Author: jbenton

Another travel alert: Turns out I will be in New York in a couple weeks, from March 23 through 26. (Amusingly enough, an NYU professor/crabwalk.com reader has asked me to speak to her writing class. Little does she know that this blog is actually written by seven poorly-paid Cambodian day-laborers. I am, in fact, functionally illiterate.)
Any NYC readers of el crabwalko who may wish to share a meal or beverage should make contact through any of the various well-established methods.

A pre-SXSW alert, for any homies slinging back Shiners in the Austin sunset who wish to request my presence:
My cellular telephone can be reached by typing the following numerals into your own cellular telephone: 214-914-9998.
The dashes are optional, although pleasantly horizontal.

Here’s my column from today’s paper. Not my finest work, I think, but some folks liked it. The opener: “I’d like to apologize in advance for the quality of this column. I just ask that you keep in mind that I have the writing ability of a below-average 15-year-old.”
Also, for the first time in Dallas, my name appears in today’s paper in a spot other than the byline.
True story: I was giving a little talk to a third-grade class a few weeks ago. I was supposed to be explaining how a story gets put together and explaining its different parts: the headline, the dateline, the byline, etc.
Anyway, the kids were all supposed to be finding each of these elements in a story in the paper. I was wandering around the class and stopped at one little girl’s desk. “Okay, in this story, show me the dateline,” I said. She pointed to the byline (“By John Doe”).
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I think that’s the byline.”
“No, that’s the dateline,” she replied. “It has the writer’s name so someone can ask him out on a date if they want to.”
Kids, they say the darnedest things!

Music fans with a phat broadband pipe: Download this BitTorrent file to get 2.6 gigs (!) of MP3s — 750 tracks from just about every band playing at SXSW this month. And it’s even legal!
(I pulled it down last night — took about eight hours on a cable modem. It’s a good thing to get going before you go to sleep at night — free music when you wake up.)

Long-time readers may remember that I snagged a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism back in the fall of 2003, which allowed me to spend six lovely weeks in Zambia.
They may also remember that I blogged about my travels there at zambiastories.com.
They may also remember that I have also set up blogs for close to a dozen other journalists going overseas. And if they’ve ever gotten me drunk, they may also have heard me ramble on about my grand plans for ReportersAbroad.org, a site of mine that has been for some time and very likely will always remain In Development. (Nothing to see there now.)
Anyway, I mention all this because I am currently hosting blogs for four more globetrotting journalists, all of them current IRP Fellows (IRP being the new name of what used to be called the Pew). These fine reporters just left for their target countries Saturday, so their blogs are not yet overflowing with local color, but they will be soon — all have had promising starts. They are:
– Pakistan: Subcontinental Drift, by Aryn Baker
– Colombia: 8,300 Feet Above Sea Level, by Fernanda Santos
– Mozambique: To Mozambique, by Adam Graham-Silverman
– Ghana: West African Days, by Cathryn Poff
You should read them all over the next five weeks. You shan’t regret it.

Interesting piece on the battles between the Washington Post and the Washington Redskins. But my real interest is in these two facts the piece reveals:
– The official spokesperson for the Redskins is based in Los Angeles.
– Sally Jenkins, one of the Post’s sports columnists, is based in New York.
So if the Washington Post’s sports columnists wants an official comment from the Washington Redskins, she calls a guy in California from Manhattan.
Strange.
I’m trying to think of what the local equivalent would be: The Dallas Morning News’ top sports columnist being based in Miami and the Cowboys’ chief spokesman being based in Seattle, I guess.
While you’re contemplating that one, here’s an MP3 of Clem Snide segueing from “Moment in the Sun” to a cover of the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Here’s my Wilmer-Hutchins story from today’s front page. I think you’ll enjoy it.
This sure would have come in handy when I was in New Haven. Would have saved me $16K in student loans and a lot of long hours shelving books in the law library.

Pre-release video of “Rappcats Pt. 3,” from Madlib’s alter ego Quasimoto, whose new album The Further Adventures of Lord Quas comes out May 3.

Matt points out a Salon review/author Q&A with John Mack Faragher, author of that history of the Acadian expulsion I’ve written about here. It’s mostly good, although it’s downright amusing how Salon, in its inimitable way, tries to turn everything into an attack on George W. Bush.
“Q: In your account, the Acadians were repeatedly blamed for events they had nothing to do with, or could not control. Indians attack settler villages in Maine or Massachusetts, and Puritan preachers stir up hatred against the “neutral French” because they’re seen as sinister figures, possibly in cahoots with the Indians. You don’t want to look into the past and see the present, but I don’t know: the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the Gulf of Tonkin, the spurious connection between al-Qaida and Saddam. Is this a pattern in American history?”
Or this classic gratuitous slap:
“Q: When you describe, very powerfully and painfully, how the expulsion of the Acadians was actually carried out, you write that this was one of the most horrific episodes in American history. That’s a startling statement, isn’t it? We’re talking about a continent that had slavery for more than 200 years, and a continent where the native peoples were more or less wiped out. I mean, there’s a high bar to get over here, in terms of horrific episodes.”

Hey, readers! Anyone going to SXSW next week? I’ll be down from Friday evening to Tuesday noonish. If you’re a crabwalk.com reader and we haven’t met, first beer’s on me.
Gene Kelly loves himself some pop-lockin’ beats.
Now that Sea Ray has played its final show, there is an opening for Best Band Whose Members Josh Lived Down The Hall From In College. Clogs may fill that void. (Particularly since their new album is also released on the Best Label Whose Founder’s Album Reviews I Used To Edit At The College Paper.)