutal autumn, barely 2 percent of Americans owned stocks. People asked, sensibly: how could this affect me? ... Banks were largely unregulated then, free to gamble people’s savings on stock market long-shots. When the market collapsed, the uninsured deposits went with it. By the end of 1932, one fourth of all banks were shuttered, and 9 million people lost their savings.

While we're assigning stories this morning, how about a piece honestly assessing blame for this mess? And by that I mean not just the piggishness of Wall Street and the blindness of the politicians and bureaucrats who are supposed to be watching it (that's been noted, and rightly so), but also the stupid, irresponsible and unquenchable desire of everyday Americans, millions and millions of them, to have everything they want, right now. Yes, part of that was their easily exploited wish to buy more house than they could afford, to believe that real estate prices would rise endlessly, virtually erasing the risk of both mortgage borrower and maker, or so they thought. But there is also the pull of "the porn," as we call the weekly Best Buy circular around here. There's that gleaming 50-inch 1080p plasma LG staring you in the face -- no payments until 2010! -- but do you really need another TV, on credit? How does the consumer spending binge figure into all this? When the president told us months ago that it was our patriotic duty to buy stuff to help the economy, was that really right?

I mean, I love the porn too. I'm typing this on my trusty MacBook Pro, and I'm sure I'll reread it later on my swank iPhone. But come on, people. If everyone forgoes a purchase or two, is that going to hurt the economy, or help it? I'd buy a newspaper that attempted to answer that question.

In local news, Michelle and I were at the Mariners' historic game last night. It was their 100th defeat of the season (we were also on hand for loss No. 1, on the season's second day), but what made it historic was the fact that the M's are the first team ever to lose at least 100 games while also spending at least $100 million on its players' salaries. That should have been on A1 today. Next year, with Richie Sexson gone and with the ability to fire another overpriced loser or two, it's possible the Mariners could dip below the $100 million payroll mark. I wouldn't bet on the team losing any fewer games though.

Finally, a couple of misanthropic notes in my pet-peevey tightass copy editor mode:

The Seattle Times has a front-page headline today, over a story about a new charitable foundation started by a retired baseball player, that says, "One teacher can impact so many kids." Argh! I know this is a quote and everything, but surely someone on the desk knows that impact is not properly a verb in this sense. Jeez. One dumb headline can impact so many kids. Well, not really, since kids don't read the paper. But still. Shape up, people.

The P-I's Robert Jamieson writes today about crime in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, and I was with him until I got to this sentence: "Nearby street hustlers howled right along with sartorially attired patrons who'd just left Viceroy, an upscale bar." Um, sartorially attired? Doesn't that just mean they were attired in ... clothes?

Lesson for writers: Don't use ten-dollar words when a two-bit one will do, especially when you don't know what the spendier word means. You can't afford it, vocabularywise. Didn't you hear? Our entire economy is in danger.

Ricky Gervais takes his Emmy back

2008-09-22T13:54:00.001-07:00

Fishbowl LA calls this the only good moment from the Emmys. Pretty funny.

overheard @ blogworld

2008-09-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

"you define yourself by who you follow."
Scoble

"and then she comes up with these incredible insights - now you know why you're here."
Context unknown

Cool Screenwriter Blogs

2008-09-16T19:49:00.001-07:00

This post is for Gina, who is struggling with trying to write screenplays in her spare time just like me. I'm on page 17 of my new project while waiting for an agent to get back to me on what he thought about the last one; Gina's starting out on brainstorming for her new screenplay while cutting together the final edits on her last movie -- which she wrote and directed -- Stella.

So for both of us, here's a list of cool new screenwriting blogs I just found tonight:

Going into the story:Big time screenwriting dude, teaches as UCLA Extension, where I used to take fiction writing classes. Great Program, great price. UW should consider starting up something this accessible. (price-wise) This guy recommends you read these 14 scripts in 14 days. (The scripts are online behind this link.)

The MovieQuill: I like this guy. He writes about the life of a screenwriter in screenwriting format.

Unknown Screenwriter: His latest funny post looks at whether his screenwriting habit is an addiction.

John August: Smart looking dude.

Jane Espensen: She used to write for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cool.

Old School Photo

2008-09-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

That's me on the right. That's my mommy holding me. In the middle are my Welsh grandparents. Mia familia, yo. Like, 40 years ago.

Send us your old school photos. We'll post 'em!

Cat Fights Printer

2008-09-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is all over the internets this week. I thought it was pretty funny, but then I noticed there are many, many cat vs. printer videos on youtube. It's like, a genre. America is weird. Or maybe it's the world.

Watch with the sound ON.

Back to school

2008-09-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

Not actually being in school myself, I love the beginning of the school year.

It still feels like summer but it's starting to feel like fall. It means the anticipation of the new, the chance to start again with a clean slate. The kids dress up in their new school clothes, put their new notebooks in new backpacks and, at least around here, pretend disdain for the school part of school while clearly enjoying the friends part of school. Excellent rituals all.

This year is especially exciting in our households because Franny and Gina are both starting at a new school, which means new kids, new teachers, a new routine. The Center School, located at the big Seattle Center public space just north of downtown, is a small, arts-oriented public high school, with ninth through 12th grades but only a couple hundred kids total. Gina wasn't thrilled with West Seattle High last year as a freshman and wanted to transfer this year to Center, where the film program caught her attention. Franny decided to follow along for her first year of high school.

I took them to an orientation a couple of weeks ago and got a good hit off the place. It's small enough that everyone knows everyone, which, the thinking goes, keeps expectations high and performance up and trouble down. Also, with fewer students there's not enough critical mass to support a lot of cliques. And the academic program seems good. Art is integrated into the core subjects like math, science and humanities, everyone learns Spanish, and the electives include filmmaking and other cool stuff that I think the girls will dig.

The teachers I met seemed smart and into it. The principal is positive in a way that borders on the bothersome chirpy, but she's engaged and accessible. All good.

When school started last week I begged the girls to take a first-day photo and send it to me, a tradition we've been keeping in this family since I was in kindergarten, maybe longer. Of course they didn't do it. But this week, with Greta in Los Angeles recording a new album, the girls are here at Casa M&M and I was able to capture the above second-week photo. (By Matassa family tradition, the pic should have been snapped in the morning, on the way to school, but that's too damn early for me, so this was a getting-home-from-school photo.)

Hard so far to get detailed reports on how things are going. I think it's going to be a little bit of a transition because they don't know anybody there except for Franny's best friend Lacaia, who also got in (there's a waiting list).

I'll say this: They're little geniuses at getting up, getting themselves out of here and taking the bus to school without waking up the grownups. On that basis alone, A+!

Here are a couple snaps from orientation day:

Twitter Testing 1-2-3

2008-09-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

If I were twittering, as Clive Thompson seems to be suggesting I should in his NYT piece today -- and as I realized after watching people twitter their way through Gustav, I probably should be, since in the event of big news this is probably the very best way to give people incremental updates -- here's what I'd be twittering today (how's this for a Faulknerian sentence?):

Starting a new screenplay today. "It was a dark and stormy nite..."

67 characters. Well within the 140 limit allowed on Twitter ...

Are you twittering? Tell me why or why not. I'm trying to decide if it's time to take the leap.

Wordle Rocks

2008-09-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

Wonder what you're writing about, really? Now you can feed a chunk of words through this awesome tool Wordle, and it will spit out a tag cloud for you. Here's a Wordle of M&M's recent posts. Cool, no?

Heck of a guy

2008-09-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

Latest in my semi-retirement victory lap of lunches with old friends and colleagues was yesterday in Olympia, where I was happy to dine with Denny Heck, the onetime boy wonder legislator whose impressive post-politics resume includes becoming business partner of Matassa's favorite journalist.

Incredibly, Denny and I go back nearly 20 years now, to my tenure as a capital bureau reporter for the Seattle Times. By the time I got to know him Denny already had come and gone in the Legislature, having been elected at age 24 as a representative from Southwest Washington and eventually becoming House majority leader. In my time at the Capitol, Denny was chief of staff to the popular Democratic governor, Booth Gardner, and I'd characterize our relationship as cordial but wary -- both ways. He was somewhat aloof, sometimes a source, sometimes an antagonist, always a protective advocate for and adviser to his boss the governor. We had our disagreements about my coverage, I remember that, but I always respected him as incredibly smart and politically astute and -- probably, under that partisan armor -- a good guy.

Somehow we stayed in touch after Gardner left office, I left Olympia for Seattle and Denny left politics to found and run TVW, which is this state's version of C-SPAN. Later, when I decided to leave the Seattle Times and, with my friend Emory Thomas, start my own Web-based news-aggregation business, PersonalReader, Denny signed on as an angel investor.

Without his backing we really couldn't have gotten PersonalReader too far off the ground. High among the many disappointments of operating an ultimately unsuccessful business, I regret I was never able to show Denny a return on his investment.

So, when we reconnected recently via Facebook and Denny asked about the vaguely referenced health crisis that sent me into semi-retirement, I was only too happy to meet him in Oly to fill him in.

That boring subject out of the way, we enjoyed a nice meal at a cool downtown restaurant (new since I lived there) called Rambling Jack's -- turkey sandwich for me, calzone for Denny -- and gossipped and kibitzed about politics and newspapers. He just got back from the Democratic convention in Denver, and he was rapturous.

We also talked about what we both do in our retirement. Uh, I think Denny puts his time to better use. He wrote and self-published a mystery novel, "The Enemy You Know" -- not autobiographical, he says, although coincidentally about a retired Olympia pol who discovers a body at an Eastern Washington lake where the real Denny also happens to own a cabin -- and he has just written and stars in a one-man play, "Our Times," about an older character named Denny Heck who looks back on 30 years of Washington's political past.

Well, write what you know, they say.

There is one more performance of "Our Times" scheduled, in October, and I'm hoping to see it. I've also asked Denny if there are any remaindered copies of "The Enemy You Know" lying around; it's out of print now otherwise.

When he talked about both writing projects, but especially the book, his enthusiasm was infectious. Almost enough to get a junkie gambler off his lazy ass and sit him down at a keyboard. We'll see about that. Denny also claims to be a killer cribbage player. Maybe we'll see about that too.

Live Streaming Gustav Watch: Hey Bras in Houma

2008-08-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

A bunch of guys in Houma, La., right in the path of Gustav, are live streaming their storm watch, otherwise known as drinking beer and sitting around. One of them got up and wandered away, then came back to announce, Dude! There's 2,800 people watching us!

Man, it's interesting to see how people are using Twitter this time around to share info. Check out NolaDawn, YatPundit, MidCityGirl, and GambitWeekly (The altpaper in NOLA.)

Other handy links:
All the tv stations in NOLA, live streaming. (You'll have to turn down the volumes on all of them but the one you want to watch.)

Gambit's Blog of New Orleans

It's amazing to watch Bourbon Street live.

A guy who gives good link.

This list is so money

2008-08-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

Or, anyway, that's how they might put in "Swingers" (No. 14), if the characters in that Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn classic were discussing today's Los Angeles Times compilation of "The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years."

What makes a movie an L.A. movie? My fave, "Chinatown," isn't listed but that's only because it's older than the arbitrary 25-year cutoff. So what else would you look for: cars, beaches, babes, mystery, defining neighborhoods? You'll find a little bit of all of that in this excellent list.

Yes, the Oscar-winner "Crash" is here, but only ranked 25th of 25. And Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann and Paul Thomas Anderson all show up too, but probably not for the films you'd expect. There are surprises aplenty here alongside predictably deserving SoCal scene-setters.

"Mulholland Drive," "Boyz N the Hood" and "L.A. Confidential," sure. But "Friday"? "Valley Girl"? "Fletch"?

Check out the list, if nothing else, for a handy guide next time you're in the video store or managing your Netflix queue.

(Photo credit: Bruce W. Talamon, from "Devil in a Blue Dress," via Los Angeles Times)

This week in politics

2008-08-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

I’d barely formulated opinions about all the big Democrats’ speeches from Denver this week – my take: Clintons effective; Obamas disappointing – when I heard someone on the car radio Friday morning saying something that didn’t quite make sense. She was praising and thanking Hillary Clinton, and then speculating about how cool it would be this fall if “we” could break through those 18 million glass-ceiling cracks. Huh?

Who was this anyway? By the time I figured out that “we” meant she, it was clear too that the speaker was Sarah Palin, John McCain’s surprise pick as his Republican running mate. Brilliant, I thought! Or maybe stupid! I keep changing my mind.

For most of the week, my reactions to all the political news have been pundit-free. Which has been great. Michelle and I Tivo’d and watched the big speeches together after she got home from work, fast-forwarding through the glib insincerity of Brian Williams, the Botoxed filler of Andrea Mitchell and the inane spatting of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. CNN and PBS were slightly less annoying. We didn’t even try pathetic Fox or the over-matched ABC and CBS.

The big revelation for me, though, came on Wednesday. Somehow the Tivo had stopped recording Tuesday night before Hillary’s speech was over, so I went online to watch the conclusion. I found it thanks to a link to Huffington Post from Michelle’s Google Reader. That and Kaye’s excellent posts on the Nitenote, I thought, were just about all I needed to take in the news and color of the convention and form my own opinions.

M&M, HuffPo and Nitenote: Call it NNN, the Nitenote News Network.

I loved Kaye’s reports on being interviewed on the street by high school students – “Stay smart,” she advised them – and on Bill Clinton’s speech – “That’s right, Mr. President, go on” – but my favorite was her gut-wrenching yet funny admission of mistaking Willie Brown on the street for Jim Clyburn.

Argh, NNN’s very own MBP.

I can’t say I agree with Kaye’s high opinion of Barack Obama’s Thursday night speech, though. She was so smitten she couldn’t get out much more than a headline, “Wowbama!” I know a lot of people agree with that assessment. Even the conservative commentator Pat Buchanan called it the greatest convention speech he’d ever heard. I don’t think so.

What did you think? I’d love to see speech reviews or overall convention impressions here from the M&M faithful.

If you missed the speeches somehow, here they are.

Obama accepts nomination:

Bill Clinton:

Hillary Clinton:

Michelle Obama:

Joe Biden:

(Top photo credit: Flickr user rklau under Creative Commons Attribution license)

Franny's Bday

2008-08-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Happy 14th birthday Franny!!!

See Franny's birthdays past...

Correction o' the week

2008-08-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

One of the all-time greats, from today's Seattle Times:

Business: The name of dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster was misspelled in a Wednesday story about Microsoft's spell-checker.

Michelle Speaks

2008-08-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

I realized half way through that I wanted to jot down the key words in the speech. Apologies that these notes are therefore incomplete:

in my own small way
see
that's why

i believe that each of us
has something to contribute
working block by block
help people
lift up their families
welfare to jobs
women get equal pay for equal work
fighting

see
that's why
to end the war
to build an economy that lifts
to make sure health care
too make sure
world class education
he'll achieve these goals
how alike we really are

you see

see

that's just not how he sees the world
he knows
he knows
one nation
neighborhoods in chicago,
hope to the mother
hope to the man
hope to the student
hope to people

barack understands
barack will fight
barack will bring finally the change

see

The barack obama I know
he's the same man
(chuckle)
(heh)
determined
determined
the affirming embrace
(sniffle)
as i tuck that little girl in
you see

this time
we listened to our hopes
dreaming
this time
a girl from the south side of chicago

single mother

white house

the world as it should be

my father's memory
my daughter's future
triumphs

everyday sacrifices
work together
hopes

See?

THX to Amy Jeffries for posting this photo under the creative commons license.