In this case, P.B.S. doesn’t stand for Public Broadcasting System. Sorry Elmo.
Elmo sad. Elmo need hug.
P.B.S. = Pearls Before Swine, a great comic strip. This past Sunday, PBS creator Stephan Pastis went a bit deeper than he usually does, and I loved it.
That’s a pretty profound pig!
Don’t worry, the very next day Stephan — and his character Pig — did a 180:
Now that’s just plain funny. Check out a week’s worth of strips at this link — Pig is just one of the many animal characters in the strip. I think you’ll find yourself laughing more… and maybe you’ll get some food for thought too.
Our 18-year-old leaves his friend’s house to come home. Light snow had melted but then froze into a thin sheet of ice on the main road to our house. It caught folks off guard… and the salt truck drivers must’ve been watching the game instead of hitting the roads.
Our son sees cars slipping, sliding, spinning, careening, crashing into each other like a demolition derby.
At least six cars got dinged. He’s less than two blocks from our house, but it’s enough of a downhill slide to make continuing risky business, especially with a couple of crashed cars up ahead in his lane. He pulls over, hits the hazards and calls home.
“Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.”
When you’re 18, the waiting is the hardest part.
But it can also be the smartest part. Wait it out. Call for backup. This too shall pass.
My wife and I spent the weekend at Red River Gorge in Kentucky.
The Red River Gorge is a uniquely scenic area in the Daniel Boone National Forest. The area is known for its abundant natural stone arches, unusual rock formations, and spectacular sandstone cliffs. The Red River Gorge is designated as a national geological area by the U.S. Forest Service.
Natural Bridge. It rocks!
We went with our neighbor/friends (nends? friebors?) Whit and Barb, who have gone to Red River Gorge in January with a group of their friends for the past several years. This year, there were 10 couples (and one dog). We stayed in cabins in Natural Bridge State Park on Friday and Saturday night, and hiked the trails on Saturday and Sunday. I’m ashamed to say that this was my first trip to “The Gorge” as it’s known around here. As a self-proclaimed Nature Boy (move over, Ric Flair) who loves the great outdoors, I really have no legit excuse for not visiting sooner, as it’s only two hours away and the scenery is drop-dead gorgeous.
Mrs. Dubbatrubba is gorgeous too!
There’s a lot to be said for exploring new places. And there’s no virtual reality that can compare with the actual reality of the great outdoors. When you’re hiking up ridge (and then back down), the physical benefits are obvious. But check out this article that extols the mental benefits of exploring someplace new. Here’s my favorite quote:
But I believe that it’s possible to achieve similar growth by traveling closer to home — to new states, cities, and even households, from urban to rural, north to south, east to west. As long as you’re spending time in an unfamiliar environment, with people whose backgrounds and belief systems don’t entirely match yours, you’re succeeding at stretching yourself.
Sunday morning at Lookout Point.
Get outside. Get outside your comfort zone. And get a big boost in energy, empathy and creativity.
I’m cleaning out the ol’ dubbatrubba junk drawer, and found this in my “drafts” folder – an article from The Guardian that is ancient, yet timeless, because it talks about avoiding the 24/7 news cycle that can become addicting. It reminds me of the time I went to see author Ray Bradbury speak at Johns Hopkins University way back in 1990. He recommended that we avoid watching the local news because it was “a bunch of murders and robberies that we didn’t commit” and only served to depress us and stifle our creativity. I suppose it’s the corollary to the “no news is good news” adage: “all news is bad news.”
News leads us to walk around with the completely wrong risk map in our heads. So terrorism is over-rated. Chronic stress is under-rated. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is overrated. Fiscal irresponsibility is under-rated. Astronauts are over-rated. Nurses are under-rated.
Out of the approximately 10,000 news stories you have read in the last 12 months, name one that – because you consumed it – allowed you to make a better decision about a serious matter affecting your life, your career or your business.
News is toxic to your body. It constantly triggers the limbic system. Panicky stories spur the release of cascades of glucocorticoid (cortisol). This deregulates your immune system and inhibits the release of growth hormones. In other words, your body finds itself in a state of chronic stress. High glucocorticoid levels cause impaired digestion, lack of growth (cell, hair, bone), nervousness and susceptibility to infections. The other potential side-effects include fear, aggression, tunnel-vision and desensitization.
News feeds the mother of all cognitive errors: confirmation bias. In the words of Warren Buffett: “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” News exacerbates this flaw.
News inhibits thinking. Thinking requires concentration. Concentration requires uninterrupted time. News pieces are specifically engineered to interrupt you. They are like viruses that steal attention for their own purposes. News makes us shallow thinkers.
News makes us passive. News stories are overwhelmingly about things you cannot influence. The daily repetition of news about things we can’t act upon makes us passive. It grinds us down until we adopt a worldview that is pessimistic, desensitized, sarcastic and fatalistic. The scientific term is “learned helplessness”.
I don’t know a single truly creative mind who is a news junkie – not a writer, not a composer, mathematician, physician, scientist, musician, designer, architect or painter. On the other hand, I know a bunch of viciously uncreative minds who consume news like drugs. If you want to come up with old solutions, read news. If you are looking for new solutions, don’t.
Turn off the power button when the news comes on, and restore the power of creativity to your mind.
The January issue of Cincinnati Magazine features a positive review of a German café across the river in Covington, Kentucky, called Katharina’s Café-Konditorei.
Unfortunately, the place never had a chance to enjoy extra business that a nice review would generate:
It’s always tough in the restaurant business. It’s especially tough if you’re bringing something unique to the table.
You know that local restaurant that you really like but haven’t been to in a few months? Or the mom and pop hardware shop that’s a bit more expensive than Home Depot or Lowe’s but the folks who work there really know their stuff, and you can get everything you need a lot quicker? Or the bookstore where the staff can make recommendations based on knowing you, not a machine learning algorithm? Better go today. Tomorrow may be too late.
A long time ago (early 90s), in a galaxy far, far, away (Oxford, Ohio), I worked at a tiny radio station known as 97X.
It was one of the few indie rock/alternative/modern rock/college rock stations in the country. It was also, in my not-so-humble and completely biased opinion, the best. Because the DJs had a ton of leeway in what they played. Because everyone who worked there loved the music, and had as much fun off the air as on. And mainly because the listeners felt like friends, and were just as passionate about the music as we were. It was the least amount of money I ever made, and the most fun I ever had at a job.
Rain Man dug the station too…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBGiU4usqqg
(This scene was filmed in Cincinnati, on the road that my bus travels every weekday when I go to work .)
Several months ago, KEXP-FM in Seattle (the modern day equivalent of 97X) paid tribute, playing songs and even commercials that were on the 97X airwaves back in the day, and interviewing folks who worked there for a long time, including faithful dubbatrubba reader Dave “The Reuben Kincaid of Modern Rock” Tellmann. Here’s the intro to the 97X tribute – it’ll give you a good background on the station:
And here’s KEXP’s edited version of the terrestrial sign-off from station manager Steve Baker (also one of the best radio play-by-play sports announcers ever). It truly captures the passion and community feel of 97X:
It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since I worked there, but 97X truly will always be a part of who I am. It’s the reason I like “weirdo” bands to this day, much to my kids’ consternation and dismay (“Car Seat Headrest?”). It’s also the reason I always root for the underdogs, and relate to the rebels and outcasts. Those are my people; that’s my tribe.
(You can’t even view the entire song because Lorne Michaels and the corporate bigwigs don’t want you to. Typical!)
UPDATE 1/19 – Faithful dubbatrubba.com reader Matt Sledge, who spent a decade at 97X, commented on my original post and added a few interesting links:
Comment:
Of course I have to leave my two, three, or four cents on this topic… since that’s how much we got paid back then working at 97X.
As Bake said about 97X on the final broadcast: “It changed my life.” Truer words were never spoken.
As I sit here back in Oxford in the year 2018, if you had told me when I started as an intern at 97X back in 1994 that 24 years later I’d be commenting on a former coworkers blog about that station and how it changed my life as well, I would have asked you how drunk you were.
Alas, here we are.
Some YouTube links to pass along:
The last 30 “laps” of the 2003 Modern Rock 500, with songs edited out and some commercials intact. This would be the last 500 on the terrestrial airwaves: https://youtu.be/vv3-DWSeqF0
Damian on Lost in a Cave: “Spend some time with his answers to fans’ questions on his Red Hand Files. You’ll enjoy it.” May 10, 19:25
impossibly4332b32374 on Lost in a Cave: “BTW, this is Chuck Wiggins…I guess I’m now known as impossibly4332b32374. That moniker has gone with me to a few…” May 10, 15:19
impossibly4332b32374 on Lost in a Cave: “I can resonate with that definition of prayer. I need to dig into him more. I’d love to hear how…” May 10, 15:18
LK on And they’re off!: “I feel this! I did the half with my son (mostly walking/cheating). It will rain as one of the happiest…” May 8, 06:47
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