There’s been much SNEEZE acho’d about the future of news–the proverbial piano that’s DROPPED on the ‘old way’ of doing things. As the clean-up of the ivories endures– we thought it might be nice to put Tony the Tiger, epic spoke’s cat for the legendary Frosted Flakes cereal IN the ANCHOR CHAIR!

BEHOLD– the “Confessions” series from the newsies down @Schmooru. The concept here is our team goes in, interviews the heck out of people who work in real places to get to the truth, without revealing their identities. We protect the sources, you get the goods.

Our first series OUTS a DirectTV Call Center. We all have had to call these places, but what’s it like on the other side of the line? If you think its bad navigating the dial trees, imagine what its like eating shit from people with problems you’re not allowed to solve for 10 hours a day? In call centers– there’s only one rule, no matter what they say to you, you can never hang up.

IN this NEVER BEFORE done expression of journalistic integrity–the only thing you’ll be left saying at the end of Call Center Confessions is “Its’ G-R-r-r-r-r-r-eat!!”

As I spend about half my time in New York City–I often think of our dear Mayor, Michael “Mike” Bloomberg and how he would react to whatever I’m looking at in the various corners and crevices of this massive city under his rule.  Has he been to the rooms full of garbage in Greenpoint?   Did he grease palms in the Target parking lot in Maspeth?  How about the Pee on the Franklin Avenue shuttle–did he smell it?     Has he ever been to Staten Island– he’s the mayor of that place too–right?

With the recent hurricane and the evacuations–I imagine that “Mike” was reminded about a place called the Far Far away called the Far Rockaways.  This beach front property, takes at least an hour to get there by the A train from the tip of manhattan– and that’s if you don’t take the Lefferts line by mistake.   This island that costs about $3.50 just to get over the bridge and about $2.25 to leave by train is filled with projects–GOODTIMES STYLE.

Why would anyone put projects on the beach?  Well lets just say–its REALLY HARD to be there in the winter time.   It doesn’t smell all that good in the summer time– and the places to make money are in a land you can sometimes see on a clear day, but in reality is far far away.

That’s where our newest series 36 Degrees takes place.   Filmmaker and Santa Cruz native Annie Woods, has been embedded in the quiet surf scene that actually exists in New York City.  Although in recent years it has gained more attention (I’m told they did just have the Quicksilver Pro Tour out in Long Beach) the east coast surf scene still remains a vague mystery to most.   36 Degrees goes where Bloomberg doesn’t–to the end of the A train to find out what it means to live in the biggest cosmopolitan city and be a surfer.

There’s a lot of provocative stuff going on the airwaves right now but it doesn’t mean our times are any more provocative(even if they are).  As Broadcast News gasps its final breaths, its going to take the kitchen sink, counter, walls–heck the entire neighborhood down with it as it tried to hang onto what’s left of its dwindling audiences. Mass media requires mass audiences to survive–like vampires need blood. And as it creeks its LOUD, slow death, it will become even more suckered with hyped-out, deadlined horror stories like national debt defaults, Charlie Sheen explosions, bad things that happen to cute blond chicks and terror scares on September 11th–its just unavoidable, its like rigor mortise.

The next couple of years will feel like the worst part of the worst Star Trek episode on repeat at ear shattering volume.  DAMN IT JIM!–who’s left to simply cut through the crap, make any sense of it all? You won’t find that here. “Making any sense of it all” is OVER RATED and I certainly wouldn’t trust anyone who claims to sell you that story–in the meantime, we offer RATED. Its a new short format show from Schmooru.

In each episode K. W. Rockefeller is presented with some of the toughest issues of our time. Without hesitation or prior preparation, he concludes whether something is Under/Over or just plain RATED.

Did I ever mention, in 2006 I was threatened on an hourly basis based on my ability to write hit getting headlines?   This is a REAL, honest to gosh, truth from inside the Obama Campaign!   Its also the story behind Schmooru‘s most popular series The Narrow Show which launches our ALL NEW FALL SEASON!

2008 was an inspirational time to pretty much anyone.  Down at Obama’s New Media heaquarters in Chicago, it was an epicenter of CHANGE & HOPE.   We worked so hard there, we really didn’t have much time for anything else.   So, when I used to sneak out every week for an hour or three to go down to Chicago’s NPR station WBEZ and hijack an empty studio with my friend “Mike” to record a few conversations, I was really just trying to get a break from it all and do something…anything.. NON HOPEFUL.

Its true that IRA GLASS once spit on one of those mics we used, but he unfortunately had little to do with this extremely precious story about two college educated white boys who met at a university.  Despite Obama’s direct and divine influence on their creation, almost none of the recordings from these ‘campaign sessions’ have ever been released under “The Narrow Show” nomer.   In fact, Mike & I continued to record real conversations together despite very long distances and we’ve found that to work out much better.   It was over a year after the campaign was over, when we needed to start building a library for Schmooru, that we decided to take things to the ‘next level’ (please wait 30 years for the Narrow Show Anthology for these precious audio wonders to be released & they are good).

I sent Mike this show above as a method of putting still images to illustrate our words.  Its from this PBS show called Gather ‘Round(the guy in it was hip, before sters were born)– it was something they played for us during “Plan B” during elementary school growing up in Ohio.   “Plan B” meant that somehow the weather was too bad for even us rusted Northern Ohioans to go out and play–that we had to stay inside.   Accordingly, they still had to torture us while INSIDE, by playing VHS copies of alternating episodes of these BORING stories and the Freaky Friday with Jodie Foster, in 20 minute intervals.   While to this day, I’ve never seen any of these things all the way through — in the end, I guess it inspired this form that has brought joy, or maybe fascination is a better word, to 10s of thousands of schmoo viewers.

Despite many amazing things I’ve been a part of with great teams of people– The Narrow Show is the most cultural relevant things I’ve ever worked on that truly reflects the closest thing to my own personal vision.   We do not script– and it all just comes out.   From the personality that has driven away throngs of women(and many men too), is now the most successful thing we’ve got going right now.

Without further delay–the new as a brand spankin’ new baby’s forehead–> episode 110, The Cranials.

I still like the CRAZY days
I always will
thats why SF is home )
Liz: why is SF home?
me: I can have the crazy days without judgment my whole life through

I need the crazy days

Liz: ha
me: not so much at once
as HARRISON and etx did in the day
but I need crazy to be possible
there’s an unwink to people on the streets there, (she’s one who gets it and wants them too)

In NYC they seemingly want to write something or be told something about crazy days
then act them out. That’s all they have time & space for.

In DC they do this too, but they despise the crazy days


In SF, we’re just a bunch of little kids out there.
Liz: is there a heroin scene in brooklyn?
Liz: I got that distinct impression last time I visited
me: it wouldnt surprise me
thats not what Im looking for
Liz: I really tried to change the subject
no way man
awful

me: crazy is the freedom to not ‘make CENTS’

california-as a direct democracy doesnt make CENTS
they have laws that disagree
the place is ungovernable

like trying to make sense to a little kid
Liz: ha
me: I love that shit
theres so much opportunity in that

me: sometimes that leads to a BUMMER
but there’s more a chance to allow for STOKED
in california you only have those two choices.

Welcome to Schmooru.com. For those of you waiting since May 2009 — you no longer have to get your schmoo on alone! Every video you see here was made by a member of our community. While thoroughly checked before admitted — each was given the creative freedom and a modest budget to complete their work. They were not conceived in a conference table by a committee of people related to each other, NOR was any focus group or ratings paper consulted — each one of our creators had a vision and was able to go with it.

In the coming months, we will be seeking more programming and will be opening up applications for consideration to the world at large. In the meantime, we hope you’ll tell us what you think and enjoy — unfiltered creative televisions on the internet.

Here are some featured shows of Schmooru’s Inaugural season:

The Narrow Show

by Mike & Dan

Some have called it the last radio show, others worry federal wire taping laws have been broken as these are real telephone conversations recorded between Mike & Dan. Whatever the case — their focus in life is very narrow and their exchanges, friggin’ hilarious.

Food With Sam

by Sam Reiff-Pasarew

So long as man has walked the earth and looked to thrive in its harsh environs, he has yearned to eat three meals a day. That’s upwards of 100,000 meals in a lifetime. Some see this as a chore, or a necessary evil. But to others, it is an opportunity … it is the greatest opportunity the world has to offer.

Mike Nugent’s Montana

by Mike Nugent, Kier Atherton & Rob Levy

Mike Nugent, his friend Rob and his companion Deter show you unfiltered Montana, the way its really lived, by those who call Big Sky Country their home.

Ask Dr. Esther

by Dr. Esther Beckmann

Dr. Esther has been in private practice in the midwestern United States for over 30 years. She’s heard it all and now she brings her wisdom to Schmooru.

I Like, I Don’t Like

by F. Nick Michaels

F. Nick Michaels’ series on the things HE LIKES and the things HE DOESN’T LIKE!

Make It Happen

by Teamjaded Productions: Jeremey Lavoi & Abbey Berendt

A documentary series dedicated to covering people succeeding at what they love, and doing so independently.

Immigrantz

by Megan Malone, Writer; Nolan Tredway, animation; Joe Scholz and Javid Dabestani, sound

PILOT SERIES: Hijinks ensue on the US-Mexico border as one man resorts to increasingly elaborate measures in his fight to ebb the tide of immigration.

Coming This Spring:
Schmooru’s First Documentary Series
Two Animated Series: One Comedic, another Political

For more questions, comments or concerns, please add them below or go to our contact page!

With last month’s visit of Hu Juntao, President of China — its like everyone’s worried about China taking over the United States! OMGAA! What’s most shocking to me is that this display of pageantry has sparked so much discussion about the two NATIONS, as if there aren’t people working on relations or flying on airplanes between the two places at every hour of every day of the year.

America is a boom & bust kinda place. We’re also filled with a bunch of crazies that didn’t get along with their stable countrymen they felt it better to leave quickly in the middle of the night. While much sneeze has been achoe’d about the fall of America, I’m not so worried about the prevailing reasons of China eating our lunch, I’m more concerned with Grammarians concentrating too much on making sure all of our lunches look the same. That’s what China is good at. We can’t out compete them on copying shit over and over again — but after years of our industro facto, “college prepatory” education system, there are so many of these oppressors walking the streets INSIDE these days.

HU originated some real mainstream discussion amongst the grammarians, noggin scratchers, replicators, and indeed ‘leading economic growth destroyers’ of the American way. And whilst, I wouldn’t be surprised about China becoming a larger economy than the United States in numbers — and all these yonkers will magniphone that inevitable day, in the new world order, we have to continue to remind the baby boomers, these days its not one unified understanding of the 70s, 80s, 90s & today. In fact there never really was one true leader in all things measured, as any PRICELESS Mastercard commercial can remind you, there were always many.

For instance, when it comes to cultural exports the US of A will be hard to beat. We’ve absorbed every culture on the planet and our bland, one-size-fits all media is rivaled by none — with no prospects on the horizon. I don’t know of a single Chinese movie exported here — America is becoming less homogeneous culturally, not more, and thanks to the Brits, the sun never sets on the English language. The media industry is not only a huge money maker, its also more advanced than using child labour in sweat shops — well or at least in the case of the Olsen Twins, Beiber and Shirley Temple-Black, at least it uses the mind instead of one’s back to break the work.

While I still see this American advantage in other industries too, especially those requiring any sort of innovation or origination — replication, the old image of the lazy American as portrayed by Homer Simpson at the Springfield nuclear powerplant is just not accurate anymore. That character mind you was invented before the 1992 recession. The digital worlds through three recessions have thrown most of those folks in the incinerator. Give China its due — its a force, with its own issues.

This is a way of backing into a conversation I had with an old friend from college. It started when I put up the following Paul Simon song, with the following references to FACEBOOK!:

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Cheryl Tiegs No part of this post makes any sense to me.
January 19 at 11:26am · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann
Let me spell it out for you. Take notes:

1) This is a song about being a kid in frame of mind in the hustle, bustle, cavernous city of New York, where people where suits and try to be serious a lot of the time. He’s the only kid — the only …thing he needs is the weather report.

2) When I was at Good Morning America, this week every where someone talking head at the conference table would yammer — this is the most depressing week of the year. Its when credit cards from xmas are due — the sunlight is low, the temps suck and the the most distance between other HALLMARK Holidays. Its also the week when people stop doing their new years resolutions. Its bullshit science, but its how our world goes round.

3) This version sounds older and tired. ITs harder to be a kid this week, then lets say June 5th.

4) on a personal note — I just got back from a very dark place — Stockholm. Yet somehow I find NYC more depressing. The sky is grey — there’s junk every where — it smells bad and so on and so on… I’ve got tons of work but I may just go outside and play later.

Anything else m’am?See More
January 19 at 11:33am · LikeUnlike
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Cheryl Tiegs Your tone implies that the explanation you just laid out is supposed to be obvious to readers. It makes a little more sense to me now but the original post, by itself, looks more like the rantings of a madman.
January 19 at 11:50am · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann Like all art — you’re free to interpret as you feel. You could just play the song and see if you like it and go your own way as far as I’m concerned. I win on all fronts. Its always about winners and losers in America — this is a no lose situation unless you make it one!
January 19 at 11:52am · LikeUnlike · 1 person
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Daniel Beckmann Also, the writers of “Who’s the Boss” liked using terms like “madman” and “floosie” — i appreciate you’re keeping up with the MONAs)
January 19 at 11:53am · LikeUnlike
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Cheryl Tiegs Listen. I think a lot about communicating, and I want you to be more effective because you have a lot of original ideas. I’m just saying that reading this post took a lot of effort and thought and I ultimately found it frustrating instead of enlightening. Think about your readers.
January 19 at 11:55am · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann
I think the same was said of James Joyce? “reading this post took a lot of effort and thought and I ultimately found it frustrating instead of enlightening.”

If you spell it out for people too much, you deprive them the ability of having their own thoughts and making it their own thing. This is why I hate teachers! There’s lots of “have tas” they think you’ve “gotta” do. It only causes weaker economies through diminished imagination and self responsibility for understanding things on your own.See More
January 19 at 11:57am · LikeUnlike
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Cheryl Tiegs Weaker economies… what? You had me for a minute when you analogized your post more to art or poetry than straight up communications… but then bringing the term “weaker economies” into it confuses me again because now I’m thinking about …efficiency and it brings me back to the effort I had to put into reading your original post. Here’s my problem. You’re haphazard, and I take it as almost an insult that you’re just throwing your shit out there for me to read and take seriously when you’re not taking your readers’ time and attention seriously. If your strategy is to throw a zillion crazy things out and some tiny percentage of them will resonate with each reader, on a cost-benefit analysis it doesn’t make sense for me, the individual reader, to take the time to read each of your posts on the 2% chance that something will make sense to me. So you’re doing yourself a disservice by not thinking about your readers more, because you’re losing readership and will ultimately be less effective in getting your ideas out.See More
January 19 at 12:07pm · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann
See — this is where — I think you lose people. Everyone has a different interpretation, perspective — so you either

A) dumb things down for the masses
B) Let people figure it out for themselves, some get it wrong, some don’t try to figure it… out, others make it something you didn’t intend when you sent it.

Our public schools often chose option A — its efficient, but it makes economies weaker. If you think about it, when economies are based off of new inventions and the growth of new markets — with manufacturing going by the wayside, our investment in option A has made too many automattons, and not enough market makers.

If the US is to survive against CHINA or any nation for that matter, we must continue to come up with new ideas. That’s why when GE meets with china and gives away our engine design secrets, its not a big deal — crunch all you want we can make more.

Option A — in my view is killing US right now. Where’s the big idea Cheryl — the car is done, bio tech — green jobs? Watch wall Street 2 — when is the next bubble — what’s it gonna be? We need more OPTION B — and people who can handle them.See More
January 19 at 12:15pm · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann I’m not the only one talking about this — ask David Brooks from yesterday’s TIMES:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html

Chua is an OPTION Aer…
January 19 at 12:18pm · LikeUnlike
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Cheryl Tiegs Your “Option B” – that of innovative design – only works if the innovative things are DESIGNED for users. Your posts are poorly designed. If you’re not willing to “Dumb it down for me”- “Option A” – then I’m suggesting you instead put more thought into your “design.”
January 19 at 12:19pm · LikeUnlike
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Steev Hise NYC is pretty much always depressing for me. but yeah, especially this part of winter is esp bad for places where it snows and is super cold.
January 19 at 12:31pm · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann
Cheryl — these are always fun things to get into with you — but I think you trap yourself when you speak for everyone on this one.

This clearly is not an intelligence thing here, you’re smarter than all of us — more capable, faster, stro…nger. Its about focus and control of the focus. If you let yourself get out of hand with your thoughts, I think it would be quite painful for you, but it would create millions of new markets. The focus of your energies on this militant grammarian stuff, I mean thats not a bad focus either — it is clearly very intense though.See More
January 19 at 12:31pm · LikeUnlike · 1 personLoading…
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Daniel Beckmann
There are some that understood my intention from moment 1. There are some that didn’t but liked the song — others who understood half of it, but changed most of the intention in their minds. Most ignored it for a variety of reasons rangin…g from not liking me, to no time, to they didn’t like the first world.

To speak for everyone on this one, ruins it for those who got it the first time, but also for anyone who enjoyed it the first time for any reason as well.See More
January 19 at 12:41pm · LikeUnlike
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Cheryl Tiegs This is about me only insofar as I considered myself to be one of your most willing readers and I couldn’t get through the post. I’m trying to help you be more effective, that’s all.
January 19 at 12:43pm · LikeUnlike
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Daniel Beckmann
There are times for that AND I appreciate it — but the exercise here was not trying to be most effective to all. IN those instances, I would appreciate your filter.. this is a controlled access environment of AGREED to friends.

I MAY writ…e differently for the general audience — but even then, according to OKCUPID, the most successful chicks there are not the ones who are most hot, most agreeable, they are the ones that truly reflect their most ugly quirks. They find their most true and loving audiences. That’s what the internet is about — and in fact schmooru — the article is posted on my profile for your reference.

Thanks for CARING! See More
January 19 at 12:48pm · Like

To set the mood, lets start this class in the continued pursuit in this forum of where creativity originates — with this sound to begin the “Morning Announcements, just as it once did in Barbara Wagner’s English classroom in 1990s Ottawa Hills, Ohio as she scowled from her front table.

Babs is not the only reason I hate teachers — just the first reason that always comes to mind.

This week, my 8th grade and Junior English teacher passed away. She was 74. She retired from my high school the year we graduated in 1998. During times like these, normally you have to say something nice about a person no matter what you think. They’re loved ones certainly will miss them who ever they are and no matter what they may have done. Its bad form to do much of anything else. I totally understand that. I get what I’m about to do cosmically here. But just like anything else, no one is purely evil. No terrible act doesn’t have the possibility to produce something better.

Frankly, I don’t believe in GOOD and BAD, I believe in the Good, the Bad, and the all important IN BETWEEN.

My whole life I’ve been trying not just to fight Barbara Wagner — but also the loyalists she produced in great numbers. She was arbitrary with her sword, she was complicit in maintaining the social elite in a place where most outside observers would have thought she shouldn’t, often at the cost of those who were not — and in the end, what was her energy all about?

THERE was the Christmas assembly where she dressed up as santa clause and made fun of everyone in the senior class. The teachers would act like the cool kids dating each other and she was the ring leader. Then the actual cool kids would have to come and sit on her lap in order to get these ‘gifts’. THE WHOLE SCHOOL had to sit there and watch it in the last HOUR before we were allowed to go home for CHRISTMAS BREAK. Jewish, Muslim, reasonable, it didn’t matter. No excuse.

There was the time in the 8th grade I was failing because of participation points(people of modern era, have you ever known me not to participate?). After my parents went in to talk to her, she said it was because I always chose to sit in the back. If I sat in the front, she would know that I cared about her.

There was the gaggle at her desk after school kissing ass and paying attention to get those ‘A’s…

There was the time Dan or Mike Rissing, I can’t remember which claimed that he took a shit on her desk.

There was the time Mrs. Wagner realized that KC Colwell’s dad had sat in the same chair in the same classroom a generation earlier and no matter what Kirk did, he was going to get the same grade as his father before him.

There was the time Mike Fisher helped to ‘improve’ her fucked up GRADING system on her IBM 286 — but in the end it didn’t matter. Somehow an 85 was an ‘A’. Despite advancement in grading systems such as micrograde OR the common calculator — BABS had her own system and liked it that way. So what if the numbers came out differently every time she processed them?

There were the Jewish holidays at the beginning of the year when she wouldn’t give you the homework because to her there were no excused absences.

There was the A project where everyone had to do whatever they COULD to get an ‘A’ out of her. These spoils furnished her classroom from ghosts of kiss-ass past. I wasn’t in honors English so I didn’t get to do it.

There was the time Jack Brunner took a shower at her house.

And then finally there was the time I told her off, left and never came back again. I had been sick (legitamely — I had a prescription for antibiotics this time) and it was considered an excused absence. I came to get my homework from her afterschool the first day I was back — and had to crawl through her afterschool gaggle of kiss asses and pleasantries. When I asked her for my homework — she said there wasn’t any. She just let the class work on their papers that day — she conveyed this with a smile(I’m not mentioning the mustache here) and I hope you feel better.

In truth, and she did this sort of thing often — she handed out a handwritten cheat sheet for the final exam happening the next week. Next thing I knew, I found myself in the middle of the exam and didn’t know what was going on. I came to approach her about it during the test and asked what the deal was.

She said, “we went over that when you chose not to be here.”
BECKMANN “But, I had an excused absence.”
BABS “There are no excused absences in my classroom”
BECKMANN “Well is it your intention that I fail this quarter?”
BABS “That was up to you when you decided not to come to my class. I’m trying to prepare you for college.”

By this point, I had already started taking college classes at the University of Toledo… so I brought that up.

BECKMANN “Well Mrs. Wagner. I don’t know what you think you’re preparing us for here, but I take college classes now and I was sick there too that day. They gave me my homework because they wanted to give me a chance. You’re not preparing us for college Mrs. Wagner, I don’t know WHAT you’re preparing US for. I think everyone in the room needs to understand, this is all about your sick world you have here. If we don’t have a chance to prepare for these things, we won’t get into the college you say you’re preparing us for! This test is bullshit and so is your class.”

BABS “You can’t talk to me like that here. Next time you won’t miss my class” (voices raising)
BECKMANN “You’re right Mrs. Wagner, there’s not going to be a next time. I’m through with you and your class and your bullshit grading system. You try to control everyone in this room, but the problem is and everyone here knows this, you’re arbitrary. The world outside of this room has rules and standards, not whims. And that’s where I’m going.”

It had long been known that Mrs. Wagner had had some issues with Alchohol abuse. Most recovering alcholics, like our former president, George W. Bush, have issues with maintaining control. Leaving her classroom like that, in that public fashion, was probably one of the worst things I felt I could do that woman after a year and a half of almost daily torment. It was public, and she no longer had control over me.

Our principal was in the process of being run out of town at that point — and I went to her office. She granted me permission to finish my English requirements at University of Toledo. The next teacher to fall in a less dramatic fashion was Mrs. Langhals. She told my mom on the phone my questions in history class reminded her of her abusive ex husband-so there would be no irruption — she wanted ME out and this was quite helpful to her. Mama Langhals only taught by the book, so any questions at all really weren’t very welcome. She also used to make fun of students who had foreign accents and I didn’t like that too much. It was a great class for people who copied homework in the hall before her class, not for those of us who cared about history.

I ended up getting a 4.0 in these courses at UT. I took summer school classes after my junior year at Washington University and aced those too — I’d never done that before in my average track classes at Ottawa Hills. My move towards college away from Ottawa Hills started in Babs’ classroom-it was the first moment I got to taste freedom . By the second half of senior year, I was only taking college classes and when Ottawa Hills wanted me to come back to help them bump up their all important profiency test scores — like my mother said when they wanted to hold me back in kindergarten because they thought it would help their rankings, I told them no. In turn, I graduated from Ottawa Hills ranked 32 out 58 — they wouldn’t count my college course for class rank as a matter of decision. This damaged Washington University’s rankings to have someone in the bottom half of their class, I must apologize to all of those I went to college with — but they took me anyway. I got letters of reccomendations from those I took summer school with and they clearly saw the difference between my high school and my college transcript.

Then there was the time at Washington University early on when kissing ass didn’t work. The five paragraph composition Bab’s prior Furer Mrs. Hauck beat into us didn’t work either. They wanted me to read something.. understand what I thought about it critically and then explain that to them, in a well written essay. Despite Ottawa Hills being the best school in Toledo, I was up against kids who didn’t have this bullshit in their schools or at least it appeared it was less provincial in their approach to it.

You see BABS’s power was always with the prospect of preventing us from getting into college — from getting out of that fuck hole classroom, school AND village by waive of her shaky hand. When the final report card came from her class, I remember standing there with my parents, wondering what she might give me. You can’t get into college with an F in Junior English, it doesn’t matter what happened. My mom read it in surprise. She gave me me a ‘B’.

I never was quite sure why she gave me a ‘B’. Maybe it was her concern that if she didn’t she might get audited, maybe I had learned what she wanted me to — now we’ll never really know, but I’m certain if I had asked her last week, she would have remembered with her own reasons. Her and others in her faction of oppressive teachers — we now must mention her next classroom neighbor Mr. Heitger and his hockey stick — which the next time I see him, I’ll be happy to bash him back, for all the mathematicians and scientists he destroyed with it — retired with my graduating class in 1998. They didn’t like the way the school was headed. Many of us joked that she had found the model student she was looking for — my best friend, David Roemer and after him, there was no reason to continue. I always appreciated that David continue to be my friend after all of this, I know his relationship with Babs was important to him.

I’ve talked with a few of my classmates about all of this in the last 24 hours. There’s a lot of love for BABS which shouldn’t be left out here — this is only my perspective. However, certainly some were turned away from English — some of the more quiet ones were just turned away from everything in general by Ottawa Hills High School. Having to take shit from this woman, her colleagues, along with their classmates, THEIR parents(may any mom who served on the Mother’s Support(SPY) Group(MSG) get what’s coming to them), THE VILLAGE and the repressive society of Northwest Ohio overall, there were many in the 1998 graduating class of Ottawa Hills High School in the background that were never really heard from again. We never managed to have a class reunion like the other ones.

My whole life has been about trying to find the thing inside everyone that wants to create, that wants to produce something positive for the world and bring it out of them. To CREATE is proof of life. We all have that within us. To repress it so greatly in all of us is to produce the living dead. And if its a testament — even though I truly have not thought of Babs in over a decade now — that she inspired me to do what she could not — then in that case I appreciate having met her.

In general, I appreciate having gone through that school and that fucked up and dying semblance of a community because of how much inspiration I gathered there. One day, I hope my parents get to leave too. Unfortunately, after a generation of putridness, no one from the outside wants to move to Toledo or Ottawa Hills and there aren’t very many souls to sell their house to. But in the meantime, and it is always said, at least they don’t have to talk to anyone from that school ever again.

This is all great stuff. People who went to private school some place or grew up in moderate suburbia where they had shit to deal with too but there was a way to blend in to the scenery — or ANOTHER SECTION of English — they don’t have these gifts.

And yes. I’ve had issues with authorities in my time — and the fight to break past them is a ‘narrative’ I would greatly miss in my life if I didn’t have it. To this day, I still don’t have a very favourable opinion of teachers — I won’t date them as a standing rule. Just like anarchists who seek lawlessness to find out what comes next, if the teachers union finally went on national strike, I’m curious about what we might find next. So many minds held back — creative potential repressed in our school systems.

So as we conclude, another explanation on where creativity originates, lets all raise our spirits to wherever Barbara Wagner is right now. Whether you loved her or hated her, there was no in between. And on this day, I have to respect that. She made a difference.

To this accord, I find it fitting that schmooru.com launches this week. A place created to topple the boundaries of the bullies and militant grammarians out there who said you can’t do it.

I found this pilot that I made for ABC News Now — what at the time was billed to be a mobile phone concentrated news network, which was to be the future. With the layoffs at ABC News this past month, mentioned in this blog, I thought it interesting to revisit this moment in time — late 2004. John Kerry had just lost the election and George W. Bush had a lot of political capital. Of the THREE Anchors of a generation, only one had walked off into the sunset, another was in the process of being disgraced and yet another, didn’t know his fate.

Here are some interesting points when watching this:

1. Distribution. Youtube had not been invented, or made widely available yet — so I had very few legitimate options if I wanted to get this out on my own some other way.
2. Still trying. Like Woody Allen, I keep trying to make the same movie over and over again. REF: My email to Charles Gibson(I can reveal this today) after his Woody Allen Interview — I got no response: http://tomarken.com/criticism/2005/05/i-got-a-lot-out-of-your-woody-allen-intv

For instance, Sam Rieff-Pasarew finds a place in all my very first pilot projects — but I’ve learned a few things since:

3. 2004. Peter Jennings was still in the building when I showed this around. As was, Ted Koppel down at his perch in DC. I showed this to everyone I could find — unbased — but it had to be distributed by DVD(and that was modern — “DIGITAL”). They were an all tape house. I remember 40 year old producers futzing with the dvd tray to try on their DESKTOPS trying to get this to play, and the speakers were often not set up.
4. Its true. I hijacked a studio — edited late at night in stairwells and now with my 30 year old mind, I appreciate the cover and support I got for doing this renegade from my bosses there at the time, I could imagine it was uncomfortable for them to have me showing it around. Its sad that on the one hand I’m embarrassed wondering wtf I was thinking — I certainly look less dorkier right now — on the other, looking at the tape pieces, I’m pretty certain something like this WOULD have gotten picked up today somewhere. I couldn’t get it on a mobile phone network at 2AM on a Thursday in 2004.
5. Instant Message thing. With the Current, HACK THE DEBATE — I would say that it was realized there, EXCEPT — look at how LONG the AIMs were?  I’m not sure if that’s why twitter still struggles to find its place on OLD TEE VEE. 140 is too short for complicated thoughts and ideas.

And now — just the exploding TEE VEE part:

Let me come out with it. I’m Jewish. And I was raised in one of those households who really appreciated the change from Christmas Break to the Holiday Break. Toledo, OH is not a pro-semetic place. Its not the type of place Woody Allen could have developed his phobias in, unless he liked practicing his monologs behind closed blinds in the middle of the night when the neighbors were asleep.

I like to call Jews who grow up in places like these, “Diaspora Jews”. We’re the ones who know how to keep the thing going when times get tough, cause to be honest, if there’s ever gonna be an issue again, it would most likely start in an intolerant, backwards, hell-hole like Toledo, OH. And folks on the Upper West Side, may like to complain about the Horra, but when have they last experienced it? They’re weak in their great numbers, for not knowing what its truly like.

I bring this up because like my father’s employers who used to chastize him for depriving his kids of a Christmas tree and for inferring that he killed Jesus as a holiday tradition, I’ve heard these Christmas songs so much, I like to roll them out again every single year. I was forced to learn them in Choir in order to get the easy A.. perform them at a 9 to 1 ratio before all the goyin in the Ray. E. Deardorf auditorium HOLIDAY CONCERT — and now I’m going to go through my favourite ones here. Yes. Many of which were written by Jews — we always say as they play at the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day.

Now that you know how I felt about Christmas growing up (and I actually do celebrate it now, three years running with my best friend Mark Nugent — it really is a sugary good time) one day I may write a song inspired by this. Until then, enjoy these favourites and the feelings which inspired them. Happy Holidays!

Feel like the New Jersey Turnpike:

Feel balanced (Bing died shortly after this)

Feel Passive Aggressive (Think Martha Stewart denial)

Feel Guilty

Feel Stereotypically Mexican

Feel hungry