POSTSEASON PICK:

Give me the Texas Rangers in six.

I think the Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals are pretty evenly matched––scattered starting pitching, great bullpens, powerful lineups, damn good managers––but the Rangers have the X factor, the bitter taste of defeat from last year's World Series loss to the San Francisco Giants. This year they'll replace that taste with sweet victory and the World Series trophy in hand.

By the way, I'd just like to point out that I made my pick before Nolan Ryan, the Rangers' CEO and president; Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks' all-star forward; and Buster Olney with ESPN all said the Rangers and six. [No big deal.]

Go Rangers!

The Dumbest Rule in Sports (Thank You, Bud Selig)

Thank you, Bud Selig. As you carried on as the commissioner of baseball over the years, fighting steroids and swearing to take all performance-enhancing drugs out of the game, you've managed to add more mockery to the game itself.

I.e. Your ridiculous rule that whatever team wins the all-star game––be it the American League or National––the team from that league gets home-field advantage for the World Series.

Seriously, Selig? That has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

Regardless, let me try to see your point of view anyway, just for the hell of it.

You want to add meaning to the all-star game, a time when the best athletes in the sport come together for an exhibition and fan enjoyment. Instead of keeping it an exhibition and about fun, you want it to be more meaningful so that––most of all––you'll get more money [although you'll probably claim that it's actually more money for the sport. Please.] More meaning to the all-star game means more T.V. viewers, leading to more ad revenue; more in attendance, meaning more ticket and concession sales. Sure, make your additional money, but don't do it where it hurts the integrity of the game.

Look it at this way, Selig, and I mean really hear me out here. What other sports place an emphasis on their all-star games? Basketball, perhaps? While still played halfway through the regular season––like baseball––means nothing, other than a glorified exhibition game, like baseball, for the fans. Football? Its all-star game is held the week before the Super Bowl, when all but two teams are still playing, and players from those two teams hardly ever play to prevent any risk of injury.

So tell me why, Selig, you feel the need to add more emphasis to baseball's all-star game?

It's ridiculous.

Take this year's World Series, for example. The Texas Rangers finished the regular season with a 96-66 record, first in the American League West by 10 games, and so far have cruised through the postseason to clinch their second consecutive American League pennant and World Series trip. Their opponent, the St. Louis Cardinals, is coming off a 90-72 regular season, and a team that pushed its way into the postseason on the season's final day.

Now let's look at this situation, Selig, and please, explain it to me––to all the fans of baseball, in fact––how in the hell does this make sense? Don't worry, we're all waiting.

How can you punish a team like the Rangers, coming off their best season in franchise history, surpassing the most regular-season wins in team history, running away with the AL West, and finishing as the top-team in the postseason with the most regular-season wins, and they don't earn the right to home-field advantage in the World Series?

Horseshit.

Get your head on right, Selig. Otherwise, get out of baseball.

A long (awaited) return

Well, damn. It's been awhile, Three Little Bird readers.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'm officially no longer a Brenham resident and I've made the big move back to the Big D––and how happy I am to be back. For those of you unaware, I landed a job in the heart of downtown Dallas with the Five Star Institute as a marketing copywriter for one of its programs (I'm also hoping to join the ranks of its two magazines and start my career in the magazine world, but I'm still working my way there).

I've been back in Dallas for a little more than a week now, and I've realized that I missed this place more than I thought.


Mostly:

The food
Brenham had just a handful of fast food chains (Taco Bell, Whataburger) and a few mom and pop shops that were decent enough to eat at on occasion. Other than that, it was pretty slim pickens on food choices. It only took a week or two where I began craving places like Baja, Chipotle or Chick-fil-a again.

They're places I took for granted when I lived here before, but now I've found a whole new appreciation for them all. In the week since the move, I've been to Chipotle four times––at least––and Baja twice. Speaking of which, Chipotle sounds good for lunch.

The atmosphere
A big part of me always thought I could make it––and prefer––small town living. And a big reason in accepting the job in Brenham was because of the small town feel and the slow-paced atmosphere. People there weren't in such a rush to get from Point A to Point B (in hindsight, part of that could have been because in Brenham Point A to Point B is no more than five miles) and everything was so much more relaxed.

While the slow-paced environment was a welcomed change at first, a young, 22-year-old guy can only take so much. It wasn't too long until I found myself often bored and looking for something to do––often times I resorted to an after-work nap that lasted until 8 p.m. or so, and then three hours later I'd turn right back around and go back to sleep. I felt like I was starting to sleep my life away.

But since my return to Dallas, I've reconnected with friends, spent countless hours at the lake and been way more active than I ever was in Brenham.

Maybe once I retire I'll give Brenham another shot.

Family and friends
It took moving nearly 300 miles away to gain a whole new appreciation for my family and friends. Not saying that I wasn't appreciative before the move, just being away from everyone for 10 months really showed me how much things sucked with everyone not around.

Dallas sports teams
For a good chunk of my time in Brenham I was stuck with watching the Houston Texans, Rockets and the Astros. It was miserable. I all but tuned out football last season because I could care less about the Texans (minus the Cowboys-Texans game last season when the Cowboys kicked that ass). Not watching the Rockets wasn't as major since I'm not a huge fan of basketball in general. But baseball, arguably my favorite sport of all, was the most difficult as I was stuck watching the woeful Astros play what they called 'baseball', which was nothing short of a disgrace to the game itself.

But being back in the Dallas market let's me watch as the Rangers look to run away with the division and make another deep playoff run, and as the Cowboys kick off a new season looking to avenge last year's despicable showing.


Now that I'm  back, I'm not sure that I'll ever really leave for any extended period of time again––unless it involves spending a period of time in Europe. It might have taken a 10-month leave, but I can officially say that Dallas, Texas, is my home.

And, might I add, DAMN IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!

The Letter That Started It All

 I've spent the past two days cleaning out my apartment and getting ready for the big move back to Dallas.

For those of you still unaware, I've been fortunate enough to land a copywriting/contributing editor position for a company and its two magazines in Dallas. It's a job that seemed to come solely as a stroke of luck (thank you, Journalism Gods!).

In the midst of it all, I ran across an old folder that contains nearly every piece of great journalism I've read and a lot of the stuff from my very early days. I found the letter that initially helped spark my interest into actually pursuing an education and career in the evil journalism field. It came from a former professor of mine, Bill Lodge, who had spent 26 years at The Dallas Morning News before he accepted a buyout package when The News was in a period of serious layoffs.

Bill was an adjunct professor at North Lake College for two years, I believe, before he moved to Louisiana for a job at The Baton Rouge Advocate. Even today, I fully credit him as the one who got me in this business. He remains one of my dearest friends and my strongest mentor to this day.

This is the email Bill sent me in the summer of 2007 right after I had completed my Intro to Mass Comm class that spring semester. I had planned on the spring semester being my last semester at North Lake and I was well on my way out the door to Sam Houston State where I figured I might follow the journalism path. I had an apartment ready to go and classes picked for the fall semester.

But Bill changed all that.


"Good Young People,

I hope to recruit each of you to my Journalism 2311 class this fall at North Lake College. This is a news-gathering and news-writing course, and I believe each of you would do well in it. I also believe you would enjoy the course because 90 percent of your grade would be eight articles you would write for the campus newspaper over the course of four months. You could write more if you wish, but the requirement is two per month. Often, these stories need not to be more than 350 words. If you wished, though, you would be allowed to write more than that in some cases.

In this course, you would learn how to write for a news publication, gather information, interview subjects, locate records. Some days, you would have classroom instruction. Other days, you would be free to work on your stories at the newspaper office, Room A-260. On several occasions, you would be visited in class by people who work for The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Business Journal, and, I hope, area television stations and alternative weeklies.

You would know your editor for all of your campus news stories. That would be me. Three of you have taken my mass communications class. I know each of you would do well in Journalism 2311, which will be taught M-W-F from 1:30 p.m. to 2:20 p.m. Even if you decide not to begin a career in journalism, this course still would help you with writing in other disciplines.

A couple of you have extensive experience writing for college newspapers. I believe both of you would enjoy the course, learn much from talking with the professionals who visit our class and have fun with the stories you would write for the News-Register.

If you're planning a career in communications or simply looking for an interesting elective, I hope you'll consider this class. At  any rate, I wish you all good luck with whatever path you choose. I have enjoyed talking with each of you in the past."


I can't say what it was about the email that exactly made me decide to stay and cancel my plans for Sam Houston. It's definitely not the best pitch to get an out-the-door college student with other plans to remain at a community college for another year, but it worked.

I do think, though, that a big part of it was that it was so sincere and that Bill was genuinely writing that he wanted us to stay and help us get better, and it wasn't just a pitch so that he could have more numbers in his JOUR 2311 class––which I now know wasn't the case because the class ended up being a total of three people by the end of the semester.

If Bill hadn't sent that email, I would have transferred to Sam Houston and who knows how my career would have turned out. Maybe I would have still ended up in the same places with the same opportunities, but almost surely not. I'd almost be willing to bet that I'd still be stuck in a frustrating restaurant job, still in college, trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. But Bill prevented all that with his short, 358-word letter.

And for that I'll always be grateful.

Dear Tiger Woods

[Ed. note: This is the transcribed message left on Tiger Woods' answering machine at 3:32 a.m. on July 21.]

Hey, Tiger,

It's your loyal fans here. Sorry to be calling so late, but we haven't been able to sleep. We've been thinking a lot lately and things just aren't the same as they've been for the past 15 years. And frankly, we are fed up with your shit.

The past year and a half has been like a bad relationship to us: you've promised that you were going to change, saying that you got away from your roots and teachings and that it's time to get back to your true self. We listened as you lied, promising that you would make a comeback and all would be OK.

And we took the bait. We wanted to believe.

We know that what you've gone through the past year and a half has been rough––you were caught in a major cheating scandal, lost your wife, your swing coach bolted, some of your major endorsement deals were dropped, Nike cut a big chunk of its deal, your career is in shambles and you can't stay healthy. But to add to the whirlwind, you split with the one person who could arguably be one of the last saving graces for your career, your caddy, Stevie Williams.

We were skeptical when Williams first took the bag of Adam Scott in this year's U.S. Open, of course, but we tried to write it off as you weren't playing and Williams just wanted to caddy. And, yeah, so what Williams grabbed Scott's bag again at the British Open, big deal, right?! You weren't there either, so it was OK, although the fear in the back of our minds told us otherwise.

But now you pull this shit of dumping Stevie, citing another "change" when all the others have obviously worked out so well. Cut the bullshit, Tiger, we know it's just another pawn move in your drastic downfall.

*Sighs*

So go on and keep telling yourself all is well in Tigerland, where you are truly getting back to yourself and that once your knee and achilles heals and your swing changes take effect and you find a new caddy and another great swing coach that you'll be back to the prominent force you once were.

But us fans, we are calling your bluff, we're sick of the abuse.

*Click*

My (not-so-major) discovery

Surely I'm not the last person on earth to have heard of Mumford & Sons.

Surely, in the heart of Africa, there's a tribe hidden in the depths of the jungle that the tune of "Little Lion Man" has yet to reach.

But I'm not so sure.

It wasn't until a few days ago that I stumbled across the likes of Mumford & Sons, almost solely by mistake. I'm a bit ashamed of myself, honestly. How is it that this band that's been around since December 2007 has yet to fill my iPod with all its glory and greatness? I wish I had an answer.

Surely there must be some mistake, I assumed. I tend to think I keep a close ear to the new music coming out on a fairly consistent basis and at least have an idea of who the new talent is. So when I heard "Little Lion Man" the first time from this band I've never heard of, I was sure that I had found the next big thing that, what I thought, only a select group of people had heard. The song took me back to middle school and to my first relationship when I didn't ask my girlfriend to the school dance, which turned out to be a deal breaker. I was crushed.

"Weep for yourself, my man, you'll never be what is in your heart. Weep Little Lion Man, you're not as brave as you were at the start."

"But it was not your fault but mine, and it was your heart on the line. I really fucked it up this time, didn't I, my dear?"

My inner 12-year-old was tucked up in his room again, heartbroken, swearing to never leave and to never love again. I took straight to YouTube to find this little showcase of talent and see what other greatness it brought to the table. What I found I can't say I was entirely happy with. "Little Lion Man" had more than 24 million views. Other songs, "Awake My Soul," "Thistle and Weeds," "The Cave," all peaked in the upward hundred of thousand views.

I was irked with my total obliviousness to this band. Why hadn't any of my friends sent Mumford & Sons my way? Why hadn't, through the course of the many YouTube videos, did a recommendation for this band not present itself? I wanted to hate myself. I wanted to hate this band for alluding me for so many years. But I couldn't. The music that played through my speakers was so packed with emotion and feeling, and with each new song played came a small dose of nostalgia.

I was back at the dance I didn't ask my seventh-grade girlfriend to, sitting lonely at a table, silhouetted against the glass, watching as she danced with another boy.

Me and my inner heartbroken 12 year old are going to go listen to "Little Lion Man" again.

Design: NBA Finals

I was cleaning out my flash drive this morning when I came across a mock design I put together back in December. It was shortly after the Miami Heat beat the Chicago Bulls and the NBA Finals was set against the Dallas Mavericks and the Heat.

When I designed it I was still under the impression that there was no way the Mavs were going to put together four wins against the three-headed beast of the Heat, and I would have undoubtedly bet a year's pay that would have been the case. But looking back on it now, 2 of 3 of my headlines were hinting at a Mavs win (Big German promises revenge; LeBron scared of making it to the Finals). So, maybe that was my inner MFFL that had been locked up for so many years trying to tell me these Mavs were the real deal.

Luckily I didn't make that bet.

Looking back on the design as a whole today, I'm still happy with how it turned out. It has a few errors in it or things I would like to change (See: Scoreboard in the Rangers-Yankees story; Lebron's mugshot; all the copy is one column; the Mavs-Heat preview box could be way cooler, something like a gradient with blue and red), but overall, it's pretty clean.

Before Sun's Wake

This is just a small short story I've been working on. Critique as you please, if you so choose to do so.


Before Sun's Wake


It was the morning of July 14, a Tuesday, when the phenomenon first took place. It was a strange occurrence, unlike any morning any of the townsfolk had experienced before. The I-75, which is usually log jammed at 7:30 each morning, found its lanes bare, no car to be found.

Families, instead of racing out the door to get the kids to school, parents to work, laid in bed, relaxed; the children, rather than sitting and waiting for the morning school bell to ring, slept or raced for their TVs to see if weekday cartoons were as good as their weekend counterparts. But even the TV channels nestled in the peace, airing those colorful rainbow bars, as if to say, "Get away! Enjoy this! Welcome this occurrence."

It was a strange sight, to stare out a window and see the event being held.  The morning birds that chirped their morning hymns from the rooftops and power lines kept silent; the neighborhood dogs, always barking at the children walking to school, didn't budge from their houses. Even the trash that littered the streets didn't dare move.

No one dared step outside their door and be the one to disturb the much welcomed peace. A stranger walking into town would believe all the townsfolk had planned this event. But it was all an act of nature which no one could understand. Some of the townsfolk panicked, unsure if the wrong step, a small peep or a slightly loud breath would disturb what was going on.

In the days that followed, the people of Lane resumed their busy schedules and acted as if the entire incident never happened, as if it were merely a collective dream by the townsfolk. It wasn't until the following Sunday when Pastor Lee of the town church spoke out about the phenomenon. He called it an act of God, telling us that God was trying to slow down our lives, and that we should take it as the first sign of his return. "There will be many more events to come," he said. "But we should not fear them."

Just day's after the pastor's sermon, the people had nearly forgotten all together that the strange event occurred. Mothers returned to scurrying the kids together and off to school before the morning bell, and fathers left before sun's wake to put in a full day's work. It was a process we had grown accustom to all our lives, and while the period of peace was welcomed, lives were to be lived and money to be made.

And then it happened again.

Exactly three months later, a peaceful (cloud) made its way over Lane once more. But the confusion from its first settling never came, and residents that panicked now welcomed its second coming. And still, no one dared to disturb the phenomenon or ask why it had blessed us a second time.

As the next day came and passed, whispers traveled through the town, and, amazingly, a changed shifted in the town. No longer were the residents of Lane in such a hurry. The I-75 was no longer a traffic-filled mess, mothers spent more time with their children, fathers, rather than out the door before the waking of the sun to put in a full day saw their children off to school and were home in time for ball games as the moon overtook the sun. Although there were two more events in the following weeks, the town started to become more at peace on its own without the help of the phenomenon.

After each passing, the word spread of the town's peace and we realized the town's population was slowly on the rise. Out-of-towners of all ages, race and sex, looking to find the peace we had all come to love, arrived one by one, car by car, filling house by house.

And so the town grew, and the peace was shared. But with the increased population came shopping centers, restaurants and malls and supermarkets all looking to supply our town's increased demand.

With that, the peace was disturbed.

For the first time in nearly a year, the phenomenon returned. And the citizens who had experienced it countless times before were well away. But it was the town's new inhabitants that disturbed the peace; the ones who came to town looking for what we all cherished, but ignored it when it showed itself.

They packed the I-75 with their cars––horns blaring, blood boiling––racing to locations that only breed stress. Mothers screamed for children to leave for school, as fathers had already left before sun's wake. And so the peace that we had all come to love was destroyed.

And we have never heard from it again.

This is shameful

[Ed. note: I can't believe I'm about to show this. I'm must be mad-tits-crazy INSANE!]

It's been more than four years since I wrote and submitted my first-ever journalism assignment. It was March 2007 and I was 18, still a young what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life college student. I thought I had it all figured out the semester before. I was hooked on science and looking to be the next top-knotch CSI investigator, rivaling Gil Grissom. Only my plan didn't work out as hoped.

The 16-hours of semester-long science classes, spanning from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. everyday, took their toll; I knew that I wasn't cut out for chemical formulas, biology mumbo jumbo and the headache of all the labs. [Note: For a while there I thought I could get away with sleeping in my 8 a.m. chemistry class MWF, but my teacher was all against that. Every time a student tried to fall asleep, he'd slap his hand on a desk and yell "HELLOOOOOOOO! CAN YOU HEAR ME? AM I BORING YOU???" in his thick African accent. It was brutal, man.]

Fuck that. I left that faster than a crop-dusted beer fart.

So I spent the Christmas break trying to figure out what I enjoyed. I knew I always had writing in my blood, I had just never actually considered it as a career. As long as I remembered as a young Keyser, I loved to read the morning paper, specifically heading straight for the sports section––the most important section of all, I thought at the time. Psh, who needed front page news. Plus the semester before, as I was wasting away in the science building, feeling my soul slowly being eaten away by test tubes and beakers and other nonsense, I'd crossed the newsroom of the school's newspaper, the News-Register, quite often and always wondered, "What if?"

That next semester I took the plunge and signed up for my first journalism class and gave writing its well-deserved chance. Those first few weeks of class I nearly shit myself, and then once more when my professor, the great Bill Lodge who turned out to be my biggest and greatest mentor, handed me my first assignment: cover a spring symposium.

Wait! You want me to go sit in a room full of people, cover what happened, and then TALK to those people after it's all over. You people must be crazy!

By no means growing up was I a journalism junkie. Sure I read the sports pages often, but my knowledge of journalism never stretched past that. I never sat and broke down stories like I've heard  other future writers doing. I had no idea what a lede was, a nut graf*, or the importance of quoting people.

[*Funny thing about nut grafs: Coming off a semester of nothing but science classes, my first thought of a nut graf was actually grafing a guy's family jewels. True story. I quickly found out that wasn't the case.]

I covered the event, wrote my story and turned it in, feeling as accomplished as I ever had in my 18 years. I knew I was hooked. Journalism sunk her dirty rotten teeth in me and there was no letting go. As soon as fall classes opened, I registered for every journalism class I could take. Then, to my surprise, I was offered to write a few stories for the summer issue.

Bill invited me in to the newsroom, handed me two stories and gave me the rundown of how the writing process goes: talk with a few sources and piece together 500 coherent words in beautifully crafted sentences.

The thought of walking up to a total stranger for a quote petrified me.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You mean I have to go back out and talk to more people! What happened to my understanding that these stories just pieced themselves together?! You people really are crazy!

But to my surprise, I did it––shaky voice, hands and all––and my stories ran, both on the front page! Riding on Cloud 9, HA! The way I felt even Cloud 9 couldn't understand. Not only did I have three stories under my belt, but the smell of formaldehyde and failed science experiments had finally left my nostrils.

Now, here I am, four years later and doing this 'professionally.'**

[**I say 'professionally' because I get paid for a living to write by an actual newspaper, but I still don't feel like a professional yet; I have too much to learn.]

So, here it is, in its bad spelling, grammar, AP style and all.

[Ed. note: I'm sorry in advance.]

****

Spring Symposium Goes Political: The Politics of Gender*

[*I don't know what I was thinking here. But I assumed I should sent a title in with my story. Stupid me. Even as a headline this sucks.]

"We do this to raise discussion. Not to force beliefs on each other."
-Christan Amundsen*

[*I thought it would be a good idea to insert a quote here––later on did I figure out it's called a pull quote. For some reason, I thought all stories got one of these.]

On Wednesday March 21, 2007 North Lake held its annual Spring Symposium. Moderated by Christan Amundsen (Social Sciences-Psychology), along with seven panelists: Tiffany Anderson (  ), Paul Magee (Sociology), Amy Bacio (Government), Avis Rupert (English), Ivan Dole (Developmental Reading), and Marcos Arandia (Philosophy).  The discussion topic: The Politics of Gender.*

[*This could quite possibly be the most God-awful lede written in the history of journalism. What the fuck was I thinking. The lede that ran is a helluva lot better than this (thanks, Bill).]

Before we can dive into this we must distinguish the difference between gender and sex.  Gender is more of what feel inside, whether we feel male or female. Where a persons sex is physical, proving that we are either male or female.  Ivan Dole gave two examples: "Women give birth to babies, men don't."  "Girls are weak, boys are tough."  The first being a sexual fact whereas the other could be considered as a bias gender statement. Now as the discussion grew, along did its audience. Topping somewhere close to 50-60 students.  Numerous ideas arose as the panelist and students voiced their opinions.  A major discussion was whether or not we as a society are ready for a female president.  With Hilary Clinton stating she will run for Presidency in the upcoming 2008 election has struck controversy over the United States and over the students and faculty at North Lake.   Paul Magee went on to say that "We guys are going to have to start learning how to say ma'am." Magee also threw around the phrase Madam President.  Is he right? Do we as a society have to start accepting the fact that a female president will soon be inevitable? A quick show of hands proved that most of North Lake students would not vote for Hilary Clinton in the upcoming election, no matter the circumstances. Leading one student to say: "People are told not to like her.  She shows no emotion.  Whenever you see her on T.V. her face is a stone.  At least let us see your smile Hilary."  Yet doesn't her being a woman open her to more criticism? Does showing emotion make her weak?  And don't we hold higher standards since she is a woman, especially if she is to win office?

[*I don't think there is one thing right with this entire paragraph. Not only is it well above the 70-word limit that most newspapers follow, but holy shit talk about editorialized. I should have just quit before I even wrote this.]

Look at society today, are we not criticizing the president now for lying to us about the war in Iraq?  One student feels that Hilary could potentially make a good president.  Stating that she was there while Bill was in office, and now we look at Bill as being a good president.

Couldn't she of learned a few things while Bill was in office? Or what about the possibility she was running the country while we thought Bill was the one. It wasn't just Hilary who ran the whole discussion; the topic of religion in politics arose.  Should politicians' religious
views determine whether they get elected to office?  Should they run office based on their religious views?  Magee stood firm as he said "It doesn't matter a politicians faith as long as they can run the government!  When you're about to go in for open heart surgery you aren't going to ask how often do you go to church?  You're going to ask how many times you done this, and how many deaths?" One student went on to say "I feel along with many others that religion and politics do not mix. But how is it possible to take the religion out of politics? When a senator makes a vote on a bill, isn't somewhere deep down their religious views helping with that decision?"

No matter the topic, the Symposium is a great way to gather students and have them voice their opinions over events going on in the world today. Whether you are able to catch five minutes before class or stay the whole time. Stop by, stir up your beliefs, and see what your fellow students feel. As Amundsen put it "We do this to raise discussion, not to force beliefs upon each other."*

[*I think the only right thing I did in this entire article was actually end it on a decent quote. The sentences leading up to the quote are terrible, but the quote isn't awful.]

****

VOICE

There used to be a time when I'd read a Gary Smith story and fume about how great of a writer he is. About how through his 5,000-plus word narratives he could mix-and-match his words into a story that is nearly impossible to put down.

As I flipped through the pages of Sports Illustrated and reading Gary's words, I'd go off on how great he is and how much I suck rather than try and figure out what made him so great. How is it that HE is a four-time National Magazine Award winner, and little ol' me is still working my way to the top. I've grown up a bit since then, though, and these days, there isn't as much fuming as there is mesmerizing.

What strikes me about Gary Smith being as great a writer as he is is his understanding of life around him, of being able to look at a story, pick out its underlying themes and incorporate his voice, albeit very subtle, and turn it into a very powerful narrative.

And while most of his narratives have enough drama to run the course of the story, his added touch with his voice, dropping in a brief question or slipping in a clever line that makes you sit back and say, 'Whoa!', is just incredible.

The thing I'm beginning to realize with voice*––thanks largely in part to Gary Smith– –is how powerful it can be. Sure, a narrative can survive on its own and still be great, but voice gives it that little extra flair. It's like ice cream, for example, great on its own but adding some chocolate, pecans and whip cream make it that much better.

[*When I say voice I don't mean it in the sense of first person and using 'I' in a narrative. I'm with David Granger, editor-in-chief of Esquire, when he says that first person is killing journalism***.]

Being 22, though, and just getting started in this business––more so just getting started with narrative––I'm still working to develop my voice, to develop my writing style. So far I've been like a mutt, I guess you can say, taking pieces from "Rapture of the Deep" by Gary Smith, a dose of "The Things That Carried Him" by Chris Jones, a chapter from "The Rapist Says He's Sorry" by Tom Junod, "Staying the Course" by Wright Thompson, "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold" by Gay Talese, among all the other fine narrative writers to ever grace the pages with their words.

So with great hope, I imagine that one day I will join their ranks. That one day I'll be able to write like this:

"When it's all done, you'll have to decide which side of the water's surface to see the myth through, and who got the moral of the story right. Those who see the half-naked woman inside the hammerhead shark and say, "Of course, because that's where she lives now." Or those who see it and say, "Of course, she was devoured.' Remember one thing: It was Audrey who drew the picture."*

[*An excerpt from Gary Smith's "Rapture of the Deep".]

–––

***Having said that, I do believe that there are those cases where 'I' works (see "Rapture of the Deep"* when Gary writes, "But I've always felt it was best to start with the half-naked woman."), but even so those cases are so rare that it's probably best not to use it at all.

*For the record, "Rapture of the Deep" is probably my all-time favorite narrative, in case you haven't already noticed.

Tigerless Field

The U.S. Open is less than 24 hours away from teeing off. You know, one of the four majors in golf, arguably the biggest golf tournament of the year.

This tournament brings out the biggest names in the game, except this year the most recognizable won't be in the field. Tiger Woods.

Most know, golf fans or not, what kind of hype Tiger brings to the world of golf––the way he can bend and shape a golf ball, pulling off miraculous shots most of us can't even fathom trying as Tiger on Xbox. And most, no matter how ignorant to the game, surely have noticed with Tiger in a total downward spiral in his career that the hype surrounding the game has died down in recent years.

Golf just isn't the same without Tiger Woods.

So when I learned of Tiger's absence at the Open this year, I couldn't helped but feel a bit let down. Even through all his mishaps and downfalls I remained a Tiger fan. Sure he slept with 17 women and blew it with his smokin' model wife, but he was still the greatest golfer to ever play the game––I was happy to look past his off-the-course shenanigans to watch him perform magic with the little white dimpled ball.

Yet that Tiger has never returned.

It started with the yips over the putter. Then neck and knee problems that forced him to withdraw from tournaments. Soon he was pulling out (probably not the best term to be used here) before the tournaments began––Jack Nikulas' Memorial, the U.S. Open. And to make matters just a bit worse, his caddy, Steve Willams, is caddying for Adam Scott this week. Both sides said that the move is temporary because Scott is in between caddys at the moment, but could it be another pawn in Tiger's collapse?

Metaphorically speaking, Tiger is in the rough, needing to carry 200 yards of water to reach the green, and all he has is a 9-iron. It's your shot, Tiger.

I can't help but think, and I hate to admit this, that my inner Tiger fan is looping into its own downward spiral. The lingering thought of will Tiger return to the greatness he once achieved––even half the player he once was?––lingers in my mind. The one, the dominating force on tour that fellow golfers knew to be aware of as he roared up the leaderboard, so carefully planning his prowl to snatch the leader of the pack by the throat with viscous swings and deadly clutch putts.

And so this weekend, with the entire golf community tuned in on Father's Day Sunday, we'll all be left to wonder: Is this the moment when Tiger would make his move? To fire a ridiculous 7-iron from 200 yards out to four feet from the pin and snatch another win from the helpless field?

Unfortunately, we'll never know.

HEATED NO MORE

For the past 1,817 days, my inner basketball fan has been shackled, thrown into a dark room, where the air is thin and the darkness suffocates the light. I've all but left him for dead.

You see, when the Dallas Mavericks fell to the one-headed beast that was the Miami Heat that day, June 20, 2006, all my love for basketball was sent into that tiny chamber in the depths of sporting hell. I felt betrayed and used, shocked and hurt to my very core. I felt as if the only agenda those Mavericks had was to get my hopes at an all-time high through the season and playoffs and then crush them in explosive fashion with a four-game losing streak to lose the NBA title.

I was sick. From that moment I tore up my Mavs Fan For Life membership, scratched Dirk off my list of heroes and vowed to never cheer for the Dallas team that had forsaken me.

For the last five years, that proved true.

The Mavs followed up the Finals loss with a first-round exit to Baron Davis and the eight-seeded Golden State Warriors the following year, despite compiling 67 wins and the NBA's No. 1 team that season. I knew I had made the right decision.

The following years continued that trend – success during the season but ended with playoff flops. I laughed at the fans who continually said that "This is our year!", wondering why they put themselves through such a heartbreak.

Then the tide started to turn this year, even I could feel it. But I refused to let myself to buy into the hype only to be crushed once more. I kept my TV tuned into the Mavs-Trail Blazers series, only to discover that Dallas had blown a 23-point lead to give Portland a win. I wrote it off as another choke job playoff loss for the Mavs and I would leave my MFFL shackled in that dark chamber for another season.

But these Mavs came back to beat Portland in six games and advance to take on the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant. Surely Bryant and the defending champs would stop the heated Mavs in their tracks. Dallas went on to sweep L.A. out of the playoffs – a nice retirement gift for Phil Jackson.

OK, I thought. This team has my attention. But the young Thunder looked to be a good test, with the title-hungry Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook at the helm. Yet, once again, the veteran Mavs struck the Thunder to advance to a Finals series that I couldn't even ignore.

Even so, the three-headed beast that was the Miami Heat was definitely going to be too much for Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs. After all, the Heat's Big 3 – LeBron James, Dewayne Wade and Chris Bosh – all signed together in Miami for  that one reason: to be NBA champions. If Dallas couldn't beat the Heat when it was just a one-headed beast in Wade, why was I to believe that the Mavs could slay it when it sprouted two more heads?

I vowed that it would be Miami in six games.

And with a Game 1 victory by the Heat, I was all but certain the dagger had already struck. Then Game 2 came and the Mavs mounted a 15-point fourth-quarter comeback to steal a win in Miami. A valiant effort, no doubt, but could the Mavs sustain that level of play for the remainder of the series? Surely not, I thought. And so when the Heat took Game 3, albeit a two-point victory, once again, I was sure Dallas had been torched.

Man, am I proud to say I was wrong.

For the first time I can ever remember, the Mavs looked like the team they preached. Dirk finally had his backup in Jason Terry, J.J. Barea, Jason Kidd, Tyson Chandler – hell, the whole bench. But Dirk was still Dirk, 101-degree fever or not. My locked-up MFFL made his biggest cheer in five years when Jet nailed a three in Game 5 over the outstretched reach of LeBron that gave the Mavs a 3-2 series advantage.

No way, I thought. This can't be happening.

But there were still two potential games to be played – both down in south beach. James was sure to come out of his slump and attack the Dallas defense for 40 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. Wade would be there to add another 30 points and Bosh might even throw in another 15. And the miraculous Mavs would crumble at the three-headed monster with its back against the wall.

Not so.

Dallas won Game 6 for a 4-2 series victory to claim the first NBA title in franchise history. Dirk, Terry, Kidd all got their ring, and Dirk was crowned Finals MVP – and rightfully so.

My inner MFFL is happy once again, too. Not only have the shackles been released and he's back in the light of day, but the pain from that 2006 series loss is gone. All is right in Mavs country again.

So, I have to ask, does anyone know how much a MFFL membership is going these days?

I seem to have lost mine.

NERD ALERT: My Zelda Reunion

I've spent the past three days reliving an important part of my childhood.

I've fought through temples, saved towns, saw an old friend and mentor die, and went on and freed an entire land from an evil king.

For those unaware what I'm getting to, I've gone back and played Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Nintendo 64 game that was released in 1998 and made me realize my first real hero as a kid was Link, the brave Hyrulian boy tasked with saving all of Hyrule from the evil that was Ganaondorf.

Running through Hyrule field once more; defeating the madness that rested inside Jabu-Jabu, the giant fish in Zora's Domain; and, of course, fishing at the small shop in Lake Hylia, brought back a time in my life when all seemed perfect. I was once again a 10-year-old boy saving he world.

I have even a greater appreciation for Zelda these days. The story line is killer and insanely well written with all sorts of twists and turns. In fact, I consider Shiek turning out to be Zelda bigger than Darth Vader turning out to be Luke's father – it blew my mind as a kid, man.

And not just that, but the game made you think, and challenges and fights just weren't handed over like in so many games today. What I really love – well love/hate – is that when Link dies in a temple, he doesn't respawn back to where he died. Instead, he's sent back to the temple's entrance to find that spot again. It's frustrating as hell at the time, ESPECIALLY if you're close to getting to the boss, but it let's you know that you better do your best not to die.

But I realized something in that three-day period, too. I've done quite a bit of growing up since those days. The difficulty of saving Hyrule when I was younger was so much that, despite my best efforts, I had to rely on a strategy guide to get me through the temples and challenges that Link faced.

Remember, for example, when Link had to meet Saria in the Lost Woods to get the wooden ocarina – and also later to get to the Forest Temple – there was a certain path he had to take or he would get lost and return to the village? Never in my adolescent life could I had figured that out without some form of help. And only recently did I find out that the trick is to walk down the tunnels and see if the tune got louder or vanished – if it got louder, Link was headed in the right direction. But my trusty guide gave me all the help I needed – left, right, left, right, center, left, right. I remember for a solid week I would walk to the bus stop two blocks away rehearsing those directions so I wouldn't forget.

And then, without question the most difficult part of the game, the Water Temple. Even with the strategy guide here I struggled to get through a place that's water levels changed more than Tiger Woods' current golf swing. I must admit, I still struggled through that damned place this most recent time through – although it was mainly because of my dumbassness and overthinking things.

But for the most part, this go-round – some 12 years later – was much easier than the previous two times. I don't know if it's because I've played the game twice before and my brain kept it hidden deep in its hidden depths – highly unlikely – or if in that 12-year timeframe, I've become smarter – also very unlikely.

Yet the bosses seemed easier, and the temples, what would take me two or three days to complete one as a kid, I was racing through two or three in a day. Hell, in the last battle with Ganondorf, where I died countless times as a kid, I defeated him and returned Hyrule to its former glory in less than 20 minutes.

I will now be known as Matt: Zelda's Ultimate Hero.

Now, if I could only find a way to find the Master Sword and drop it back in the Temple of Time so I can return to my 10-year-old self.

[/endnerdalert]

A Heated Dilemma

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here.

You see, five years ago when the Dallas Mavericks lost in six games after the Miami Heat completed a four-game comeback to win the NBA Finals – mainly on the lone shoulders of Dwayne Wade – I lost all willingness to be a Mavs fan. I was crushed, unsure if I would ever recover.

The dagger through my heart came the following year when the Mavs were knocked out of the first round of playoffs after finishing the season the No. 1 team in the NBA. I immediately canceled my membership as a MFFL, and from that moment on, I would no longer root for my once beloved Mavs. And the following years, I had no regrets. Dallas dominated the season but choked hard in the playoffs. I knew I wasn't missing much and I kept my heart heavily guarded and didn't root for such a choke-job team.

But now it looks as if this Mavs team is maybe turning the tide, and the inner Mavs fan inside of me that remained dormant for so many years is quietly letting me know he's still there – eagerly awaiting me to let him out of his cage. But even so, I'm not sold on this Mavs team; I refuse to let myself go through the heartbreak I suffered in the 2006 Finals, and even so in 2007.

Yet I've kept a close eye on these playoffs and watched as the Mavs rallied to beat Portland after losing two games at home and the choke job seemingly in full effect (I admit, I even wrote the Mavs off at this point. Who was to say that this year would be any different from the rest?). But they finished out the series. And then, even more impressive, followed it up with a sweep of the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, the first time a team coached by the legendary Phil Jackson had been swept out of the playoffs – what a nice retirement gift! And the club kept it going in an utter domination of a young team that is the Oklahoma City Thunder, mounting heroic fourth-quarter comebacks that showed the Thunder that although it was a talented bunch, veterans rule the game of basketball (also see the Heat v. Chicago Bulls series as LeBron and Wade took down the MVP Derrik Rose as an example).

Then the Mavs fell in Game 1 to the Heat; I was all but sure it was over. That is, until Thursday night. I returned home from work at 11 and turned on SportsCenter to see the Mavs had ended the game on a 22-5 run, mounting a 15-point comeback, and stole a game in Miami. Yes, I won't lie, my inner Mavs fan let out a small victory roar.

And today, June 3, all is good in Mavs' nation as the Mavs head back to Dallas to open a three-game home stand that, in all reality if they swept all three games, could send the Heat back to Miami all flamed out, leaving LeBron and the Big 3 hoping that next year they live up to all the hype.

Yet there's still been too many letdowns in the past for me to let myself, or my inner Mavs fan, get excited and root for this team. But I'll anxiously watch and sit with anticipation that this is the year the Mavs start the healing process.

The Miracle Man

Here it is, my latest narrative, The Miracle Man, the story of 18-year-old Chris Langley who nearly died in a head-on collision back in February, and made a miraculous comeback to starting catcher for the Burton High School baseball team.

Some consider him a miracle of sorts. I tend to agree.

The Calm

Today, my story The Miracle Man was published in the Banner-Press and all is...calm. I guess this story, those 77 inches of words, can really be considered my first narrative piece published to a large readership.

I'm sitting here at my desk in the newsroom not sure what to think. The calm, the silence is almost deafening; at any moment I feel as if the phones are going to explode and all hell will be unleashed in this tiny town. Somewhere, hidden in my words is a false fact that will change the whole meaning of my story – and by god everyone in this town is going to let me hear it.

I don't want to make it sound like I don't trust my work; I do. I wouldn't have turned anything in that I felt was fabricated – I have more respect for my work and journalism as a whole to do that. But I can't help but wonder if there was a mistake I overlooked or a name spelled wrong or whatever the hell else it could be.

The phone will ring and from the other side I'll hear –

"That Matt Keyser is a fucking liar!"

"Matt Keyser should be shot and hanged for his story in today's Banner-Press. What a disgrace to journalism!"

Or the worst call ever.

"I'm a relative to Chris Langley and this entire story is a croc of shit. Get that writer out of town and never let him write another word again!"

Call me crazy, but readers out there are brutal and not afraid to say what they think. And if they don't like your story, they're gonna unleash a hell so vast that you'll want to curl into a ball and never see the light of day again.



Some of you might say that you have to detach yourself from the readers and not care what they think, and with an everyday news story or feature, I agree. But when you pour everything you have into a story, spending weeks worth of interviews and research and writing, it's hard not to become attached to what you're writing.

So, until that phone rings, I'll try to sit here and enjoy the calm silence, hoping it lasts just a second longer...

Anxiously Awaiting

I'm sitting here anxiously awaiting my next narrative story to be published in tomorrow's Banner-Press. It follows the story of young Christopher Langley, an 18-year-old Burton High School student who was involved in a near head-on collision that almost killed him. But through prayers and sheer-will to live, he survived.

The anticipation is killing me. I can't stop my mind from wondering if all my facts are right? Are all my words true? Is the story well-constructed and readable? Did I overwrite and take away from the story (a problem I've had with past narratives).

And that's just the beginning.

How will the readers, the community take my story? What if I let Chris and his story down. As confident as I was at the beginning, I can't help but feel a bit of insecurity the night before it hits stands.

So much for getting any sleep tonight.

Words of Wisdom: Gary Smith

If there's one thing you need to know about Gary Smith, he's the greatest magazine writer that ever lived – winner of four National Magazine Awards, the most out of any writer––ever.

His understanding of the art of the long-form narrative is unreal. He's on a whole other level, in a another galaxy, compared to the writers below him. I have been lucky enough to email back and forth with Smith; he's critiqued a few of my narratives I've written, and for that, I'm grateful. Smith broke down everything I wrote, told me what I did wrong, and gave me tips on what I should have done.

But that's for another day, another post.

This Smith's take on the art of lede writing. Those first few words, sentences that capture your reader and draw him into the story. Forget everything you might have learned about ledes in journalism school, these words will change your writing forever.

"It's very hard to explain ledes. You're asking your reader to step across a threshold, inviting him to enter another world, often where metaphor and symbol and imagination reign, a place where he might meet himself in some other form, might meet truth through another man’s flesh and blood. You’re attempting to cast a spell, to make time vanish. You’re attempting magic, so the first words are vital. Magic doesn’t happen through the use of mundane words; you want words that have a special glow. Not by using big, shiny, impressive words that display your vocabulary; more often there’s a magical power in simplicity, but those simple words should imply more, much more. Don't dawdle or waste words; not one can be wasted here. Not one can be too much or too little. Every one must be just right. You might spend all day to get two or three paragraphs on paper, and the next day getting those three paragraphs right. Because if you think you got them right on the first go, you’re lying right in front of the mirror.


First, I try to look over all my material and think about it for a long time. Of course, even as I'm transferring all my notes from notepads into the computer, I"m thinking about what the material means in a deeper sense, what the undercurrents are. I'll be scribbling down lots of questions to ask to flesh out ideas that are forming about what's really going inside a person or inherent in that person's relationship to a particular situation.


Throughout the whole process, I'm asking myself:  What does this particular story really have to say about human beings or life? What's the real heartbeat of this story? Once I can say what that is in a few sentences, then I think about how I can show that rather than come right out and say it. This helps me begin to form a structure for the whole piece in my mind.


Which brings me, then, to the lede. I need to feel that room I'm inviting the reader to come and sit down in, in order to make the reader feel it and enter. Often, you'll want your lede to give some signal of impending conflict. Sometimes, depending on the story and the character, it might start right inside the furnace of a man, right inside of his conflict or hunger or confusion. Sometimes, if the larger context is what really matters in a story -- i.e., a relationship to other factors -- it might start as if we're looking down on the person and situation from a star a million miles away. Perhaps it's in that context that we begin to see the conflict that really matters in the story, or signs of impending trouble that we're going to explore as we go along.


Much of this has to do with your ability to think, and see larger context, to see and sense conflicts between opposites that are at play in mankind, in general, and in each one of us. So I'm guessing your ledes will improve the more you read, the more you think, the more you travel, the more these tensions that are everywhere at play become more and more apparent to you. Once you are better able to identify them, they'll open up your line of questioning of your characters. Not that you'll necessarily begin asking them large and abstract questions, but very concrete questions that will confirm or deny or refine your instincts about these undercurrents, these larger themes and ideas that might be at play here.


Don't let all this sound or seem too large or abstract. Trust that if you're hungry to understand human beings, eager to read and think and learn, this will come with time and experience. Applying these questions to yourself -- how and why you react to things the way you do -- will help you see it and identify it in others, because most of these things are universal. In the meantime, as you work toward all that, just try not to let yourself wander aimlessly into a story by describing settings. Ledes will never come easy. Just remember, they're the doorway into something larger, and they'll become more apparent to you once you've got a better grasp on what that 'larger' is."

The Long Fall From Grace

If you watched the Masters on Sunday, you then saw the double-headed nature that is the game of golf.

The reemergence of a Tiger, as he stroked his way from seven shots back to a temporary share of the lead, only to finish tied for fourth; an almost no-named winner in Charl Schwartzel, a man who, by American standards, is missing two letters in his first name; and a 21-year-old phenom, Rory McIlroy, who made the hard, bone-breaking fall from sole possession of first to a tie for 15th, a more than $1.3 million slide and 10 strokes off Schwartzel's winning mark.

McIlroy, the fair-skinned, messy-haired Irishman, shot a brutal 8-over-par, 80 on the day – 43 of those strokes coming on the back nine alone. Golf had carried him to new heights for 63 holes, and the remaining nine swallowed him and passed him like a beer fart in the wind.

It was undoubtedly painful to watch his struggles on the final nine: the seven on the par-4 10th hole as he found spots on the course that commentators said no golfer has been before, the bogey that followed, and the double on the par-3 12th. The shots weren't there and the putts refused to fall.

On his drive on the par-5 13th, McIlroy's drive found the running water in Rae's Creek. His face sank into his arms that rested on his driver. During the fall, he looked frustrated, disgusted, confused and sad. It was the moment he went on to say that he knew he had lost it.

Having been a golfer all my life, my stomach turned watching McIlroy tank. It's not easy holding the lead of a golf tournament. The game becomes more mental than physical. You begin to doubt yourself, second guessing every decision than trust your instincts, your natural ability to play the game. That five-foot putt that seems routine, now looks 20-feet with a double break; the trouble on the left as you step on the tee box becomes even more daunting; and the pressure to string together a few good holes is expounded enormously. And it's the ability to ignore those factors that separate the legends from just being good.

But there was also a beauty in his fall from the top. Through his missed putts, his wayward drives, before our very eyes was the young McIlroy making the next step in his transition to greatness, learning the true meaning of what it is to be a champion: To be one of the best, you have to see and feel the worst.

One day his inexperience will disappear, his nerves will subside, and the mental strength that he so lacked Sunday will prevail. He proved that with brief words walking off the 18th hole.

"It was a character building day, put it that way," he said in his thick Irish accent. "I'll come out stronger for it."

The words spoken of a true champion.

A Moment of Panic

In the midst of my hour and a half long morning wake up today, I was dozing in and out of sleep waiting for the very last moment to bolt out of bed, shower and make it to work.

As I laid drifting in and out, the journalism gods felt the need to play a dirty, dirty prank.

I slipped off into a dream in a newsroom. I was just handed an assignment to do a feature story on two baseball players – twin guys, if I recall, and they were some of the top players in the state. I made my phone calls, setup my interviews and was prepared to head out and do my story. But on the way out, I went home and took a nap.

Then, suddenly, I woke up in a moment of panic – a freak-out moment if I've ever had one. "OH, SHIT! I have a story to do!" My mind started racing with solutions of how I was going to do my track down the players, the coach and finish my story by 10:30. But it was still 6:30, I had four hours to take care of everything. So I did what any good journalist would do at that time.

I went back for another 30 minutes of sleep.

Somewhere in that time, what I think was me asleep – maybe something more of my subconscious talking to me – I realized I didn't have a story due and it was all a dream.

I woke up a bit confused. As I laid in bed my head swam as I wondered if I had a story due or if it was just all a sick, nasty prank the journalism gods decided to play.

Just an fyi, j gods, April Fools Day was seven days ago. You're a little late.

This isn't the first time, though, that I've woken up in cold sweats freaking out about something journalism related. When I was promoted to editor at my first paper, the News-Register out at North Lake College about three years ago, getting a good night's sleep then was pretty tough. In between my panics of worry that I got a fact or two wrong in a story, I was also designing the paper at the time, and that's where the most trouble came.

Most nights, after sending the paper to press, I'd go home and relax. And once I drifted to a hard sleep came the nightmares: did I change the headline on the front page? Oh, shit, did I change the dummy copy to the real story and is the jump right? You're sure that photo matches the story, right, dumbass? You may laugh, but these were legit concerns. And my panic would not only last through that dream, it carried over for the weekend and didn't ease until I saw the paper on Monday. (At the N-R, we sent the paper to press Friday night and it was delivered on Monday.)

Then, I guess, once I got a few papers under my belt and gained some confidence, the dreams – er, nightmares, I suppose – subsided and all was well once more.

But now they're back. And hopefully it's all just one sick prank. If not, journalism gods, this means war.

Words of Wisdom: Chris Jones

When the opportunity arises, I seek writing advice for the words I've written. Mostly it's after I've written a new profile or dipped my hand in attempting a new narrative piece. I want to better myself and find out what I'm doing right and the many, many things I need to improve on.

Not always will I get a response on my queries. Gary Smith, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated and probably the greatest magazine writer out there, has been gracious enough on multiple occasions to critique my words and help further my writing.

I also read tons of forums and blog posts, I listen to podcasts and watch interviews, all in which a great writer has contributed. And one day I got to thinking: while it's all out there for the world to find, why not condense it into one place for all the other writers, like me, who are looking to better themselves.

So, ladies and gentleman, I present you a new segment I'd like to call Words of Wisdom.

Every so often, I'll post some advice I've either received personally, or advice found from some of the best journalists and writers that have graced us with words on a page.

Some of the words will come from the same person multiple times. Some will come from up and comers who finally landed their big break. But they all have made it to the big show and are kind enough to offer a few words of wisdom.

Today, we'll start with Chris Jones, writer at large for Esquire.

For those of you who don't know Jones, he's the winner of two National Magazine Awards, an award equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize for newspapers, for his stories The Things That Carried him, the story of Sgt. Joe Montgomery's return to the U.S. after dying in Iraq; and Home, the story of two American astronauts stranded on the International Space Station after the space shuttle Columbia exploded leaving them with no way home.

Unfortunately, I've never had the chance to speak one on one with Jones, but I follow his blog religiously. The other day in his post, Gone, Baby, Gone, he said:

"In a lot of ways, I am lucky. I have nearly everything I've wanted. But here's an ugly little secret: Once you get a taste of what that's like, once you get where you think it is you want to go, that only makes your wanting worse. Whatever that longing is, whatever that ambition is, it has a stronger grip on me now than it ever has. Nobody tells you that. Nobody tells you that only once you get to the top of that mountain you're climbing will you see the mountain you should have been climbing all along."

I don't know if truer words have ever been written.

Is that not true for all up-and-coming writers? You start out in college, let's say, with the dream of being hired after graduation to a newspaper. You start out in a small town daily with the goal to move to a bigger paper, to a bigger, until your writing is so good, you're working for The New York Times or writing for Esquire.

For me, that dream is to one day own my own magazine. Crazy, yes. But it's the mountain I climb every day.

It's a fight to keep that dream alive. I can only hope for me, and all of you, that one day, nearing 70, you can look back and see gaze upon all the mountains you've topped, and the dreams you've achieved.

But, for now, it's time to get back to climbing.

Follow Jones's blog here.
Jones is on Twitter @MySecondEmpire.

Next Words of Wisdom, Gary Smith on lede writing: You're doing it wrong.

A Voice, A Feeling

Since I've moved out here and started working for the Banner-Press nearly seven months ago, I've realized that, for one, my writing has improved tenfold. But two, there's been a little voice in my head – maybe more of a gut instinct – that I've developed.

It tells me when I'm not doing the job I should be, letting me know that I should make that extra phone call or ask that extra question. At first – and I think it's always been there, but now it's really surfacing – I ignored it. But every time I sit down to write after pushing it aside, I know I'm not doing my best work. And sure enough, as I'm writing, that extra question I didn't ask, that five-minute phone call I didn't make, always comes up.

As a writer, you can't lie to yourself. You can write around the sentence of that unasked question, or rework your story to cut it out completely, and while the readers won't know the difference, deep down in your heart of hearts, you know. And for me, having that feeling hit my gut or that voice saying "You dun fucked up," is painful. Every time going back and reading that story – especially if I think it's some of my better work – the missed question, the extra phone call I didn't make, the extra piece of information I failed to look up, sticks out like a sore thumb, haunting me to no end.

The opposite is true, too. The times I've listened to that voice – "Ask that extra question, dumbass" – I have a better feeling going back and writing that story. That punch in the gut is replaced with knowing I'm ready to sit down and tackle this bitch head on, that nothing will stop me.

One day, I want my name to be up there with the Chris Joneses, the Gary Smiths and the Tom Junods. And the cold-hard truth is, that voice – that feeling – is the saving grace that will help get me there.

A River Mishap: Beat, Battered & Bruised

Note: This event took place four, maybe five years ago.

It used to be every year my dad, brother, step mom and I would go down to the Frio River in Leakey, Texas (down in the Hill County; it's beautiful down there) and float the river for 3-4 days. One year my dad, brother, a family friend – Joey – and I decided that we were going to go float the more "rough, fast-paced" part of the river, which turned out to be pretty awesome. But we ran into a few adventures along the way.

We always take an ice chest when we go to store lunch, beer, water, etc. etc. Well Dad usually ties it to his tube when we float (the ice chest sits in another tube). Well on Concan, the crazy stretch, it moves really fast with lots of rapids and having an ice chest isn't the best idea. Well first off we're maybe 30 minutes into the float enjoying ourselves when Dad hits a rock, flips his tube and he bashes his head during the flip. So he's bleeding a bit, nothing too severe, and we keep floating. It was funny at first cause I saw the whole thing and seeing Dad do a complete back flip out of his tube was pretty funny.

We're floating down a little more and hit some rapids. Well I get thrown out of the current and head straight for some trees and it's either try to push off the trees in my tube or get stuck. I missed the push with my legs and get caught up in this little tree area with the water running pretty quick. I realize I can't hold myself up in the water cause of how fast it's running. I'm trying to hold on to my tube and get it into a position where I can throw myself back in it and float down the river. I realize that the water is starting to push my swimsuit down and if I lift my legs at all I'm going to lose my suit, but then again I'll have my tube. So I'm in a bit of a pickle, ulitmately decide to let my tube go. Well the water sweeps me off my feet and I grab on to two tree branches, holding on to one with my left hand and one with my right, and I'm pretty much holding on for dear life on top of the water. Now the water has pushed my swimsuit past my hips and it's starting to work its way down my legs. If I held on too much longer, it's gone, and probably for good. Freaking out, I let go of each branch and fly down the river, hoping, praying that I'm not going to run into a huge rock or something under the water.

I only hit just a few minor rocks and scrape my chins up a bit, nothing big, but still kind of painful. By the time I get to where the water slows down, Joey is holding my tube, Dad is laughing, and Ethan was one of the first to go down the rapids so he didn't really have any idea of what happened. And what's funny is that as I was trying to decide between my tube and my suit, Dad came down the rapids and kind of grinded the tree I was holding on to, but didn't get caught like I did.

Well I get down there and Dad is laughing his ass off. I fill both Ethan and Joey in and they get a good laugh. So we grab a quick lunch, make sure we are all OK and all the tubes are accounted for and head off again.

We float about an hour before the next mishap. Again, we're approaching some rapids, me and my brother are floating near each other, and I brace myself this time; I'm going to be extra careful.

Well there's a rock that separates this little waterfall. The waterfall maybe drops two feet, but because of the rock the water is gushing on through. And there's a little narrow passageway that only one tube can fit through at a time; Ethan and I didn't know that.  Because the current started moving faster in the rapids, our tubes hit and we started to enter the little passageway at the same time. Luckily, at least for me, I was in the position to go first, so as I go down, Ethan's tube hits mine, he flies out up on the rock and his tube goes shooting through the rapids and down the waterfall.

Picture that for a second. A, what was he, 12-, 13-year-old kid stuck on a rock in the middle of a river in some rapids with no tube and no way to get down. And the water in front of the rapids is moving way too fast to get close enough to throw his tube back at him.

I had to jump out of my tube cause I was laughing so hard. That is the hardest I have ever laughed in my life. I had tears streaming down my face, I don't think I've cried like that even when I was sad.

He was freaking out, of course. And Dad had passed him on the rapids going down. I think he wanted Ethan to jump on him and his tube as he went down but the water shot him away too fast.

Dad comes down to me asks me to hold his tube as he goes back to save Ethan. He tries to talk Ethan into just jumping off the rock and into the water and Dad will catch him right away. Ethan, being freaked out and terrified is like, No way! But he eventually does.

They come down to where Joey and I are waiting and Ethan is a little shaken up, and I, like an asshole of a brother, am still laughing hysterically about the whole thing. Dad would later tell us that he had no idea how he planned to get Ethan off the rock if he wouldn't jump in the water.

So, once again, we recoup and float on. At this point we are in the last leg of the float, the sun is going down and we're all pretty worn out ready to get back to the cabin.

But the river gets one last laugh, her revenge on me for leaving Ethan on the rock.

We go down maybe 200 yards and I'm floating with my back turned down river. Joey, at this point, is way ahead of us, almost out of sight. But that was nothing new, he'd been with us and then floating out doing his own thing all day.

I'm floating in front, Dad and Ethan are casually behind and we're all talking – probably about the events that have happened throughout the day – when I start to hear more gushing water, like more rapids. I look behind me and there's nothing there except for people playing on the shore, other river floaters, but no rapids.

I turn back around and we keep talking but I continue to hear it, and I know I'm not crazy cause when I turn back around I hear it, but once again, nothing.

Finally it's getting louder, I ignore it at first cause based on my last few turnarounds, there's been nothing. But it keeps getting louder, the water seems to be moving faster, and I turn around and I'm at the top of a 15-foot hidden waterfall about to make the drop.

I freak.

There's a tree hanging overhead and I make a split-second decision to jump out of my tube and try my luck jumping in the tree – in hindsight, probably not the best decision.

I reach for where I think the branch might be, only to miss and end up getting slapped in the face by much smaller branches, and I still end up making the plunge down the waterfall, only this time with scratches on my face and the pain of getting slapped.

I come out of the water a bit stunned, try to figure out where I am, where my tube is, when here comes Ethan making his plunge down the fall – he, luckily, saw what happened to me and braced himself for the fall. I duck, as he falls and floats by, and realize my tube is stuck under the waterfall getting pushed down by the falling water and getting sucked in by the undertow. So I struggle to get it dislodged and get back on with the float. I don't remember if Dad had made the fall as I was working to get my tube unstuck, but when I finally did and floated down he, Ethan and Joey were there waiting for me.

Right after the waterfall was the pick-up point and the end of the leg. I couldn't have been happier to see it.

As we sat in the back of the truck that would take us back to our cabin, looping between the hills as the sun fell behind, I realized I just had the most stressful day on the river and I was pretty beat up, but it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

And what's probably the most odd thing about the entire day, Joey didn't biff it once. Through all the rapids and waterfalls, he never flipped and landed every trip down the falls.

Obviously Mother Nature didn't have any beef with him that day. For the rest of us, we were pretty beat, battered and bruised.

In A Nutshell

I mentioned that this blog is going to include a lot of features of people doing great things with great stories, with my occasional banter.

Well before we get there, I figured I should at least give you a little insight of who I am. Not for any selfish reasons, just to make myself more human rather than just an anonymous blogger behind a computer screen.

So this is a glimpse of me, Matt Keyser, on who I am and things I've picked up on over the years.


I used to be a shy, conservative guy. Then I lived with some Marine buddies for a year. They changed my whole outlook on life.

Jagermeister is never your friend.

A good journalist can be judged on the type of alcohol he drinks and how often he drinks it.

I once stopped in the middle of the road to prevent hitting a bird. It repaid me by flying over my car and shitting on my windshield. I should have just hit the damned thing.

Step out of your comfort zone as much as possible, it's the only way you're going to grow.

Obey the rules of Shotgun, they're there for a reason. The same with Man Law.

Chivalry isn't dead, ladies. It's just guys willing to still be chivalrous are a rare breed.

When saying goodbye to someone, especially someone close to you, don't rush to get away. Take the time to say a proper goodbye. You never know, it could be the last time you ever see them.

To find the truth of who a man really is, buy him a few drinks.

I'm not going to take you to the hospital because you aren't going to learn anything.

Confidence is the key to being successful; cockiness is the downfall. The line must be treaded very carefully.

If I wasn't a journalist, I don't know what I would be doing. I'd probably be cleaning porta potties. And you'd better believe those would be the cleanest porta potty seats anyone had ever pissed on.

I find humor in everyday life, especially in my fuck-ups. If it wasn't for laughter, I would have had a stress-induced heart attack by now.

It's cliché as hell, but don't stress the things you have no control over. I live my life by that.

If you have to question it, you probably shouldn't order that next drink.

Cherish the nights with good friends. Before you know it life happens and things are never quite the same.

Having said that, picking back up with your best friend should be like there was never a time gap at all.

Try everything once. Except Herpes.

The best way to shut up preachy vegetarians is to ask if they give blowjobs.

I was once kicked out of Coyote Ugly in Austin. I don't remember why exactly, but it's something that everyone should experience at least once.

I once had a calf when I was five. I never really got to know her, and when I was older I got a check cause she was sold. Now, every time I bite into a hamburger, I can't help but wonder if it's my calf.

You haven't lived until you've gone streaking at least once. There's something so freeing about it all.

The first time I ever bet on a horse race was at Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is run. I didn't know anything about horse racing or betting but I chose a random horse and ended up winning $32. I had to dig my ticket out of the trashcan because my horse was in last place when I stopped watching.

Having sex on a table in a park might be frowned upon, but it should be one everyone's bucket list.

In fact, if you're living without a bucket list, you obviously aren't living.

I know I'll have found my true love when I can honestly tell myself I won't leave her for Taylor Swift.

When the zombie apocalypse finally strikes, I will join the masses to kill zombies. And when trying to determine if a person is a zombie or not, I'm going to kick him right in the balls. If he's unaffected, he's a zombie. If he falls to the ground in pain, well, he is probably an asshole anyway.

My Talking House

I was in second grade when I wrote my first short story. It was a project assigned by my teacher, Mrs. Mayhall. She had everyone write and illustrate a story and read it to the class.

I don't remember much about the process or how I came up with the idea, but it was about a talking house, and I think I vaguely remember the tooth fairy having something to do with the story. (I was in second grade, don't just me based on the stories I wrote.) But all that is a bit irrelevant at this point.

What I remember most is finishing the story and running downstairs to my mom's bathroom for her to read my masterpiece. I was sure that it was one of the best things a second grader had ever written. And as Mom read my words, my brain filled with other story ideas that would lead to my great next work. I even considered a sequel to my talking house story.

I look back on that moment as one of the first times in my life I can remember being that excited about something – and a school project at that. But it's also a moment I think back on as a time when my first calling as a writer came. I was too young to notice it then – being just seven, maybe eight years old – but now I can say that moment was when the idea was planted in the depths of subconscious, slowly biding its time until I was old enough and ready to pursue a future as a writer.

Now, I'm blessed enough to do it as a living, and to have an actual employer pay me to put words on a page for people to read. My seven-year-old self would think I was crazy and run off to play on the monkey bars if I could visit him now.

Which leads me to this. I created this blog to not just help elevate my writing to the next level, but also because I believe that us writers have the power to change lives, to change the world, and to make an all-around difference.

Sure there are those who abuse that power, it's an ongoing battle of good vs. evil, but as it's been said, "the bad writers have a way of being weeded out."

I want this blog to be more than just about me – Matt Keyser, writer – but about the billions of people that populate the earth. I want to tell their stories so that you, the reader, can maybe learn something about yourself, your life or the world around you.

With that, I want to invite you to enter a new threshold, into a world of words and truth. Pain and tears. Happiness and triumph.

Strap in. It's going to be one helluva journey.