My friend (I called him my frenemy -- I blog posted about how he pissed me off a long time ago by being a passive-aggressive horse's ass [I would find that blog post but, ah, I'd rather not]) texted me out of the blue to call him. He asked if I could appear on his podcast (he has a podcast??) about George Floyd and how the worldwide wave of protests could affect our alma mater's football team. Recording of said podcast is tonight. I said sure. It has helped me exercise my journalism muscles which have atrophied by making me think about what to say as efficiently as I can.
Also, this episode reunites us with two other guys who we worked with at our college radio station's sports department. Those were some of the best and, I dare say, most productive times I had at college. I truly looked forward to reporting, being on the show, being on the radio spouting my opinions for, like, two people to hear, and talking crap with these guys. We all had dreams of being sportscasters, or at least doing what we were doing in that dirty, decrepit old radio station as a career. We all knew how difficult it would be, but we had each other, and if we fed off of each other's dreams, well, how could we be unhappy?
Well, one of the four is now doing sports on TV. Another isn't doing sports, but he has a steady gig doing news on the radio, which is awesome. And the friend with the podcast may get the odd gig here and there, but he has taken the initiative and asserted he is in sports because he has a podcast, which is totally legitimate these days. And I ... help out at a lab.
(Aside: The summer after I officially graduated from college, I took this extra journalism class where we went to Europe to see how different media organizations and companies worked. I was one of four guys, to be sexist. The other three are currently on TV. And I ... help out at a lab.)
I am already nervous about trying to perform. I'm not a great speaker, so I'll feel under the gun not to stumble over my words. Add to it that the subject matter, race and police brutality, are subjects I do not like to marinate in, and the danger I won't be able to speak my thoughts coherently increases even further. But what really pains me just happened last night. In preparing for the podcast, my friend texted me to ask how I want to be introduced, or slated. And that's where my failure to progress in the sports journalism business wounds me deeply. I'm not on TV or the radio, and if helping to get water for production trucks is not "being in sports," well, I'm not in that, either. I'm not even in journalism, which is what I went to school for. The other three are still pursuing that dream and/or are living it. They have bona fides they can proud of. And I ... help out at a lab.
So I told my friend about my fear. He said he'll finesse it. He'll introduce me as a friend back from our college days, and he'll say I'm on his show because I live in the Minneapolis area. Thank God I won't have to lie, and thank Buddha the truth he says instead isn't too embarrassing. But as much as I love to see the band back together, it also hurts me to realize in reuniting like this how much they were able to progress in what we wanted to do while I haven't ... or, to be more precise, didn't.
Like that old Sesame Street song says, "One of these things is not like the other." That thing is me, and that makes me both stressed and depressed.
Also, this episode reunites us with two other guys who we worked with at our college radio station's sports department. Those were some of the best and, I dare say, most productive times I had at college. I truly looked forward to reporting, being on the show, being on the radio spouting my opinions for, like, two people to hear, and talking crap with these guys. We all had dreams of being sportscasters, or at least doing what we were doing in that dirty, decrepit old radio station as a career. We all knew how difficult it would be, but we had each other, and if we fed off of each other's dreams, well, how could we be unhappy?
Well, one of the four is now doing sports on TV. Another isn't doing sports, but he has a steady gig doing news on the radio, which is awesome. And the friend with the podcast may get the odd gig here and there, but he has taken the initiative and asserted he is in sports because he has a podcast, which is totally legitimate these days. And I ... help out at a lab.
(Aside: The summer after I officially graduated from college, I took this extra journalism class where we went to Europe to see how different media organizations and companies worked. I was one of four guys, to be sexist. The other three are currently on TV. And I ... help out at a lab.)
I am already nervous about trying to perform. I'm not a great speaker, so I'll feel under the gun not to stumble over my words. Add to it that the subject matter, race and police brutality, are subjects I do not like to marinate in, and the danger I won't be able to speak my thoughts coherently increases even further. But what really pains me just happened last night. In preparing for the podcast, my friend texted me to ask how I want to be introduced, or slated. And that's where my failure to progress in the sports journalism business wounds me deeply. I'm not on TV or the radio, and if helping to get water for production trucks is not "being in sports," well, I'm not in that, either. I'm not even in journalism, which is what I went to school for. The other three are still pursuing that dream and/or are living it. They have bona fides they can proud of. And I ... help out at a lab.
So I told my friend about my fear. He said he'll finesse it. He'll introduce me as a friend back from our college days, and he'll say I'm on his show because I live in the Minneapolis area. Thank God I won't have to lie, and thank Buddha the truth he says instead isn't too embarrassing. But as much as I love to see the band back together, it also hurts me to realize in reuniting like this how much they were able to progress in what we wanted to do while I haven't ... or, to be more precise, didn't.
Like that old Sesame Street song says, "One of these things is not like the other." That thing is me, and that makes me both stressed and depressed.
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