More FAQs About Journalism:Non-Autobiographical Edition

Q: How do you come up with stories?

A: I think most people asking this question want to know how newspapers come up with stories and not me specifically, because I don't always come up with my stories. Without going into too much detail at this point, newspapers come up with stories through two general methods: The story comes to them on the "wire" (when I started in 2000, the "wire" was an actual fax machine, now it's email, but it shows how old-school I am) or they go out and look for stories themselves. The degree by which the editor looks for the stories or delegates that part to interns, writers, and freelancers varies. As for me, I prefer to not be in a situation where I have to exclusively rely on coming up with stories if it's strictly about building a long-term relationship with the publication. For one thing, my output will be limited by the ideas I have and I'd rather have more output than less. For another, I feel like a story will be less likely to be cut, rejected, or mishandled if it's the publication's idea and something the publisher might have covered. Lastly, it can be time-consuming to think of and research ideas. However, I can do both and pitching is what got me into many of my publications in the first place.

Q: OK, but how do you come up with stories?

A: Well, I wouldn't say I go out story-hunting or that I even go out more than the average person. When I do go out, however, I do keep my eyes open. It's not a conscious thing at this point either. After doing this a while, I just have an internal mechanism when I see something story-worthy that goes off in my head with the thought: "That would be a good story" and I might proceed to get more information if I feel like it. Even in the time period since graduating from college where I haven't considered myself a journalist, I might have gone about the information gathering part if the story was good enough.

Q: How do you gather information if you're not a full-time reporter or at various times didn't even consider yourself a reporter at all?
A: When you say you're a reporter, what you're actually saying is I'm writing a story or working on a story. I don't misrepresent myself but I would say, in that situation,  I'm interested in learning more about this situation and I have ties to or have written before for this or that newspaper. For the most part, anyone is free to gather information. I have used this method to either break into or write articles I wasn't previously assigned for the Fairfax Times, AOL's Patch News Service, the JMU Breeze (that cross-country story), and the Minnesota Daily (where I wrote a story about an entrant to the NBA draft, Kris Humphries, who seven years later became one of the biggest names in pop culture for his 72-day marriage to Kim Khardashian, I very much lucked out on that). For the most part, you want to gather enough information to come up with a story idea and don't overwork yourself on a story that you don't know for certain will be printed.

Q: Overworking yourself, you say?
A: Yes, the margin for being underpaid and being decently paid is very thin as a freelance writer. You'll generally get paid by story or by the word rather than per hour. As a result, spending an excessive number of hours on a project will lead to dissatisfaction and lower pay (hey, long division doesn't lie) and being a good freelance writer is dependent on optimizing your writing energy. Don't be mistaken into thinking that you should turn in an insufficient product. What this means is that you have to focus your energy (be it story/article ideas, time, or effort) on what has the most potential to achieve your goals as a writer. This struggle takes on all sorts of forms. Example: I even had to do a lot of thought into figuring out how to write this FAQ section. Did I want to spend more effort focusing on biographical details and even expand that into some kind of massive Pulitzer-prize winning autobiography? Did I want to break this post up so as to not strain the reader's attention span too much? Did I want to be to candid in these posts so that I could provide a very transparent inside scoop into my life or did I want to keep this more professional so I could use this as a cover letter of sorts when employers are looking for a sample of my writing?

Q: What would you describe as your skill sets?
A: I think young people generally are just encouraged to expand their skill set to as many things as possible. I could easily say “I write” but that’s a vast, vast universe of activity that encompasses everyone from grant writers, to lawyers, to supreme court justices. I think it’s essential to know exactly what your skill set is and what it isn’t. My grammatical skills also are not on par with a copy editor just yet. In fact, some people (half the commenters on this blog, for example) have thought my grammar was embarrassing and indicative of someone who hadn’t graduated 8th grade. I do, however, specialize in reporting. Part of that is being able to write in the specific language (including style, tone, structure) of newspapers. I also am acquainted with AP Style and the specific ethical guidelines behind stories and after a while, the procedure for writing stories has become so compartmentalized that it’s second nature at this point. I also can steer content, whether it’s my own or someone else’s content (i.e. managing writers), to match a specific tone. I thrive on collaboration and networking with other writers so that feeds into it. In addition, because very few people ever read my blog and I put effort into getting more people to read my blog or other internet columns I’ve written, I have become fairly experienced at this point in content promotion. I also feel like I add creativity or an analytical mind to what I write and in some cases I write on subjects as an expert on them. The more I write on those subjects, the more of an expert I become, so practice definitely makes perfect.

Q: How do you get into the newspaper?
A: First, you need sufficient experience being published before. With internet 2.0, being published is a somewhat looser term, but there’s definitely a hierarchy. Opening up a blog or writing for a content farm (examiner, seed, helium) has far less prestige than writing for Premiere or Salon’s website, but it’s incremental. Writing on a blog or being published on a blog with high traffic is a good step towards writing for a content farm (sites like Examiner or Seed don’t take everyone) which is a good next step towards writing for something more prestigious. The next step is simpler than it sounds: Just contact the editors, have clips on file with which to show them, and express your interest. Generally you will need to get their attention with a good pitch or idea for a story. Most editors have some need for freelance writers and even if they usually don’t hire freelancers, they might be inclined to do it if a very good idea came their way.

Q: Really? Every newspaper?
A: This doesn’t mean you should waste your time with a magazine that doesn’t take submissions, because those exist. Generally, you should ask what their freelance policy is in your first conversation with the editor. Don’t think that Time Magazine is going to take your article if you just have a good story idea. You generally have to have reached a ceiling before they take a look at you.

Q: Do you have to have a good resume?
A: In my opinion, the wonderful thing about freelance writing is that you rarely ever need a resume or go through an interview. You’re simply judged based on what you can do and whether you can deliver a story. Not to say that I have humongous ghosts in my closet or that I love this business because we let the scum of the Earth in. It’s just a better breeding ground of creativity. This reminds me of an interview with cracked editor David Wong on the success of his site: “One thing and one thing only: we decided that the world was full of great, undiscovered writers, and tried to create the most welcoming and open environment possible for them to come and contribute. There are no cold rejection letters, no one is turned away, everyone has direct access to an editor if they have questions or want feedback…. The Cracked editorial team was made up of people who had kind of banged their heads against the wall in terms of trying to get writing careers going, and the first thing we decided was that we weren’t going to put other people through that. If you can write, you can write for us. There are no dues to pay. We don’t ask to see a resume, and in fact don’t allow you to show us one even if you have it. Submissions are treated the same whether they come from a Pulitzer Prize-winner or an 18 year old kid writing from the computer lab at his high school. You can back me up on this – we just sort through the ideas as they come in, we don’t even know people’s real names until we are processing their payment.”

Q: So I sent a letter to the editor and he didn’t write back. What now?
A: That can be one of the worst things about the business. Editors can be swamped and have their inbox filled with potential submissions. This is especially the case if a newspaper openly advertises that they seek submissions (Washington City Paper before 2010 was an example of this). One tip is that newspapers that aren’t as public about their submission policy might equate to an editor with less in his inbox and an easier chance at getting his attention. At this point (although it’s hard to say), I’ve proven I’m a capable community news reporter and there’s little reason for an editor of AOL’s Patch News Service to reject me outright, but when I started turning to Patch in November about 90% of them didn’t respond. After consistent pestering a couple of them came through and there’s currently an editor who has only contacted me back two or three times over the last 9 months and forgot who I was in between those stints. At one point, he even offered me a story which I had to turn down because I was out of town. The point is editors aren’t necessarily rejecting you if you don’t hear from them. If they give you any feedback at all, take advantage of that feedback to further a relationship with them, by asking if they have any other stories or what might be an opportune time of the year where they’re in need of stories (for some newspapers it can be the summer as ad revenues go up, for other newspaper it can be the school year because even if ad revenues are down, there are no interns). There is a such thing as overdoing it, but it is also ok within a week to double or even triple check on the status of your story. This process of editor contact gets far easier once you have a story in. When I tried to get to the Washington City Paper after college, I couldn’t even get an editor on the phone. The first time I got one on the phone a few years later, I instantly had a connection upon which I could eventually write stories for the paper.

Q: How much of journalism for you have been based around formal education?
A: It’s somewhat of a misconception that anyone can just go out there and write in a journalistic manner. You definitely have to have some formal training in AP style, story structure and the news pyramid. In a way, it’s a language. I took 2 or 3 courses in college and that forms a lot of my basic education. Without them, I’m not sure where I would be.

Q: What about networking?
A: Networking is everything. When it comes to checking for a publication and it’s a good experience to write for them, it is infinitely useful to have someone in your circle of friends or contacts who worked there. They could save you a lot of time by telling you if that place is worth working for. Because freelance writers shift “jobs” quite often and work for multiple places at once, it’s much more important than someone who works a 9-5 job.

FAQ's about Reporting: A rough Autobiography

In an effort to share my road to being a journalist and the lessons I've learned along the way (and hopefully save a little bit of time in the cover letter process), I'm going to do another edition of FAQ's about journalism. Please drop me an email at okonheim@comcast.net if you wish to learn more about freelance writing and how you might be able to achieve your goals if this FAQ session sparks you.

For reference purposes, FAQ's about journalism stems from the fact that people find it interesting that I'm a journalist and often ask me questions about it.

Q: So you're a freelance journalist and freelance writer. What does that mean?

A: I have consistently been working on freelance writing in some form or another since around October of 2010. This means I am either spending my time in one of five phases:

1) Working on writing projects

2) Working on writing projects while searching for a job

3) Splitting my time between writing and an odd or part-time job (I've worked for betteredit.com, in pizza delivery, and for the election board)

4) Searching for a freelance writing opportunity (this happens when I don't have much on my plate)

5) On a PR project or working towards helping other writers get into the business (this is more of an upstart phase)

Between phases two and four, I am more likely to spend time seeking a freelance writing opportunity than I am to seek full-time work at this point, nowadays. I'm not seeking out the 9-to-5 world so much unless the right opportunity comes to me and I would prefer to enter a salaried job organically. Ideally, I would like to work for them freelance so that we both see if each other are good fits.

Q: Wow that’s so awesome! You’re my hero. I don’t like my day job and you’re so free to do whatever you want. How much do you make?

A: Hmmm, I don’t think enough to live off of. Although, that could change. Let’s hypothetically say that I don’t make enough for me to continue to hold your admiration.

Q: You useless bum! Why don’t you just go get a job rather than using that energy towards freelance writing?

A: Now that is a good question! A few different reasons: I’m attracted to the short-term gain of a freelance job rather than wasting my time applying for a competitive job in a market where my resume will be dropped into a pile along with a hundred other resumes and I’ll have to B.S. my way through an interview for a job I might not necessarily want but have to take because it might be my only option and I would like to eat.  Worse, I wouldn’t want to take a job only to discover I might not be of use or not legitimately a good fit for it. That happened in one of my recent work experiences.

Q: Tell me about that.

A: Well, I was working at the Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency. I was a management technician or something in Management and Supply of Department 3314 or…honestly, I have no clue and that was the whole problem. Despite being well on my way towards a master’s degree, I was hired for some random desk job that had nothing to do with my training or interests, I felt expendable. Wow, you’re a really good career counselor.

Q: Well, I'm a hypothetical construct of your imagination. If you went full-schizophrenic and I became a distinctly different personality, we could work something out.

                                                                                                                  

A:  Well, I wasn’t pleased earning a paycheck in that manner. With freelance work, there’s a simplicity and honesty to the business relationship and those are things I value more than a paycheck. I also feel that in freelance writing, I’m learning a lot and exploring what I like doing. I don’t think the 9-to-5 job world is going anywhere and I’ll only be more experienced when I’m ready to re-enter it on my own terms.

Q: So when did you begin as a journalist?

A: I began seeing myself as a freelance writer sometime around October 2010. I had just finished grad school and finished working for Census 2010 and the only thing I knew is that I had been living at home for over a year and wanted to move to a different city, but didn't really have a plan in place. I didn't know what I was going to do next at all which rendered me pretty unproductive on the job front, the moving front, and, truth be told, the doing anything front. I was immersing myself in the fall TV schedule and noticed one day that a writer who's name I recognized from the AV Club Podcast I downloaded (Noel Murray) popped up on the facebook queue for "people you might want to be friends with" (another blogger I met in cyberspace was a mutual friend). 

I contacted Noel on a whim, and asked to be considered for a show they weren't reviewing at the time. I offered as a sample to post a review of "Raising Hope" within a couple hours of the show airing on my blog, so they could use that as a sample. He redirected me to the head editor who asked me to send him some samples. (Lesson: Find out who the editors are, and go after them. Even editors of websites that don't have highly-advertised open submissions policies [of which AV Club is a prime example] usually won't be able to resist a good idea if presented to them and IT NEVER HURTS TO ASK). The head editor of the TV site, eventually rejected me but took two weeks to do so, and in that span of two weeks, wanting to keep myself busy, I reached out for other opportunities, some of which eventually accepted me. Before I knew it, a couple doors to local newspapers and a couple other outlets on the web opened to me, that previously were shut. The opening of more and more doors and seeing new avenues for which I could make writing work for me has been rewarding.

Q: So did you write before that?

A: When I was a high school junior, I was looking to distinguish myself among a crowd of over achievers by doing something big and important. The opportunity came when I was at the local courthouse outside of a job fair. 

Having never seen a county board meeting before, I was curious and went inside where I  sat next to a reporter for a local paper. I asked him if they took interns and he gave me a card. I then got some bylines in the community newspaper while I was still in high school. This was kind of ironic because I wasn't on my school newspaper staff.

(Lesson learned: Now that I think about it, what led me to the courthouse that day is a curiosity to see and experience different things around me and that’s been a big part of both why I like journalism and why I’ve had any success with it.)

Q: So you’ve been doing journalism your whole life since then?

A: Not exactly. Journalism was one of a few things I was interested in when I arrived at college. In my first college, I took two or three journalism courses. That was my main formal education in the process which, make no mistake, has been pretty much the foundation through which I've gotten everything else. (Lesson learned: A little bit of formal education goes along way. One must definitely learn AP Style, the basic structure of a newspapers and the reasons behind why news stories get published in order to get published yourself). I tried to make a dent in the school paper without much success, before deciding on geography as a major. When I transferred to my second college, I was eager to take on a minor in journalism but discovered it had been abolished. I decided the best way to cope with my disappointment in these new surroundings was to reinvent myself and because I had messed around with writing movie reviews on imdb and had a strong interest in film history, I would take a minor in film studies.

I wasn’t initially planning on writing for the school newspaper when I transferred to JMU. I was a track and field buff and I noticed that the editors asked why they didn’t cover that particular sport and they replied that no one knows much about it or wants to cover it.. I said, what the hell, I’ll cover it and they were surprised and when I turned in my first article, they were surprised that I knew what I was doing and how to write a story and asked me to stay on as a beat writer for the track team the first year and although there were a couple slight bumps in the road the first year (I wasn't good at juggling deadlines and homework at first. Since improved), I got promoted to staff writer the second year and working the style department.

Q: After that, is it smooth sailing to a career in journalism and freelance writing?

A: Not really. It took about four years. Out of college, I was hired to be a film critic for a newspaper in Takoma Park. To do this, I went to 50states.com, looked up every newspaper in Maryland and Virginia and just called them all until I reached somewhere (Lesson: If I had to have done this again, I would have gone to the Virginia Press Association's Website where they have a convenient listing of nearly every newspaper in the state). Anyways, I was dropped before anything I wrote was ever published or I was ever paid. I didn’t know whether I wanted to continue with journalism but I wanted to at least find a way to professionally publish the movie reviews I’d written for the first newspaper.  About six months later, I got hired to write for NBC 4’s DC Scene as an unpaid contributor. They published nearly everything I submitted including some of those early movies I reviewed (by then, they weren't in the theater but on DVD), gave my writing a professional editing job (Maggie from Minnesota was my assigned editor, my first random writing friend [Lesson: Networking with other writers is the lifeblood that keeps you going]), and put everything on a website with the logo NBC 4 under it.

For the most part, I saw writing as an option and though I kept a blog, I saw myself as an aspiring geographer and a year later, a grad student who aspired to a job in that field after he graduated. Between when I got hired from NBC and approximately 4 years out of college, I was hoping to be employed at a job and it was between stints at jobs-a couple rounds of substitute teaching, a relief worker in New Orleans, a long-term intern at a traffic planning company, a desk drone for the department of defense, a practicum for AARP- that I would go after journalism and give it a shot to make some money. I even botched my opportunity to be published at one newspaper because I got hired by a job and subsequently stopped writing my story for them.

I did have a few articles published in various places here and there over that span and was put in charge of uboast's job blog in addition to getting a column at examiner.com. It was mostly a matter of steadiness in the work that kept me from really being attached to journalism in the first four years.

Misfits

Oh, the disappointment in watching a highly-regarded program just to get in on the cultural zeitgeist and discovering said show hits me the wrong way. I watched three and a half episodes from the first season of Misfits which is a pretty sufficient amount of time to decide you hate the show and don’t want to see it again.

Is the show awful and everyone’s* blind to it? Am I the one that’s off?

Misfits is one of the pioneers in the trend of content distributed through an online TV-watching platform.

The show is supposed to be in the vein of a superhero-genre-meets-ordinary-world show akin to Heroes. The superheroes, in this case, are five juvenile delinquents in the UK and the show is set during their period of community service.

The superheroes, however, are not just unusually ordinary. Their adolescent angst is in full force and some of them might easily be classified as depressed. Watch people brood over what they see as a bleak existence is generally not something that will appeal to your average TV viewer looking for some escapist fare. However, this perhaps more honest approach has been done well a few times before (I’m thinking “Weeds” as the moderately good example and “Party Down” as the holy grail of this subgenre).

In most cases, however, depressed characters don’t bring a profound realism. In this case, the characters aren’t just depressed. They are depressing to watch. Not to mention, somewhat bland and unremarkable: I’d be hard-pressed to argue that the five characters are more substantive or well-rounded than your average one-hour CW drama.

I could see how the characters might have been intended to be more. Simon, the shy one, spends all his time brooding about what must be something significant, but the hints of something greater never manifested into anything interesting in what I saw. Similarly, Nathan the loud and obnoxious one, is occasionally fun but mostly just obnoxious and loud (I’d give Nathan's obnoxious/funny ratio a 95/5 split and that’s still generous).

Lastly, if I haven’t written much about the superhero aspect of the show, it’s because it doesn’t dominate much of the screen time. Characteristic of the UK version of The Office, the show doesn’t center around people doing work so much as sitting around on talking when they’re supposed to be on the clock. Again, this tends to work better with interesting characters and interesting conversations.

With the Incredibles, Heroes, Watchmen, and Sky High playing on the Disney Channel every other week, simply deconstructing the Superhero genre is nothing novel anymore. One needs to have good characters and this show isn’t it.

American Horror Story from a cultural vacuum

There’s nothing like watching a TV show in a vacuum, by which I mean not having read a single review, critical analysis or piece of press before digging into a program so you’re free to form your own opinions. I suspect that there would be a lot less groupthink (deemed by myself to be measured by critical agreement) on shows if critics didn’t spend good chunks of their time philosophizing together about what makes shows like Community or Parks and Recreation (I like one of those two) so great.

Catching up on the series several months after the fact, I had little choice but to watch American Horror Story in a vacuum in order to avoid spoilers. It was precisely because of that solitude that the experience was so exhilarating. I couldn’t afford the luxury of complaining about maladjusted plot twists or nonsensical plots because I was too distracted trying to piece together what I was seeing. Other critics, in the meantime, enjoyed a think-tank effect: Comments on the A.V. Club message boards, reading of press material, or talking about the show on the twittersphere allow for the combined efforts of hundreds of people to decipher together clues. The experience of deciphering what you’re seeing becomes so much easier that you don’t get the full experience.

The end result is this jaded review from the highly-respected (and not necessarily wrong) critic James Poniewozik of Time Magazine. Poniewozik is a self-admitted heavy twitter user as well:

“A silly assault of whatever crazy ideas Murphy and Falchuk wanted to throw in there (Ghosts in gimp suits! Naked Dylan McDermott! Shape-changing maids!) mixed in with some performances that at least got the joke (Jessica Lange, mostly) and others that unfortunately didn't (Connie Britton), all of it so fast and relentless and loud that little of it had the intended impact on me.”

I don’t disagree with Poniewozik’s “fast and relentless” assessment. I found the experience of watching the show’s first couple episodes jarring, but it was a disorientation that grabbed my attention. Sticking with the show paid off primarily because of the rather artful way in which the pieces of the puzzle fit together. It’s not unusual for a show these days to follow in the footsteps of "Lost" and arc its episodes in complex ways, but for a Ryan Murphy show, I found a surprising amount of internal consistency in all the plot threads. Combined with Murphy’s strengths (yes, he has them, or why else would we be watching Glee?), particularly his ability to juggle a large number of eye-popping flashy characters within a 42-minute frame, I’d call this show novel in a unique way. Equally good is that the show’s episodes work very well as stand-alone episodes. I particularly was fascinated by all the faux mythology that the 2^nd episode, “Home Invasion”, was built around. In a vaccum, I’m restricting myself from looking up if it was based on anything historical, but that’s certainly more than enough to spark curiosity.

I will, however, concede to the haters that Ben and Vivian don’t make an engaging center for the story and that the show deserved better leads for its inaugural season. In my admittedly limited experience with Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, neither has ever worked for me. Britton is most closely linked in TV land with Friday Night Lights which I have not seen. I remember her more for her role in the erosion of the character of Mike Flaherty by playing the transformation of Nikki from pining subordinate to demanding girlfriend so poorly.

I also strongly question why some of the characters are so nonchalantly evil. Echoing the growing sentiment that Murphy (and his two co- execs) didn’t always have a handle on how dislikeable characters like Kurt or Mr. Schu could be on Glee, I found Tate to be a more disturbing, dark, and unpleasant personality and I get the sense that he was written more sympathetically. Ghost or not, Tate is the equivalent of a serial killer and has done some awful things: Deflowering Ben’s daughter, tormenting Ben, sleeping with Ben’s wife under false pretenses, and killing the gay couple. He should have inspired Sylar-like levels of in-universe dread and had his own Vaderish evil theme by episode six. Instead, the daughter hangs around him and the dad just has a casual attitude of “I can’t treat you anymore here, but maybe around the corner in the coffee shop.”

Similarly, the character of Larry Harvey (Dennis O’Hare) added to the mix as a sometimes useful juxtaposition with the rest of the gang who all sport faces that aren’t disgusting. Of all the puzzle pieces that came together, Harvey’s story never had me invested to figure out the truth to his story and, somehow, he didn’t feel satisfying. Logistically, I also question why he would nonchalantly kill Hayden.

On the whole, though, I think story dominated over any weak links in the characters, and except for the leads, no one was unengaging.

Playing GM of television: 2010-2011 Season

I saw this post by Andy Daglas the other day, in which he plays out a hypothetical scenario wherein he can trade TV characters from show to show as if he were a sports GM.
http://www.chicagonow.com/the-vast-wasteland/2011/12/hot-stove-tv/

1.    Sheila Shay (Ana Gasteyer) from Suburgatory to Revenge in exchange for Nolan Ross

Ana Gasteyer will fit right into the Hamptons and imbue the melodrama with a little bit of humor. Nolan Ross will move across the street in Sheila's place and give Tessa a more competent partner-in-crime than the overly affable Malick. Against the monotoned Dahlia and the Dahlia-like girls at her new school, Tessa needs all the help she can get.

2.      Tate (Evan Peters) from American Horror Story gets sent to In Treatment in exchange for Adele (Amy Ryan). Constance (Jessica Lange) gets loaned out.

Tate needs someone effective to help cure his problems. Ben (Dylan McDermott) clearly can’t do the trick and is secretly enabling Tate’s ghost-murdering ways. On Dr. Paul’s (Gabriel Bryne's) turf, Tate will finally get fixed and if you throw Constance in for a few guest spots, it’ll be a fun family session. 

In the meantime, Dr. Ben needs some help himself. The striking Adele will jump in and fix the damage and, yes, the two will probably either bang or have an emotional affair, but that's the best thing that can happen to him. His marriage to his wife is clearly in trouble. His first thought when his wife wanted to move because of possible ghost sightings was to throw her in an institutionalize her. 

 3.      Annie, Senor Chang, and Pierce get sent from Community to Glee in exchange for Sue Sylvester and Quinn Fabray (pre-wheelchair)

Abed and Troy need a more superficial and acerbic girl (possibly one who they might have more sexual tension with) to pal around with. With the temptation of Annie out of the way, Jeff doesn’t get the scarlett letter for bedding a barely legal coed, and Annie, as a peppy student assistant to Mr. Schu, gets better storylines to people closer her age. Plus, most of the guys will have crushes on her and the potential shipping combinations will be mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, Sue is getting tiring with her redundancy in trying to destroy the Glee club. As a pregnant P.E. teacher, she becomes the gang’s new nemesis, while Pierce boasts an attribute even deadlier than what Sue had: Crankiness. He won't even let Mr. Schu get through half a song without telling him to shut up, throwing some old-timey racist insult at one of his students, and boring them with stories. 

Lastly, Sr. Chang will be Michael’s crazy uncle who will have a Holly-Holliday-like 3-episode arc as Mr. Schu’s substitute upon a bad case of food poisoning. Chang gets fired once it’s discovered that he doesn’t have substitute teacher credentials but it will have been a fun ride.

4. 3-Way Trade: Jonothan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) of Bored to Death goes to Community, the rights to  John Goodman go to The Office, and Ryan Howard and Kevin Malone go to Bored to Death

Community needs a nerdy intellectual guy like Ames for a foil. A professor a few years younger then Jeff Winger who thinks he's six times smarter than him will irk Jeff. He'll also majorly crush on Britta and never ever get anywhere close to winning over her affections.

I don't want whatever character John Goodman plays to go over to The Office but just John Goodman and his comedic gifts and allow the Office writing staff the opportunity to mold a good character for him. I've never been in love with Goodman but I think with his bellowing, hefty frame, he could be a tough guy akin to Idris Elba's character and I could trust him to restrain the manic unpredictable energy that the writers have tried to infuse every manager with post-Michael Scott (Will Ferrell is an unusually bad example).

Lastly, maybe the only guy in the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin with a master's degree needs to figure out what to do with himself since he can't be a temp forever and still is too fearful of going to Thailand. So he moves to this hipster enclave of Brooklyn where people get him and works on writing a tell-all novel about his rise and fall from temp to CEO to temp again of the world's zaniest paper company. And the show goes all meta- because he will meet Steve Carell and Greg Daniels and try to persuade them to star in a TV show based on his book. Kevin Malone will also, by some coincidence too crazy for me to even come up with a plausible explanation for (although the Office writer's room will know how to handle this perfectly, transitions of power that make no sense seem to be their specialty lately), end up in Brooklyn too where he will reunite with long-lost brother Zach Galifianakis.

5. Twofer from 30 Rock gets traded to New Girl in exchange for Winston, Frank from 30 Rock gets traded to Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 in exchange for Eli

I'd hate to see Winston leave the gang, but realistically, the chemistry between the other three is strongest, and the fussy Twofer might bring in a little more of a clash with the other roommates. Can you imagine the hidden resentment a law school dropout like Nick would have for a guy with the command of the English language that Twofer has? Winston wouldn't be the complete antithesis of Tracy Jordan that Twofer was designed to be. He wouldn't be the polar opposite of Tracy, but he'd add a lot of life and personality to the 30 Rock writers room

Meanwhile, Frank was born to play the combination  tambourine-playing health-inspecting simultaneously-creepy-and-non-threatening guy next door that Eli currently inhabits and Eli is the perfect compliment to Jenna who needs a stalker on top of his game.

6. Free agent Josh (Lonny Ross) from 30 Rock gets picked up by Up All Night

I've only seen two episodes of Up All Night, but it's a show about a TV show and Josh and his sex addict of an agent need another crack at a television show, so Josh becomes faux-Oprah's sidekick

7. Howard and Raj get traded from Big Bang Theory to 2 Broke Girls in exchange for Oleg and Han Lee. Stuart will be signed to a full-season contract.

Two Broke Girls has two strong leads with two appalling secondary characters while Big Bang Theory has...er, well, basically the same thing, but what if we could take Howard and Raj and exchange them for walking stereotypes Oleg and Han-Lee. As Daglas pointed out when he made an almost idential trade, said, we need a Lenny and Squiggy for this Laverne and Shirley. I don't think Oleg, Han Lee, Howard or Raj combined could equal one Squiggy in terms of mating desirability, but Raj and Howard would be a massive improvement over Oleg and Han Lee. Raj would keep his mouth shut a lot more than Oleg, and Howard would come onto the girls plenty, but at least Max will know how to handle him. She'll probably punch his lights out, which is what Howard would need. The caveat, Howard has to break up with Bernadette (maybe temporarily).

In the meantime, Han Lee will put a face on the restaurant that the guys and Penny order their Chinese food every other night, while Oleg will serve as the pervy landlord super.

Because you'll need to round out the gang, comic book geek Stuart will return to school to get a higher degree and become a lab assistant and fill out the three's lunch table conversations.




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Arlingtoncounty.com Article: Improving Road Situation in Arlington

The following is an article that was written for the website Arlingtoncounty.com and reprinted here with permission from the proprietor of the site. It's on this blog for the purpose of providing a professional sample in the event that the website is down. 

The Improving Road Situation in Arlington

One of the things that unites Arlingtonians the most is that they all are heavily invested in improving the traffic situation in the area.

The roads aren’t particularly bad in the county. Driving along Lee Highway, Route 50, or Columbia Pike rarely leads to the type of congestion that one might experience further out along those routes.

The exception to this, of course, is the limited access highways. Arlington has two Intestate Highways: The Martha Custis Memorial Highway, better known as I-66, and the Shirley Highway, better known as I-395.

In Arlington, Columbia Pike recorded an average daily traffic count of 27,000 cars a day in 2009 according to Virginia Department of Transportation reports. Another major east-west thoroughfare in Arlington, Lee Highway, ranges from 18,000 to 27,000 cars a day.

In Fairfax City, by contrast, Lee Highway jumps up to 39,000 cars per day farther westward while Route 7 (Leesburg Pike) jumps to over 60,000 cars a day as it nears Tyson’s Corner. Considering the frequency of traffic lights, that’s well beyond any road’s ability to manage traffic during rush hour.

In both directions, 183,000 cars passed through Interstate 395 from the Quaker Lane to Glebe Road exits. Average daily traffic counts for I-66 ranged from 72,000 to 113,000 cars in Arlington and were roughly equal in Fairfax County. This is less of a problem, however in Fairfax County because I-66 expands to more than two lanes west of Arlington.

So, in summary, Fairfax has congested roads AND 4-line interstate highways that still get congested. Arlington has highly congested interstate highways, but it has manageable roads. 

 It’s also worth noting that the interstate highways are really a work in progress. The congestion at I-66 has been a heavy concern to lawmakers and different studies have been commissioned including one at the congressional level that was earmarked by Virginia congressman Frank Wolf.

            This past December, a multibillion dollar study led by the VDOT and assisted by several top transportation consulting companies on the East coast, held town hall meetings in Arlington and Falls Church to discuss key issues affecting pedestrian, bicycle, mass transit and vehicular traffic along I-66 and to prevent findings.

Their study found that I-66 was deemed overcapacity in the westbound direction in the morning rush hour (6:30 to 9 AM) from exits 71 to 69. It was also deemed overcapacity in the eastbound direction during the morning rush hour from exits 67 to 71 and 72 in the on to Washington and from exits 66-71 in the evening rush hour (4-6:30 PM). Clearly, the highway being overcapacity is not just an annoyance but a problem affecting the livability of the area and a highly costly one at that.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is sincerely concerned to hear what everyone in the affected communities have to say. Anyone interested in the future of this transportation corridor and wanting to voice their concerns can call the project hotline at the toll free number 1-855-STUDY66 or e-mail info@66multimodalstudy.com.

            The study is currently in the stage of taking initial recommendations and in the near future (they’re informational packet states that they anticipate this to occur in April), recommendations will be drafted and another round of public meetings will be held to review those recommendations. More information can be found at www.i66multimodalstudy.com.

So yes, there is hope for a smoother commute for Arlingtonians, but it’s up to us to figure out how.

Article for Arlingtoncounty.com: Matt Centrowicz Jr. and Sr. Dominating the Distance Running Scene

The following is an article that was written for the website Arlingtoncounty.com and reprinted here with permission from the proprietor of the site. It's on this blog for the purpose of providing a professional sample in the event that the website is down. As a former beat writer for a college track and field and cross-country program and fan of track and field as a spectator, it was a thrill to write this article and interview both Matt Centrowicz Sr. and Jr. and thanks go out to his assistant coach Bridget Bower for facilitating the interviews:

Matt Centrowicz Completes Family Ambition, Medals in South Korea

After capping off one of the best years a college junior has ever had in the world of distance running, Arlington resident Matt Centrowicz Jr. shrugs off the expectations as he returns for his senior season with the University of Oregon’s cross-country and track program.

“I just wanted to take it one race at a time,” said Centrowicz Jr.

After winning the NCAA championship in the 1500, Matt Centrowicz Jr. upset Olympic medalist and racing icon Bernard Lagat to win the national title in the event and qualify for the world championships in Daegu, South Korea where he became the first American-born miler to medal since 1987.

"When he qualified for the final, I originally thought we'd be very happy if he finished in the top 3 [at the national championships]," said father Matt Centrowicz Sr. "But that's the thing about when you're a young runner. You can explode literally overnight."

His father, Matt Centrowicz Sr., knows a little bit about competing in the Olympics as well. In the 1970’s, he was a two-time Olympian and former American record holder at the event. For one of those American records, he beat storied running legend Steve Prefontaine (the subject of not one but two Hollywood movies) to reset the mark in the 5K.

Matt Sr. is currently devoted to coaching in his 17th year at Coach of American University. In addition, he is in his 5th year as coach of the Pacer's Running Team in Clarendon where his presence has helped turn Pacers into a prime destination for post-collegiate athletes looking to take their running to a professional level.

More importantly, Matt Sr. is a cheerleader and supporter for his two kids as son and daughter Lauren (an All-American runner at Stanford University) have grown in their running careers. He flew out and watched his kids at the NCAA championships and the national championships although he was unable to make it to South Korea to see his son compete.

"Once his son got to Korea, he wasn't sleeping at night," recalls American University Assistant Coach Bridget Bower.

Although he concedes nervousness during the race, Matt Sr. added that he didn't have too much time to process the results because for the first couple of weeks, he was busy giving interviews on his son's victory.

"It was only when he got back and we had time to talk," said Matt Sr.

While Matt Jr. credits the elder Matt for being a big inspiration but both father and son concede that Matt Jr. gets his coaching from his collegiate coach.

“I guide him as a father. Things off the track,” said Matt Sr. “He already has a coach so I don’t interfere with that. There can only be one chef.”

Ironically, the dad didn’t push his son into running at all.

"He did a lot of reverse psychology," said Matt Jr. "He told me running was too tough and that kept me hungry."

Matt Jr.’s success is not just a victory for the Centrowicz clan but for American runners in general. When Matt Sr. competed in 1976 in the metric mile (1500 meters), only two of the top ten milers in the world were from Africa. Since then, the rest of the world has been playing catch-up in the distance events to runners from Africa and the Middle East.

When describing his son’s race, he remarked that it was nice to not watch the American fade out at the finish line for once.

“I think as Americans we can all be happy with that,” he said..

“There are a lot of messages of people saying how proud they are of me representing them,” said Matt Jr. “[It’s] overwhelming a little bit, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

In addition to being the home of Matt Centrowicz’s Pacers Running Team, Pacer’s walking and running store caters to runners of all levels with generous coaching advice, biweekly fun runs, and race sponsorships. They can be found on the internet at runpacers.com and by phone at 703-248-6893.

Veep

Veep- If you can forgive Matt Walsh for not measuring up to Peter Cipaldi’s foul-mouthed bully, then it’s virtually the same ensemble transplanted with different faces. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays the part previously occupied by Mimi Kennedy and Timothy Simmon’s White House liaison character is a clear variation of Chad (Zach Woods). To minimize any further confusion for “In the Loop” fans, Anna Chlumsky pretty much plays the same character. She has a higher position (chief of staff to the VP) so maybe it’s the same character in the same universe farther along in time where she got a promotion?

Honestly, there’s not too much else to say except to compare it with “In the Loop” and I would presume the television series which it’s based on. You would think that because Ianucci’s distinct style is more about the rhythm of the dialogue than the plot, that the format is more conducive to television. However, when condensed into 23 minutes, I found the plot to be so much less meaty, that it felt entirely expendable to me.

I loved In the Loop enough that I would not mind tuning into this show again (oh that’s right, I don’t have HBO) bur my point is there’s something to be said for versatility and  it might have been nice if Armando Ianucci’s hyped show wasn’t so predictably similar to past work.