One day ago, I’d never heard of Bud Smith. Now he’s my new hero.
OK, maybe I should pump the brakes a bit. After all “Bud Smith” sounds like some sort of Vegas alias. Or the owner of the used car lot where they sell hoopties for “$495 down – we finance!”
Actually Bud Smith is a writer.
Bud Smith is the author of the novel, Teenager, and the short story collection Double Bird, among others. He lives in Jersey City, NJ.
I’ve yet to read Bud’s novel or his short story collection. But I was born in Jersey City, so we’re kindred spirits of a sort. But the real reason we’re kindred spirits is Bud’s take on the creative process. I read this interview with my new bud Bud in The Creative Independent. (Hat tip to Cullen Lewis, who writes a weekly post on Substack, for putting this on my radar. Check out Cullen’s Bourn Yesterday today.)
You really should read the entire interview – Bud has countless pearls of wisdom to share. A few examples:
Avoid things that drain and do things that feel fulfilling.
Get comfortable doing sloppy work, malformed, phoned in, wonky work—believe you can fix it later. Because you can.
If you feel like you don’t have a place in an established scene, then you’re right, you don’t have a place, but you can always make your own spot—apart—you should. And eventually you’ll have put in your hours and you’ll have become a road tested creator. What I mean at its most basic level, if you are studying and working at something because it adds value to your life just by doing, then you’re doing it the best way. The most valuable way. Study what you love.
I love-love-love Bud’s take on the creative process. If you don’t fit in with the scene, make your own.
And if you’re doing something you enjoy, then the “ends” don’t matter. The journey is fulfilling enough.
Lyrics from a Rush song… Neil Peart was quite the writer too!
Bud also offers up a bit of life advice, including this:
Get out of your house/apartment. Be human, see people, be part of town.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get out of my house and see if my local library has copies of Teenager and Double Bird.
The last month of the year can be a bit “extra” as the kids say (or used to…). Holiday lunches, holiday happy hours, holiday parties, holiday shopping, holiday baking,… it’s a whole lotta holiday stuff crammed into a short amount of days. And too much of a good thing isn’t always good.
It’s all well and good to connect with friends and family. But it’s also fine to take a pass on some of the festivities. Especially if festive is turning into frenetic.
“Thanks, but I can’t make it” is a perfectly acceptable answer to any holiday offer. There’s enough stress already during December – it’s OK to take a break for yourself, and keep the “happy” in “happy holidays.”
And if you’ve been meaning to get together with an old friend, why not consider the month of January? There’s plenty of room on the calendar for gatherings during that typically gloomy month. Less stressful. More enjoyable.
Yet another ruse to separate you from your hard-earned money.
There’s a tradeoff for the convenience too… most of the stuff is made in China. And it’s just “stuff”… if you really want to give a gift that will be memorable, why not give of your time and talents instead? Most of us don’t need more stuff… but we do crave more human interaction. Ignore the hype – focus on the heart.
The 2022 midterm elections are over (for the most part). So who won the races?
Well, the Democrats will probably still control the Senate… they might pick up one or two extra seats.
The House is still divided, but Republicans will probably have a very slim majority there.
It was the most expensive midterm election ever, according to the non-partisan group Open Secrets. So forget about a “red wave” or a “blue wave”… it was a green wave, and the real winners were political consultants and TV station ad salespeople.
$16.7 billion dollars... to bring us the same gridlock we’ve experienced the past few years.
In Ohio, U.S. Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan combined to spend more than $100 million (if you include outside spending, most of it “dark money” from anonymous sources… which is where the lion’s share of Vance’s money came from). $100 million… for a job that pays $174,000 a year.
Here’s the most telling stat of all:
Outside groups spent about $1.9 billion to influence federal elections through Oct. 31, blowing past the 2018 midterm outside spending record of $1.6 billion, adjusted for inflation. The biggest outside spenders are super PACs aligned with Republican and Democratic congressional leadership.
When candidates get that much cash pouring into their coffers, you know they’re beholden to these special interest groups. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Is your lone-vote voice really being heard over the whir of the money machine?
We need election reform. Get rid of dark money. Truly “drain the swamp” of lobbyists. Put non-partisan citizen panels in charge of redistricting to eliminate the ridiculous gerrymandering that makes most districts “safe” and therefore encourages the most radical elements from both parties to come to the forefront. Institute ranked choice voting to encourage candidates to appeal to a broader swath of their constituents, instead of playing to their base.
Until we do that, it’ll be a green wave every time.
Doug Balogh recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Doug’s name may not mean much to you, but Doug meant the world to a bunch of youngsters who worked at the radio station he and his wife Linda owned and operated for more than two decades in Oxford, Ohio.
97X was a tiny station in a small college town. It had a weak signal, and it played weird music. Not exactly the recipe for runaway success. In fact, it barely registered on the quarterly list of radio ratings for Cincinnati and Dayton stations. But if you define success by the joy that station brought to both the station staff and the small-but-mighty group of dedicated listeners, then Doug’s ratings are off the charts — on the good side.
Doug gave countless young adults – many of them still in college or recently graduated – a chance to work in radio. For that reason alone, he deserves a ton of credit. But he not only gave them opportunity, but also a ton of freedom to do what they thought was best. To play the music they wanted. To be total goofballs on the air. To learn on the job. To grow up under his tutelage.
I’m probably the poster child for Doug Balogh’s Radio Refuge. I worked in radio for a few years after I graduated college, doing behind the scenes work at a company that ran an AM oldies station and an FM country station. I discovered 97X because they played bands you couldn’t hear anywhere else (Replacements, Connells, They Might Be Giants… I could go on and on). I wound up weaseling my way into some weekend air shifts there. I probably spent more in gas money than I made in hourly wages, but I didn’t care, because I had a freedom I couldn’t find elsewhere in the formatted-to-death world of corporate radio, and a connection to the listeners that made it feel like we were all one big (or not so big) happy family.
But then I had my “lost years”… I wound up leaving the radio biz and was living with my brother in Bakersfield, California and working as a travel agent. I knew I was deluding myself but I was in a bit of a rut. When I finally worked up the courage to try to get back in the radio game, the first call I made was to Doug. He had no business putting out the welcome mat for some travel agent in Bakersfield who did a few weekend shifts at the station three years prior. But somehow, some way, Doug brought me back into the fold. Because he saw something in me that I myself often struggled to see. Doug was an ace salesman, but his greatest skill was talent scout. He had a preternatural gift for sensing the right “fit” in the people who came looking for a job there.
I worked overnights for a year, mornings for a year and afternoons for six months before leaving for a larger station in Cincinnati. 97X was where I found myself… it was the radio reboot I desperately needed. It was a second chance at my first love. It was all that and more, thanks to Doug and Linda.
That was 30 years ago. I’ve said many times since that 97X was the least amount of money I’ve ever made… and the most fun I’ve ever had. The latter is much more valuable, and more precious, by far.
Prior to Doug’s big BD, his son Marty and daughter Kristy asked me to reach out to a bunch of 97X alums and get a birthday greeting from them. Several responded, and I edited the clips together for an audio surprise (seemed like a fitting format for a radio guy) that Marty and Kristy shared with Doug during the birthday celebration. I won’t share the total clip here, but you’ll hear snippets from three folks who worked on the morning show (in order: Julie Maxwell, John “JJ” Jesser and Steve Baker)
“The best job, the best memories, the best collection of people…”
“Mentor. Coach…. wonderful place”
“Best years of my life”
Some folks may think that Doug and Linda ran a tiny radio station for 20 years. But I know better – they created a magical place that still exists in our minds and hearts.
If you don’t think campaign finance reform is long overdue, please read this post from Judd Legum on his Popular Information site. (Which, IMHO, is well worth the subscription, btw.) A few excerpts are below.
One of the most powerful groups in the 2022 midterm elections is the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the Super PAC controlled by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
But the largest donor, by far, to the SLF is One Nation. Through June 30, 2022, One Nation donated $33.5 million to the SLF. What is One Nation? Like the SLF, One Nation is run by Steven Law, a former Chief of Staff to McConnell. But unlike the SLF, One Nation is organized as a 501(c)4 non-profit organization. That allows One Nation to keep its donors secret. One Nation can collect unlimited donations from corporations and individuals, keep their identities secret, and then pass the money on to the SLF.
If the same corporations and individuals donated directly to the SLF, their identities would have to be disclosed. It seems that many supporters of the SLF’s efforts are interested in maintaining their anonymity. Donations to 501(c)4 groups are not tax deductible. The only benefit, from a donor perspective, is secrecy. [emphasis mine – DD]
Republicans have a similar structure to finance their efforts to retake control of the House of Representatives. The dominant Republican Super PAC running ads in House races is the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF). The top donor to the CLF, by far, is the American Action Network, a 501(c)4 non-profit run by the same people as the CLF. Through September 12, 2022, the American Action Network has donated $38.1 million to the CLF this cycle. The people or organizations that are donating to the American Action Network remain secret.
This tactic is not limited to Republicans. On the Democratic side, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)4 non-profit, donated $57 million to Super PACs supporting Democratic candidates, including Future Forward USA, American Bridge 21st Century, Priorities USA Action, and Unite the Country. The Sixteen Thirty Fund’s direct political involvement appears to have scaled back in 2022, donating about $6 million to date to political committees. The group says it supports legislation that would make political donations more transparent, including bills that would require the Sixteen Thirty Fund to disclose its donors. For now, however, the Sixteen Thirty Fund says it will use “the legal rulebook in place today.”
Let’s run those numbers again. $82 million. $38.1 million. $57 million. All “dark money.” All in secret. It’s a shell game. It’s three-card Monte, and Joe and Jane Citizen lose every time, because the cards are stacked against them.
Undue influence. Burning money on a surfeit of attack ads that fuel the fires of political polarization.
If the goals of these donors were noble, wouldn’t they want to be transparent about it?
One of the comments on the post has it exactly right:
Most people would not want to submit to being controlled by the extremely wealthy & corporations who almost always use their money and influence for their own benefit but not the benefit of the larger good… By basically equating money with free speech, Citizens United was a terrible blow to fairness and democracy in this country… It just keeps getting worse as both parties have to crank up the spending.
Campaign finance reform — and in particular getting rid of dark money — is long overdue. If these wealthy individuals and corporations want to keep pouring millions into political campaigns, they should at least have the guts to put their names to it.
blueandgolddreamer on Vive la Différence!: “Apathy is the worst. It says it all” Mar 25, 04:14
Thomas G Kuhl on (Basket)ball of Confusion: “So many thoughts. I agree that it should be about life lessons. Okay. I will go away quietly screaming” Mar 19, 02:57
You done said…