Welcome to the online home of me, some guy given the name John Cleveland Payne. In the grand scheme of life, I am just another guy with another blog. But to myself, and hopefully to all of you who actually read this, I am something a little more special. From a young age, I fell in love of the idea of ‘the message’ and medium in which you try to transmit.
Basically, everyone has a message to give to the world. Some are basic, some complex, some have the power to up lift and some are just out there to bring as many people down as possible. But everyone has a message, and most people have problems identifying their message. And the ones who get that far can seem to figure out how to get the world to listen.
Well, I have a message, and this is where I will get a chance to share it. Hopefully, you’ll get plenty of things to keep you motivated or inspired, provide knowledge and comfort, and just have a little fun. Apologies for the state of flux and state of seemingly confusing messages that you’ll get here for a while, as I am doing a lot of personal soul searching, and scrubbing of old ideas to take the best of the past to build a new beginning.
In 2007, I changed the name of blog from “The Mis-Adventures Of The Jazzy Cool One” to “Life In Fast Forward.” I began to tear down old blogs and newsletters and try to find places for them here. My goal is to take the focus off of me the person, and show the world the life I live and share with every human on the planet. I aspire to life at a very high standard, and instead of dealing with people who rather slow us down, I want to find ways to help people pick up there own pace. As you get to see an insight to the further adventures I hope to lead, hopefully you’ll enjoy the ride, and want to come along.
Other things
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Other things
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Love is not in the air. At least not in an amount great enough to overshadow hate, mistrust, and celebrity boredom. Just days after the announcement of the freakishly weird marriage of Demi & Ashton, word of C-List stars of "One Tree Hill" Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush giving up after five months and D-List diva Kathy Griffin splitting up after 4 years of marriage with her husband Matt Moline.
My favorite television faith healer is apparently not a favorite of California first lady Maria Shriver. This story I found at the online version of The Cleveland Plain Dealer spins a tell of self-infactuation and diva-ness by the bald TV psychologist when asked to speak at an obesity forum hosted by Shriver a week ago.
You're always taking chances when you allow anonomous comments to be posted to your blog. I've already told you about the weird postings I keep getting from what I'm sure is some sort of bot autoposter to an old blog I'm just to lazy to delete. But just who's stoping my this active blog?
Hello, Just wanted you to know that someone saw your Blog. My anorexia site that deals with tips tricks to anorexia gets only a few visitors some days...good job on your site.
and . . .
Hello, I have a Wedding Programs site. It has Wedding Programs stuff.Pay a visit sometime.
Remember, the contents of websites submitted by comment posters are not condoned by the publisher of this blog. In fact, I'm more than a little creeped out by the lengths some people would go to if it get a little pub and made a few extra bucks.
Hurricane Rita did a number on Texas, Louisiana, and surprisingly, Arkansas. Southern Arkansas has around 60,000 customers out of power as of this posting, and the new devastation in cities like Beaumont, TX and Lake Charles, LA have been seen all over TV today.
What is amazing is how we remember people in time of trouble that we just don't seem to think about until it is time to send out Christmas cards. My parents received a flood (no pun intended) of phone calls about them as everyone saw the satellite map of the storm floating over North Louisiana. Then the calls came in about me when Little Rock, Arkansas popped up on those maps.
I am just as guilty. I thought about some family friends who live in Houston, Tim and Kazan, and there kids, only to find when I called my mom that they were right there. Tim resided over my Oath of Office when I got my commission into the Air Force almost 8 years ago, and I barely think about the guy.
For all my problems, and I do have real problem to deal with, it's be tough trying to keep my life in perspective, and I have always be bad at picking the wrong people to try to keep in touch with over time. Yes, it takes a tragedy to get people to figure out these things, but don't know the messenger if the message gets through.
To alleviate some of the garbage in my hectic schedule, one of my favorite blogs, News On A Slow News Day, has been deleted. I'm sure if I posted in it more that 3 times a month, It might have been missed.
"Natural Disaster, The Sequel" seems to be coming along much better that the original, as President Bush is publicly stating his pleasure the relief efforts in the early dealing in the after math of Hurrican Rita. It is currently about 18 hours after initial land fall, and while we don't have the full view of damage, we know of serious flooding in Port Arthur, TX and Lake Charles, LA. And of course, before the eye of the storm was even 12 hours from landfall, the severe rain caused a breach in the weakened New Orleans levees, and the 9th Ward was flooded again.
Greed can be good, but obvious greed mixed with a pinch of arrogance and way to much stupidity will send even the most untouchable of business people to jail when they get a hold of the right tip.
Today's perp-walk equals up to up to 25 years in prison, and the man in cuffs is Steve Ballmer, um, I mean Dennis Kozlowski, former Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive, for looting his company. (I get Ballmer and Kozlowski confused . . . and if you can't figure out that joke, there's no reason to even explain it . . .)
Dennis Kozlowski, along with his former chief financial officer, Mark Swartz, were convicted in June in a New York court, where judges have more sentencing flexibility than their federal counterparts.
I got a chance to see Martha Stewart's new daytime show, 'Martha,' last week as she was celebrating her mother's birthday. I found mom to be charming and entertaining. I found the show to be boring and a complete waste of my time.
I'm in a holding pattern, waiting on my daily after-show meeting for First News, so instead of getting into any real work, I figured I take a quick look on the news wires and work on keeping my blogging streak alive. The first strike of the day is a story on an AP-TV Guide poll that found what most people have been saying for years, people say they've had about enough of the reality shows and talk shows crowding the airwaves.
When I planned on making this post about two hours ago, I had something profound and clever for you to read. At least I hope I did, because after two hours I am finally able to log in . . . and I have completely forgotten what I wanted to write about. All I remember was that is was both funny and informative, and would have drawn dozens of comments to my blog as to just how brilliant I am.
I was able to keep myself busy while I was forgetting the point of grandeur I wanted to post on by working on some web page stuff. I took an impromptu weekend off from the Central Arkansas Katrina Relief Page I am doing for my company as some inspiration hit me for my own web project that I can never seem to get off the ground. Part of my weekend procrastination on the Katrina page is that it has grown so chock full of information that I need to redo the whole thing in order to keep it organized and useful. Meanwhile, my being cut back to just producing the morning news on the radio leaves me with not only more time to do a better job at producing and booking for just one show, but more time to actually work on the station/company web page during my actual work hours (instead of my insomniac hours at home where I should be trying to sleep), and ironically, time to research for personal writing and blogging. Maybe I will find a way to publish all 6 (I think) of the blogs I have, write for all 8 (I think) of the newsletters I have, and kick off this web site/online magazine (I'm pretty sure I've only committed to one of those) once and for all.
As my wife and stepson sit in the other room watching a boot leg DVD of Disney's "Song of the South." This 1946 combination live-action/animation film that was "quietly retired" in the US in 1986 because of its unrealistic depiction of the post-Civil War "Reconstruction" era, and the various rumors of what is and isn't depicted in the movie that can and can't be seen as racist and derogatory. But images of past cinema is not the race debate for tonight. Tonight, we're still focusing on New Orleans, and the race debate that has come straight to life thanks to Hurricane Katrina and some poor decisions by a gaggle of politicians that caused a lot of problem with evacuation and aid in the area.
I've decided to post links to commentary by Michael Graham, Jack Shafer, Rich Lowry, and Randall Robinson, but that is not from a lack of available commentary. Yes, rapper Kanye West did say "George Bush doesn't care about black people," on live TV. Yes, former First Lady Barbara Bush probably shouldn't have talked about the "underprivileged" flood evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston now actually were a step up from their pre-Katrina life, which people will read in as black people. And very true, the focus of coverage had the camera pointed on the majority of the poor people being evacuated out of New Orleans, the city, which seemed to be black, while a lot of the poor whites out in the suburbs are just now seeing aid and helicopters.
But it's not true that poor black were going cannibalize to stay alive during the floods. Stories of gang rapes at the convention center were exaggerated. Some people who have heard yet another mandatory evacuation are still refusing to leave, for a bevy of reasons, and they now have a better place to go. The levies were not blown up by the government to flood the poor areas as a way to save the French Quarter.
And George Bush probably doesn't hate black people. I'm not so sure about how much he cares about poor people, but we'll deal with that one later . . .
The big discussion on race is yet to come in this country, and this isn't the event that needs to spark it. We've got enough real problem to deal with, and a real disaster to clean up, that freakish rumors that do absolutely nothing but scare those who need to be caught up in drama the least will do nothing but confused the issue, and push back any true discussion.
I haven't been getting a lot of work done, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. All my free time and most of my time at work and with my family has been attached to gathering information for our local efforts for evacuees that have found there way to Little Rock and Central Arkansas. Between answering phones to take information, running radio remotes for my full 8 hours I'm running the board, and trying my best to get information updated on the website I created to keep the information current for the public, life has been hectic.
Dealing with this hurricane has been a crazy experience. Working for a news/talk radio station, and working in both the news that turns into commentary and the talk that turns into information, sometimes the line of what to say and when get garbled. People are blaming everyone on what happened and why. The hosts are getting blasted for being too-liberal or too-conservative or just not knowing when to shut up in the minds of the listeners. Arkansas are complaining because a guy from Indiana is trying to convey information about New Orleans, and he is butchering some of the names and places. People from New Orleans are used to people butchering those names, and are singing the host's praises for getting the information to them. Food drives and water drives and cash drives and the point of saturation when you end up with to much information and too much help.
How many volunteers does it take before people start getting in the way? It depends on the effort and what you have to offer. Donating cash is easy and can get pretty much anything a volunteer organization can use. Human, well, as some point too many humans will start to take up too much space. A lot of our callers were ready to load up there trucks with gas cans and head to New Orleans. A caller told me he was organizing a group of fishermen who were going to take there bass boats and get to work doing whatever they can. It is heart-warming, even if it might be a little short sided at time.
And scams. I almost posted one online offering medicine for people in need. That was the only one that really got past me, but I'm sure more are coming. Especially when people start to get to work cleaning and rebuilding in the gulf.
I feel better now that I have my short rant. I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to catch up and explain missing 3 days worth of newsletters (and the surprise loss of my jazzycoolworld.com domain! Damn those shady web host who DON'T transfer you domain name . . . ), but I'll figure that out later today.
