A little bedside reading …

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Sep 192011
 

At our house, reading is a non-stop activity.  It ranks right up there with breathing, eating and sleeping.  My wife reads more than I do – she devours books.  I don’t read as fast as she does, and tend to savor a book rather than gobble it down.  I’ve intentionally slowed myself down when I’m reading an exceptionally good book, simply to keep it from ending.  She typically reads three or four books (sometimes more) while I’m working through one.

I have a tendency to find an author I like, then proceed to buy everything that person has ever written.  For this reason, entire shelves are filled with John Irving, Ed Abbey, Truman Capote, David Sedaris, Ernest Hemingway, Barbara Kingsolver and Mark Twain.  My hope is that our children will grow to love these stories too (our oldest is well on his way).

People who come to our home are usually drawn to the 10-foot tall library wall in our living room.  It’s one of the first things you see when you walk in.  Usually, lengthy discussions about favorites follow.  Here are a few that have earned a permanent spot in our library and are the best of the best in my opinion.  If you find some you haven’t read, do yourself a favor and check them out:

A Prayer for Owen Meany (by John Irving) – Can’t go wrong with Irving, this is his best

The Poisonwood Bible (by Barbara Kingsolver) – Kingsolver’s absolute finest and one of my favorite books

In Cold Blood (by Truman Capote) – Probably the best-written book ever

Dakota (by Kathleen Norris)

Walden (by Henry David Thoreau)

A River Runs Through It (by Norman Maclean) – Great movie, even better book

To Kill A Mockingbird (by Harper Lee)

The Catcher in the Rye (by JD Salinger)

Tales of An Empty Cabin (by Grey Owl)

Huckleberry Finn (by Mark Twain) – Did Twain write anything that wasn’t great?

The Green Hills of Africa (by Ernest Hemingway)

The Wilderness Journals of Everett Ruess (by Everett Ruess)

The Stones of Summer (by Dow Mossman)

Anything by Walt Whitman – Take your pick, it’ll be great

The Moonlight Chronicles (by Dan Price)

Mark Twain on the Damned Human Race (by Mark Twain, a compilation)

Desert Solitaire (by Edward Abbey) – “Cactus Ed” did little wrong

A Christmas Memory and A Thanksgiving Visitor (by Truman Capote)

Into The Wild (by John Krakauer) – Better than his bazillion-selling “Into Thin Air”

Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight (by Alexandra Fuller)

Robinson Crusoe (by Daniel Defoe)

The Journals of Dan Eldon: The Journey Is The Destination (by Dan Eldon)

For Whom The Bell Tolls (by Ernest Hemingway)

When Your Are Engulfed in Flames (by David Sedaris)

An American Childhood (by Annie Dillard)

Indian Creek Chronicles (by Pete Fromm)

Dan Eldon: The Art of Life (by Jennifer New) – I absolutely treasure this book and have read it repeatedly

The World According to Garp (by John Irving)

Swiss Family Robinson (by Johann Wyss)

A Walk in the Woods (by Bill Bryson)

Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad)

The Monkey Wrench Gang (by Edward Abbey)

As Far As The Eye Can See and A Separate Place (by David Brill) – Brill is a Knoxville guy

The Man Who Walked Through Time (by Colin Fletcher)

Ten years ago …

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Sep 112011
 

For more than ten years, I lived in East Tennessee while working for a Chicago-based holding company.  Most of my work was in Washington, DC.  I spent time in airports and airplanes just about every week, traveling regularly to major business centers like New York, Philadelphia and Boston.  I averaged 75,000 to 100,000 miles every year with US Airways and another 30,000 to 40,000 miles with United Airlines.  Some years I did an additional 20,000 miles on Northwest Airlines.  I flew about every week.

I know every ticket counter, security checkpoint, bathroom, restaurant and gift shop at most major airports from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, D.C. to Dallas, San Francisco to Chicago and Denver to New York.  I can navigate the D.C. Metro system like the streets of my own hometown.  I have been in the World Trade Center, had bagels and coffee in the lobby from a vendor and met many times with a business partner who had an office on the 27th floor of the North Tower.

Ten years ago, on Monday, September 10, 2001, I worked from home.  I had an airline ticket in my briefcase for a US Airways flight from Knoxville’s McGhee Tyson Airport to Washington, D.C. for the morning of Tuesday, September 11 at 6:15 a.m. – arriving at Reagan National Airport at 7:10 a.m.  At about 6:30 p.m. Monday evening, a co-worker called to tell me I didn’t have to go to Washington, DC the next morning.  The meeting I was scheduled to attend at the U.S. Postal Service Headquarters (just off the National Mall at Le Enfant Plaza) had a change of agenda and I didn’t need to be there. Canceled trips were always my favorite trips.

Tuesday morning September 11 was pretty mellow.  I didn’t really have a schedule because I was supposed to have been in Washington, DC – so I drank coffee and watched the morning news with Wife2Me and the kids.  At about 8:45 a.m., Wife2Me went in to take a shower.  Oldest Son2Me and I were watching the end of Good Morning America when we heard that something was happening at the World Trade Center.  I went in to tell Wife2Me.

We switched the channel to the Today show, which stays on the air longer than Good Morning America.  The Today show wasn’t even reporting it yet.  A few minutes later, they too started talking about what they said was a “small prop plane” that might have hit the World Trade Center.  Within a few minutes, they had video – and it didn’t look like it had been a “prop plane” — the hole in the Trade Center was far too large.  Once again, I ran to the bathroom to tell Wife2Me (still in the shower) what was going on.  Son2Me was trying to figure out how a pilot could make such an outrageous mistake.  Unlike my son, I never really thought it had been a mistake.

Sitting on my couch, with a warm cup of coffee in hand and my son on the floor beside me, I watched at a few minutes after 9 a.m. as the second airplane banked across my television screen and flew directly into the second tower.  Knowing that we were watching live television, not a tape, made this absolutely horrifying.  It hit quickly, but the after effect – the ball of fire and monsterous explosion – seemed to be in slow motion even though it was live television.  Any lingering hint of wishful thinking that this might be an accident flew out the windows on the far side of the South Tower with thousands of office memos, faxes, framed photos from people’s desks and shards of glass.

Later, we watched — live — as both towers fell.

All of these were things familiar to me.  The cities, the airplanes, the people simply trying to earn a living and make it back home to their wife and kids – hopefully before bedtime.  Although I would have been on the ground in Washington, DC that morning well before any of that happened, it could have easily been me.  I had been on hundreds of flights from the same airports the hijackers used and to the same cities they wanted to attack.  I sat with, talked to and joked with people exactly like the ones who were on those airplanes when they flew into those buildings.  Unlike some war in a far-off land, I could relate to every aspect of this.  I could smell the inside of the airplanes, I knew the lobby of the World Trade Center and I could hear the DC Metro conductor say, “Next stop, Pentagon … doors opening on the right.”

Later, we watched footage of the Pentagon taking a direct hit.  Had my trip not been canceled 15 hours earlier, I would have been in a conference room with an entire wall of windows overlooking the Pentagon across the Potomac – I would have been less than one-half mile away.  I would have seen – as many of my friends who were at that meeting that morning – the fire and smoke billowing from the Pentagon.

I don’t know how to end this entry.  There aren’t words that can adequately say how I felt that morning.  I took it personally.  I still take it personally.  There are indeed people out there who wanted to kill us simply for being Americans … and, ten years later, many of them still do.

So you think you can write …

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Sep 052011
 

A person I follow on Twitter (actually, one of my childhood heroes — Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly) posted a link this morning to a 10-year old New York Times column about writing.  It is solid, easy-to-follow advice for anyone who writes regularly.  It doesn’t matter if you are a blogger, a journalist, a letter writer, novelist, or simply someone who send emails … read this:

WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle

By ELMORE LEONARD
Published: July 16, 2001

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.  (Read the rest of this column here.)

This common sense approach to writing should have been taught in English 101 your freshman year of college – but many of us get so unbelievably smart as we get older that we no longer adhere to the basics.  We should.

If you like this column, you would really enjoy Stephen King’s book “On Writing.”  If you’re looking for rabid dogs, frightening clowns, and the normal bizarre terror King is known for, you will find none of it.  If you would like some advice by one of our most prolific and bestselling contemporary writers, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  It’s a quick read and filled cover-to-cover with awesome information that, if you follow it, will make your writing more powerful.

“Best of all he loved the fall …”

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Aug 152011
 

The epitaph on Ernest Hemingway’s memorial quotes (roughly) from a eulogy he wrote for one of his friends.  It reads:

“Best of all he loved the fall
The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
Leaves floating on the trout streams
And above the hills
The high blue windless skies
Now he will be a part of them forever.”

There is no more appropriate sentiment to wrap up my feelings about the seasons.  Of course, mine would have to say, “Best of all, he loved his family,” – but if it weren’t for them, I would wholeheartedly agree with Pappa.

The best time of year is looming just over the horizon.  I felt it this morning.  In the morning, there was a hint of moisture and coolness that said, “Just hold on a few more weeks, I’m almost there.”  Grab your tent, build a campfire and fix a steaming hot cup of coffee.  Hold your feet to the fire and breath deeply, because this is rare.

Some people live for spring and summer, and I’m not immune to the giddy joy that comes with hot days, blooming flowers, glaring sun, screaming kids and romps in the ocean.  But fall feels like the moment you hit the bed after an 18-hour work day.  Cold sheets when you first climb into bed.  It is the release of everything hectic and hard.  It is a big sigh of relief with a warm embrace.  It is a comfortable sweatshirt and cold dew on the grass that completely wets your bare feet and leaves that crunch and smells one-hundred times better than the most expensive perfume.  It is the violins that kick in after the first verse of “Yesterday” by the Beatles.  It is unshaven, grown up and mature … it signifies ends and beginnings.  It’s sad, but comforting.

Spring is happy and fun.  Summer is living and playing hard.  Winter is refreshing.  But fall, oh fall, it is the time to relax, release and renew.  It can be found on a hike, a hunting trip, a nighttime football game, a drive with the windows open and darkness that falls before dinner.  It surprises you when you’re least expecting it – and you know life gets no better than that.  It is orange and brown, crisp and cool and real.  It is bright blue skies almost entirely covered with huge, dark-bottomed clouds and a brisk wind blowing the leaves from the trees.

“Best of all, he loved the fall.”  Yes Poppa, you got it right one last time.  We should not be surprised.

Does the world really need another Ralph Lauren who calls himself Tommy Hilfiger?

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Mar 062011
 

My oldest son subscribes to a number of magazines I used to get when I was younger.  You can typically find GQ, Esquire, Interview and countless other magazines floating around our home.  We also get National Geographic, a handful of photography magazines, and my wife subscribes to a number of home and regional publications.

I typically thumb through all of them, but still like GQ better than most.  The writing is typically pretty good, the content fairly interesting and the fashion content is usually applicable to regular guys — unlike the fashion content of publications like Interview that can only be pulled off by New York fashion models and artists.

As a lifelong marketing guy, I always pay attention to ads — and clothing ads are always fun.  It’s all about lifestyle, image, branding and creating a “personality” for something that is completely inanimate.  When you cut to the chase, pants are pants, suits are suits and shirts are shirts.  But in the world of fashion marketing, your suit can say you are a hip young entrepreneur or a smart techno-geek, depending on the cut, the material and what you wear with it.  And the props … I just LOVE the props.

Recently, I’ve watched as Tommy Hilfiger has tried to become Ralph Lauren.  It’s actually quite humorous when you look at their ads side-by-side.  Case in point …

Ralph Lauren ad (left) and Hilfiger ad (right)

While Ralph Lauren has absolutely owned the squeaky-clean, preppy, all-American look for decades, Hilfiger has shifted from over-sized baggy pants with huge logos down the leg (popular with rap artists and inner-city youth) to “Tommy Sport,” a now defunct line of more casual clothing.  In recent months, it appears that what Tommy now wants to be is Ralph Lauren.  The only problem is that Ralph is a much better Ralph than Tommy will ever be.

I am not a fashionista – but I do like clothing and I love watching how companies market themselves.  As is the case with cars, food, housewares and appliances, the originals are typically better than the knock-offs that are trying to play catch-up.

I’ll stick with Ralph Lauren.

Evel Knievel: Athlete Extraordinaire

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Jan 252011
 

Evel Knievel was my hero as a kid.  As an adult, I got to work with and spend time with him.  I drove him around in my car, sat and talked to him in hotel rooms, made stops at mini-marts to purchase No-Doze for him (when he was extremely sick and still doing four-hour autograph sessions with fans), and — yes — I did put on the helmet and white leather jacket with the red, white and blue “V” on the front when he wasn’t looking.  You can read more about Evel Knievel and me here.

Chuck Klosterman recently wrote the following about Evel Knievel and I believe it might be the best thing ever written about the World’s Greatest Daredevil:

Evel Knievel

I’m not sure Evel Knievel was a great athlete.  He was certainly “athletic” (in that he could rodeo-ride and ski jump and pole vault and play semi-pro hockey), and no reasonable man would dispute the veracity of his “greatness” (he remains the most famous daredevil in the world, despite being dead).  But is jumping over things on a machine — or more accurately, failing to jump over things on a machine — a reflection of athletic prowess?  Probably not.  If he were alive, though, I’d never say that to Evel because he might beat me with a baseball bat.

Once, long ago, a foolish man named Shelly Saltman wrote a book accusing Evel Knievel of being an abusive person.  Around the time of the book’s release, both of Knievel’s arms were in medical casts (he had crashed during a jump in Chicago).  Yet these injuries did not stop Evel from heading to California and clubbing Saltman with a Louisville Slugger, shattering the writer’s left arm and right wrist.  Just think about that: a man with two recently broken arms breaking another guy’s arm in the light of day on a studio lot in Los Angeles.

This hardly advances Evel Knievel’s claim of athletic greatness; we’d never view Ron Artest as better than Chris Paul simply because he’s more insane.  But revenge reflects the spirit of athletic desire, just as trying to jump an Idaho canyon on a Skycycle reflects the spirit of unadulterated personal confidence.  Nobody was ever scared of less than Evel Knievel.  The world is both safer and more depressing without him.  And how many “great athletes” can you say that about?

Ackermann PR names Rick Laney Vice President

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Jan 192011
 

(From AckermannWire) Knoxville, Tenn. – Cathy Ackermann, president and CEO of Ackermann PR, announced today that Rick Laney has been promoted to Vice President, Ackermann PR, effective immediately.

Rick Laney

With two decades of senior-level marketing management experience – combined with a background in print and broadcast journalism – Laney has a clear understanding of both marketing strategy and communications expertise.  He has won statewide journalism awards in Ohio and Tennessee and garnered 20 ADDY Awards.  Laney has been at Ackermann PR as a Senior Account Executive since 2008 and oversees the travel and tourism practice area for the firm.  His clients include Wilderness at the Smokies resort, Titanic Museum Attraction, Water Magic, Cellular Sales Verizon Wireless, among others.

“Since joining Ackermann PR, Rick Laney has worked to establish very strong relationships with our clients,” said Cathy Ackermann.  “He always strives to consistently and enthusiastically exceed expectations for our clients as well as for our company.  We appreciate the strong leadership and innovation he brings to every project.”

For the past three decades, Ackermann PR has been one of Tennessee’s premier public relations and marketing firms.  With offices in Dallas, Washington, D.C. and Knoxville, Ackermann PR is one of only two public relations firms in Tennessee listed as one of the nation’s “Top 100” by PR Week Magazine.

Sapphire hosts author and humor columnist Blane Bachelor

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Sep 042010
 

Blane Bachelor at Sapphire

I helped a friend from Atlanta out with a Knoxville book promotion this week.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Humor columnist Blane Bachelor is used to having people ask whether Bachelor is her real last name.  Indeed it is – and it’s also the inspiration behind her first book, On Being a Bachelor: Thoughts on Dating, Mating and Relating (Virgil Press, Inc.), officially released this month.

Blane, who also writes for People.com, Women’s Health, Sherman’s Travel, and several other publications, signed copies of her book on Thurs., Sept. 2, 2010 at Sapphire (428 South Gay Street in Knoxville) starting at 4:30 p.m. During the event, Sapphire offered a number of specials and promotions (thanks Aaron !!). Popular blues singer Seth Walker performed at Sapphire at 9 p.m. after Bachelor’s book signing.

For two years, Bachelor’s column, “On Being a Bachelor,” was among the top-read stories in The Sunday Paper, an alternative weekly newspaper in Atlanta. Readers – whether they were male or female, married or single – loved Bachelor’s brutal honesty about matters of the heart (and other, um, organs) that they could relate to. And because she made them laugh.

Jamie Lynn (WATE), Michele (WVLT), Jennifer (B97.5) and Blane

A real-life “Carrie Bradshaw,” Bachelor is accustomed to comparisons between her own career path and that of the famed relationship writer and star of “Sex and the City.”  Although Bachelor understands the parallels, she is quick to point out that Bradshaw’s lifestyle is a bit far-fetched.

“First of all – a freelance writer with a closet full of Prada and Manolos?” Bachelor says. “Yeah, right. But there are some parallels between us. Though my style is a bit snarkier, Carrie was never afraid to put it all out there to connect with readers on matters of the heart. I like to think I’ve done the same thing.”

Bachelor’s top columns appear in On Being a Bachelor. The book is “a must-read for anyone who has been on a date – or just lived to tell about it,” says Colleen Oakley, a former Marie Claire senior editor.

Watch for coverage of Blane’s book signing in the Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville Magazine, CityView Magazine, on WBIR and on WVLT.  Blane’s book is also this months “Book of the Month” on B97.5 in Knoxville (thanks Jennifer !!).

Check Blane’s personal website out here and her book website out here.  While you’re checking it out, order a copy of her book – you won’t be disappointed.

Kirk Cameron, Warren Barfield and Feed Your Faith hit Marietta, Georgia

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Sep 042010
 

Kirk Cameron in Marietta, Ga. last weekend

We had another event with Kirk Cameron and Warren Barfield last weekend in Marietta, Georgia.  More than 4,000 people turned out for this one and, as usual, Kirk and Warren were awesome.  In coming weeks, we’ll be in Alabama, Florida and Oklahoma — then we’re done for 2010.  We’re currently working out the details of 2011, but we will continue to do the LOVE WORTH FIGHTING FOR tour across the country.  We have raised tens of thousands of dollars for charities that help those in need and, at the same time, brought some some helpful information to people about relationships, marriage and family.

Feed Your Faith’s LOVE WORTH FIGHTING FOR tour will be in Huntsville, Alabama on Saturday, September 18, 2010 at the Whitesburg Baptist Church.  The event has two sessions – an afternoon matinee session from 1 – 4:30 p.m. and an evening session from 7 – 10:30 p.m.

Kirk Cameron at the LOVE WORTH FIGHTING FOR TOUR

For more information about LOVE WORTH FIGHTING TOUR featuring Kirk Cameron and Warren Barfield LIVE at Whitesburg Baptist Church, 6806 Whitesburg Drive South in Huntsville, Alabama, or to order your tickets, visit www.FeedYourFaith.org. Tickets range from $17.50 to $35 each and are available as reserved seats or general admission for singles, couples, and groups of 10 or more.

Feed Your Faith was started five years ago by Mike Williams. His concept was simple: Bring in the best and brightest Christian speakers, authors and musicians to spiritually feed believers while raising money to physically feed those in need. Four years ago, Williams was joined by Rick Laney, co-director of Feed Your Faith and today the ministry is still a two-man operation. Feed Your Faith has worked with nationally known writers and music groups including Kirk Cameron, Warren Barfield, Lee Strobel (former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of The Case for Christ), author Mark Middleberg, DecembeRadio, Decyfer Down and Sanctus Real (Dove Award winning Christian Rock and Alternative band), needtobreath and Sarah Reeves. To date, Feed Your Faith has raised tens of thousands of dollars for charities throughout the Southeast United States.

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