I would imagine the best part about working for the Gap would be that you never have to spend any time wondering if your life would be more fulfilling at some other Gap. The almost frightening uniformity must also have the power of a mild sedative. I just can’t imagine someone working at the Gap in, say, White Plains fantasizing about the shirt folding boards and the long sleeved tees at the Gap in Shaker Heights.

Most people, though, do fall prey to the lure of the “grass is greener” siren song at one point or another. I worked in a field that was particularly susceptible to this mindset, at least on the lower rungs of the career ladder. This was partly because television news is not built to encourage lifers. It’s commonly accepted that if you want a raise, you don’t ask for one.   You go to another station at a higher market level. If you’re a reporter and you want to be an anchor, you usually move downmarket to get the experience and upmarket once you have it. The worst way to succeed is to stay in one place, This creates an environment that encourages the belief that success… Continue reading “Prologue to the Travelogue” →

I will marry the woman who has the same love of “man walks into a bar” jokes that I do.  It’s possible I may need to switch out the word “love” for “tolerate” when it comes to this particular dealbreaker. I have, after all, been single for quite a long time.

Anyhoo… to business.

Another hike this weekend, this time a five miler along the Bay Ridge Trail. Our little trio – Loren brought Audra along for the fun this time – hiked through the early morning fog of a San Francisco Saturday.  I’m starting to get the hang of following the sound of the trekking pole ahead of me, and of course, hiking with a professional writer is great when communication is key… Continue reading “A Horse Walks Into a Bar…” →

While I know I’m certainly not the first, may I be, at least, the next person to write about the power we give to the often poorly chosen and often misguided names and words we use?

In yet another tale from the “You Can Take The Boy Out Of The Newsroom, But You Can’t Take The Newsroom Out Of The Boy” chronicles, there were certain words and phrases believed to possess almost talismanic powers over viewers. Magical incantations that would cause men, women, children and some of the more intelligent species of dogs to put down the remote, jump out of the kitchen, the laundry room or the tub, or emerge from  underneath the sheets (where they were sleeping, of course. This is, at least nominally, a family blog), and give their rapt and undivided attention to whatever the demographically approved anchor is reading. Lower level incantations included, “take a look at this,” or “you won’t believe…” are sprinkled throughout even the most mundane of stories. Words like “amazing,” “unbelievable” and “shocking” are also the standard salt and pepper of any rundown. The favorite, however, and by several lengths is the phrase “breaking news.”

You may be wondering about the lively internal debates that ended up determining just how old a story has to be before it no longer qualifies as breaking news. The answer is… Continue reading “Bacon Flavored Ice Cream” →

If you live in San Francisco long enough, you’ll forget this is a very strange place.  I can tell you without any equivocation that a guy walking with a white tipped cane is absolutely, like, the ninth most interesting thing you’ll see in my neighborhood.  On my walk to work, there’s a placard outside a… let’s call it a variety store… proudly proclaiming, “We Buy Porn!”  Around the corner, at the entrance to the Castro MUNI stop, the homeless guy by the bus shelter calls out, “Kidney?  Harvest your kidney?  Sir, may I harvest your kidney?”  What I’m saying is that when the mannequin in the front window of the Goodwill store is dressed with a tuxedo top and a pink chiffon ballerina dress bottom, seeing me making my way around a construction pylon with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cane in the other is just not goig to be on your radar.

I also think San Francisco must be the birthplace of Competitive Leisure, the idea that you can’t just have fun.  You have to have more fun than everyone else, or it doesn’t count.  It means if you come to work on Monday and someone asks you… with that slight note of a challenge in their voice, “So… Continue reading “Over, Under, Through” →

This is a test of the emergency blogcast system.  This is only a test.  If this were an actual post, you would be vastly more informed, entertained or otherwise amused than you are at the moment.  Please stay tuned for actual content.  This has been a test of the emergency blogcast system.