This new gig

The following was posted on my new blog. The post below is the only thing I have up now. I will still post to stlstreets, but most of the posts will be cross posts from the new blog. There may be occasional posts on stlstreets only.

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My name is Steven Smith. I run a bar in a state that fought on both sides of the civil war. I live in the city that sided with the Union. And to look at the how Missouri is today, things do not appear to have changed all that much. We are still in a contentious situation , as we have historically for Missouri even had a controversial foundation based in a compromise.

There is a profile page with a bit more on the specific particulars about myself. My formative years have been here in Saint Louis, the big city on the eastern half of Missouri. The bluest part of the blue dot in a red state. I am Jesuit educated, but I have not been trained in journalism. I have not been trained for news writing. I studied history. And I worked. A lot. My first job was selling newspapers on the street corner. The Post-Dispatch. That was my first of many jobs, but none of my jobs were in professional news writing or
video production. Until now. Now I am to produce it all.

I have been contracted to do a blog on the 2008 campaign covering Missouri for MTV. The program is called Choose or Lose or the think.mtv.com site. I am a part of the 2008 Street Team. The job is open ended which allows me to cover any issues that impact the state of Missouri. My primary demographic are the 15-24 year olds in the mighty state of Missouri.

I was sent to New York at the MTV headquarters Viacom for a week of training earlier this month. Fifty other young Americans were contracted to cover their states as well. We were saddled with a mound of electronic gear, video camera, mic, laptop, software etc. We are to produce one post a week, and at least two of those posts will need to be video. This will be interesting, for I am used to blogging at stlstreets.com. I have been playing with shooting and editing video. This new blog will naturally develop from that base at stlstreets.com.

So what will I produce for this blog? Well, that is in development. I have my interests, but I am open to all issues. I have already started developing stories in immigration, voting, economic opportunity, civic engagement, education, urban environment, the war, health care and more. This will be more of a free form blog style than a formal news report or news story.

Please contact me here for any ideas or thoughts. And join the think.mtv site to explore and learn what this is all about.

A peek into my dorkdom x2

New Hot Show

So my favorite new webcast is the Green Room, the web only show after This Week with George Stephanopoulos. I listen to that podcast every week. If I only am able to watch/listen to one Sunday news show it is This Week. And I have more recently started watching the Green Room, which is a more relaxed and candid exchange about specific issues by the commentators standing in the back room. It is way fun. I wish I was in the corner of this back room with a gin rickey. I need to get that crew to hang out at my place. It is an interesting selection of people he has on that program. The show in general is also very well paced, fresh and takes on very interesting issues.

If I like This Week, then shouldn't I love Donnybrook?

O Donnybrook. It is so quaint. I love quaint too.

I do like Donnybrook and Donnybrook Your Turn. I have watched it for years. The second half has become the comedy part of the show. It is the closest thing to live Town Talk. It makes me miss the big grumper. That is some hardcore quaint.

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Unhealthy Newswatching

So when I was younger I would do some weird things. I was about in the sixth or seventh grade. I wasn't doing much that summer, it was the year before I started bussing tables. All I did at that point was go to school, sell newspapers and do my thing. My thing ranged from lighting off bottlerockets, to jumping on the bus to poking around downtown K-town pushing up the market on comic books and baseball cards.

So on this particular summer day I decided I was going to do something productive. I had watched my sister lay out in the backyard tanning over the course of the summer. She would always speak of that activity as something significant. Now I really could give a crap whether I actually was tan or not, but it looked like an easy way to accomplish something I had never done before. So I pulled out the recline beach chair, set it up in the backyard and got down to my shorts and just sat there.

It was okay for a minute.

But I found laying out incredibly boring. I don't mind spacing out while laying down, but after a while I just can't do it. That is why I don't go to the beach unless it involves blowing up a whale. So I tried to figure out a way to keep myself from falling asleep. So I went inside, unplugged the TV and brought it outside with an extension cord. And I watched the McLaughlin Group. It was my favorite Sunday morning show, beating out Tarzan and Wrestling at the Chase.

So I just sat there. And did nothing but watch the McLaughlin Group and the shows afterwards. And I burned. O how did I burn. I never had burnt like that before. I didn't care if I burned. I didn't mess with any sort of lotions, for I figured if I burn I just got tan faster. Just a little bit of pain, no worries. I got not only peeling skin, but burn scabs all over from that outing. It was rather disgusting, but I didn't seem to mind. I was just slightly irritating. Too bad they didn't talk too much about public health in the mid 80s on news talk shows or I might have avoided this initial blast of skin cancer.

Washington Week in the STL on Friday

Washington Week is kicking of a year long tour across the United States. This Friday at the Sheldon Washington Week will be taping their weekly broadcast in front of a live audience. It is common that great tours kick off in the STL, just like the Beastie Boys Check Your Head kickoff show at Mississippi Nights in 1992.

Some very good friends made sure that I got tickets to this Washington Week live audience taping- and it is a hot item for it is already sold out.