Author Archives: Ty

Music

Music Monday

In homage* to my friend Rikki’s blog, Go Go Internets Ranger, I present you today with the first of hopefully many Monday posts concerning music.

*Here, homage means taking someone’s amazing idea, kind of sourcing them for it and then tweaking it to your own taste.

Regardless, what it should amount to is that between her blog (which I will link to weekly in endless homage) and mine, maybe readers or people who stumble across my blog will be exposed to a couple of listen-worthy songs that have some sort of meaning to those who posted them.

And so, I present my first Music Monday post:

The first time I remember hearing this song was in Richard’s Suburban somewhere in the North Carolina mountains. We were riding to or from the Nantahala River where we rafted and committed legendary acts of debauchery and skinny-dipping.

I was in the passenger seat while Richard drove and Jessica and Farrell were in the back seat and the song just kept coming on. It was someone’s iPod or CD or something, but I know I heard that song at least four times, amplifying its repetitive chorus to the point where I couldn’t get it out of my head (or remember any other words to it).

Fast-forward to this summer in New Orleans. While Richard, Stacy and I waited for their karaoke debuts (Richard did Chicken-Fried, Stacy Tik-Tok) the song came on again, this time with its music video, and *GASP* lyrics!

So I did my best to memorize as many rhyming pop culture names as possible and had thought about it off and on until this morning on my way to Garner when it came on again.

Oh yeah! And I saw the Office episode last week when Ryan started the fire…so that makes it even more newsworthy. It’s amazing how much funnier that episode was after I knew what song Dwight was singing…

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DRIVEN

Tis the season

DRIVEN: PART III
Cadence

Miss the intro? Click here. Then go here to read part I and here for part II.

While driving around Granville County with Richard two Fridays ago in search of another haphazardly placed rural high school, something happened.

It happens every year about this time. I’m driving with the top down and all of a sudden, I’m hit with a rush of cool, damp air. This time it was as we were passing through some swampland, so it was especially intense. Imagine how it feels a lot like when you wade through a cold spot in the ocean only in a car driving through a dense forest.

To many, it would signal the end of summer and the onset of fall, but to me, it means North Carolina is finally a convertible-friendly state, if only for a few weeks.

Between humid summers that leave sweaty messes on my white leather seats and biting cold winters when I blast the heat to fulfill my need to ride topless, early spring and late fall provides the only median temperature that makes it even remotely sane to own a convertible. Think of how Dwight said it was silly for Michael Scott to drive a convertible Sebring in Pennsylvania. Some climates just don’t allow for a lot of top-down cruises.

 

Cadence

Cadence in all of her top-down beauty.

 

But the coming of fall also reminds me of how many convertible chances I have let slip away. An entire summer is gone with only a handful of convertible beach trips to show for it. I haven’t even made my annual pilgrimage to Camden Yards yet and the Orioles’ October hopes were dashed in June. (This has been rectified).

And so begins my convertible bliss blitz. Top down on the way to school. Top down on the way to the grocery store. Top down anytime I have a chance because driving, to me, is a hobby.

I know how it looks when a guy is riding alone in a convertible, trust me. You can’t ride solo with your entire profile on display and not look like a douchebag unless you’re a girl. Even with flowing blonde locks whipping in the wind, it only fools drivers for a moment, if that. The girls all snub you. The guys all look like they want to run you over. There was one time when an older Latin woman blew a kiss at me in Kinston, but that doesn’t happen often.

What I’m saying is that it’s hard to be comfortable driving with the top down when I’m alone, though I do it a lot. I know I’m a punk and I know I look like a douchebag, but feeling the wind is worth 400 miles of scowls, so I just put up with it.

But now that it’s convertible season again, there’s no amount of discouraging words, faces or angry truck drivers to make me join the ranks of the coupes.

If you haven’t ridden in a convertible before, trust me it’s not as awesome as I’m making it out to be, but it’s still something you need to try. Ask nicely. Convertible owners like to show off the fact that if they flip their car the only thing protecting their brain is a skull and some canvas, so take advantage.

And if you’re in my area, just flag me down when I pass you.

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DRIVEN

Driving power-drunk

DRIVEN: PART II
Cadence

Go here for an introduction to this series, here to read Part I or check out Part III here.

How I feel about driving could best be summed up by Jack Sparrow:

“That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs but what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom.”

Yeah, he’s not talking about a car, but he may as well be, because that freedom, that’s what I used to lay in bed late at night thinking about when I was in high school…just getting in my car and driving as far south as I-95 would take me just because I could.

And it happens still, though it’s not always as gallant and romantic as I always imagined it, especially if you ask my ex-girlfriend Sonja. When she was living in southeast Georgia during summer 2008, I visited her three times, always enjoying every second of the six-hour road trip between Goldsboro, N.C. and Hinesville, Ga. That’s when I first discovered that lovely scenic bridge mentioned in my “What’s news to you” post, but I digress.

Is there a sweeter sight?

Anyway, we frequently made the 1.5-hour trip to Brunswick, Sea Island and Jekyll Island, simply because there was little to do in Hinesville. I always drovebecause she loved to ride, and I drove all across that region, always trying new ways to shave minutes off of our trip, finding new roads to try out and generally just driving aimlessly. With El Cheapo gas making me feel like I was a king, I poured gasoline like cheap beer, especially since I was living at home and had lots of disposable income while my girlfriend bankrolled our excursions halfway with her Rayonier-funded salary.

But she got sick of me taking the scenic route everywhere and started limiting my gas. She would never pay to fill my tank because she said having a full tank of gas made me “drunk with power.” If I wanted a full tank, I had to pay for it myself. Otherwise she bought it one half-tank at a time.

I’ve always loved the way she put it, drunk with power, because it’s so true. When the needle is on F, I feel invincible. I peel out. I make my tires bark. I take the long way home. I take other cars off the line.

It’s a powerfully intoxicating notion, having a full tank of gas and knowing the routes are endless and they can take you anywhere.

It’s the knowledge that I-40 ends in California, I-85 takes you to Atlanta and I-95 south leads to I-4, which runs right into Disneyworld. It’s knowing 95 north puts you through D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and right up into Massachusetts and U.S. 17 winds from Virginia through Wilmington, N.C., past Myrtle Beach to within half an hour of Hinevsille and back to coastal Georgia before ending in Florida. (I like road maps…and Highway 17).

It’s freedom. And it’s a pleasure.

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DRIVEN

A boy and his car

DRIVEN: PART I
Cadence

Miss the introduction to this series? Check it out here, Part II here and Part III here.

Cadence and I have been together since 2006. I’ve made the same sardonic joke to every girlfriend I’ve had since then that she’s my baby – the one that would be there for me no matter what and each time a relationship ends, I wince when I realize I was right.

To clear things up, Cadence is a 1995 Mustang convertible. She has a white top that I paid for myself ($800) to replace the ragtop I inherited. She has white leather interior, though the driver-side seat has seen better days. The leather came in handy when I turned too sharply and spilled a cooler of ice in the back seat my senior year of high school. The leather also comes in handy pretty much monthly  when I leave the top down and go into a restaurant/store/any building. This is because me leaving my top down is a rain dance that brings torrential downpours with efficiency indigenous peoples across the world would marvel at.

She’s missing the rocker panel on her passenger side, likely from when I was leaving a party at the Tree House a year ago, though I’m not truly certain when it actually fell off. Her spoiler is showing some wear through paint chips, and there’s the remains of a balloon ribbon tied permanently around her rearview mirror: a relic from a memorable drive through Downtown Raleigh with Richard.

So that’s her. She inspires other Mustang owners to nod, she inspires Corvettes to roar past us in all of their fiberglass-framed pomposity and she’s inspired a few 8-year-olds to give me a thumbs up.

I’m no geared by any measure, but I do love Mustangs. My dad bought a black 1964 1/2 Mustang convertible in 1989. It had a high performance 289 engine and he had a buddy of his put in the GT Pony package which wasn’t available until 1965, complete with pistol grip handles.

None of this impressed 2-year-old me, though, as my dad recalls my reaction to the test drive of the car he took me on verbatim: “Daddy, I don’t like that car with no top.” (My how the times have changed.)

Regardless, my dad’s Mustang fever passed directly to me. My first car was a 1966 Mustang coupe that I flipped into a ditch, (Always wear your seatbelt) and a year-and-a-half later, I met Cadence, and she hasn’t let me down since.

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DRIVEN

How driving drives me

DRIVEN: AN INTRODUCTION
Cadence

Want more? Read PART I, PART II, and PART III.

I love to drive.

I remember running errands for my mom and dad, and all of my older friends saying it would get old, that I would tire of driving everywhere, but I’m not bored yet.

I also remember my dad telling me I would get sick of shaving, but I still enjoy that, too. I just remember watching my dad shave: the smell, the hot water, the way my dad’s face was immediately transformed after he finished. I channel that into my shaving repertoire and take a child-like view of my hygiene, and that’s exactly how I drive…I just remember how much power that motorized vehicle gives me. I count up how many miles a full tank of gas can take me and live vicariously through my exploitation of open roads. I race, I pass, I play music way too loud. I don’t just drive, I enjoy it.

And that’s something Peggy pointed out to me: driving, for me, was a hobby. Yes I had to do it just to get to class/work, but taking pride in my car or enjoying the ride gave my life those memorable moments we always seek on a daily basis.

Every time I turn the ignition, I’m happy because I’m always in pursuit of the open road.

I want to be ahead of all the other cars. I want to be setting the flow of traffic. I want to find my own speed limit

Stay tuned to Me, Myself and Ty in the coming days as I present my special blog series* about what drives me: my love for the open road.

*It’s really just one long blog post that I decided none of you would read, so I divided it up a bit and we’ll see what happens.

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Sports

Tonight, I’m just rooting for football

FootballThere are a few sports within sports that are polarizing even among sports fans.

Besides NASCAR (which qualifies as a sport, almost) I would argue that pro baseball is the next most divisive issue in sports. Steroids notwithstanding, a lot of people just think it’s boring.

I could argue that as a dying-hard Orioles fan, there are few baseball fans that simply love the game of baseball more, or explain how the culture of baseball is what truly attracts me to the sport, but it’s like a Hilary Swank hot-or-not debate: in the end each side just gets more entrenched in its own views and intelligent discussion ends.

But while baseball as a sport takes a lock of flak for being boring (a view I totally understand) football’s different levels of play and difference in the number of followers at those levels has always perplexed me.

It seems (at least in North Carolina, anyway) that college football has a larger following than pro football. I think it has a lot to do with the closest team being either Atlanta or Baltimore (just like in MLB) until 1995, and the fact that Charlotte may as well be a different state in comparison with the rest of N.C., but the last gladiator-like sport still played (regularly) on American soil should have followers at all levels, right?

While I must admit my love for the NFL likely comes from me spending the majority of my life as a Duke fan (no explanation necessary there) I think it has a lot to do with how team-oriented football is.

When a college basketball player moves up to the NBA, they’re gone. With only five players on the court at the game’s highest stage, it’s very rare that a college star is going to make a name for himself in the NBA. Yes, I know, I’ve seen the ACC’s J.J.s on TV, but your Chris Paulesque players are few and far between.

In the NFL, though, you have a role. There are fat guys, fast guys, mean guys, smart guys. Players can change positions because they’re more adept at the pro level as a wide receiver than as a QB…it’s fluid. Even some of the worst players get snaps throughout the season, and there’s almost a continuation of the college culture. Every game matters (even when there’s 16 of them with the possibility of adding two more) and, in a step away from what I dislike about college football, every game is winnable. Duke will NOT beat Alabama, but there’s a chance the Redskins can make something of this season. The science of the NFL just seems to have a more artistic aspect to it.

There’s nothing that compares with Saturdays, don’t get me wrong, but the arrival of the NFL completes my 7-step method for enjoying football every day of the week. It is as follows:

Tuesday: 9-10 year-old games
Wednesday: 11-12 year-old games
Thursday: Middle school games (afternoon), Junior Varsity (evening)
Friday: Varsity
Saturday: College
Sunday: Pro
Monday: Dun dun dun dun…Monday Night Football

So, as a lover of the game, I cannot wait for tonight. And while the NFL may be “where college football careers end” we can still look past the pageantry and millions of dollars worth of corporate sponsors and still see 22 boys in a pasture, throwing around a pumpkin that won’t bust.

And if nothing else, just feed off of these amazing lines from The New York Times concerning the return of pro football tonight:

From The Saints Have Taken Steps to Avoid a Letdown:
“In a place that knows hangovers, the Saints hope they have found the remedy.”

And these gems from Mike Tanier’s preview of tonight’s game:

  • “Despite his age and eroded approval rating, Favre retains the power to relegate the defending champion to the second paragraph.”
  • “their big-name offensive line looked like a colander during the preseason…”
  • “Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy is being melted by the NCAA and recast as a Yoke of Shame”
  • “Mastication tendencies aside…”

You know what, just read it. Go football!

UPDATE: Another way to get excited about football.

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Me Myself and Ty, Uncategorized

Runnin’ on empty

So, I’m not sure how other newspapers work, but at the ones I’ve worked at, producing content has always been a maniacal planning game.

You brainstorm story ideas, assign them knowing only 70% will be done, with 25% of those being dropped due to lame excuses and the other 5% coming in a day later than you needed it.

Occasionally I found myself playing a numbers game. I would assign several stories all due on one day like a month away. All of the writers were down with that deadline, since they had an entire month to screw it up, so I would end up with like seven stories all “coming in” on one magical day, even when I knew four would suffice along with whatever breaking news came up between assignment day and “coming in” day.

Then, when 70% came in I had enough to put together a decent paper because I had overbudgeted. It was a fun method I discovered through trial and error and the two times it worked, I had bonus stories rolling in for a week as that other 25% rolled in. I had excess content and life was good. Goddammit I love bonus stories.

But, as I said, that only happened like twice. Ever.

Most of the time, I spent my news career running on empty. No content. No “real” news. The knowledge that if the writer doesn’t hand in her story I’m going to have to write two to replace it along with the impending decision on whether I should write those two stories or just hop in my car and drive as far away from the office as I can…

And that’s how I feel like I’m living now: emptily. It seems like every day I wake up and I have just enough energy to get myself through classes, work, breathing and finally back to bed. If anything bad happens, like I don’t get a fork with my lunch or I remember some assignment I had forgotten about, I’m faced with a decision to either press on or run away. Recently, I’ve considered running. One moment can make me feel like my entire life has been derailed and I can’t conceive any way to get it back on track that doesn’t involve alcohol or sleep.

I know I’m over school, and this final semester will be both my easiest academic endeavor and my most challenging, but shouldn’t there be something else to get me through this besides wanting to graduate? I’ve never needed so much motivation before.

Life just feels more lonely than it used to and I really want a bonus story.

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Me Myself and Ty

What’s news to you?

1. To avoid the staggered half-apologetic posting schedule of some of my closest blogging friends (I’m looking at you, Derek) I have been busy for the past week doing what I do best: thinking about writing.

I can’t begin to guess how many leads I’ve written in my head in advance of even transcribing my notes and how many Tweets, headlines, blog posts or chapters of my memoirs I’ve composed in my head only to forget them before I could chronicle them.

But beyond remembering deja vu-like phrases and strung together sentences, the biggest deterrent to me blogging over the past week has been you: the reader.

When I was at Technician, and even now at The Garner Citizen, it’s fairly easy to pick out what stories are newsworthy. Anything an average student would need/want to know belongs in the Technician and anything concerning sports in the Garner area probably deserves a mention in the Citizen’s sports pages.

And that brings me to the articles (and a video) that first dragged me into this pit of overanalysis concerning my web presence from The New York Times Magazine.

NYTMag’s most recent series of stories has been concerned with “The Way We Live Now” and has had an increased focus on social networking and how it has changed…well everything.

Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote to Daniel and Jessica concerning the articles:
“Even when we write in our personal blogs or Tweets or whatever, often we have to think twice about how others will perceive us. How many times have you done something and immediately thought, “Wow, I can’t wait to write about this on our travel blog” or began thinking about how to write it while you were still experiencing it. … If you’re constantly chronicling your present, are you ever truly experiencing it?”

And so, NYTMag gave me a writer’s block that I couldn’t shake. If I blogged, was I really benefitting myself since my posts would be tid bits about my life packaged in a way that you, the reader, may find entertaining? If I discuss the strangest class I’ve ever enrolled in (see below) in a story-telling manner am I sapping myself of my ability to appreciate it by trying to convince you to as well?

(Yes. Overanalysis. But that’s typically what I do. I search for motives and reasons and I just really like the question why…especially when I feel like I have a hunch it will lead to someone asking why not. I don’t really look for meanings in absolutely everything, but I have this divining rod within me that feels poetic justice wins out in the end. I guess I’m still convinced this life is just a novel I’m living and that each event and happening foreshadows something else. Yeah that sounds a lot like fate, but I like using lots of words to describe concepts…it’s good for the vocabulary and prevents me from falling victim to Orwell’s dreaded Newspeak).

And so I’ve decided to break down a few events I wanted to write about in shorter forms below. These are my thoughts of the past week. Enjoy:

2. So I’m a history major and at N.C. State, the jewel in the crown that is your useless History B.A. is a senior seminar known as HI 491. (Derek will remember this as well).

There are different sections and they’re all very specifically tailored to minute details in history. I wanted to take the one about the Jimmy Carter administration (My mentor’s favorite president) but ended up in one about NOLA and Katrina. Not bad, right? It’s exciting, it’s current, it’s history I lived through.

But then I received a rather disappointing letter from a former professor of mine. It was a D. I deserved it, but this did mean I needed to add a new class to graduate on time. After a few tweaks to my schedule, I was set to graduate, though I was now enrolled in a different seminar: Rule of law from a historical perspective.

Let’s recap: Need to pass difficult class. Enrolled in exciting class. Need to pass additional class. Enrolled in another class, plus a class that’s title draws me to sleep.

But then, amazingness struck! This class began when the head of the history department was talking to a colleague about blah blah blah…and then the TEAGL foundation (a derivative of Exxon-Mobil, somehow) sponsored the class.

So this is an experimental class of 11 with two professors who have some cash to burn. This means the hummus in my refrigerator was paid for by a grant. It also means the dinners we’re having later this semester (including travel) will be paid for by this grant, but that may not even be the best part.

This course, which is all about philosophy and deep-thinking overanalysis (see above for why this makes me excited), will include a final paper that may be published in a book my professors are writing about their experiment.

So I get free hummus, dinners, a degree and a chance to be published in a real academic book? Saddle up and ride!

3. I feel like this article is an essential read for anyone in any of my shoes right now. That is, in college, in your 20s, concerned about when it’s time to grow up, unsure about any career paths or goals, wondering if moving back home is a pathway toward a career goal, unsure about graduate school, Americorps, Peace Corps, the Armed Forces, considering studying abroad or taking a year off, contemplating what religion is, means or should be…pretty much any normal thought of a college student/20-something. Which is exactly what the article is about.

Take a look at it (it’s very long, though) and let me know what you think…I would like to devote a lecture to it…or at least find out if someone else was as encouraged and discouraged by it at the same time.

4. I love Ferris Bueller’s day off.

To learn a bit more about what you consider news (at least, the type of news content I can create), allow me to attempt a funneling of your comments. Post 1 was on blogging itself as I contrasted my views and experiences with that of some articles found in a recent periodical. Post 2 was a hyperlocal focus on a class I’m in. Post 3 is similar to Post 1, though I’d like to expand it in a way that focuses on how I feel like the article affects society as a whole. Post 4, well that’s just because that movie could be considered among my cinematic building blocks of life along with Anchorman.

So what do you, the reader, prefer? Wanna know what I think about me, what’s going on in my life, what I think about you and society and how much you disappoint me, or more about Ferris?

Comment away! This blogging adventure is brand-new for me, and I want you guys to come along with me.

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Me Myself and Ty

Masters of the domains

So as I begin my actual blogging career, I’d like to share with you how I’ve arrived at this particular site.

I got this WordPress site in the spring to build a Web portfolio on for a class, though I quickly realized WP doesn’t have an easy-to-use Issuu extension, so I moved my portfolio here. See how awesome that resume scrolling feature is? Why doesn’t WordPress allow that? If I can ever figure out how to make that work, I’ll integrate that portfolio until WordPress, but until then I prefer Issuu and Blogspot.

But as I blogged on this site this summer for yet another writing course, I realized I really wanted a site to vent about the frustrations and irony of life, so I decided I would convert my classblog into this, so I started looking around for ideas.

I particularly liked what my MSCNE friends Rikki and Kelsey used their blogs for. It was an additional writing medium where they provided commentary on politics and journalism and whatever they were doing. It was great because while we follow each other on Twitter and spent a rather blurry week together last year, their blogs gave me a concrete opportunity to learn more about what was going on in their lives as fellow journalists even though they’re in Michigan and Washington. Then I realized if their opinions on life entertained me, there must be billions of people that want to know what I think.

And so I’ve removed the class-related posts from this site and now this will be the chief site through which you can find out everything I think about anything in 140+ characters. (For less than 140 character updates on my life, follow @tyjohnson1)

But what about the other Ty Johnsons out there? What if I want to follow in Mr. Schnell’s footsteps and get a real domain? What if I’m not the coolest Ty Johnson on the Internet?Trust me, I looked around on Google for quite some time (0.32 seconds) to gauge the Ty Johnson competition and the market out there for me-related domains.

And so here are some of my Ty Johnson brethren:

3D Modeler Ty Johnson of Oregon: http://www.tyjohnson.net/
This Ty most likely was late to the domain party, as well, but that .net definitely lends some legitimacy to his site. Here’s a bit about him from his bio at tyjohnson.net:
“For over four years now, I’ve helped studios bring their ideas into the third dimension. Most recently I was “Modeler” for LAIKA Studios and created countless 3D assets for developing feature films.
I realize the life of a model doesn’t begin and end with me. Instead, I take it upon myself to understand the needs of riggers and texture artists and do what I can to make their jobs easier. Time has also taught me to channel my fine-arts background into every project with a haste that could only come from commercial experience.”

Artist Ty Johnson of Kansas: http://www.tyjohnsonart.com
This story is awesome. Apparently he has been missing for more than a decade and this site is run by the son of a friend. Here’s an excerpt from his bio:
“Ty was born in Kansas in 1941. He did 3 tours in Vietnam. He was a boxer in the marines. After Vietnam he came and stayed with us for one night ….“then he disappeared for over 10 years.”After being a missing person for over a decade Ty sent an intricately drawn card to my dad that just said, “Still Alive” signed Ty. My dad said of him, “I knew him better than anybody, and I didn’t know him.” He was a very mysterious guy. He had a large vocabulary and was very well educated but liked the excitement of being in the ghetto. My Dad said about him”He wasn’t afraid of anybody.” “

The real Ty Johnson?: http://www.tyjohnson.com/
This is evidence that having the definitive domain name doesn’t mean you necessarily have the best content.

Photographer Ty Johnson of Virginia: http://www.tyjohnsonphotography.com/
This Ty Johnson and his Nikon have found some beautiful angles on life. Just sit through his home page slideshow. I really like the colors. Here’s a bit about him from his bio:
“Over the past several years I have come to love photography. I am constantly trying to learn as much as I can and take every opportunity to do so. Though I love shooting almost anything, my favorite things to shoot are vivid colors, candid moments, and movement.”

And finally, here’s the Ty Johnson site that made me saddest, and not because it was a domain purchased by a father for his son that just went back on sale through godaddy.com this month: tyjohnsonblog.com

Here’s the cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:POmVReku89sJ:tyjohnsonblog.com/%3Fs%3D+tyjohnsonblog&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

So, looking for a Web site domain (during a week that already sucked) I’m met with this message:

“Wishing you the best Future,Promising you the Love that you deserve.”

The sentence, as much as I don’t understand its choice of capitalized words, was almost uplifting. A random Google search of myself brought me to a nice thought during a dark time. But, of course it was followed with this:

“Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.”

So…that best future and love I deserve…that doesn’t exist? Great.

And so this concludes my blog introduction to myself by showing you which Ty Johnsons I am not. If you have thoughts or if you’re a Ty Johnson that wants your site featured on this blog post (or a Ty Johnson that wants your site removed from this post) let me know!

Thanks for reading!

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