Author: jbenton

Since I’m a bit behind, I’ll post the events of the last few days in quasi-chronological order.
Day One: Like an idiot, I did my usual stay-up-all-night schtick last night before getting picked up for the airport Thursday morning. I did the same thing before I left for Japan in October. Back then, as I waited for the SuperShuttle outside my building, up drove the guy who delivers the newspaper to the boxes around my complex. He stopped and said hello, asked me where I was going, and gave me a free paper and a handshake. In all, a very nice guy.
Well, this morning I was back at my usual waiting station and up drove the same guy. He started asking me the same questions, then stopped himself short:

Government press release error of the day: President Increases Funding for Bioterrorism by 319 Percent. Oh great — first we have Saddam and Osama funding bioterrorism. Now Bush is funding it too?
Yeah, I’m in SLC, but not much time to post — two stories to write, a press conference to attend, people to interview, snow to walk through. Will post more later.

Important CD Mix of the Month announcement: Since I’ll be out of state for most of February, Tom has graciously agreed to be in charge of mix distribution this month. So if you normally get a CD in the mail from me (or want to — check the page for details), you’ll be getting it from Tom instead for February only. (It’ll still be my mix, it’ll just be coming from his house, not mine.) Email me if you have any questions or want in.
In exactly four hours and twenty-six minutes, I’m being picked up to go to Salt Lake City for the Olympics. I wish I could tell you that I’m tremendously excited, but to be honest I’ve been too busy doing other things at work to get excited. I’m sure that’ll change once I land in Utah around noon, though.
In a whole lot of ways, this is exactly the kind of assignment I loath: 9,000 reporters in a few square miles, all chasing the same 10 basic stories. Pack journalism at its worst. I’m hoping to get past that a bit by finding little niche stories to write, but I fully realize that even those little stories will all also be found by 50 other reporters. I prefer dealing with real people in my stories, and once you’ve been interviewed 100 times by other reporters, you really cease to be a real person — the answers get rehearsed, the lines get too pat, and so on.
All that complaining said, it’s also exactly the kind of assignment I love: an extended high-adrenaline rush, the kind that comes with (hopefully) finding great stories on little sleep. There’s absolutely no structure to my job. Everybody else going there for the DMN has their next few weeks planned out for them hour by hour, day by day: “If it’s Tuesday, it must be luge prelims.” All I have to do is come up with an interesting story to tell every day.
And you can judge to see how I do, by checking out the web site every day. (And here, of course, although I don’t yet know how much time I’ll have to post. Hopefully, enough to keep you guys interested.)

This is nothing short of freaky.
In 1993, I enrolled as a freshman at Yale University. So did Hiram Torres. I was from a small town in south Louisiana; he was from Springsteen territory, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. I lived in Vanderbilt Hall, he in Welch Hall — if you leaned out of my third-floor window and had a good arm, you could probably hit Welch with a solid throw. He was the son of a seamstress, which meant we shared a working-class background that put us in the minority on campus.
I never knew the guy, but our seemingly aligned paths diverged pretty quickly thereafter. I started working for the college paper, failed miserably with the ladies, and generally had a standard-issue college experience. Hiram, in contrast, dropped out, converted to Islam, changed his name to Mohammed Salman, and apparently became a warrior for al-Qaeda.
I immediately dug up my old freshman facebook and turned to the T’s to see if I recognized his face. Unfortunately, he didn’t turn in a photo; where his face should be instead sits a photo of fellow Yalie Bill Clinton. (Boys who didn’t turn in their photos for the facebook got stuck with a photo of Bill; women got Hillary. A few of undetermined gender got Socks the cat.)
When you’re at a place like Yale, every once in a while you’d think about which of your classmates would get noticed by the outside world first. When we arrived in New Haven, there were two celebrities (of sorts) in the class, child actors Sara Gilbert (who played Roseanne’s younger daughter on TV) and Matt Shakman (who had been the boy on Just the Ten of Us, everybody’s favorite Growing Pains spinoff). Not much later, Mia Doi Todd started getting noticed as a singer-songwriter. Now, for reasons completely unexpected, you can add Hiram Torres to the list of famous members of the class of ’97.

Anybody catch Fresh Air Monday? Gene Simmons of Kiss was the guest, and apparently things got a little out of control.
Simmons: The notion is if you’re going to welcome me with open arms you also have to welcome me with open legs.
Gross: That’s a really obnoxious thing to say.
Simmons: No, it’s not. Why should I say something behind your back that I can’t tell you to your face?
Simmons (asked about his “studded codpiece”): It holds my manhood, otherwise it would be too much for you to take. You’d have to put the book down and confront life.
Gross: Has it come to this? Is this the only way you can talk to a woman, with that shtick?
Simmons: Let me ask you something – why is it shtick when all women have ever wanted since we crawled out of caves is,

Notice to hack sports columnists: The whole first-initial-first-syllable-of-last-name thing doesn’t make you look “happening.” Use of the form (e.g., J-Will, J-Kidd, C-Webb, etc.) is hereby banned. Thank you.

Priest-rapper a hit with Catholic youth at US conference. A rap-singing, grey-habit-wearing Franciscan priest with a funky gray beret reached out to young people at a national conference of Catholic youth in the United States.
Fr Stan Fortuna’s concert at the Indianapolis Conference included music with lyrics touching on masturbation, pornography and sex. His songs include an eclectic blend of rap, hip-hop, traditional and jazz melodies.
Key phrases in that article: “funky gray beret,” “rap-singing,” “touching on masturbation.”
And of course, the rapping priest also has a web site. (If this guy hasn’t been Metafiltered yet, someone please get the ball rolling, please?) Sections include JPII – 4 – U (to bring the Pope to the homies) and MP3s (natch).

Sorry the posts have been borderline lame of late (and I’m probably being generous with the borderline part), but I always know I can count on the people of northwest Ohio to break me out of a blogging slump. Defendant claims his clone shot youth.
OTTAWA, Ohio – In another day of bizarre testimony, a Putnam County sheriff