A little reading to take the edge off

So after burning gallons of midnight oil, I went ahead and pushed out a novel that has absolutely no relation to my day-to-day reality. One, I live in the frigid Midwest, and it's set in the Arizona desert. Plus there's a space station that reaches from the earth to the heavens, so there's that.

But there is a little homicide and fugitive manhunts and ... well anyway, I'm happy with it, and I hope other folks will be too. You can find it on Amazon here.

Silent Nights

Contrary to conventional wisdom, after six years as a night reporter covering a lot of crime, I can safely say that people don’t stab or shoot or strangle each other with any higher frequency during the holidays. It’s long been the belief among jaded reporters such as myself that if you pack a bunch of relatives in a house, add a rack of sharp knives, some cabin fever and a dash of financial stress, it’s a quick and easy recipe for domestic assault.

But after six years, I have to say that hasn’t been the case. If anything, it’s been quieter than usual around the holidays. I asked a few cops, long-time vets, and they said the same thing. Sucks that they have to work, but usually a dull night.

Which makes me wonder where that rumor came from. The fevered imaginations of night reporters perhaps?

Conflicting Stereotypes

So a unique conundrum at the jail. Apparently, prisoners that are brought in who want to go to the bathroom need to be watched. Legally, by a same-sex cop.

We’re talking temporary holding, not real jail.

In walks a person named Kai.

“I usually can tell the trannies,” says the female officer that has to watch. "I honestly can't tell if she's... he's a boy or a girl."

They still don’t know.

Kai: No help. Shaved head with earrings, no makeup, no bra, and none apparently needed. Still no help. Wore boxer shorts … and bikini underwear.

So finally, they think Kai’s a she (Kai’s license says so), and the female officer has to watch the person take a piss. But they stand with their back to the officer, and go standing up.

“She peed like a boy,” the officer says. "I'm dying to know." Still no confirmation, and she’s worried about being sued.

Crime and Politics

You kinda have to cover both at night, but given a choice, I’ll take crime every time. Honestly, I’d much rather cover the aftermath of a bloody shooting than listen to some blowhard city council members take rhetorical swings. You see the pure consequences of bad actions when you go to a crime scene. With politics, on the other hand…

So I went to a suburban meeting recently where they seem to love screaming at each other. This city has been qualified by a local weekly as the most dysfunctional suburb in the metro area. The mayor had to get up and close the doors, and looked like he almost came to blows with a couple people standing there. Everybody was denying the other sides’ facts (we’d already stated our analysis for the record; nothing seemed to matter to anyone).  People were calling each other communists or idiots. The topic: garbage hauling.

O.K. maybe it’s been worse lately, political climate and all, but I’ll say again: give me a shooting any day.

Immersion Reporting

So to get closer to my work, I decided to have somebody break into my house last week. Well, it wasn’t really my decision, but subconsciously I might've brought it on. It’ll definitely help out with interviews: "Oh, I know man, I just got broken into last night... So how did it feel when you got beaten up/stabbed/shot/robbed/stalked/spat upon?"

You know how people always tell you that it feels like your home isn’t your home anymore after it gets “violated?” Didn't happen. Maybe I have a high violation threshold. I’ll ask my wife about that. Could be all those times my car kept getting broken into/stolen in Chicago; this time felt kinda meh.

Actually, the second time my car got stolen in Chicago, somebody left something in it. I’ll say no more, but technically it was a net gain.

All they got was a HP Mini: in, opened a few drawers, took what was in plain sight, and then ran back out the busted up door.

Screw it, they said it

Intensely personal stuff. Ever feel the unprofessional urge to grab someone by the shoulders, shake them and yell, STOP TALKING!? People who tell you waaaay too much and you know you’re absolutely going to use it and they're probably going to catch some crap -- you know this because you’ve read way too many online comments sections over the years.

But they said it. Case and point: Double murder suicide and this married couple’s priest tells me all about all the problems they were having, how the guy used to drink and be violent (duh), and how he went away for a few months and then came back and thought she was cheating on him but she wasn’t and…oh and they were here illegally and slept in separate bedrooms and...

Oh my god you realize you’re talking to a reporter, right? Right?

But he said it, so… in it goes. That's the job.

Still, sometimes I do feel that urge.

On your deathbed, will you Google yourself?

I was kinda wondering that lately. Everybody in America googles themselves. I myself am surprised by what comes up. Really random things. I play-tested a board game my brother published, and he gave me a credit. I can’t seem to shake that from the top ten.

It’s really surprising because even my top e-mailed stories, my Sunday centerpieces – and my paper has hundreds of thousands of readers – never seem to come up. Instead, I get an obituary for an old appliance salesman I wrote really late one night. I get a story from a paper I used to work for, years ago; a not so big story that took me a couple hours to write. It's not worth explaining: a no-comment reaction to a conviction.

So I just don’t know. How do you create a legacy in digitalville, when it all seems so random? Legacies are out of your control, and they should be. Should it all be up to an algorithm? Maybe.