Category Archives: Unpacking The Writer

Truth, Justice, and the ‘Merkin Spelling ► Unpacking The Writer

A recent meme about Emperor Trump’s payoff pick to head the Department of Education made me literally laugh out loud, or LLOL.

Long time readers know Unpacking the Writer as a semi-regular feature at the Not Now Silly Newsroom. Adressing new readers: It’s never is not about politics. However, this time I’m using politics to reveal the jumping-off point for this Unpacking. *

A meme quickly circled the information superhighway (which is more like a roundabout at times like these) after an internet wag corrected an ass-kissing tweet sent out by Betsy DeVos, Trump’s choice to oversee edjumacation for the entire country. There are many reasons why she’s totally unqualified for the job, not the least of which is this:

 

I felt the need to pass it along because it was simply HIGH-LARRY-US!

My quip at the bottom — what I think of as added value when I’m sharing — was based on an earlier meme. On his very first day in office Emperor Trump couldn’t spell “honerd” [sic] in one of his world famous tweets. It was eventually deleted (possibly breaking the Presidential Records Act) and reposted correctly, but only after the Unclothed Emperor was roasted on social media.

TRUMP VOTERS: Canada is that big place above ‘Merka

But, I digress. This isn’t about politics. It’s about being a writer from Canada. [You can read the entire discussion HERE]. Since I like nothing better than quoting myself:

When I first moved to Canada, all my editors would go crazy because I spelled [my words] ‘Merkin. It took a while, but I trained myself to spell properly to teh [sic] point that the Globe and Mail once printed my Letter to the Editor excoriating them for dropping all the “U”s in what they claimed was a way to save ink.

No. Really.

My complaint was that they could define their internal style guide any way they want, what they could not do is rename Harbourfront as Harborfront. [FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked at Harbourfront at the time.]

Anyway…I now type this way without thinking. When I have to type ‘Merkin ’cause I’m quoting one, my fingers stutter over it until I get it. It’s not smooth at all.

Bottom line: I don’t think I can type “humour” without the “U” automatically ever again.

There are other consequences to typing Canadian.

Recently I was wrestling with some simple HTML code and, no matter how many times I tried, I could not get it to format properly. I’d delete the tag, move the tag so it wasn’t nested in a tag, remove the tag from the nested tag, rewrite the tag, and nothing I did worked.

Until I realized I had been spelling it <centre>.

Similar happens when I use Der Googalizer to search for theatres, because that’s how I spell it. At least one no longer needs the exact case and spelling in search engines, the way it was in the olden days when I wrote for We Compute.

Not that it’s Canadian, per se, but I’m not giving up my Oxford comma either.

Look closely. There’s a divot in the shift key.

Tangentially, when I transitioned from typewriter to computer it took me a long time to give up the double space between sentences, as editors required back in the day. Occasionally, when I get into a Zen stream of unconsciousness, I’ll still hit the spacebar twice, but not that often anymore. I’ve also never adapted to how lightly one can hit an electronic keyboard and still form words. I bang the keys so hard that I’ve worn off the letters on every one I’ve ever owned. It’s a good thing I know where it stores the alphabet. Recently my sister needed to use my keyboard and it took her a few minutes to get acclimated.

However, when I went fully online and digital in 1988, far earlier than many, I embraced everything else about being able to make words out of electrons. I embraced CUT & PASTE most of all. To be fair: I always did cut & paste. In my typewriter days I would literally rip and move paragraphs around before typing a new, clean copy.

That was then. This is now. Paragraphs in this have been moved around.

Speaking of the Newsroom. How do you like the new look?

As long-time readers can attest: Before the New Year, Not Now Silly looked very different. We built a new site from the ground up. While the old site is still THERE, all of that material has been transferred here for your reading pleasure. However, it wasn’t without a few hiccups. One that I am finding frustrating — and the entire IT team is working on it — is that the archival posts were given a new date, the date they were transferred over here.

Another source of frustration is that some of the formatting from the old posts to the new ones are messed up. Worse yet, I recently learned that going back and fixing them — because they offend my OCD — changes the published date to teh day the page is updated. It must be related to the problem above. Until IT can tell me how to make a date stick, I guess I’ll have to live with it these 2 problems. But, they will be solved eventually.

As long time readers also know: I often use UtW to humblebrag about my discerning audience, and today will be no exception.

I am quite pleased with the posts that readers have elevated to the top of TODAY’S TOP TEN and ALL TIME TOP TEN (found in the right column on the front page) since launching the new, improved site.

Judging from the limited analytics we get so far (another thing the IT department is researching) reader faves seem to be the Monday Musical Appreciation, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and my Manifestos. Expect to see more Manifestos because — not only do they seem popular and I always give my readers what they want, unless I don’t want to — but I am getting angrier at Emperor Trump and what’s coming out of the White House, which has never been whiter, if you know what I mean. [Supremacist, if you don’t.]

Something I find very odd. While the ALL TIME list keeps changing, Roy Head has consistently held down the #3 spot, ever since it was posted. I can’t explain that and it feels like a glitch.

Speaking of glitches: Is there a law suit in my future? Seeing Tom Falco Libels Me Again. Then Runs Away as the #4 ALL TIME post gratifies me and reminds me that I need to use one of the 3 phone numbers of lawyers passed along unbidden by 3 separate people who read it. Eenie, meenie, miney, Moe. Was his name Moe?

Tom, if you’re reading this (and word gets back to me that you can quote me verbatim) all you ever needed to do — and still can do, for that matter — is retract your statements that I threatened you and a Miami Herald reporter. Deleting them doesn’t count. You might want to seriously consider that option because contingency lawyers salivate at the words “trust fund baby.” It might also be fun to subpoena the Herald.

Never mind, Tom. Stick to your lack of journalistic principles.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to cut this short, even tho’ there’s more I wanted to say. I’m prepping for another community meeting on the restoration of the Coconut Grove Playhouse. [Read: The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse; Part I, Part II.] I didn’t write about the last meeting because, quite frankly, I was underwhelmed. While I asked a question during the public comment segment, but I didn’t have the information at my fingertips to rebut the answer. That will be part of today’s prep. I want to be ready this time.

And, if I’m not underwhelmed, I may even write about it.

* As sometimes happens, this essay started as a comment elsewhere. This is an expanded version of those original, initial, thoughts.

We All Compute ► Throwback Thursday

As I downsize the condo, I have discovered some amazing buried treasures, like my old business card.

It was tucked into my mother’s address book on the end table in the Florida Room, which I left as a small, bizarre memorial to her after she died 11 years ago. That’s when I moved to Florida to take care of Pops. I had never looked inside before. The card must have meant something to her because there were very few business cards inside. Or, she just just stuck it there when I sent it to her and promptly forgot all about it.

In the Go-Go ’90s, I was a columnist for We Compute. We Compute was, just like television, designed to be a conduit for advertising to the masses, with the content almost an afterthought. Like most of my freelance writing it started by studying the publication in question and then pitching the editor, who I had never met, an idea.

The pitch was simple:  How about a column on how to navigate the World Wide Web?

Sounds stupid, right? Yes, in retrospect it does sound that way. However, at the time it was a stroke of brilliance. Today getting around the web is second nature to people of all ages, but at the time it was neither easy, nor intuitive.

Those were the days when most of the population had yet to hear the words “World Wide Web” and “Information Superhighway.” Computers were not yet ubiquitous. A vast majority of households still did not have a computer. Of those that did a vast majority were not even connected to the interwebs. Those that were connected had to deal with spotty dial-up service on phone lines that would disconnect in the middle of a giant file download. [When I was your age…] Online veterans, of which I was already, were beginning to dump their 300 baud modems for 1200 and 2400, speeds that seemed fast as lightening compared to what we had been used to. Internet cable still didn’t yet exist.

Web browsers were still pretty new and Netscape quickly became the preferred way to get around the World Wide Web. These were also the days when trying to find what you wanted was next to impossible. There were a lot of interesting web pages being created, and one could spend hours upon hours wandering around, but the navigation — the lack of road signs on the early superhighway — would get you lost almost every time. One of the only choices for a search engine was AltaVista. If you didn’t spell something properly, or use the exact upper and lower case, it would kick up no results, or bad results, or funny results.

After a while I wrote about whatever I wanted, not just web navigation

So, I created a column pitch that I thought was a no-brainer. Every month I’d write a column giving We Compute readers little tips and tricks to navigate their way around the web and then highlight some web pages they may not have ever discovered on their own. My editor was also a no-brainer. He did not see my vision and had to be convinced that it was a good idea.

Then he named my column Web Headly, which I never thought was a good idea.

IRONY ALERT: Even though I was writing a monthly column about the internet, once a month I would have to save my article onto a 3 inch floppy drive and then trek the 11 miles across town by transit, a trip that would involve a streetcar, transferring to the subway, transferring to another subway line, and then a trolley bus to the We Compute offices. With luck I could be there in an hour, but if there were any delays, it could take me as much as 2.5 hours.

Incidentally, that’s where I first met Roxanne Tellier, whose writing I have followed ever since. She’s also become a very dear friend over the years and I get to see her whenever I visit Toronto.

Making Friends Wherever I Go ► Unpacking the Writer

I proudly wear this t-shirt

First the big news: The NEW and IMPROVED Not Now Silly Newsroom will open to the general public on January 1, 2017. Check out the teaser.

Yes, folks, we’re going the dot com route.

Excitement and trepidation fills the newsroom as we finally get our own domain name. As longtime readers of NNS can attest, this has been a long time coming, with some speed bumps and roadblocks along the way. Over the last few weeks the dedicated and underpaid NNS staff has been busy preparing for the move to our shiny new digs. We’ve carefully bubble-wrapped all of the 952 published posts (and the 45 stories still in draft form) from our vast archives to ensure they do not break during shipping. They were lovingly packed into boxes to await the moving men, expected any day now.

One of the things NNS will lose when we abandon this joint are the stats, so let’s take what may be our last look at one of the numbers we’ve run up over here. It amazes me that almost a half a million people have traipsed across the NNS threshold to read what I have to say. Unless it was 1 person visiting 472,851 times. I’m gratified and just a little intimidated. The more people who trust my writing, the more NNS feels the responsibility to publish the truth (as we see it). I understand there are posts here that don’t really merit serious attention. The Monday Musical Appreciation and Throwback Thursday, f’rinstance. They’re kind of filler between the important stories.

District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell at tent city

Pic shared by Nene MainMarri Coats on Facebook

However, there are NNS posts that I not only want people to take seriously, but to also share all over the innertubes. My recent post, Intense Intents in Tents about the Housing for All Miami protest in Coconut Grove, is one of them. It’s the third post in the Unpacking Grand Avenue series, with several more in the works. I was thrilled that Commissioner Russell felt my post was worthy of sharing with his constituents. I was also thrilled to learn that he slept in one of the protest tents on Sunday night.

Not only is Grand Avenue a slow-motion humanitarian crisis, it is Exhibit A in my prosecution of rapacious developers who are only interested in lining their own pockets at the expense of the poor and disenfranchised folk, who are about to be gentrified out of the historic Bahamian enclave that was unique in this country because it had, at one time, the highest percentage of Black home ownership that anywhere else in the country.

Which brings me to why this post is titled Making Friends Wherever I Go. That’s sarcasm, folks.

In the last several days I’ve managed to piss off a lot of people, beginning with some of the folks who attended the Grove 2030 charrette on Saturday who seem to think I called them racist. I’m having a polite dialogue with one gent on Commissioner Russell’s facebookery, but I’m in no mood to be polite.

That’s because of the fight I am still having with the City of Miami’s Public Records Office. It was all I could do not to respond to the latest outrage with every 4-letter word I know. I’ve been CCing the entire world on our email chain, so I’m not sure how many of them will continue to take my calls.

This month’s Top Five

Then there’s Tom Falco of the Coconut Grove Grapevine. I had no doubt he’d be angry over Coconut Grove Grapevine, Stop the Lies! I’m just surprised he told so many people because he must know, by now, that people talk to me. He should have spent some of that time correcting his lie and changing his mendacious slogan.

None of that can really spoil the good mood I’m in because my post on the Housing for All protest has become the fastest growing post of all time in the Not Now Silly Newsroom. Closing in on 600 hits in just 3 days makes me hopeful that moving to our own domain is the right thing to do.

Something I’ve always maintained about the Not Now Silly Newsroom since the very beginning: I don’t know what people want. Therefore, I really don’t write to please anyone but myself. I go with the philosophy that what is of interest to me will be of interest to others, and some more than others. Not every post here will please everybody, but that’s never been the point. The point is to share knowledge, shine light on neglected and forgotten topics, and learn. Hopefully, that will bring the eyeballs that will make going dot com worth it.

I want to send out a big Thank You Very Much to all my loyal readers who are taking the journey with me.

Take it from Kevin Ayers, our most recent Monday Musical Appreciation:

After I Left College ► Throwback Thursday

At different times I worked for both companies named
on this plaque: Record Week and Island Records Canada.

“Some people say” if you haven’t unpacked a box in a few years, you should give it away. If I did I would have lost stuff like this. These two plaques, newly rediscovered, tell the backstory of my life.

While I was going to Sheridan College of Applied Arts and Technology in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, the two things I played with most, when I wasn’t finding new ways to hoodwink my instructors:

  • Station Manager at Radio Sheridan;
  • Editor of A Student Magazine.

At the latter I wotked with artist Matthew Rust (who I’ve reconnected with recently on the facebookery) and Martin Herzog. Soon afterwards Marty and I started Zoundz Magazine, a little giveaway found next to the cash registers at Toronto area record stores. Soon we were taking advertising from the majors and adding pages to what had been a one-sheet folded cleverly. I was writer and editor and Marty had the business plan. However, in the end the business plan was that Marty would keep moving up, partnerships be damned.

He came to me one day and said that he was approached by Concert Productions International to take over Cheap Thrills, the house organ for members of the Cheap Thrills Club, in which membership had its privileges. Among them was to be first in line for concerts before tickets went on sale to the general public along with other perks. I followed Marty over to Cheap Thrills as Editor, but we were never partners after that.

Marty had his eyes on even bigger game than that.

One day he came to me, handed me a small pile of records, and told me that he had promised positive capsule reviews on them all. I argued that that’s not how record reviews work. I was young and dumb and had journalistic integrity. [I am no longer young.] Eventually, he told me that either I would write them or he’d find someone who would from the stable of writers we had started building. I told him that I would write the reviews, but to not put me in that position again.

No one ever noticed, but those 3 record reviews never once mentioned the music. I reviewed the covers, the producer, session musicians, whatever I could get away with. In one I actually reviewed the quality of the vinyl, wondering where it was pressed.

The next month Marty did the same thing and I quit on the spot. Yes, I walked away from a company owned by the man who went on to mount Rolling Stone tours, Broadway shows, and personally kick Donald Trump out of his own buildings. It’s a great story that ends thusly:

But, anyway, the bottom line is I look at Donald and said, “You and Marla (Maples) have to go.

You’re fired.” He looks at me and goes berserk.


“You don’t know anything! Your guys suck! I promote Mike Tyson! I promote heavyweight fights!”

And I notice the three shtarkers he’s with, in trench coats, two of them are putting on gloves and the other one is putting on brass knuckles. I go on the walkie-talkie and I call for Jim Callahan, who was head of our security, and I go, “Jim, I think I’m in a bit of trouble.” And he says, “Just turn around.”


I turn around. He’s got 40 of the crew with tire irons and hockey sticks and screwdrivers.

“And now, are you gonna go, Donald?”

And off he went.

And that was the night I fired Donald Trump.

I don’t know who Marty promised positive reviews to and I never asked. However, all 3 records were from CBS, where Marty later found a job. Isn’t that convenient? Bygones be bygones, once he landed at CBS, he’d hire me to write the salesmen one-sheets, the occasional band biography, and the words to populate entire promotional campaigns.

After all, freelance writing work is freelance writing work.

Other related stories:

The Officials’ Story
The Day I Met Bob Marley
Me and Pink Floyd and
Ivor Wynne Stadium

When I left Cheap Thrills I immediately landed at Record Week, a Canadian music industry trade publications that not only went out to every radio station, record store, and player in the business in Canada, but was also subscribed to by movers and shakers in the U.S. and around the world. My masthead title read Concert and Gig Guide Editor.

To be honest, I wasn’t at Record Week very long when I got a great offer to become part time Campus Record Promoter for Island Records Canada. This happened right about the same time I finished my 3rd year at Sheridan College (all of the above was extracurricular). I moved to Toronto, to live in the basement of the house on Bedford Road where Island Records had its Canadian Headquarters (and the only office in the country).

To be honest, I wasn’t at Island Records very long when I got a better offer from United Artists Records Canada to replace Pete Taylor, a legend in Canadian record promo. The pay was stunning to me, having just left school, where I had been surviving on student loans and a part-time McDonald’s job. [There’s a story I should tell one day.]

To be honest, I wasn’t at United Artists very long. I had climbed too high, too fast. I wasn’t ready for Big Time Record Promo™. On my 89th day I was called into the Vice President’s office and fired on the spot. Had they waited another 2 days, after my 90 day probationary period, they would have had to pay severance.

I went back to Island Records with my tail between my legs and I was taken back with open arms. There I finally learned the music promotion business.

Here’s the punchline: In the period between working for Island Records and returning to Island Records, Record Week decided to surprise me with that year’s Taking Care of Business Award. Apparently I had worked for Record Week for so short a time that they misspelled my name on the award.

I eventually went on to manage bands, write for a variety of publications (mostly non-music related) and spent a decade as a News Writer at Citytv. I have also had a lifelong love affair with music. This Throwback Thursday is dedicated to the time in my life when I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I chose ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Crank it up and D A N C E ! ! !

Rebuilding A Life From The Ground Up ► Unpacking The Writer

Good news, Not Now Silly fans. The Newsroom is making a second attempt at creating a brand new web site under its very own domain.

I’ve now seen the latest test of the format, which I like a lot. It’s very clean and uncluttered. Furthermore, the design will make it far easier for my readers to find all of the stories under the various rubrics I have created. Having signed off on the basic design, I have now asked my web designer (who I have taken on as a full partner) to populate the template with real words (my words) as opposed to all that fake text used as placeholders in the WordPress template.

One of the mistakes I made the last time I tried this was promising too much, too quickly. And, that was before my then-web designer totally fucked me over. Then he refused to return my deposit, which I consider theft. [Read: Webbitez Bitez ► A Consumer Report].

This time I won’t over-promise anything. COMING SOON is the most I will say.

I’m still trying to find the rhythm of my new life, now that Pops has gone to live in Michigan. I took care of him for 11 years, the longest I lived anywhere since I lived on King Street in Toronto. Without Pops in the condo, it feels so lonely and empty. Pops took up a lot of space, even though he wasn’t very big. There are times I actually think, for a brief moment, that I hear him calling me from the living room.

The Top Ten search terms that
got people to Not Now Silly.

I’ve still not gotten used to having the entire condo to myself. When home I find myself spending most of my time in my room watching tee vee — just like I always have — even tho’ there are bigger and better tee vees in the other rooms. Heck, there are bigger rooms and more comfy beds elsewhere in the condo, for that matter. Yet, I am still stuck behind this same keyboard in the very same place in my bedroom, in the same condo, in the same Florida city, in the same country.

Additionally, and no less important, my Cosmic Love Affair dissolved at practically the same time. [Read: Before and After Synchronicity, another in my Pastoral Letter series.] Suddenly, the two things that were the gravitational pull in my life were gone. To mix metaphors, I feel like a tether-ball spinning helplessly out of control after my rope broke. 

None of this is helping my depression.

All of my rhythms are off, especially my writing schedule, which I keep trying to get back to. I’ve neglected Monday Musical Appreciation and Throwback Thursday since I embarked on my last road trip. Maybe promising right here, right now, that I’ll re-fire the boiler under the Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic will help me resolve to pick those up again. As careful readers will see I’ve already started.

What else have I written lately? Just a few important articles, that’s all. I discovered that parts of Armbrister Field were closed because of toxic soil, even though I attended the ribbon cutting a few years back that was supposed to demonstrate that the park was safe. Why wasn’t the toxic soil cleaned up back then? Why was there such a rush to get this park reopened if there was actually toxic soil in it? To that end I launched a Freedom of Information Act request for material on a number of topics surrounding these items.

When it turned Kafkaesque — almost immediately — I posted An Open Reply To Miami’s Public Records Department. While there has already been a response from the city, it doesn’t really
answer my most important question and prompts a new one. I’m not prepared to make the reply public — yet.
However, we’ll see where this goes.

If you can’t help, share. Or do both.

BTW: I have also started a Go Fund Me page to help offset some of the costs incurred researching and writing these stories. Aside from having to pay the City of Miami for each document search, there’s also the per page photocopying fee on top of that. And, the Freedom Of Information requests are just one of the many expenses for Not Now Silly. There’s gas, of course. Coconut Grove is 35 miles from where I live. And, virtually every time I go there I have to pay for parking. It all adds up.

I have one investigative story in the pipeline that I’ve been working on since early June. I’ve never been 100% happy with how it’s shaped, so I keep kicking at it here and there. Recently there’s been some stories in the news that’ll force an update to this article anyway. Now I need to decide whether I will continue to get this draft in the appropriate shape this one, or just start from scratch.

Closing in a half a million page views since launching the Not Now Silly Newsroom

Since my last Unpacking the Writer (almost a monthly series) I have also written a new chapter in my never-ending search for Don Knotts‘ roots, and added another Pastoral Letter, my continued search for where my spirituality comes from if I am a stone cold atheist. I’m not so sure anyone else cares, but I am finding out a whole lot about myself because I’m asking questions.

Just this moment, as I was finishing the final edit to this post before sending it off into the electronic ether to turn it into a page, I came to a new realization about spirituality that will become my next Pastoral Letter. It may also contain my latest Mea Culpa.

Stay tuned . . .

Rebuilding A Life From The Ground Up ► Unpacking The Writer

Good news, Not Now Silly fans. The Newsroom is making a second attempt at creating a brand new web site under its very own domain.

I’ve now seen the latest test of the format, which I like a lot. It’s very clean and uncluttered. Furthermore, the design will make it far easier for my readers to find all of the stories under the various rubrics I have created. Having signed off on the basic design, I have now asked my web designer (who I have taken on as a full partner) to populate the template with real words (my words) as opposed to all that fake text used as placeholders in the WordPress template.

One of the mistakes I made the last time I tried this was promising too much, too quickly. And, that was before my then-web designer totally fucked me over. Then he refused to return my deposit, which I consider theft. [Read: Webbitez Bitez ► A Consumer Report].

This time I won’t over-promise anything. COMING SOON is the most I will say.

I’m still trying to find the rhythm of my new life, now that Pops has gone to live in Michigan. I took care of him for 11 years, the longest I lived anywhere since I lived on King Street in Toronto. Without Pops in the condo, it feels so lonely and empty. Pops took up a lot of space, even though he wasn’t very big. There are times I actually think, for a brief moment, that I hear him calling me from the living room.

The Top Ten search terms that
got people to Not Now Silly.

I’ve still not gotten used to having the entire condo to myself. When home I find myself spending most of my time in my room watching tee vee — just like I always have — even tho’ there are bigger and better tee vees in the other rooms. Heck, there are bigger rooms and more comfy beds elsewhere in the condo, for that matter. Yet, I am still stuck behind this same keyboard in the very same place in my bedroom, in the same condo, in the same Florida city, in the same country.

Additionally, and no less important, my Cosmic Love Affair dissolved at practically the same time. [Read: Before and After Synchronicity, another in my Pastoral Letter series.] Suddenly, the two things that were the gravitational pull in my life were gone. To mix metaphors, I feel like a tether-ball spinning helplessly out of control after my rope broke. 

None of this is helping my depression.

All of my rhythms are off, especially my writing schedule, which I keep trying to get back to. I’ve neglected Monday Musical Appreciation and Throwback Thursday since I embarked on my last road trip. Maybe promising right here, right now, that I’ll re-fire the boiler under the Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic will help me resolve to pick those up again. As careful readers will see I’ve already started.

What else have I written lately? Just a few important articles, that’s all. I discovered that parts of Armbrister Field were closed because of toxic soil, even though I attended the ribbon cutting a few years back that was supposed to demonstrate that the park was safe. Why wasn’t the toxic soil cleaned up back then? Why was there such a rush to get this park reopened if there was actually toxic soil in it? To that end I launched a Freedom of Information Act request for material on a number of topics surrounding these items.

When it turned Kafkaesque — almost immediately — I posted An Open Reply To Miami’s Public Records Department. While there has already been a response from the city, it doesn’t really answer my most important question and prompts a new one. I’m not prepared to make the reply public — yet. However, we’ll see where this goes.

If you can’t help, share. Or do both.

BTW: I have also started a Go Fund Me page to help offset some of the costs incurred researching and writing these stories. Aside from having to pay the City of Miami for each document search, there’s also the per page photocopying fee on top of that. And, the Freedom Of Information requests are just one of the many expenses for Not Now Silly. There’s gas, of course. Coconut Grove is 35 miles from where I live. And, virtually every time I go there I have to pay for parking. It all adds up.

I have one investigative story in the pipeline that I’ve been working on since early June. I’ve never been 100% happy with how it’s shaped, so I keep kicking at it here and there. Recently there’s been some stories in the news that’ll force an update to this article anyway. Now I need to decide whether I will continue to get this draft in the appropriate shape this one, or just start from scratch.

Closing in a half a million page views since launching the Not Now Silly Newsroom

Since my last Unpacking the Writer (almost a monthly series) I have also written a new chapter in my never-ending search for Don Knotts‘ roots, and added another Pastoral Letter, my continued search for where my spirituality comes from if I am a stone cold atheist. I’m not so sure anyone else cares, but I am finding out a whole lot about myself because I’m asking questions.

Just this moment, as I was finishing the final edit to this post before sending it off into the electronic ether to turn it into a page, I came to a new realization about spirituality that will become my next Pastoral Letter. It may also contain my latest Mea Culpa.

Stay tuned . . .

A Magnificent Morning in Morgantown

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two years ago the Not Now Silly Newsroom featured a Special Travelogue during The 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research. After I published A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son, the search for Don Knotts‘ roots has became an annual tradition of my yearly Road Trips.

Through necessity The 4th Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research was hastily planned. At first it appeared as if there would be no Road Trip this year, but fate intervened to make it happen. With just a few days notice I contacted all the usual suspects, loaded up the car, cranked up the tunes, and headed for the open road.

This year’s Road Trip was my most ambitious. It would take me from Sunrise to Hamilton and Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Then I would swing through Detroit, which inevitably leads to Canton Township, not to mention Ann Arbor for another visit with Pastor Kenny. Then would come Elyria and Columbus, both in Ohio, before making my way back to Sunrise. However, my first official stop would be Morgantown, West Virginia, to visit with one of my anonymous sources.

I had already been motoring north, with a carefully planned itinerary that left nothing to chance, when I recieved an IM from my source for all Knotts Knews. I was still a day from Morgantown. My my host wrote: 

“If you can manage to stay in Morgantown a few hours Saturday, the Don Knotts statue is being dedicated at 10 am.”

To which I replied, “YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!”

A picture of the maquette taken 2 years ago with
the crack in the leg (under the elbow) clearly visible

In that post of 2 years ago I exposed how some unthinking tourist broke the maquette of Don Knotts at the Morgantown Visitors Center. Amazingly I said this back then:

This maquette is to become a larger-than-life statue of Don Knotts to be erected on the waterfront. Morgantown is hoping to create a whole day of it, whenever it is, with a dedication and unveiling. An entire weekend of Don Knotts Days might include parades, picnics, band concerts, beauty pageants, culminating in a massive fireworks display. I sure hope I’m invited to the event I just created in my head.

Now, amazingly, synchronicity had worked to make my invitation happen. 

I checked out the weather report and learned it would be hot and humid in Morgantown. The northeast had just entered another record-breaking heat spell.

I cranked up the tunes even louder and stepped on the gas, arriving early enough on Friday to take a gander at where the unveiling would happen.

In front of the Metropolitan Theatre: The brass star with the Don
Knotts statue all wrapped up waiting to be sprung on the world.

While I had been told the statue would have a place of honour at the waterfront, either I had been misinformed or there had been a change of plans in the intervening 2 years.

When I arrived in Morgantown the Don Knotts statue was all wrapped up in a blue tarp on Main Street, directly in front of the window at the Metropolitan Theatre. It’s just a few feet away from the brass star featured in the Not Now Silly Newsroom Follow-up, last year’s Don Knotts Is Back ► A Morgantown Update.

To be perfectly honest, I thought the front of the Met to be a far more appropriate location for Knotts’ statue. After all, this is where he got his start in the Professional Show Business with his ventriliquist dummy named Danny “Hooch” Matador.

Having scoped out the location, I retired for the night, filled with dreams of how Morgantown would honour its favourite son:

The parade would start at the waterfront with the Morgantown High School Brass Band leading the procession. It would wind its way past all those places important to Don Knotts, from his childhood home to where he bought his chewing gum. Baton twirlers launch their instruments high into the air, the sun glinting off the chrome as they spin higher and higher and, just before they are lost in the glare of the sun, drop back into the twirlers hands in perfect synchronization. Vintage cars of all descriptions separate the marching soldiers from the motorcycle police, with sirens blaring. And, bringing up the rear, a giant float with a 20 piece Steel Drum band. [It’s my fantasy and I love Steel Drum music.] As the entire shebang winds its way up Main Street, patriotic bunting flaps in the lazy breeze, while the sidewalks are jam-packed with people all holding up a single bullet.

The reality was much more prosaic.

Because downtown Morgantown is a maze of one way streets, it would have been difficult to close Main Street entirely, so only half the street was closed down. That meant that all during the ceremony there were cars passing behind us, some with loud music drowning out the speakers.

I remarked to my friend that this felt like Mayberry all growed up.

There was a cozy, small town, Mayberry feel to the whole festivities. Local raconteur Larry Nelson was Master of Ceremonies, keeping the crowd assembled on the blacktop in the swealtering 95 degree heat entertained as a delay kept Karen Knotts, Don’s daughter, from arriving on time. Mayor Marti Shamberger was there to pay tribute and give us a capsule biography of Knotts. John Pyles, one of his oldest friends and the man who led the fundraising to get the statue made, told stories of Don Knotts’ many visits back to Morgantown to decompress away from the Hollywood scene. Karen Knotts continued along that same theme, telling the assembled crowd about how much Morgantown meant to her father and what an important touchstone the town was to the family during visits.

Then sculptor Jamie Lester, who graciously granted me a few words before the festivities began, spoke abut how humbled he was to have been chosen to honour Knotts in this way and why the statue is not a representation of Barney Fife, the character he’s best remembered for. While he holds Barney Fife’s Deputy Sheriff cap, the statue is meant to represent the entire man.

Which led to the inevitable unveiling of the statue:

After the ceremony Karen Knotts performed her acclaimed one woman play “Tied Up In Knotts” — on the same stage that her father had once trod inside the Metropolitan Theatre — about growing up with a famous father.

Sadly, I couldn’t stay for Karen Knotts’ performance. Under my original plan I was to have left for Hamilton, Ontario at the break of dawn. I was already a half day behind schedule with a whole lot of road, not to mention a border crossing, still ahead of me.

However, as I drove towards the Peace Bridge I couldn’t help but sing this song:

A Man Without A Country ► Unpacking The Writer

, , , , , , ,
Edward Everett Hale

When I was in elementary school — back when they still taught Civics — one of my favourite short stories was The Man Without A Country, by Edward Everett Hale. These days, whenever I cross the border between Canada and the United States (as I did recently), I am reminded of this heart-breaking story.

SPOILER ALERT: It was many years after I first read it that I learned that The Man Without A Country is not a true story at all. It was a newly-minted (in 1863) allegory about patriotism and The Civil War, which was currently ripping the country apart.

None of that meant a thing to the young, unsophisticated, me. It felt true, like a good Onion story. Like a bad Michener novel, it was peopled with real folks. Like Citizen Kane, it is the story of one man piecing together the life of mysterious man. It would always bring me to tears. I can still remember the disappointment I felt when I discovered I had been hoodwinked by a brilliant writer.

The Man Without A Country was written as if the author had only just read an obituary of a little remembered figure in history and expounds on why this man should be remembered 50 years after the events described. The author relates how Philip Nolan, whose obit he stumbled across, had been friends with Aaron Burr and was tried for treason along with him in 1807. In a fit of pique Nolan renounces his country and proclaims, “I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” The judge sentences him to be put on board U.S. war ships, never allowed walk on U.S. soil again, nor could people tell him of news back home. The WikiWackyWoo picks up the story:

As it appeared in The Atlantic in 1863

Deprived of a homeland, Nolan slowly and painfully learns the true
worth of his country. He misses it more than his friends or family, more
than art or music or love or nature. Without it, he is nothing. Dying
aboard the USS Levant, he shows his room to an officer named Danforth; it is “a little shrine” of patriotism. The Stars and Stripes are draped around a picture of George Washington. Over his bed, Nolan has painted a bald eagle,
with lightning “blazing from his beak” and claws grasping the globe. At
the foot of his bed is an outdated map of the United States, showing
many of its old territories
that had, unbeknownst to him, been admitted to statehood. Nolan smiles,
“Here, you see, I have a country!” The dying man asks desperately to be
told the news of American history since 1807, and Danforth finally
relates to him almost all of the major events that have happened to the
U.S. since his sentence was imposed; the narrator confesses, however,
that “I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this
infernal rebellion.” Nolan then asks him to bring his copy of the Presbyterian Book of Public Prayer,
and read the page where it will automatically open. These are the
words: “Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless
Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in
authority.” Nolan says: “I have repeated those prayers night and
morning, it is now fifty-five years.” Every day, he had read of the
United States, but only in the form of a prayer to uphold its leaders;
the U.S. Navy had neglected to keep this book from him. This is the
supreme irony of the story. Nolan asks him to have them bury him in the
sea and have a gravestone placed in memory of him at Fort Adams, Mississippi or at New Orleans. When he dies later that day, he is found to have drafted a suitably patriotic epitaph
for himself: “In memory of PHILIP NOLAN, ‘Lieutenant in the Army of the
United States. He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but
no man deserved less at her hands.'”

Had I known when I first read the story that I would come to feel like Philip Nolan, The Man Without A Country, I may have cried all the harder back then.

Unlike Nolan, I have never renounced my ‘Merkin citizenship. I did, however, take up Canadian citizenship. To do so I swore an oath to “the Queen, her heirs and assigns” that I’d not vote, nor serve in the armed forces of another country. I take that oath seriously. Renunciation, on the other hand, is an overt act.

The only time my citizenship gets complicated is when I am crossing from Canada back into the United States. When I am going into Canada all I have to do is flash my Canadian Citizenship picture ID and — Bang! Zoom! — I’m in.

However, I’ve learned that coming back into ‘Merka it’s best that I don’t mention my Canadian citizenship if I can help it. When asked “citizen of what country” I answer truthfully. “United States” precisely because I have not renounced my citizenship. I learned a number of years ago that the United States does not recognize the concept of “dual citizenship” and claiming such only complicates matters at the border. Hoo boy! I am made to feel as if I am The Man Without A Country.


This 3rd filming of the story was a Made For TV
Movie. Earlier versions were filmed in 1917 and 1937.
The Monthly Top Ten

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Apologies to my regular readers who have noticed I’ve been neglecting Not Now Silly for the last little while. If you’ve been paying attention, you will know that Pops was hospitalized in June and spent 7 weeks there. More recently he was transferred to a rehab center, where he’s made amazing progress.

Then there was the 3 week Road Trip, details of which are still to come. I thought I would have time to update the Not Now Sill Newsroom while I was on the road, but there was so much to do that I never got around to unpacking the laptop.

Even though I’ve been away, the Not Now Silly Newsroom archive has had quite a workout. Here’s this month’s Top Ten. (The All Time Top Ten is in the column to the right.)

1. Who Is To Blame For The Destruction of the E.W.F. Stirrup House?
2. The 4th Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research
3. Javier Gonzalez Kicks Off His District 2 Campaign
4. Say Goodbye to the E.W.F. Stirrup House While You Still Can
5. The Detroit Riots ► Unpacking My Detroit ► Part Five
6. Coconut Grove in Black and White
7. Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?
8. Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son
9. Is Marc D. Sarnoff Corrupt Or The Most Corrupt Miami Politician?
10. Harry Nilsson ► Thursday (Here’s Why I Did Not Go To Work Today) ► A Musical Interlude

I’ve stoked the fires under the Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic and the Newsroom is back up and running full-tilt, balls out. I already have several stories in the pipeline that include: A brand new, exciting Don Knotts and Morgantown Update; another Pastoral Letter, following my most recent visit with my oldest childhood friend, Pastor Kenny, who has written a very important book; Notes From A Road Trip, which I’m still collating and trying to make sense of; and a long, involved investigative article about a Miami institution that I’ve been researching for almost 3 years and writing, on and off, since early June. There’s a just a small amount of research left on that one and it’ll be ready for prime time.

And, along the way, there will be some surprises. Consider tossing a little bit into the Tip Jar above and help support Investigative Journalism from the Not Now Silly Newsroom.