SOMEONE STOP THIS MAN

So I've got this brother-in-law, let's call him "Dave." And he's got a scanner and a blog and an internet connection. He's also got a stack of photos lifted from our childhood.

This is quite a serious haul. My dad worked for Kodak for about 25 years and for most of that time, we got free film and developing. As a result, there are an inordinate number of pictures of my childhood and teen years in circulation. My departure for the junior prom was perhaps the most photographed event since the Kennedy assassination.

So every now and then "Dave" scans some of these photos and puts them on his blog. This has never been of much concern to me because I know for a fact that nobody reads his blog. It is, in fact, the one place to put the photos where you know nobody will see them.

But now things have gotten a little more serious. "Dave" is on facebook, and "Dave" is in a posting mood. In the past few days, the man has posted scores of photos that date back to the Carter Administration. Some of the early ones are harmless enough...

But cuteness is a fleeting thing. And puberty was most unkind to me. So when "Dave" posts photos from later on, it ain't pretty...And then there are some pictures for which there is no explanation at all...

These pictures are much more dangerous on facebook. Unlike "Dave's" blog, where they can rest in obscurity forever, facebook pictures get tagged with my name. Then they get put in my profile. And that means my friends can see them. Friends who have no idea just what I nerd I was during those dark days of puberty. Now it's out there. It's all out there and there's nothing I can do.

I have no doubt that the photos posted to facebook represent only the tip of the iceberg and I'm not anxious for anything else to surface. So let me send a message to "Dave," if that is your real name: Julie has a scanner, too, and one day I'll learn how to use it. And somewhere, deep in my piles of junk, I've got a prom photo of you. Hmmmm, who was your date that one year? Was it 1986? Perhaps '87? Who was your date that year? Ginger Green? I don't quite recall, but that sounds about right. It would be a shame of such a photo were to find its way onto your profile.

A shame indeed.

NON-PRESIDENTIAL HAIR

Yesterday I wrote of Mitt Romney's presidential hair. Actually, I was writing about Mitt's religion, but his presidential hair did merit a passing mention. Where was I? Oh yes, hair. Mitt has a fantastic head of hair, as do many other Mormons including Donny Osmond and Aaron Eckhart. What about Gordon Jump? Well, no religion is perfect.

This afternoon my Norwegian friend sent me some pictures from a bygone era where my hair was not up to proper Mormon grooming standards.

As my friend put it, "You tended to get one haircut per semester, and I think you were pretty close to the end of the cycle. My hair almost looks like a wig in some of these photos.

What you're actually seeing here are screen captures from a film project my friend did when we were at school. Here I'm reciting a bit from Allen Ginsberg's "America."

Well, ok, I'm about to recite some of it. I'm embarrassed to say I was not all that familiar with the poem during the shoot. Many years later, I heard a recording of Ginsberg himself reciting "America" and realized I had likely done his work a great disservice during this project.

Sorry. I wasn't hired for my acting ability... just the hair.

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GRANTS PASS

During the course of my work, I sometimes have the occasion to meet someone famous. Mostly they're congressmen or governors, but once I interviewed Marie Osmond in Texarkana. I also interviewed Tracy Lawrence, who I thought was a woman until I learned he was a country music star of some repute.

You see, I don't know much about country music (it wasn't all that popular in upstate New York), but I certainly know who Charlie Daniels is. So when my boss asked me to travel up to a rural county fair to introduce Mr. Daniels, I said, "yes."

I had never been asked to introduce a musical act, but I had been to literally hundreds of concerts, so I had a pretty good idea of how to go about it. The most important part is not spending too much time doing it. Nothing is more annoying than waiting for your favorite band to take to the stage, only to be confronted by some self-important radio or TV person mugging on stage for what seems like an eternity. So a simple strategy seemed the best: welcome the folks out, get them to scream, introduce the band, and get the hell off the stage.

It's an old military truism that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. This would prove to be the case last Wednesday. My co-anchor and I arrived about 30 minutes before the show, and Charlie Daniels was in his trailer doing a meet and greet. About 100 fans were lined up outside, waiting to get photographs, a handshake, and perhaps an autograph from The Man Himself. (This is extremely cool; I respect any artist who will sit down and meet his fans like that.)

As we're standing around, we meet with the tour promoter who gives us an important piece of information we didn't know before we arrived: we wouldn't actually be introducing the band.

"So what exactly will we be doing?"

"Whatever you want. Welcome the crowd out. Tell people 'hello.'"

"Is there anything Charlie wants said before the show, like 'hey, don't throw bottles.'"

"Nope, we've got that all taken care of."

"After we come on, how long until the band takes the stage?"

"About four minutes."

"Oh."

All of the sudden, I understood why all those other TV guys looked like jackasses... they had nothing to do once they took the stage. And in about 10 minutes, I wouldn't have anything to do, either.

The promoter pointed to a stage entrance and said, "We're getting close here, go to stage left and wait for someone to hand you a microphone."

"Ok."

We went to our assigned place and waited. Out comes a woman from the local country music station. She's holding an autographed guitar and explaining how they're going to give it away the next morning on the air.

"Oh crap," I think. "We don't have a guitar. We should really have a guitar."

The woman finishes her presentation and exits the stage. Nobody comes by and hands us a microphone. Moments later, the band takes the stage.

I look around and realize that the corner we were standing in was not stage left, but stage right. They guy pointed us towards the wrong entrance.

Rats!

We stayed and watched most of the show (his live version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is really quite excellent), then headed off to the fair for kettle corn deep fried food on a stick. A pretty fun night, actually.

Note to regular readers: I usually post baby pics over the weekend, but the camera is not handy tonight. I'll have some posted within the next 24 hours or so.

MY OLD ADDICTION

Like so many life changing stories, this one starts with male vanity.

A few weeks ago, the TV station I work for took new promotional photos for their website. I was perfectly happy with the old photo, but eventually I relented and sat down for a session with our photographer. Several days later, our website featured a picture of me that I found completely unacceptable. I looked like a cross between Guy Smiley and Jabba the Hut.

Like any good TV prima donna, I complained. Not to the photographer, but to my fellow journalists.

“Have you seen my new online photo?”

“No, let me have a look… Looks pretty nice.”

“Nice? You can’t be serious. I’ve got two chins and no jaw-line in this picture.”

“No, it’s fine. It looks just like you.”

At that moment I remembered a story a friend told me recently. He was at the DMV to renew his driver’s license and he got his picture taken. When they showed him the picture on the computer screen, he saw this fat old guy. “Bad picture,” he thought. So he asked them to take another, realizing that usually only women make such requests, and only in California (where he was living).

They took another picture and it looked exactly the same. Then he realized that the camera was not broken, but he was.

And that’s the conclusion I reached once several co-workers insisted that our new online photo was an accurate representation of me. It was a pretty sobering wake up call. As I wrote in this space last May, I’ve been underweight for most of my life… really underweight. 5’11”, 125 pounds underweight. And in my head, I still sort of carry that image around with me.

In the physical world, it’s been a different story. By the time I hit my late 20s, I weighed about 175 pounds. That’s pretty much the average for my height. Then I turned 30 and things just sort of fell apart.

But with this new photo I was scared straight, so I decided I was going to change my life for the better. No more sweets, no more pizza, no more fatty snacks, dinners filled with leafy greens and vegetables in season; that would be my new lot in life.

Allow me to stop laughing, wipe the tears from my eyes, and apologize for that last sentence. It was a practical joke and I found it quite funny. In fact, I’ve decided to make just a few modifications to see if I can get healthier.

First, 30 minutes of exercise per day. I’ve got a stationary bicycle in our bedroom that has pretty much been gathering dust since we moved to Oregon. (Who am I kidding? It was gathering dust long before we moved.) For 30 minutes per day (long enough to watch one classic episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) I would pedal up and down the pretend hills of some town the bike’s computer invented.

Prong two: portion control. Instead of a foot-long hoagie, how about a 6 inch? How about only eating half of that cheese pizza instead of the whole thing? Sounds like a plan.

But it’s prong three that’s causing the most disruption. Eliminating all soda (back in Rochester, we called it “pop”). That includes Pepsi, the great addiction of my adult life. I figured soda was a pretty big source of calories in my diet, and eliminating it could assist me in removing my second and third chins. Also, I learned from radio program “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” that caffeine actually didn’t work as a stimulant in most users, but merely relieved the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.

And, let me tell you, that withdrawal is pretty nasty stuff. Two days into my experiment, I had a headache that nearly drove me insane. Also, I was tired, really, really tired. So tired that I was afraid I would drive my car off the road a few times.

But through the use of powerful drugs (Thank you, leftover vicodin!), I was able to get past the headaches, and the fatigue is slowly going away.

But the void in my life left by Pepsi has yet to be filled. When I cut out Pepsi, I also decided to say goodbye to pretty much every liquid except plain old water. But plain old water just isn’t as yummy as Pepsi. So I’ve been sucking down the Target brand citrus sparkling mineral water like it’s going out of style and waiting for the cravings to stop. Oh, the cravings. Last week I actually had a dream that I inhaled an entire Mondo Big Gulp (or whatever biggest thing they sell at 7-Eleven). I was filled with joy and shame as I drank the sickly sweet concoction.

I’m two weeks into it now, and I’m less tired and the headaches are mostly gone. For now, I’m just taking it one day at a time.

(And don’t try to sell me on diet soda, it tastes nasty and that fake sugar will probably kill you faster than the real stuff.)