Riverhed.com

Here are those old clips I mentioned, that the Vineyard Gazette sent me.

First up is an article I had written about a band in high school, Slow Leslie. Looking back, it’s not such a terrible article from a 17-year-old. I’ve definitely written worse.

Next is a piece about an antique car show that was going on at the time. I believe it still happens annually. I haven’t read this one again since I got the clip, so I have no idea if it’s good or bad (maybe you guys can tell me, huh?).

And finally, at least for now, an article about the high school’s yearly “Hell Week” football camp to get the kids in shape after a summer of laziness. I remember being upset at the time that the lede was changed so heavily – the one the news editor put in there seems so bland to me, but I’ll admit I’m biased. I don’t even remember what the original said at all, but I’d like to think of it as some great injustice anyway.

As usual, enjoy and let me know your thoughs. Keep in mind that these are from seven years ago, so cut me a break if they’re not perfect.

The Vineyard Gazette, where I formerly interned and freelanced a bit, sent me a few articles I had written to get my portfolio together. They only found three so far, apparently because the system they used to archive back then was a little wonky, but they’ll get more to me soon. Tomorrow I’ll scan them in and post them for your enjoyment.

I also found my old moleskine notebooks that are filled with great little notes I can expand on for material. Expect it to be a good weekend content-wise, which should make up for last night and tonight. Ivona gave me a good piece of advice on writing tonight, although it’s something I knew intuitively but was trying to ignore; I’m not giving this blog the time it deserves. I may be forcing myself to write every day, but that doesn’t mean anything if I’m writing at 10 or 11 pm every night just rushing something out there so I don’t have to pay one of you goons five dollars.

Boring post is boring. Better ones tomorrow.

Throughout my college career, several semesters have stood out as having a common theme, as if all my courses seem to be about the same over-arching message. More than likely it’s because I have a certain idea in my brain that I’m thinking about, and that could influence my choice of classes or what I get out of them, but sometimes it seems uncanny how similar the ideas are between the different courses.

The theme of this semester seems to be centered on objectivity and subjectivity. These are ideas I’ve dealt with a lot as a journalist, but lately I’ve really been thinking about it a lot. As I wrote in one of my papers for Covering Race lately, as a journalism student I’ve been told that objectivity is the highest ideal. I’ve pursued it, trying to keep my personal beliefs and opinions out of the discussion. I always had the feeling that perfect objectivity was unnattainable, but lately I’m feeling like even imperfect objectivity doesn’t even exist.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was perusing the Lexis-Nexis database (I have access through UMass) the other day and because I’m a vain, egotistical, petty man, the first thing I searched for was myself and found the sports article I wrote for The Boston Globe. I was thinking tonight while driving the bus that I can use this blog as sort of a platform for my work, past and present, and I’ll post old articles I’ve written as I come across them, and eventually set up a separate portfolio section. It’ll come in handy when I start applying for jobs to have an easily-accessible archive of my work.

Anyway, I exported this particular article in PDF format, so I’ll just link it here instead of copy/pasting it. Keep in mind it’s from 6 years ago, when I was 18, and it’s the only sports article I’ve ever written. I didn’t expect the first article I’d write for a major newspaper would be a sports article, but hey, it’s still a proud accomplishment.

Enjoy.

In other news, I had to get a shot of cortisone directly into the bottom of my foot. I have a (fairly common) tissue buildup along a ligament that runs the length of the foot, and this should break it up. Despite the freezey shit the doctor sprayed on, when he jammed that needle in, it was the most excrutiating pain of my life. The best part is, I have to get 3-5 more shots, once a week for the next 3-5 weeks. Oh, and I have to have oral surgery to remedy an issue going on in that area, too. The doctor assured me that a biopsy is just standard procedure but he’s 99.9% sure it’s not an issue. Fun shit.

I’ll preface this post with the disclaimer that I’m just a little drunk, and I blame Alex for that entirely.

Tonight I got out of my rut of social inactvity – my buddy T.J. was supposed to do that last weekend with his wine and cheese party, but it was delayed until tomorrow due to snow, so my only human contact for the last week was Ivona. Don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty ok with me, and I’ve enjoyed watching episode after episode of The Office while she’s been at work, but I realized today how much I’ve missed varied social interaction this past month; it was great to meet new people in a new environment, although I’ll admit it takes some warming up to new surroundings for me. Alex has probably noticed this more than anyone, but I think in the past couple years I’ve become increasingly uptight, and it really helps me unwind to go out and have a few drinks and relax a little bit. I don’t mean to say I need a couple drinks to relax and talk with people, but it helps. (I’M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC I SWEAR.)

Read the rest of this entry »