Scott Pelley isn’t my favorite news anchor. But his CBS Evening News is the one I listen to at 5:30 p.m. Pelley chastises fellow news folks in this story for what has become almost a standard operating procedure of “the initial report being wrong” during big news events. He also gives a personal mea culpa in this realm.
Watch out Beaumont, Texas, “Cops” is coming to town
Attention all bad boys: What ya gonna do?
Yes, “Cops” will follow Beaumont police officers around while exposing a few of the more than several dregs of society the city has to offer. Perhaps the show will get a good shot of police flailing the hell out of a “perp.” In case you don’t know, at least here, a perp is a black or Latino between the age of 18 and 60. No, I’m just kidding most of the cops here don’t do that any more. You know them civil lawsuits get expensive the more times they get filed.
I had some hopes for the Beaumont PD leadership when Chief James Singletary took command in October 2011. I have been personally disappointed about a couple of things the police did to my displeasure, but I will not mention them.
A few things do appear somewhat better though. It seems less wrongful use of force has been called to our attention. At least on the outside this police administration also seems to do a good job connecting with the media and the public. They send out news releases which are the very same ones that the local TV and newspaper receive and rewrite verbatim or make the release sound dramatic, somewhat, on TV. The local media has not, at least in the last several years, made any effort to investigate stories on their own. That is unless it is something that the white, wealthy or semi-wealthy, minority are up in arms over. For instance, we have the case of the black electrician who allegedly stole $3 million — I say allegedly even though he was convicted — from the Beaumont school district. I use the form of alleged because it may be more than that amount which was stolen or he might have a successful appeal.
The asshole who shot and killed an elderly woman from Newton County in March 2012 at the Jefferson County Courthouse, Bartholomew Granger, was convicted just this afternoon in Galveston. He also wounded a couple of others including his daughter, whom he also ran over. Sweet guy. He will probably be executed.
I mention that because that was about the biggest crime story around last year, that I can remember. Of course, “Cops” don’t need a big shootout to film. They can watch the Beaumont police bust some knucklehead, with his pants halfway down his ass, for a chunk of crack — cocaine that is. Or they might film some meth heads, all without shirts, being swept up in a commando-style raid in which the meth guy’s 3-year-old daughter ends up going to Child Protective Services. Sad. Yes, we’ve seen all this before. But we have not seen it in Beaumont on national TV.
One sight you will be sure to see is some good ol’ boy with his big belly hanging out from his wife-beater and as well as hanging a ways over his jeans. This ol’ boy might have two teeth at the most and a southern drawl. But what the hell? It’s good publicity for the department and a morale booster for the police officers, says Singletary.
The city has spent a considerable sum of money to spruce up areas of town. Tourists are coveted here by the local convention and visitors bureau to take in our museums, old houses, Gator Country and the birthplace of the oil industry. “Texas With a Little Extra” is the motto du jour. Or maybe that should be “Texas With a Little Extra Crime.”
Country says goodbye to Ol’ Possum Jones: Virtuoso of honky tonk blues dies at 81
George Jones died early Friday in Nashville at the age of 81. Such a common name for an uncommon man. Still, probably more than most people would know that this was “the greatest male vocalist in country music.” Untold thousands would just as easily recognize his nickname: “Ol’ Possum.”
“I had an album out with a side view of me with a crew cut,” Jones said in a 2009 interview on theBoot.com. “I was very young, and my nose looked more turned up, and I’ve got little beady eyes so I guess I did look like a possum! So they both laid into me and called me ‘Possum,’ and it got everywhere. There was no way I could stop that, so (I thought) I’ll just have to live with that!”
And live with it, he did. Though Jones informally lived with other names such as “The King of Broken Hearts” and “No Show Jones.” Through it all, from childhood to a tormented life of substance abuse, George Jones was a true blue country icon. He was admired by his peers as well as by younger performers of different genres such as the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and new wave pioneer Elvis Costello. This long form obituary in today’s Nashville Tennessean explains why those from different styles of music were such devotees of Jones. This is also likely one of the best tributes, warts and all, you will find of Jones on this day of his death.
Jones was born and raised in my part of the world. Some biographical pieces say he was born in a log cabin in Saratoga, Texas. Other bios said he spent his youth in Beaumont, where I now reside, picking and singing on a street corner for change.
The city of Vidor, Texas, also claims Jones as one of its own. Vidor can be found a short nine miles east of Beaumont on Interstate 10. One only has to cross the Neches River bridge, a.k.a. the “Purple Heart Memorial Bridge.” A movement started in the 1990s to name the Neches River Bridge after George Jones. Folks thought it was a good idea. The city council of Beaumont voted for it as did the Jefferson County commissioners. However, the vote had to be unanimous with county commissioners from Orange saying “yea.” The body voted “nay.” Jones said however the sides voted, he was just honored to be considered. But apparently some of Jones exploits must have burned some bridges in Orange County. Or perhaps Jones just wasn’t Holy enough for Orange County, a county in which residents in places such as Vidor have for years tried to live down reputations for being reputed Ku Klux Klan strongholds.
Before Possum set out for the Marines and eventually true stardom, he got his introduction to the record world at radio station KTXJ (1350 AM) in Jasper, 58 miles up the road from Beaumont. Coincidentally, KTXJ was the nearest radio station to where I grew up. Back in the day, it played both kinds of music: country and western. But Possum was long gone from KTXJ before I ever heard a radio broadcast.
Oddly enough, I was never a big George Jones fan. I understand why he is considered such a huge star, he was perhaps the best “song stylist” ever in country music. He also put so much pain in his sad songs that you thought he was going to break into tears and so much energy into his lively songs one might think he would explode. I did like a number of his songs though: “The Race Is On,” “White Lightning,” “She Thinks I Still Care,” among them.
Still, I understood that this man George Jones was a troubled man. Yet, he was a character and one who reminded me of the people I knew who were “known to drinks a bit” when I was growing up. The difference being they were just town drunks and Jones was a star.
So, from near your former haunts from many years past down here in Beaumont, we bid you a “so long” Ol’ Possum. Maybe someday we can name the freeway after you.
The first day on the job went swell, Ma. That is until I opened my mouth.
Remember your first day on the job?
You come in bright and early. Your new boss shows you where the coffee is which you find out comes out of a machine after depositing two quarters. A bit later you go to Human Resources and the 100-year-old and still bitchy empress has you sign about 150 pages of future additions to your permanent work history. After finishing the paper work and making sure the HR gal still has a pulse, you head to what you fear will be the first of many meetings. Some of the “guys” from your section take you to lunch. You return and take a three-hour class on sexual harassment, as if you didn’t already know how to sexually harass someone. Then, everyone bids you well for the evening as you are allowed to go home an hour or so early. You head to the subway thinking: “That didn’t go so bad did it?”
Maybe not, unless you were A.J. Clemente.
A.J. probably had plenty of high hopes as he began his first job as a local TV news anchor. Then the camera went live, thus ending quite probably the shortest career in TV news.
The 5 p.m. broadcast at KFYR-TV news in Bismarck, N.D. started with its serious-sounding music. Co-anchor Van Tieu then introduced the new talking head, A.J., the latter of whom was muttering something or other. What’s that you say, A.J.?:
If you are going to go bad going live, go for the gusto.
A.J. was fired, not surprisingly. He hardly had time to find the restroom with the motion-activated hand towel dispenser sitting handily on the wall.
My boss was in from the regional office today. I told him about the dilemma of poor A.J. The boss had not heard about it. I also told him a story about what was almost an equally disastrous first day on the job.
This happened at a paper where I once worked but the event took place a few years before I arrived. It seems this woman showed up for her first day on the job at the newspaper as the new police beat reporter.
The intrepid reporter made it to the police station. She found it with no problem. Then, she smashed the hell out of a police cruiser. Was it a case of nerves? No, it was more like a case of Budweiser. It turned out the new hire was drunk as a skunk on her first day.
Both stories are good cautionary tales. If you think you might say during your initial broadcast, two of the seven words you can never say on TV; If you think you may get f—ed up as soup sandwich prior to your first assignment at work, then you might as well just go home. Or maybe, when you sober up, go to the local employment office.
Searching Boston for a terrorist in a haystack
Now that I am home from work I will do just as millions are probably doing nationally. I have turned on CNN and am watching the unprecedented search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a massive shootout with police overnight.
The younger Tsarnaev may be wearing an explosive vest and is being searched on mostly empty Boston streets by thousands of law enforcement officers, according to police.
This is like some movie, only reality. I for one will forgo my Friday afternoon blogging to watch this spectacle. Who is going to read this anyway? I will be back. I can’t say that for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
I’m also keeping an eye on the continued search for the missing after the fertilizer plant explosion Wednesday night in West, Texas. I lived for about seven years only 10 miles from West, so I wait to hear the developments there as well.