I don't care about your stupid mascot

A few weeks ago I saw a unique moment and was compelled to photograph it. It was a guy, very obviously worn out, sitting on the floor just inside the open door to a locker room with his large foam head by his side resting.
I was thinking, "wow, this is an excellent moment that shows just how much physical activity it takes to be a mascot." So I snapped a few photos, I'll say twenty. Twenty photos is really nothing for a professional photographer shooting digital these days. After shooting the kid I went on about my merry way to meet an extremely urgent deadline. This particular client is a 24/7 outfit and they want everything NOW.
A few feet past the top of the ramp to leave the stadium and get to the pressbox I was accosted by two very frantic young ladies. They demanded to know if I had taken photographs of their mascot without his head on. "Yep, I sure did. Now, if you'll excuse me I have a deadline to make."
"You need to delete those photos right now!" replied one of the girls.
For those of you who don't know what it is like to be a journalist let me lay some ground rules for how to really upset us.
1. Tell us we can't do something.
2. Tell us you won't give us certain information we can get in another way. Trust me, when you make a journalist fill out a FOIA because you want to be a jerk off it only ends up poorly for you in the end.
3. Make demands of us.
4. Make demands of us that violate basic human rights as outlined by The Constitution.
There are lots of other ways to tick off a journalist, but I think it would be much more fun for you to experiment and discover those things on your own.
So, there I am, talking to this blond girl who takes her mascot WAY to seriously and demanding I delete photos. I tell her no, strongly and try to get away when the mascot's "coach" shows up.
Coach. Coach?
I'm sorry, this Yosemite Sam rip off of a mascot jumps around and holds big fake pistols in the air for portions of a football game and he has a freaking coach. I'd have a little more respect if it were only one person acting like a giant foam-frocked idiot, but after I photographed the tired guy I saw his brother cruising down the ramp.
What exactly does this coach do? She isn't taking any Constitutional Law classes I'm positive of that. And why would your authority as a mascot's "coach" all of a sudden compel me to delete photos. I'm sorry honey, but if you want me to delete images from my card you better either have a gun or be a Native American, if you combine the two it's pretty much a given.
Now, if anyone out there can explain to me some sort of sacred cultural/religious significance to a university's mascot I might change my tune. Look, this guy is no Zuni Mudhead. How do I know he's no Mudhead, because I've interacted with them. Zuni Katchinas don't have coaches, and I can guarantee you they have a harder job than some Pistol Pete wannabe.
So, I tell the very upset ladies that I'm not going to delete the images. They are unrelenting and finally I agree, I was totally lying. By this point I wanted to not delete the images to make a point. I tell them that I really don't have time to discuss this because of my deadline and I really need to go. I also find it interesting that by this point neither of the frustrated females can tell my why exactly I need to delete my images.
"We can't have those images out there," was the only reply they could give. Sorry sweet cheeks, but that is not an answer. To their credit, I didn't really do a good job of explaining why I was not going to delete the images either. I was pretty sure my explanation was going to take too much time and just be lost on the idiots anyway. What I should have said was:
"Ma'am, your mascot was sitting in front of an open door in the exit ramp of a football stadium which was paid for with tax dollars. Aside from the fact that any idiot can peak under the tarp which covers the ramp and possibly see your mascot, he is in a public place. Because he is in a public place he has no reasonable expectation of privacy. Thanks to the first amendment to The Constitution of the United States, I, as a journalist, get to photograph your headless mascot if he is in public and -- gasp, publish it. That is where the 'press' part comes in."
I'm pretty sure that would have been a waste of time. Rather I said, "I'm on an insanely tight deadline and don't have time to explain this to you."
So she asked for my card, nearly trusting that I would delete the photos later, and followed me to the elevator ensure me she would call to make sure I had deleted the images. I told her that would be great.
One of the things I have always hated about journalists and have always tried to change about myself is the fact that if we don't need something from you it is nearly impossible to contact us. All my friends are that way, they never return phone calls. I try not to be that way, but I am. So this girl can call me until she's blue in the face, but since I haven't answered the phone on my desk in at least 6 months I'm pretty sure she is going to have a rough go of it.
Much to my misfortune, there was a guy with a gun in the elevator to the press box. He was a university police officer, and I think maybe the girl had a better grasp of Constitutional Law than he did. But hey, no one ever said cops need to know the law -- they just have to enforce it.
So now, I have another freaked out college kid, the coach has left and there is a cop there. The very nice man who operates the elevator, I like the guy and am serious when I say he is nice, needs to close the door. So the cop suggest we get off and discuss things. I, like a bonehead, agree.
Finally after a bunch of needling and me honestly not being 100% sure on the policy with the mascot, point one kid and say, "You! Get over here." Then I point to the cop and say, "You're going to watch this too." I make sure they can see the monitor and delete the images. I make sure they are happy and get on the elevator.
The cop follows me, I'm sure he is still regretting it.
I turn to him and say, "You understand what I did was a courtesy right? The First Amendment guarantees that no one, not even you, can make me delete images." He just looked at me.
Once in the pressbox I set about ingesting my photos, a time period when I can't do much, and leave the photo room to get a drink. The cop is still standing around and I decide I should get his name, just in case this issue gets any more out of hand at a later date.
A little advice to everyone; you want to scare a police officer who is poorly trained -- ask him for his name.
So, I point to Officer Krupkey and say, "I'm going to need to get your name real quick."
His meek reply is, "I don't really want to give you my name. Why do you need my name."
I kindly explain to him that, as a public servant on duty, he is required to give me his name when I ask for it. I then explain that I need it so if this fiasco gets worse later I will be contacting him because he was a witness to the deletion. He goes over and talks to the sports information guy, who either hates my guts because I go off when laws are violated or loves me because I don't put up with much when laws are violated. I'll relay another bonehead legal move the sports info guy was privy too another time.
So, I file my photos, pack up my stuff and take my happy ass back to the field for the second half of football. I was a bit grumbly, but I had to get back to work and put all that crap behind me as best as possible. Of course if you're reading this now, you've seen I haven't done a super job of that.
Well, the game ends and I meet some pals on the field after and we decide to move up to the pressbox together. One of them says to me, "I thought you were arrested."
Evidently this whole thing got WAY out of hand and word got to my photo editor and managing editor that I had been arrested. A few other people heard that as well. I'm glad I had not been arrested, but I can I assure you if I had been many more people would have heard about this, because after calling my boss to bail me out I would have called the regional Associated Press reporter and informed her that I had just been arrested for photographing a mascot in a public place. Trust me, that story would have hit the wire within an hour.
I'm not too bitter about it and I learned some things. I do have a special message for the people who take their mascots and school spirit WAY too seriously:

Boneheads, it's such a completely small fraction of your life, college, you need to spend some of it having fun. See those kids in the stands, half-naked with their bodies painted in November so drunk they can hardly stand? Those people are doing what you should be doing. If you think "coaching" a guy in a foam suit is fun, and from what I've seen "coaching" involves following him around and looking like a moron, then more power too you but you're wrong. I don't know maybe you're a Mormon and don't really know how to have a good time, but I think you'd be at another school if that were the case.
The fact is, it's just an illusion. You believing so strongly in your mascot is akin to still believing in the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Smurfs. It's stupid, and you are a little developmentally disabled(that means retarded) for clinging to such beliefs at your age. I only hope some day you realize that. I'm pulling for tomorrow, although I get the impression you're going to be that 75 year-old loser lady at the homecoming game with a huge mum on telling the poor bastard who gets the unfortunate privilege of sitting next to you about how you used to be the mascot's "coach" and saved you're dusty, sober vagina for marriage. Trust me, no one cares now, no one will care then.
So, next time some one takes a photo of your precious, decapitated mascot, think before you start howling like an uppity baboon again. I can guarantee this to you: The only way I will ever, under any circumstances, photograph your mascot again is if he is on fire, selling drugs or flips out and runs head-first into the wall of the stadium at full speed and kills himself.
Now, dry your eyes and get back to studying. Something tells me you're not out partying.

Twitter

It would seem our society has progressed to the point where we can tell any number of random people all sorts of things about ourselves instantly that we most likely wouldn't tell a stranger face to face.
Twitter, it seems, is the perfect way for any idiot to broadcast stupidly minuscule aspects of his life to numerous people who don't really care. A quick Twitter search for "penis" illustrates this rather well. I found this: "LAmaleCA NOT GETTING ANY MSGS ON HERE TONIGHT SO I AM OFF TO JERK MY PENIS AND SLEEP, GOOD NIGHT WORLD,,,"
See what I mean? How many of us care that LAmaleCA is going to masturbate and go to sleep? Those of us who are men and have been bored have all masturbated and gone to bed for lack of anything better to do. It's a fact of life that masturbation is something to alleviate boredom, help you relax and make you sleepy. That's great, now would you walk up to me on the street if you didn't know me, stop me and say, "Hey man, I'm bored. I'm going to go home, masturbate and go to bed."
I hope you would not, because frankly I don't care.
People may defend Twitter as the ultimate freedom of speech because it really is the free flow of information. At the same time, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Twitter is published information and I feel strongly about what published information should do.
It should inform, like most newspapers for instance. Sure, not all newspapers inform. Some waste inches upon inches of copy writing advance stories about events before they happen rather than putting them in a community calendar where they belong and covering the actual event. In most places this is not called journalism, it's called AD-VERTISING. Not all newspapers do this and I digress.
If it doesn't inform you, published information should entertain or move you. Poetry, for example; most of it doesn't inform, with the exception of that wonderful piece about the man from Nantucket valuable information that, what it does it move people to feel something and that is valuable.
Some prose both informs and moves people. Literature, for example has this power. While there may be a technical essay or two which accomplish both I just have yet to read them. Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dostoevsky and many many others have done this.
Now, I'm not saying Twitter doesn't serve some purpose. I in fact use it to "tweet" high school sports scores when I cover them. I'm sure the 16 people who follow me appreciate the score information they get from me, and I must be doing something right because I have three new followers so far this football season. So we have the informative part of Twitter under control.
Then there is the entertainment aspect of Twitter. I haven't done an exhaustive search and I don't spend a lot of time trolling Twitter but what I have found brightens my day every time it is beamed to my IPhone via magical wireless technology: Shitmydadsays.
Shitmydadsays amounts to a 29 year-old guy who lives with his 73 year-old father, writes down his ramblings and "Tweets" the best stuff. I wonder if this old fart knows almost half a million people look forward to hearing his thoughts at least once a day.
So, if you're an Iranian broadcasting police locations to protesters to organize a more effective dissent more power to you, until the government shuts everything down. If you're a poet who can't afford to print your stuff on paper, then move me with your "Tweets." If you want to talk about your penis, go to hell.
I personally feel 80 percent of what you can find posted on Twitter is useless crap the world can do without. My friend and colleague Logan Carver, Gentry for short, seems to think only 60 percent of Twitter posts are absolute garbage. So, after much debate; in lew of actual work mind you; we came to a compromise we could live with. We met in the middle and agreed that 70 percent of what is posted on Twitter is useless rubbish and that is final.

I'm Starting to Realize Maybe I'm a Jerk

This will be my first blog. For real-type blog where I talk about things pertaining to my life. I don't really expect anyone to read it, but like anything else on the internet you shouldn't post what you wouldn't print in a newspaper, so I will keep it PG-13 and not name names of the private citizens I might insult. I really don't want to have to deal with a libel suit.
To make it introductory I suppose I'll just say that on Saturday I started to discover that perhaps I'm a jerk. I'm not mad about it. I'm not sad about it and I don't foresee myself changing my ways anytime soon. I still have compassion and am capable of emotions like love, happiness, sadness and all that other crap that make us human; it's just my tolerance for stupid crap which is fading.
Some part of me is thinking that there used to be a different name for jerk 60 or so years ago -- man.
Most of my models for what a man is are you're John Wayne type characters and I know I'm not John Wayne. If anything I'm and uglier Dean Martin sans singing talent, well and I don't beat my wife either; no matter how much I want to sometimes.
I tend to ramble and I will definitely do that here. Mostly I will complain about morons, idiots, retards and other really stupid people I run into in my life -- or hear about on t.v. and read about in the news and such. Sometimes I will compliment people I respect. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll go back over all this, take a look at the bigger picture of my mind and be able to determine if I'm a jerk or a man.
So pack a bag and go stand on the corner, because the bus is coming to pick you up and it's headed for Doucheistan and I'm behind the wheel.