TV6 Changes Ahead?

Keep your eyes on TV6 and Fox UP in the weeks ahead. The Sinclair Broadcast Group recently bought WLUC, which operates both  TV6 and Fox UP, and now the employees are waiting to see what happens next. Who's going? Who's staying? Any programming changes? It's fair to say there's an air of nervousness in the halls of the station.

On the other hand, a big, well-funded broadcast group (Sinclair now owns 164 stations nationwide) just might decide to pour some money into one of its newest acquisitions.

Of concern to some employees and U.P. viewers: Sinclair has a controversial reputation when it comes news and politics. Back in 2004 on its ABC stations, it refused to air a Nightline segment that dramatically listed all of the dead soldiers from the Iraq war. Later that year, just before the presidential election, 62 of its stations preempted prime time programming to air a documentary highly critical of Democratic candidate John Kerry.

And in 2010 a handful of its stations aired an anti-Obama infomercial.

Partisan politics, news and business can make for a toxic mix.

Let's hope the local news coverage here doesn't suffer (Maybe it expands!) and everybody keeps their jobs. Too often, these big broadcast groups come in to a small market and say all the right things...and the next thing you know, they're tightening the purse strings and booting people out the door.
---------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of TV6, still no word on whether current and former news employees will be getting a lump sum for back pay.

In case you hadn't heard, the US Department of Labor came to town a couple months back and interviewed several news employees and determined they weren't making adequate salaries for the hours they worked.

Shortly afterwards, salaries for beginning employees were boosted from around $18,000 to $23,000 plus. A nice little hike that put smiles on the faces of the news kids.

Back pay? Nothing announced so far.

Full disclosure: I was the news director at WLUC from 2004 to 2011 and tried, probably not hard enough, to get salaries raised. The reasoning behind the paltry pay? If young, ambitious reporters were willing to accept a miserable salary, it wasn't management's role to insist they take more. Business is about making profits.
---------------------------------------------------------

Did you see the Jim Harrison article in the Sunday New York Times? Pretty damn flattering. Before moving to Montana, he lived in Grand Marais and often visited Marquette.

He had especially kind words for The Landmark Inn ("a hotel of New York standards") and the Vierling ("a restaurant I would visit every day"). It's priceless advertising to a national audience that has money and may not have heard of the UP until now.

Harrison hasn't been back here in a few years but he's fondly remembered for his sparkling conversation and his fine taste in food and drink.
-------------------------------------------------------
As for paid advertising, did you know that Marquette County has been promoted on the jumbo screen in Times Square in New York City?

It's just a four second spot every hour but it's a huge invitation, complete with photos, to come visit Marquette County. It's already been up twice this summer, again on Thanksgiving, and then again this coming New Years Eve. It plays for several days around those dates.

Pat Black of the Visitors and Convention Bureau is the brains behind the campaign. She wants to play with the big boys.


You got news? Contact me at briancabell@gmail.com

She's beautiful, she's ambitious and she's not especially bright but Flo Dingley is stumbling her way toward stardom in TV news. That's the story of "Flo the Flasher" which is set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The novel is now available on this website, and also at Snowbound Books and Bookworld in Marquette as well as Snyders Drug Stores throughout the U.P. It'll be distributed to other stores in the weeks ahead. It's also now available as an ebook on Amazon. The story had its genesis with an event in Marquette about six years ago but, of course, I took the liberty of embellishing it just a wee bit. I've got to admit it was fun to write and I think it's fun to read. I also like to think it has something to say about the state of TV news, but what the hell does a jaded, washed-up, old journalist know? You can read the first several pages of "Flo the Flasher" on Amazon. Let me know what you think.

Tale of Four Dogs

For the last two years, four dogs have been building a friendship on long walks they've taken together in the woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Now, sadly and inevitably, they're starting to get old together.

Lucy, my dog, is the runt of the group. She's a twelve year old, twenty-two pound rat terrier. She's eager to be liked and petted, and loves to run as long as she keeps the rest of the group in sight.

Cooper is a twelve year old black Lab mix. He's neurotic. His owner says if there was a nuthouse for dogs, Cooper would be one of the star patients. He barks loudly--"Let me out!! Let me out!!"--all the way on the car ride to the the trailhead where we walk, but then once we exit the car, he usually falls meekly in line behind his owner, scared of what might lie ahead. Strange noises scare the hell out of him. But other times, inexplicably, he races off with total abandon. He climbs to the top of ridges, he slogs through heavy snow, he pursues the scent of some unseen wild animal. He's our bi-polar adventurer/wimp.

Lokey is a ten year old yellow Lab. She's a good-natured gal, lumbers along with us, never sprints, and never ventures off the trail unless it's to roll around joyfully in the snow.

And then there's Fidel, an eleven year old, one hundred seventy pound Newfoundland. All black, with a mass of thick hair. He really lumbers, just barely able to keep up with us. He's noisy as well, breathing heavily through his mouth which is frequently covered by saliva, snot or snow, or all three.

Last summer and fall, the four dogs all eagerly walked and ran with us on a three mile trek along a lake amid a forest of pine trees. It was the highlight of their day. The cool air, the sun peeking through the trees, the smells of other animals who had passed this way, and the ability to get out and stretch their legs all brought out the natural exuberance of Lucy, Cooper, Lokey and Fidel.

Life was good. No, great.

Well, Lucy these days is still able to sprint up and down the trail, as long as she keeps us in sight. And Lokey, who's always in a good mood, still plugs along.

But Fidel, the big Newfoundland, is slowing down, actually stopping sometimes when his lungs and his heart tell him they need a break. We've shortened our walk on occasion to accommodate him.

And then there's Cooper, the erstwhile crazy dog, the barker, the hunter, the sprinter, the bi-polar adventurer. His back legs are giving out. His right hind paw is pointing outward. He slips frequently on the trail. He doesn't run anymore, and yet he wants to, badly. You can see it in his eyes. Sometimes, we've had to turn around after a quarter mile because his back legs have turned to spaghetti. Sometimes, we've even had to leave him at home, which breaks his heart.

It's hard to say whether Lucy, Lokey, Fidel and Cooper know what's happening to them--that they're slowing down, they're getting old and infirm, and that they'll eventually die. They must have some instinct that  allows them to accept sickness and death as the natural process of life.

Regardless, the four of them still seem to enjoy their lives. There's light in their eyes, they bark, they wag their tails, they're always eager to take on a new day. They truly seem to value their friendships, they adore the outdoors, and they long for adventures, even when their aging bodies are telling them to slow down.

Whether they know it or not, they're teaching their human friends a valuable lesson.

Strange Little Tribe

We're a strange little tribe here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, aren't we?

That observation came through to me clearly Wednesday night as I wandered the campus of Michigan Tech in Houghton. The university's enrollment is about 6000, and I'd guess at least 3000 of them were outside, bundled up but smiling, well into the early morning hours.

It was all part of Tech's Winter Carnival. The temperature? Eighteen degrees, with light but steady snow falling, and yet the campus was crawling with revellers.

Some observers might wonder, "What the hell is wrong with those people?"

I would have liked to ask that question, or something like it, of a blonde coed who was standing amid a crowd and watching a broomball game at the festival. For the uninitiated, broomball is like hockey except 1) the rink is tiny  2) the players use little brooms and big nerf balls instead of hockey sticks and hard pucks  3) the players scramble awkwardly around the rink in shoes rather than skates, and  4) the goalie (usually a large guy) kneels in front of his tiny goal rather than stands.

The game ain't pretty but it's fun.

Anyway, the blonde student stood there alone in the crowd, with a subtle smile on her face and talking to no one, for forty-five minutes, and she actually seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the experience. In eighteen degree weather with snow pelting her!

I don't know, maybe she had a boyfriend out on the ice, but still. There's something going on out there that only those in the U.P. tribe (and maybe their brethren in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas) can understand.

Other images from this strange but exhilirating snowy festival:

           High-spirited students lining up patiently to play minigolf on a makeshift, icy course that rewarded luck rather than skill.

          Two girls, away from the lights and fanfare, sharing a teeter-totter and a conversation as part of a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser. They and their friends see-sawed for thirty-six hours straight, day and night. I stopped by twice with donations. Couldn't help it.

          Students selling hot chocolate for fifty cents and "flaming" hot chocolate for a dollar. The "flaming" hot chocolate contained chili peppers.

          One student giving away bowls of chili. Free. No idea where the food came from.

          Maybe a hundred students, arms in the air, dancing wildly in the snow to the deafening music that came out of an enormous boombox made of ice. Had to be at least ten feet tall. The music reverberated throughout the campus.

          And of course, there were the dozens of snow sculptures, all under feverish construction by student groups, armed with axes, hammers and chisels. They had until 8 a.m.Thursday to finish their works of art in the campuswide competition.

Like I said, we're a strange little tribe.

I suspect folks in Florida and California, so proud of their year-round warmth and sparkling beaches, wouldn't get it. But that's the beauty of it, isn't it? It takes a strange and special kind of person--or 3000 of them--to appreciate a party in the dark, in the snow, in the cold.



 

We're Fatter Than They Are

I've just returned from a three week cross-country car trip from Atlanta to northern California and I discovered a few things along the way about our nation:

1) The love bugs in Mississippi and Louisiana always fly in tandem and copulate continuously.
2) Craziness is cool in New Orleans. That means you can walk around the French Quarter wearing nothing but a jock strap and a grin, or you can drink until you barf in the gutter, or you can take $25 dollars from gullible tourists (Who? Me??) and tell them, with a straight face, about vampires that haunt your city.
3) Texas is big, like 900 miles wide....and boring.
4) Arizona and New Mexico are very dry; the Rio Grande is actually the Rio Small, nothing more than a trickle in places. The only place I saw water flowing there was in toilets and on golf courses.

And then there's California, my place of birth and former home. The place where people still say, "You used to live here and you left? What, are you crazy?? And you moved where? To Michigan? Are you f---in' out of your mind???"

They've got a point. Here's what I learned about the residents of northern California:

1)They're thinner than we are. Here in the U.P,, probably one out of every three people you see walking down the street is noticeably overweight, if not downright obese. In northern California, it's about one in ten. At most. The women all look like they just finished a 90 minute zumba class, the men all look like they're taking a quick espresso break during their 30 mile bike ride over the coastal mountains.

2)They dress and coif themselves better than we do. If I wear a sweatshirt and slacks, you're looking at maybe $30 worth of clothes, less if I ran into a  sale at Goodwill.  When they wear a sweatshirt and slacks, it's an "ensemble", and they're paying $100 minimum, for each. But their clothes don't wrinkle and they've got nifty little names on them on the inside of the collar. Californians' hair? Casually impeccable, sexy, wavy. Mine? A store clerk in San Francisco stared at my hair for a few seconds, then grinned and said, "Hey, Albert Einstein!"

3)They've got more money than we do. I went to Napa Valley and watched 20-somethings, no doubt taking a break from inventing the next killer app for Apple or Google, casually throwing down $100 bills to sample the latest, greatest Cabernet-Merlot-Zinfandel blend, only three barrels total, grown on the  southwest side of the hill, partly shaded by oaks, partly by elms, hydroponically irrigated during the last two months of their growth, and then lovingly picked, grape by grape, by gorgeous, left-handed Asian women with silky smooth skin. I, on the other hand, tried the $10 sampler of five wines, and then fretted that I was throwing money away (that could have been better spent on a new sweatshirt at Target).

 4)Their houses cost just a wee bit more than ours. Like a "starter home" thirty miles outside of San Francisco? That'll cost you about $350,000. In a sketchy neighborhood. A nice home closer to the city, say, with three bedrooms and two baths, and a backyard big enough for your kids to play hacky-sack? Well, that might cost you a cool million. And a true luxury home, complete with a lap pool in the backyard, a yoga studio, and a wine cellar for all the latest Cabernet-Merlot-Zinfandel blends? Well, now you're talking three million-plus. Or in other words, the entire value of the Upper Peninsula.

5)They're inexplicably Democrats, even with all that money. What the hell?
A 70-something in a barber shop accused my brother of "being a Republican." Like it was the unkindest of all insults. Here in the U.P., expecially when you venture outside of Marquette, you have to apologize for being a Democrat, unless you're amid academics, artists or union members (or pot-smokers).

Bottom line? It all made me kind of envious. How come northern Californians are so much cooler and wealthier than us?

Well, to be honest, they don't look any happier than us. They do lock their doors at night; they don't leave their car engines running at the airport as we do when we go inside the terminals to greet passengers; they do honk their horns at the mildest of irritations at intersections; they suffer through interminable traffic jams, morning after morning, night after night; they do spend thousands of dollars on beach and ski vacations while we spend, oh, 20 bucks or so.

The list could go on and on, needless to say. But enough said. We're clearly not as cool as they are, we're certainly a lot poorer, we probably scored a lot lower on our SAT tests but.....but...our cheap sweathshirts keep us just as warm as their fancy ones do, our extra layer of flesh keeps us extra warm during our frigid winters, our cheap wines and beers give us a more than adequate buzz....and...and what's wrong with my hair anyway? Didn't seem to bother Einstein, did it?

Adventures in Camping

It's safe to say I'm not an avid outdoorsman. I've never hunted, I've fished a few times, and I've camped maybe a half dozen times in my life, never alone.

Until this week. Actually I wasn't alone. I took my dog Lucy along on a one night, two day adventure around the Upper Peninsula--it was part of a writing project that I'm now working on.

So there we were, Monday night at about 7:30, setting up our little tent at a campground outside Brimley. Lake Superior was lapping quietly at the shore behind us, the temperature was a pleasant 60 degrees, and I was busily engaged in erecting our housing for the night.

Truth be told, I was a little anxious because I hadn't set it up in over a year and I had visions of tearing fabric and breaking the aluminum sticks and shouting curses at the pines high overhead.

But no. I had it up in 15 minutes. After staking it down, I just stood there and beamed at it with pride. I was a skilled outdoorsman!

Lucy, meantime, stood by watching, seeming to say, So? You mean this is where we're sleeping tonight?

Yes, it was.

But first, it was time for dinner. Which meant I was off to the Bay Mills casino, five miles away, for the $12.95 dinner buffet. No point in going to extremes with this camping thing.

Then, back to the campground where it was still light outside but the temperature was cooling. Time for a campfire! I bought some firewood at the camp headquarters, gathered some sticks for kindling, and grabbed a couple of old Time magazines out of the back of my car.

I crumpled up the magazines in the fire pit, piled the kindling on top, and laid some chopped wood on the very top. Perfect! I was a regular Daniel Boone! I pulled out my matches....Drip....Drip....Drip, Drip....

What's a little shower or two? Come on, we're camping! I lit the fire in several spots. Then several more.

Drip, drip, drip.

Lucy's sitting under a tree, watching my diligent efforts, thinking, Uh, Mr. Cabell, maybe you noticed? The water coming down from the sky? It's...uh...well, I'm starting to get wet, and that tent thing you set up over there, maybe we could go inside...

Strangely, the little fires I was setting on the Time magazine pages kept getting extinguished, and now my hair was matted against my forehead. Still, I persisted. Come on, campers have to tough things out!

Lucy was now shivering, wondering about her master's intelligence. Uh, Mr. Cabell, I am now soaked. As are you. Maybe you should re-consider this fire idea, and maybe, you and me, we should get into that tent thing...

Which we finally did, fumbling with the zippered door, stumbling on top of sleeping bag, and managing, after a minute or two to get the door of tent and the fly zippered up. Unfortunately, during that minute's time, enough water leaked inside to create a puddle near the foot of my sleeping bag.

Lovely.

Nevertheless, I lay down on my back and stared up at the roof of my tent and listened to the heavy patter of raindrops overhead. I checked my watch. Nine-fifteen. Still light outside, and I had nothing to do except look at Lucy who stared back at me. So this is camping, Mr. Cabell? This is, like, supposed to be fun? I mean, I'm wet, you're wet, and now we're stuck in this little tent thing.

Time ticked away exceedingly slowly. Finally, I recalled that I had another Time magazine in the car. Entertainment!  Salvation! I stumbled out of the tent and over to the car to retrieve my reading material, getting even more thoroughly soaked in the process.

But I was now back in the tent, all zipped up, to discover (not surprisingly), that Lucy had managed to worm her way down to the foot of my sleeping bag.

I tried, without success, to evict her. She became an inert canine mass. Wouldn't budge. Squatter's rights. You snooze, you lose, Mr. Cabell.

So we shared the bag, and I lay back again, opened up the Time magazine, only to discover that it was now just dark enough to prevent me from reading.

Super. I laid the magazine aside.

It's 10 pm, I'm wide awake and wet, my feet are fighting for space with Lucy's inert mass, and I've got eight hours before sunrise to ponder the state of the world. My hips, thighs and elbows all ache, the hard ground beneath me is unforgiving, and I come to realize that I've discovered a new version of hell.

I doze off from time to time, once to discover that Lucy was out of the bag and slurping up the water from our tent puddle. Good dog.

All told, I get maybe 90 minutes of sleep before I welcome the first glimmer of dawn. Lucy sleepily watches me roll up the tent, no doubt thinking, So this was supposed to be fun? This camping thing we did? You know, frankly, Mr. Cabell, I would have much preferred spending the night in my smelly dog bed at home. I mean, seriously.  

Can't say I disagree with Lucy. The next time we go on a camping adventure, we'll dispense with the tent thing and, instead, check into the Circle Q Motor Inn, complete with bed bugs, a leaky toilet, and a staticky black-and-white TV. I figure it's got to be a slightly more palatable version of hell.

Getting the Word Out

I've seen a lot of the UP over the last couple of weeks, ever since "Money in the Ground" was published. I've met with bookstore managers and owners, authors, and readers.

I talked to Jerry Harju who's given me some advice on marketing. Says he liked the book alot, by the way. That's encouraging. Others have told me they were surprised by how much they liked it. I'm not sure whether that's flattery or not.

In any case, here are some of the bookstores where you can find "Money in the Ground":

Marquette: Bookworld, Snowbound, NMU
Ishpeming: Country Village
L'Anse: Einerlei
Houghton: Bookworld, Bookworm, Michigan Tech
Hancock: Finlandia
Calumet: Artis, Copper World
Munising: Falling Rock
Gladstone: Frigate
Escanaba: Bookworld
Iron Mountain: Bookworld

We're hoping to get them into other local bookstores in the next few weeks, and of course you can get them right here on this website

In the meantime, I'm starting to structure my next novel. It'll again deal with the Upper Peninsula, TV to some extent, and a Finnish family. I'm hoping to immerse myself in the Finnish culture in the next couple of months. Carl Pellonpaa has promised to sit down with me and educate me a bit.

And by the way, I write a blog at the TV6 website, uppermichiganssource.com