I jammed my way into some very crowded Metro cars to make my way down to M Street where Paul Roe [Fez #30], the owner of British Ink was taking part in an art exhibition called Artomatic. Paul was doing pre-session consultations while his colleague, Cynthia, hummed away on a guy’s right bicep. He squeezed me in for a chat and I even got to sit in the tattoo chair. The interview ran just under 12 minutes.
Clarence Lee Sherrill and Crista Meyer sell concrete lawn ornaments. Their business is called Concrete Castings and they’re located on I-55 just north of Cape Girardeau, MO. I have a strange fascination with “yard art” and decided to scratch the itch on a recent trip down south.
Clarence and Crista work in a small, cluttered room heated by a big wood stove and covered in cement dust. Gazing in a large window was a magnificent peacock. I didn’t see Miss C, the camel that’s usually in a pen out front, and Clarence explained she was “visiting her boyfriend” but would return in a few days. Gotta be tough to breed camels in this country.
On a technical note, I shot the video with the Casio Exilim FC100, but the battery went dead on me. So I recorded a few minutes of audio on the iPhone and dropped in some stills. You’ll notice the change in audio quality.
Tessie Hubbard (aka Panty Mython) has produced more than 80 videos that have been viewed more than 34,000 times by a thousand YouTube subscribers. Along the way she managed to watch some 25,000 videos.
We bumped into each other online and she was kind enough to meet me at the Coffee Zone this morning to talk about her work/play/art. For someone who is so comfortable in front of the camera, she seemed a little shy but that’s common with most of the people I stalk. It is my fondest desire to someday collaborate with her on a project. And for goodness sake, watch some of her videos.
I’m one of a few hundred (but growing fast) “followers” of Tony Mesenger’s Twitter feed. Tony’s a reporter and columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and covers the Missouri Legislature and state government. He clearly gets Twitter and blogging and makes great use of both.
Tony joined me at the Coffee Zone for an el grande mocha latte doodah where I got him to put down his cell phone for half an hour to talk about his life as a Twitter junkie.
AUDIO: Listen/Download interview MP3
Before going to work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony was a metro columnist and city editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune and the editorial page editor at the Springfield News-Leader.
UPDATE: Thanks to Will Sullivan (Interactive Director or Nerd-in-Chief) for pointing us to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Twitterama page.
In the early days of the big ice storm that knocked out power to so many in southern Missouri, I kept hearing from friends in Kennett, Missouri (where Barb and I grew up) what a great job the local radio station (KBOA-AM) was doing. It was the only source for information and just a few announcers were keeping the station on the air with a generator and broadcasting non-stop with nothing but a phone and a microphone.
Steve Tyler, News Director Charles Isbell and Operations Manager Monte Lyons are all veteran radio guys (“with more than 100 years of experience between us”) who remember a time before computers and automation and syndicated talk shows. I figured they had some good stories to tell about the recent disaster. It runs about 20 minutes and –since they were on a speaker phone– you might have to listen closely.
A tip of the hat to William Pollack, President of Pollack Broadcasting, the owner of the station(s), for deferring to his local staff and letting them make the call on how best to serve the community.
With cable and phone lines down, the Internet wasn’t much help for all those people sitting in the cold and dark, wondering when the power would come back on. But radio was there. Literally the voice of a community. Or communities.
I can’t foresee the future of small market radio but have to believe it will involve this kind of service and involvement. But that’s going to take people. People who know their neighbors and local business because they live there.
Will finding and hiring and training these men and women be easy. Doubt it. Will such staffing cut into profit margins. Probably. But if broadcasters don’t find a way to be truly local and relevant… their stations are almost certain to be cold and dark.
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For those that missed these earlier posts, Matthew Howard and Charles Jolliff share some photos of the ice damage… and friend and fellow-blogger Dr. Everett Mobley shares the journal he kept for the two weeks his family was without power. This is a terrific account.
Matt Howard is a talented photographer in Kennett, MO (my home town). Matt’s day job is personal trainer so I guess he’s technically an amateur but certainly in the best sense of that word. I stumbled onto Matt’s flickr page recently and was immediately taken with his haunting (for me) images of the flat, empty fields I remember growing up. I got him on the phone for a brief (15 min) chat this afternoon during which he explained his passion for photography started with a book rather than a camera.
AUDIO: Interview with Matt Howard 15 min MP3
We see lots of adult Box Turtles in our neighborhood but rarely (never?) see the babies. Rick Thom –long time employee of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources– lives just down the hill from us and called a couple of days ago to report finding one of the little guys. Video runs 3 1/2 min.
Bloggers love few things as much as help a new blogger get started. George and I spent the morning with Jefferson City Mayor John Landwehr (and his wife Peggy) helping him get a blog set up. By the time you read this, HighStreetBeat.com should get you there. If not, this link will.
Hizhonor envisions the blog as a place to share news about Jefferson City…with the world. People, places, events, etc. And he’s armed with a Flip Video camera and a YouTube account so look for lots of video. The site just went up today so it’s “under construction” as we used to say.
He has a page on the official Jeff City website, called “Mayor’s Monthly Memo.” But a month is a lifetime in Internet years and memos are waaay too last century. He’s looking for ideas and feedback so hit the comment links or the Gmail link on the left side of his page.
Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.
Michael (we knew him as Mike back then) and I were classmates 45 years ago in Kennett, MO. Michael and I ran in different crowds but Kennett was a small place and everybody knew everybody.
In a previous post I mentioned that Michael stumbled across smays.com a few days ago and pinged me. He included some old snapshots and his resume, to let me know what he’s been up to.
He got into animation as a Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. He spent some years at Disney where he worked on –just to name a few– Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. He also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks’ Shrek. And he Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. If you have kids or an appreciation for animation, check out his bio. He was also kind enough to share a dozen or so examples of his work.
I called Michael up this morning and asked him to share some of his adventures and we wound up talking for an hour. I’ve cut the interview into three segments about about 20 minutes each.
Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip.
Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.
A Google search led Mike Spooner (he goes by Michael these day) to this blog. I grew up with Mike, er, Michael, in Kennett, Missouri. He moved to Flint, Michigan, in 1964, did “some” college before getting drafted in 1969. Not a good year to get drafted. Following service he attended art college in Los Angeles and stayed for 28 years. From Michael’s bio:
“Michael Spooner has worked in the animation industry for twenty-five years with such notable studios as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks. Michael’s professional career in art began in 1976, when he was invited to join the faculty at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, after graduating with distinction. He taught for twelve years, simultaneously working as a freelance illustrator for clients that included the Public Broadcasting System, Zondervan Publishing House, Masda Motors, the National Football League, NBC Television, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox.”
This sounds like a Brush with Near Greatness to me and I’ve asked Michael for an interview. Stay tuned.
He got lost for a couple of hours in our Flickr photostream and shares some photos from his stash. A couple of his Cub Scout pack; one of the KHS swim team; and one of the KHS junior high track team.
The swim team photo brought back fond memories of Diane West (far left). We dated a few times. She was 16 –and could drive– and I was still 15. She lived at the municipal swimming pool and exuded the intoxicating fragrance of chlorine.
It’s nice to hear from Mike and see a few long, lost photos from my youth.