Trying to Be Funny

I’m tall—76 inches tall to be exact. People love to remind me as if I’m somehow unaware of the last quarter of my life. I meet new people every day, and I’m reminded of every single inch.

Wait, you didn’t play basketball?! Boy, what the hell is wrong with you?

What’s in that water in your town?

How in the world did you fit in that car, door or chair?

OK, so I didn’t play basketball. Sue me. Two things that don’t correlate: lankiness and coordination. I’m that guy who keeps the whole white-men-can’t-jump stereotype alive.

I’m pretty sure it’s just water. Although, I wouldn’t put it behind my mother if she knew a guy who knew a guy that put something in our home water supply. She’s been such an advocate of my slender frame since birth.

Believe it or not, cars, doors, chairs and all other things in life can be altered to fit us tall folk. The only exception is any Honda Civic. I just can't seem to enjoy when my knees and chin are fused into one body part.

* * *

I wasn’t always gargantuan. I was at the same eye level as my peers until about eighth grade.

I tried out for the basketball team three years in a row back then. Spoiler Alert: I never made it. Like I said before, length does not equal success, well, I’m just going to limit that to basketball…

High school hit—coincidently so did acne, which I have yet to forgive—and I grew about seven inches in an 18-month span.

Dances were always fun then, especially the selection process. Ladies five feet and a half or shorter: I’m sorry but you never had a chance with me. I could use you ladies possibly as arm rests, but when it comes to “grinding” on the dance floor—the national teenager dance craze that should have never caught on—during Flo Rida or Jay-Z just isn’t the same when I have to crouch into a catcher’s position for our bodies to meet.

I can dance. Just wanted to put that out there for the rest of my kind. It is possible.

* * *

So, yes, the air is fine up here. The altitude is not too hard on my lungs. I’m surviving.

At least I can reach things rather well.

That fiber-loaded box of cereal on the tippy top shelf at the grocery store you eat every now and then? I’m your man.

The energy efficient light bulb that needs changed above your elegant mantle? Just give me a call.

And you know I’m the guy to volunteer when the gutters outside your homey home need unclogged. My more than six-foot frame has no problem doing a job you can complete on your own with a simple purchase of a ladder.

I like to think I’m more than just some outstretched human. Maybe I’m not.

Anyway, I’m done here. I’ll see you at the nearest Casual Male Big & Tall in the quadruple XL section. You’ll see me, just look up.

Keep Your Tweet Game Strong

Twitter understands me, at least I think it does. I'm certain I understand it.

I say what I think in 140 characters or less. Every thought I think must now be expressed in 140 characters or less. It's an iceberg. My tweets are just the tips of the icebergs buoyed above the surface, hiding the good and meaty stuff hundreds of feet below where the color is more black than blue.

I'm still able to get my point across.

Followers want to know what I'm doing. No, seriously. Each clicked the button, all 347 of them. I'm sure some felt the need to click the button to be nice, but I'm going to estimate that's a small percentage, minimal, minute, microscopic ... (probably the majority).

But where else can the Twitterverse follow the Pittsburgh Pirates through the eyes of a 21-year-old fan who has never seen a winning season of baseball, unless you count the time when I couldn't control my own bladder or bowels (I was one). What a glorious time, but I have digressed. By the way, the answer to that: any other 21-year-old living in the greater Pittsburgh area who happens to tweet about the Pirates.

My 9,154+ tweets contain something enjoyable for everyone. I'm confident. One tweet is all it takes to get hooked. One out of 9,154. So you're saying there's a chance ...

Enough with the funny.

Twitter sends information around the world in the quickest way possible, most notably when involving some type of death (i.e. Joe Paterno, Osama Bin Laden). However, how many times have you seen the hashtag #RIP next to a celebrity who is most definitely still alive. It's a slippery slope when it comes to credibility, but nonetheless it's great at spreading information.

Twitter seems to be everywhere. Cell phones make it even easier to take advantage of Twitter. Almost every student I see on campus with a smartphone uses Twitter to keep track of friends, celebrities, and anyone else worth a follow. It helps with staying updated on different current events and news in general.

The brevity of tweets may not be the best for those interested in more thorough reading, but many like the quickness of reading only 140 characters. It gets the point across right away without the fluff. I guess the only problem for me is that sometimes I don't want to know when my friends walk their dogs or decide to use the bathroom. I'm not really interested in the personal side of things.

All in all, Twitter is my key to everything and anything I would possibly want to read. In a couple of minutes, I'm aware of what's going on locally, nationally and throughout the world. 

Twitter allows users to post their thoughts--the thoughts they want others to know. With my phone, I can say I carry the thoughts of more than 400 people in my pocket, all because of Twitter. Whether or not that's considered a good or bad thing is up for debate, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons in my opinion.

Jones/Heinz

Both pieces focus on a death, but each are vast opposites.

Chris Jones' three-part series on the death of Sgt. Joe Montgomery is much more personal, at least in the first part of the series. Jones is able to intertwine a great narrative along with highly detailed scene work easily. While the reading flows nicely, it's also hard not to stop and think about certain elements of the story. These moments grabbed me emotionally and acted as a blockade to reading further. For me, it happened twice.

The first instance was at Sgt. Montgomery's funeral, when it was noticed by Micah that his ring was missing. When Jones writes that Micah took the ring off his own finger and placed it on his brother's, only to fold in on itself, I could not rid that scene out of my head. Jones is able to place the reader directly into the action. The other instance was the folding of the American flag. As Jones explained how the widow clutched the flag to her chest, I knew exactly where the flag and corners were in accordance to her body.

While Jones' structure and style seems to place the reader so close to the action, I noticed the opposite for "Death of a Racehorse" by W.C. Heinz. I felt almost elevated while reading this short piece. I was no longer in the action, but instead watching above. The quickened pace and short length of the piece did not give me enough time to connect with this particular death. Because I didn't know all that much about the horse or the characters around it, I was missing the connection as a reader. I was still somewhat emotional to the death, but nowhere near to the extent of the Esquire piece.

The brevity of Heinz's article does not hurt the story entirely. I think there are some stories where readers aren't meant to know absolutely everything. Instead of an extensive three-part series digging into every little detail, Heinz is able to elicit emotion without holding readers down against their will.

I do prefer Jones' writing over Heinz's, but I don't mind looking at alternatives. They may be different, but that's how writing goes.

Hiroshima -- Detail

John Hersey jumps right into the story, going into the lives of six survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. A lot of past readings take a bit too long to get into the main action of the story -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- by including too much background into the situation at hand, but Hersey goes directly into their lives. I think it's just a matter of preference as to what readers like.

Specifically about Hersey's use of detail, one of my favorite sentences was on page three about Mr. Tanimoto:

"He wore his black hair parted in the middle and rather long; the prominence of the frontal bones just above his eyebrows and the smallness of his mustache, mouth, and chin gave him a strange, old-young look, boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery."

I enjoyed how the detail narrows as the sentence finishes. It's not particularly specific, but allows the reader to have a vivid picture of his own interpretation. I have my own idea of what an "old-young look, boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery" may look, but others probably have a wildly different outlook on Tanimoto.

I couldn't find much of a pattern in his detail. For some, they were very concise and short, while others like the aforementioned quote trails on and on. The one consistent piece was that he tells it like it is, never really digging too deep into the historical or scientific background.

"Both he and Mr. Matsuo reacted in terror -- and both had time to react (for they were 3,500 yards, or two miles, from the center of the explosion). Mr. Matsuo dashed up the front steps into the house and dived among the bedrolls and buried himself there. Mr. Tarimoto took four or five steps and threw himself between two big rocks in the garden ... He felt a sudden pressure, and then splinters and pieces of board and fragments of tile fell on him. He heard no roar."

My reading went by not as quickly as I'd like. The use of detail was sporadic throughout, not in any bad way, I just couldn't grasp the complete thought process Hersey had while writing about these six survivors. It was a highly informative piece that wrote about the Hiroshima bombing in a much different angle and perspective.

The Voice

Jake stands near the kitchen island waiting for his father’s response. Jake’s brother, Zach, waits as well, while sitting at the dining room table, about to ask his father the question again.

“So, are you going to answer or what? Who are you taking to the Pirates game with you.” Their father, who was normally a very still and calm man, squirmed with irritation at his sons’ redundant questions.

“What’s the hold up, pops?” Jake added.

The father, about to respond, was overtaken by another inquiry.

Zach asked what it was going to take for his father to pick him. He laid out his reasons. Jake rapidly recoiled by listing his own qualifications to make up for the brief silence.

The 56-year-old father, soon to be 57, rose from the couch, glared at his two sons with a hint of agitated anger and walked outside to find some kind of reprieve.

The two sons followed, each trying to be the first one to reach their father. The Pirates were playing the Philadelphia Phillies that night and competing for first place in its division this late into the season for the first time since 1997. It was only July.

“I’ve made up my mind,” the father said. “I want to let you two know that I will be taking neither of you.”

Each son looked at the other, a bit perplexed.

Minutes later, the mother of the two sons walked past them confidently loaded with a sly smirk.

There was the other ticket, snug in the back left pocket of their mother’s cargo shorts. 

How They Met

My mother was never afraid to meet new people. She preferred if they reciprocated her emphatic enthusiasm but had no trouble filling the gap for a lack of energy.

She was popular in school, but not the kind of popular that others felt threatened to introduce themselves. She grew up in a small rural town, was a “pretty damn good” majorette in high school she said—although that hobby ceased once she stepped foot on Clarion University’s campus as an undergrad studying to be a teacher—and stood behind a cause to keep peace alive.

My father may have not received the best accolades in high school, but he likes to call himself a professional in the school of street smarts. As a young child, he would walk outside of his urban home and fill a wheeled cooler with beer bought from his mother Mable the day before. He would drag the cart through nearby construction sites selling the ice cold drinks to the workers for double the price. Everyday he would come back with the cooler empty, but his pockets quite the opposite.

He knew college was a possibility, but never felt it was absolutely necessary. In the fall following his high school graduation, he had a few choices but landed as a Golden Eagle, sharing the same mascot as my mother.

The two met in the bedroom of a mutual friend sophomore year. My mother had noticed my father as soon as he walked in, not for his charming looks, as he likes to think, but rather because of the large black eye he received the night prior from a friendly squabble turned ugly with one of his fraternity brothers. They barely talked all night, aside from a brief introduction, but found each other alone in the same bedroom when their friends left to get more drinks.

My mother asked about my father’s life. She held back her enthusiasm; she said she wanted him to start the conversation. My father was reluctant at first. He made sure he was never too confident, past experiences proved it to be a failed strategy. He made a joke. She laughed. She made a joke. He laughed. A mutual interest sparked.

Their friends returned with the drinks. Their exclusive conversation stopped, but the two kept staring at each other all night. The party ended but not before my father wrote down his apartment number on a scrunched up gum wrapper. They each left with a smile.

They began to talk more, which led to the two of them running into each other at the campus gym and cafeteria, which led to lunch and dinner at formal restaurants, which led to my father’s attempt at asking my mother to attend his fraternity’s formal at a nearby cabin secluded in the woods of central Pennsylvania, which led to them “going steady,” as my father likes to say, a term my mother hates.

Time went by, their dates grew in number. Marriage was next. You know the story.

PG on Western Psych Shooting

The Post-Gazette has an emotional piece out today about the Thursday's events and how they shaped the lives of those involved.

Click here to read the full article.

Michael Paterniti

Two other sources:

175 Things A Man Should Do Before He Dies: Get Married

I found this using Esquire's search bar

The Hero of Nanjing

I found this by searching Paterniti's Byliner.com account.

Michael Paterniti is quite the descriptive writer. What I enjoyed about his style of writing is his ability to go back and comment on elements of his story he has already introduced without sounding redundant. In The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy, I'd argue that the main character of the story is not a person at all, rather the ocean that takes the lives of the 229 people onboard Swissair Flight 111.

Paterniti begins, ends and scatters throughout the middle the specific location of the ocean. I'd say his transcendent quality is being able to talk about the specific element of the ocean and lighthouse without making it seem dry. The green light may just be a green light continuously revolving around the lighthouse, but as I read, the green light took on a new quality each time it was reintroduced. It's importance and symbolism grew. No longer was it a green light, but a sign of identification among the sea, then a sign of warning and danger, then a sign of a specific and emotional memorial.

His voice is soothing and calming during these stories. Even during a plane crash and marriage--two different extremes--Paterniti's voice remains the same. The soothing quality gives the reader a sense of reassurance, that no matter what may happen in this f*cked-up world, everything will somehow be OK. I didn't enjoy that quality with the Swissair story. It didn't match the overall tension of the narrative. However, his voice matched perfectly for the marriage story. I can't think of a better match. I completely pictured the entire scene. It was as if I was reading a brief movie script.

The structure of the stories worked well. Even though the events were mostly organized chronologically, there were anecdotes lingering throughout. I enjoyed the scattered memories of the father (i.e. when his daughter was fishing for the goldfish as a child). The anecdotes blended nicely with the overall story. They never took away anything, rather they offered a new dimension to the story rather than just writing the events from beginning to end.

To comment on The Hero of Nanjing, I really didn't like it at all. I think it was just more of a news story about this man saving people who try and commit suicide on the bridge. Although it still is very descriptive, I was unlucky in that I could not really find that much of a transcendent quality. Poor choice of reading on my part.

Rewriting for Power

1. Kopchak heard it was foolish to challenge lions with eye contact. They are more inclined to chase after you. That's all he knew about them for being a retired seventh-grade science teacher. The lion watched Kopchak and Red as they trotted lightly to the barn. Kopchak looked back and saw the lion was still on the other side of the pseudo barrier. The animal kept its stare.

2. The five of them were urgently redeployed to the southern end of the property. They used the truck to elevate themselves above their prey. They engaged with animals seventy to a hundred yards away two shots at a time until they went down. A male African lion managed to run between some junk cars after the first shot. Dozens and dozens of old cars and RVs and tractors mixed with scattered weeds gave the hidden lion a second chance at survival. Kanavel's strategy was to aim for the head, then move on to the body. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. "And, you know, I'm a cat person."

3. The 911 operator asked for her first name. Mrs. Kopchak was known as Dolly for 84 years. She responded with "Dolores" instead. That's how it was written on her birth certificate.

Her son remained trapped in the barn looking out the north window. The menagerie grew.

Shipwrecked

I initially thought it was a questionable decision to tell the story in a first-person point of view, but have it written by another author. I doubted the authenticity of how the story would be read as a whole, since the man who actually experienced this highly tragic and dramatic situation would not actually write the story.

My questions were put to rest when Gabriel Garcia Marquez provided the story of the destroyer actually flipping and sinking into the Caribbean. Marquez’s account of Luis Alejandro Velasco falling overboard and attempting to rescue his shipmates was full of physical and emotional stress. The dramatic tension included in the few pages dedicated to the wreck was set as one of the highs for the entirety of the book. I realized it was probably the best decision for Velasco’s story when I stopped thinking about Marquez. I think forgetting about him is probably one of the goals the book had, if there were any.

Up until that point, Marquez builds up the tension by highlighting Velasco’s nervousness and how it is shared with the rest of his shipmates, especially his bunkmate Luis Rengifo. His continued attack reminding readers of Velasco’s uneasiness toward the sea is daunting. I felt a connection to Velasco (credit given to Marquez), and his feelings transferred into my own body as I read through each page.

The tension set up a scenario in my own reading of the book where I kept asking for more from the characters. The lifeboat scene is the first thing I think of when any thought of dramatic tension flashes in my mind. Why the hell didn’t Velasco do more? He has four shipmates floating around him, meters away, and they all end up dying. Maybe that is a bit selfish of me to ask, but I can’t help thinking how Velasco could have done more to save his friends, especially Rengifo. I picture that scene in my mind over and over again. I imagine Velasco sitting, steading his raft, allowing the wind to thwart his attempt at saving his bunkmate. I wanted him to jump off the lifeboat to help. Obviously I’ve never been shipwrecked, but for the sake of the story, I wanted him to do more. Marquez makes it seem that Velasco was too confident that Rengifo would survive. I thought there would be more emotion.

The dramatic tension also allowed time to stop. I thought that the particular shipwreck lasted hours, but in a matter of ten minutes it was clear that Velasco would be the only survivor. Marquez added detail of continual reference to Velasco’s watch is helpful, but when the shipwreck starts and the watch checks stop, time is immeasurable. Once readers are told only ten minutes have passed, it’s almost hard to believe. Instead of time slowly going by, I experienced the opposite.

Altogether, this moment in the book made it OK in my mind for Marquez to write Velasco’s story in first person. The tension kept me tied to the story not only for this section but others as well. This section was just the most memorable.

GQ v. Esquire (Quinn, Lauren, Mollie and Myself)

Overall: GQ had a more complete coverage of the overarching story, but Esquire did well with an in-depth analysis of what happened that night. GQ gave a great deal of background, while Esquire shaved down their focus.

Writing: After reading both pieces, it seems like Esquire took more liberties as far as artful writing goes. Even though both stories started of at a similar point in the event, the lead, “The horses knew first,” in Esquire was a great attention grabber, as opposed to GQ’s “A little before five o'clock on the evening of October 18 …”

We had some disagreements in which we thought was the better piece overall, but we both agreed that Esquire's quality of writing was a cut above. It read more like a feature, rather than the more traditional journalistic, reporting sense we got after reading GQ's.

Multimedia: GQ made good use of the statistics regarding the price of exotic animals, as well as other facts. Although, we did find problems with the amount, as well as the quality, of pictures placed throughout. There weren’t many, and the three pictures on page two were pretty small, maybe if we could've clicked on them to make them bigger it would've made a difference.

Just like their writing style, Esquire's pictures were artful and intense. The black and white images went along perfectly.

Transcendence: GQ asks the reader, what kind of person does this? Also questions the relationship between humans and animals, and what kind of varied connections there are between them.

Esquire appealed to readers at a personal level, painting a really good portrait of policemen making hard decisions in the heat of the moment.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

He has played “beer pong” with celebrities such as John McEnroe, Helen Mirren and Betty White on national TV in a game college students flock to crowded and steamy frat houses during the weekends of their undergraduate career.

He has competed against First Lady Michelle Obama in a fitness competition including dodgeball, tug-of-war and a potato sack race all to promote her “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity.

He’s known for his spot-on impressions ranging from Jerry Seinfeld to Charlie Sheen, but his best are when music is involved. I challenge you to watch his own impersonations of Justin Bieber or Neil Diamond and not laugh.

He’s a giant kid in a man’s body, has his own late night talk show five nights a week and his name is Jimmy Fallon.

If you weren’t able to catch Fallon’s live special (normally his shows are pre-recorded) after the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, you severely missed out. His parody of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” opened the show with an enormous amount of enthusiasm in front of a packed Hilbert Circle Theatre in Indianapolis, Ind.

Fallon kept the excitement at a high with interviews from Giants players who had just won their own Super Bowl rings a few hours before the show at neighboring Lucas Oil Stadium. Actors and comedians Adam Sandler and Andy Sandberg rounded out Fallon’s interviews while singer-songwriter Flo Rida concluded the night with his hit “Good Feeling.”

He offered a national audience a chance to see what he is capable of, and he was rewarded with all-time high ratings.

It was no surprise after watching Fallon during his “Saturday Night Live” tenure from 1998 to 2004 that he had something special to offer to those who watched. His seemingly effortless ability to make someone laugh was impressive, and his musical talent on top of that made him invaluable.

After his departure from the sketch comedy, Fallon’s attempt at a film career failed, to put it nicely. Let’s just say a movie about a taxi starring Fallon and Queen Latifah didn’t really fulfill what fans were looking for in the next chapter of his life. A return to a live audience was exactly what his fans needed.

Fallon began “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” in March of 2009 with mixed reviews. Many critics said he was too nervous, but benefitted from Steve Higgins, a longtime writer and producer for “Saturday Night Live” as his announcer and “The Roots” as his house band, a hip-hop group well known for their home ties to Philadelphia. Fallon was much more relaxed as the show grew with time.

What makes Fallon different from Letterman and Leno is his ability to connect with the audience through the skits and games he plays with celebrity guests and audience members. You haven’t lived until you’ve watched him play “Lick it For Ten,” “Competitive Spit-Takes” or “Battle of the Instant Dance Crews.”

There’s only one problem. Fallon’s broadcast doesn’t come on regularly each weeknight until 12:35 a.m. I’m sure I’m not the only one getting ready for bed, if not already asleep.

After the circus that followed NBC’s dealing with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien in early 2010, it seems like it will be a challenging path for Fallon to climb up the ranks, but out of any other option, Fallon is the lone star contender.

I just ask that someone please find him a slot on primetime. The proof is in the pudding, and Fallon’s pudding can be seen all over TV and the Internet.

There’s an opportunity to bring a man on the rise to an even greater audience. It would be foolish not to take advantage. Release Jimmy Fallon from the bars of twilight TV, and provide him the opportunity to do what he does best: to make people laugh.

300 Words -- My Dorm

The serpentine of Christmas lights slide along the far wall of my pressed dorm room, through a pinned collage of old friends, past memories and scattered inspirational quotes jotted down on scrunched yellow memo pad paper from Barack Obama to William Faulkner, each item with it’s own distinct level of importance. The blinds are shut, but do a half-assed job at its objective, especially after 6:00 p.m., when sheets of mischievous fluorescence from across the street invariably sneak somehow onto my eyelids, no matter how many times I attempt to block them. Clothes are strewn into four piles: dirty, not dirty enough that I can’t wear them again without a trip to the washer, clean and clean but yet to be folded. Jeans almost never make it to the dirty gathering; any guy knows that jeans don’t get dirty, and a wash is detrimental if you want them to keep that ever-so-valuable personalized hug to your hips. The desk hides under an intense amount of clutter with no intention of being found. Notebooks from classes, past and present, filled with hundreds of lectures, presentations and slideshows take advice from the clothing and fall into separate piles that only I know the difference to. “Is it the black or blue spiral I need for tomorrow’s class?” I ask myself. I refuse to answer and put both in my backpack, mainly because I don’t want to run back to my room later the next day rather than making sure I have the correct supplies for class. To an outsider, my room poses as a problem. It’s not Hoarders-worthy, but I’m about a dozen cats away. It may look disastrous to some, but it makes sense to me. Among the chaos that inhibits my personal sanctuary from it being the relaxing paradise it should be, the outside world offers me another chance to make that a possibility. I just haven’t had enough time to screw it up yet.

HeLa Response

There are some books that create an insane amount of buzz and popularity. I’d consider The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to fit in that category. I heard so many other students discuss this book, and I was jealous because for all other writing classes it was a required read in their syllabi. I was ecstatic to see it included within our syllabus this semester, mainly because I would be finally diving into the life that helped millions of others, without any knowledge of it at all.

Personally, I thought the delivery was very fast-paced. I think this was beneficial to the book as a whole, and I think it was at least somewhat intentional. The book deals with the adventure of a very rare group of cells, taken from a tumor in Henrietta Lacks’ cervix, which multiplied and spread at a very rapid rate. The delivery parallels that spreading, and it carries on throughout the majority of its pages. Normally, I’m stuck sitting around after such a quick read thinking how I will ever remember the last 300 pages of material, but this case was an exception.

I thought the quickness of the delivery would also hurt my chances on remembering character names, as well, but I was mistaken. I may not remember minute details about the extended family, but I think what was so great about this book is that once Rebecca Skloot provides a name (like Sadie or Margaret) I am able to remember just enough to get by without going back to reread their initial introduction.

Skloot is able to take on the voice of the characters she is writing about rather easily. With the inclusion of their direct voice, in separate passages sprinkled into the text, readers are able to see really what the Lacks’ situation was like from start to finish. I thought throughout this whole book how, as students, we are told not really to rely on long quotes/materials when we write, but I really enjoyed the passages Skloot included. I think my favorite was in the very first chapter, when Henrietta is at John Hopkins to figure out what is giving her problems. Skloot includes her medical history chart provided by past doctors verbatim. It really shines light on Henrietta’s character. I think a lot of other writers would try to paraphrase or maybe just use a quick clip of that history in their own book, but including the whole chart describes Henrietta perfectly—mainly because we see how slow she is to take care of her own body.

The readers share Skloot’s tone—at least I did when I recognized it. I found that although Skloot tries to remain very neutral on the handling of the HeLa cells and the lack of appreciation the science field has given the Lacks family, there are times where her own disapproval is leaked to the surface. I don’t think that is a bad thing, because I’d say most of the people choosing to read this book would feel the same way. The Lacks’ were taken advantage of, and were not given any credit for what Henrietta’s cells have done posthumously. I don’t think any reader, and even Skloot included, should be chastised for thinking what they want with how the Lacks’ have been treated.

250 Words Are Not Enough

I cried at a funeral for the first time three weeks after I graduated from high school. I had been to my fair share in the past, but not to the point of emotional release. I just thought I was lucky. The following July, 13 months later, I found myself mourning in front of three closed caskets, all within a couple of days, and I cried at each one.

I wasn’t naïve… or maybe I was. What I didn’t know was the frequency at which death can attack. I had four friends lose its battle, and all could have been avoided. Three of those deaths were friends that I had gone to school with since kindergarten. These were people I walked the same halls with for over a dozen years. I knew them better than most.

Or at least I thought I did. Alcohol was a factor in each of the four deaths, a mistake I assumed others would make, not them. I was blindsided. Even worse, once intoxicated, they attempted to drive.

I shut down. I let their actions lead my judgments on those I had left. A process I look back at and just shake my head, it was the 18 years of safety coming back to bite me in the ass.

It’s now been two years since I’ve cried at a funeral, but that doesn’t mean death’s attack has ceased. I no longer consider myself lucky, because I know that means it’s affecting someone else’s life. And for that, I am scared.

Three Contemporary Stories and Voice

1. Bill Simmons on Lebron James choking late last postseason.

2. Jonah Keri on the evolution of Hall of Fame statistics in baseball.

3. Michael Weinreb on Penn State.

Basically, I'm a huge fan of Grantland. These selected articles show why. The versatility their writers own is explemplary. They know when to be serious and know when to be comical; the perfect blend between the two makes the articles enjoyable without duress. Obviously the topics are heavily sided within sports culture, but it's submitted in a way that is highly regarded as something more. No article is just a game recap, rather each is twisted in a different light to offer something more to its audience. A goal of mine is to achieve some of their same style and success.

Here's my attempt to capture some of that same voice:

The Ignominy Fades

The Pittsburgh Pirates have always been, at least since 1992, the laughing stock of baseball. Peel back this recent streak of ignominy, and a vast selection of baseball greatness will eagerly rise to the surface—as fast as possible to erase records of the past twenty years.

Baseball stars such as Barry Bonds, Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente—who each led the Pirates to the front of newspapers across the country for their successes—are no longer easily found. Instead, fans need to research arduously just to find out which player belongs to each jersey number as they step into the batter’s box.

Aside from the poor play on the field, outsiders are armed to remind hometown “yinzers” whenever they can about the Pirates lack of support and fan base. PNC Park, opened in 2001, is one of the best in Major League Baseball—built in a location that perfectly highlights the downtown skyline—but it’s hard not to focus on the myriad of free concerts and giveaways in an attempt to coerce fans to show up to the ballpark for all of the wrong reasons.

Fans were offered a reprieve last year when the Pirates stood atop of the NL Central standings more than halfway through the 162-game season. Pittsburgh, like a phoenix rising from fresh tobacco spit and mashed sunflower seeds, was back in the media spotlight. CNN features and front page news stories all asked the one question fans kept in the back of their minds: Could this really be the breakout year the city of Pittsburgh has been waiting for? Pittsburgh had exploded with excitement and anticipation, but Jerry Meals had the answer.

The team spiraled out of control, losing 15 out of its next 18 games, and dropped into the bottom of the standings all within a few weeks. The hype had ceased, and the team returned back to its lethargic losing attitude. Newspapers no longer focused exclusive stories on the 25 active Pirates players trying to make a name for themselves among baseball’s other elites. The season served now as an afterthought to many citizens of Pittsburgh, who now focused across the street to the offseason and potential of the Steelers, the first football game still months away.

However, the revitalization of baseball in the “Steel City” did not go to waste. Fans, while the team was in control of its own destiny, quickly started to buy tickets to watch the game for the right reason. Games were being sold out on a regular basis, and fans cheered for one common outcome: a Pittsburgh Pirates win. Outsiders were left with their mouths hanging wide open, caught with the same ammunition as before, but with no gun to ignite it.

Players can now be easily recognized throughout the majors—not to the same extent as Bonds and Clemente in the past, but a step in the right direction nonetheless. Jerseys flew off the racks at numerous shops and were owned by fans across the state. Pennsylvania is also home to the Philadelphia Phillies, a team favored to make the playoffs in what seems like every season. In one year, the Pirates graduated from the annoying little brother who is destined to lose, to the competitive, confident cousin who gives each team a run for its money.

Twenty years is a long time to fail. Pittsburgh can’t take much longer, but I’m pretty sure everyone said the same thing each year after the tenth. The city is lucky to have two other teams in the Steelers and Penguins that at least know what achieving success entails and how to maintain it. Some would say two elite sports teams are enough for a city; some would say even one makes its citizens rest easy. I say why not three? The potential support for a third is present; the Pirates proved a glimpse of it until late last year. The Pirates just need to keep the hope alive.

Two Story Ideas

1. Studying Abroad -- Before the Decision

This is a topic I am familiar with throughout the last year or so. I was accepted into a program that would allow me to study in Australia during this current semester, but I backed out a couple of months prior to the deadline for multiple reasons, mostly because I didn't think I had the guts to leave home/family -- what is most comfortable to me -- for over four months. I have a lot of friends who have studied abroad, and I think an interesting angle would be to get into the minds of the subjects right before they make their official decision. I would want to know what stresses they are feeling, what anxieties arise, or what went into making such a big decision.

2. Radio -- Behind the Scenes

Ever since joining the radio station here at Pitt, I've been interested with the background of it, and what really goes into a certain show/production. What genres are they most entertained by and how do they think that will translate to the audience they are broadcasting to? There are some DJs who are really talented with just the myriad of songs/information they have at their disposal about their respective subjects. I think it would be pretty cool to go behind the scenes and watch what happens when they work -- a new sense that gets exercised since everything is blocked out except for sound. A new element would be introduced.