Waco News Gets Foxy

Just when you thought the writer’s strike had brought innovation on the small screen to a screeching halt, it appears that Waco will have a new television news operation starting tonight. The local Fox station, Channel 44, will begin a 9 p.m. newscast that hopes to, as the Waco Tabloid-Herald puts it, “successfully mirror what made the Fox News Network a national force.” News director Neal Barton is quoted as saying “I’m a hardcore traditionalist when it comes to television news, but we deal in pop culture these days,” referring to what the Tabloid-Herald describes as the 30-minute Fox newscast’s “fast-paced mix of news, entertainment, weather and sports, all delivered with an eye to inform and entertain.”

This is an innovation, of course, because of the long-held goal of traditional TV newscasts to withhold information and to try to bore viewers into a catatonic state before bedtime.

I don’t know that this will affect me much, as I watch almost no local news nowadays, but I’m planning to check this out just to see how it plays. Good luck to all involved.

If you want to read the Tabloid-Herald article in full, go here.

Decorate a dorm

This is Homecoming week at Baylor University here in Waco, and there tends to be a lot of color and activity on campus. And while we of late don’t usually have a football victory to look forward to on Saturdays, we Wacoans can take solace in the fact that there is the sweet nectar of Dr Pepper in abundance, and that the Baylor students here can decorate up a storm.

Need proof? This year, the dorms on campus (or “residence halls” as I’m told they are properly called nowadays) had a decorating contest for Homecoming. I drove through the campus yesterday and took the time to shoot a few snaps of some of the more unusual entries.

At first, I was a bit concerned by the fervor a rollicking Homecoming can churn up in undergraduates when I drove in front of Penland Hall and saw this sight:

I thought, “Has fraternity hazing gotten this bad?” Imagine my relief, then, when my eyes took in the bigger picture and I learned this was simply a wish to charbroil (figuratively, with imaginary sauce) them boys from Lubbock:

Driving a little ways into campus, while I did not see students ingesting mushrooms that made them feel smaller or larger, or smoking hookah pipes while trading cryptic jibes with centipedes, I did happen upon this Alice in Wonderland/Mad Hatter Tea Party tableaux outside Memorial Residence Hall:

Finally, in front of Collins Hall, a dorm containing primarily freshman women, I spied a more traditional football-themed entry. I think the working creative narrative was, “What if, like, a goal post was, like, a black hole-type thingie, you know?, and, like, sucked in stuff around it, like footballs and excercise balls and fishermen’s netting and construction tape and, like, some stone-looking stairs and stuff? Sweet.”:

I wish Baylor all the luck in their game against Texas Tech Saturday. Sic ‘em Bears!

My first time

Okay, folks, I didn’t come schlurping out of the womb knowing how to navigate WordPress. I was familiar with Blogger, but this new toy has lots of bells and whistles I need to learn. Here’s my first attempt to put a photo on my site. The subject I have chosen for my initiation (if it survives my sweaty palms and the subsequent journey through cyberspace) is a nice vintage postcard of Waco. I must warn you, however, the image is a bit deceptive because the artist apparently got lazy. We actually have stuff like streets and sidewalks and other buildings surrounding our skyscrapers, instead of just dirt.

Okay, here goes nothing:

Enduring the uncloudy day

O the land of cloudless day,
O the land of an unclouded day,
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,
O they tell me of an uncloudy day.

As sung about by Willie Nelson and others, the land of the uncloudy day is heaven, where many of us, yours truly, plan on living one day. But for the past week, the place without any clouds has also been Waco, and I’m getting sick and tired of it.

The last time there was a cloud in the Waco sky (I know, because I have kept an eye on this) was eight days ago — Monday, October 22 — when a cold front blew through town, giving us refreshing cold temperatures and lots of rain and wind. As the front blew through, it took the clouds with it. Since then, as the weather people on television have explained patiently each day, Texas is now cloaked by a big, upturned Tupperware bowl of high pressure, which prevents even the wispiest wisp of a cloud from coming through.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love sunshine, and am glad that we in Texas are fortunate enough to have lots of it. I think I would grow quite morose and even suicidal if I had to live in, say, Seattle or Tacoma, where it’s always some sort of overcast, drizzly, mold-producing day outside, no matter the season.

But, then again, I can see the flip side of that line James Taylor wrote in “Fire and Rain,” the one which says, “I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.” Too much of anything, without change, ad infinitum, can be too darn much.

When I walk or drive around Waco these days, I feel as if I am living in the science project of some unseen giant child, with a 150-watt bulb turned forever toward the cobbled-together diorama below (“Can High Doses of UV Rays Make Texan Little People Turn Homicidal?”) When I walk outside, my retinas are immediately bushwacked by blinding rays of light that even my Blues Brothers-strength shades cannot fully temper. I am forced to walk around with my hand constantly forming a shelf over my eyes, like a pose of some lovesick movie heroine looking out to sea, awaiting the return of her long lost love.

At 5 p.m., when I drive toward home, the unblinking sun is just above the horizon, which means that when I navigate the long road that leads to my house, I must stare straight into the inferno’s very heart for what seems like eternity. By the time I pull into my driveway, half blind with pulsing spots floating across my vision, I feel as though I can relate to criminal suspects who must endure police interrogations in small rooms from corrupt detectives armed with loose ethics and extremely high wattage.

I am thankful that we in Texas aren’t being literally burned up, like the poor people of Southern California are. I am thankful that we are all not covered with a musty green fur like the people in a Seattle coffee shop. I am thankful for the cool breezes and colorful leaves of a Texas autumn.

But I want my clouds back. Now. Before I have to invest in a cane and a well-trained dog.

What it is, is Waco

All great endeavors have beginnings, and so must this new blog titled “Adventures in Waco.” But what is this? Who is creating it, and what does it promise you, the reader?

First, a quick disclaimer about myself, this blog’s creator. I may change my mind later on down the road, but at this point I prefer to remain anonymous. This is not a reflection on the character of the Wacoans who might read what I write (for example, I do not fear being tarred and feathered by an angry mob of people holding torches and pitchforks and then run out of town, all for making less than fawning comments that someone living here might take issue with), but more a reflection of my personality. I’m not the type who tells you their life story the first time I meet you. We have to get to know each other a bit better before I drop my guard.

Now, I’m not new to the blogosphere. In 2005, I started a personal blog that I ran hot and heavy with for a full year or so. After all those posts, the pressure of trying to come up with interesting and amusing daily content got to me, and I just plain hit the wall. I contributed a few sporadic posts after that, but my most recent one was in January of this year, and I don’t forsee going back there anytime soon.

I still miss a number of things about blogging, however, and for some unknown reason — possibly the onset of cold weather here along the Brazos forcing me indoors for extended periods — I found myself on the WordPress site, clicked on “Create Your Own Blog,” and here I am.

What do I have in mind for Adventures in Waco? I think the title says it all. I chose it carefully because it’s flexible, in that just about everything I do or think could theoretically fit inside such a big tent. In the beginning, however, I want to show people some of the things I come across in my journeys around Waco and share my thoughts about them. As we progress, I’ll probably say more about myself, but my main goal right now is to show off this city I’ve lived in for almost 20 years.

Oh, yeah. What about me? Let’s just say that I both live and work in Waco, am a native Texan, and look forward to our future together in cyberspace.