Obama: Primetime

At 8p.m. Wednesday night Senator and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama could be seen on every major television network.

In a brazen attempt to hijack all things media for a day, and blatant showing of his campaign’s incredible financial advantage over Senator John McCain, Obama shelled out 1$ million per network to be seen for 30 minutes on CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX.

image courtesy of barackobama.com

“Before tonight I already had my mind made up“, said Justin Macy who caught the tail-end of Obama’s part-ad-part-live-speech hybrid.  “I think it was important.  Part of it is to not be complacent.  If he wasn’t going to continue to push it would be letting up.”

Macy added that he thought Obama wanted to be sure to win both the popular and electoral vote by a significant margin. “It will give him a higher mandate of authority as a President if he can win convincingly.”

Justin Lam half-watched Obama while shooting pool with friends.  “I don’t know if we will see candidates do this again in the future.  I wouldn’t be surprised.  I honestly don’t know” he said.

Lam said that it definitely helped Obama and was important even with his lead in the polls.  “It’s important in anything, to not underestimate how stupid the general public can be.”

Students React to Uptown Shooting

 

Richard Bailey, a 22 year-old student at UAlbany, died Tuesday October 21^th after being shot in the head the night before.  Bailey was walking alone around 11:20 p.m. when he was gunned down at the intersection of South Lake Avenue and Yates Street, just blocks from his off-campus home.

Memorial on South Lake Street photo Cindy Schultz/Times Union

A week later police are still looking for suspects and students are still looking for answers.

“It’s awful.  A random act like that.  It could have been anyone, any one of us,” Said Vince Laviano, 23 year-old English major at UAlbany.

The incident hit close to home to Vince even though he currently commutes to campus from Troy.

“My girlfriend lives right near there.  It’s creepy because it’s not like a bad neighborhood.  There are families living there, its not even all students,” Said Laviano.

He says he’s not sure if the shooting changes his mind entirely on the safety of the neighborhood, but it has definitely made him think about safety.

“I was walking to my car the other night and I did feel different.  Even leaving class, I have a night class and even on campus, it’s messed up because you don’t know what could happen,” said Laviano.

Vince Laviano speaks about shooting photo by Adam Marschilok

Students received an email alert from the University felt little change on campus.

“I had a mid-term exam Wednesday morning,” said Zane, 21.  “It went on like nothing happened, there was no mention of it.”

Zane lives on Quail Street in a popular student neighborhood.  He doesn’t see much he can do to change other then walk in groups at night.

Dan Carroll, 24, graduated from UAlbany in 2007 and lives and works in Albany.  During his time as a student he lived in an uptown neighborhood until he was the victim of a home invasion and robbery.

“I came home one day and I’d been robbed, someone broke in,” Said Carroll.  He decided to move soon after.

The death of Richard Bailey may be a tragic exclamation point on an already existing problem.

“It got to a point where I didn’t feel safe and had to move,” said Carroll.

 

 

 

 

Tom Wolfe and the Power of Non-Fiction

 

While reading Tom Wolfe’s article The Emotional Core of the Story, I couldn’t help but think of a magazine article I read months back. 

Wolfe writes that non-fiction writing is more powerful than fiction.

Tom Wolfe image courtesy of www.tomwolfe.com

“and I can tell you that the problem with fiction today is that fiction has to be plausible.  And plausible is not the first word that comes to mind to describe an age like this…”

Although Mr. Wolfe does sound his age in describing ‘an age like this’ maybe he does have a point.  Maybe readers only like outlandish unbelievable stories is they are true, and maybe for that reason non-fiction writing is more powerful than fiction.

In the June 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, Evgenia Peretz tells the story of James Frey and his fall from grace.  Many people know the story of James Frey.  He wrote a memoir detailing his struggles with addiction; Oprah fell in love with it and featured it in her book club, quite possibly the ultimate goal of a writer today.  But his A Million Little Pieces wasn’t an entirely true story. 

Frey used his real-life struggles as a jumping off point to craft an unbelievable story of an uncontrollable badass, who was wanted in 3 states, once served time, and had beaten a preist to death.

Frey didn’t really do these things.  Well at least the real-life James Frey didn’t, but does that make his book any less of a compelling read?

Peretz’s Vanity Fair article explains that it was never Frey’s intention to have A Million Little Pieces be a memoir.  He had always called it an autobiographical novel, but his publisher wanted to sell it as a memoir for the same reason Tom Wolfe writes about.

James Frey photo by Terry Richarson

Somehow true stories are more powerful to the reader.  Frey is a great example.  Millions of people loved his book, and when they found out it wasn’t a true story it changed how they felt about it.  As a successful writer of both fiction and non-fiction Wolfe provides a unique perspective about the responsibility journalists have and their ability to capture a reader’s imagination.

video games get political

I’m 23 years old.  And I play video games.

It’s not something I’m real proud of, but about once a week I sit down in front of a big screen with some buddies and do a little online gaming.  We are all old enough to vote, and I guess are within the age range of the average gamer.

Barack Obama ads have started appearing in EA games for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.  Barack Obama billboards can now been seen in EA games including Burnout Paradise, Madden 09, Nascar 09, NHL 09, and Skate.

From NY Times:

Jeff Brown, vice president of communications at Electronic Arts, which publishes Burnout Paradise, said Mr. Obama’s campaign had purchased ads to run in the Xbox 360 version of the game, which he said is most popular among male players ages 16 to 30. The ads will run until Nov. 3 in 10 battleground states.

StubHub NE1?

I had my first StubHub experience today.

I never really liked the idea of online ticket brokering.  And I never understood why somehow it  perfectly fine for websites to make money off of reselling tickets to concerts and sporting events at higher than face value when there are laws, at least I always thought there were, against standing outside a stadium or theatre scalping tickets.

Sites like StubHub drive up ticket prices by showing promoters how much people are willing to pay for popular events. 

Well today I crossed over to the dark side.  I made my first sale on StubHub.  It was a really easy way to make some extra money.

A couple of months back I was able to pre-order tickets for Trey Anastasio’s solo show at the Palace Theatre this Saturday.  I ordered 4 tickets before calling and asking each one of the friends I had in mind. 

Fast forward to about two weeks ago.  The tickets arrive in the mail.  Everyone I know interested in going to the concert already has tickets.

I didn’t want to.  It wasn’t my intention to flip them for profit.  And I listed them at a price lower than any of the 6 other listings for tickets to the same show.

I can’t say I feel bad about it, or won’t ever do it again.  I see the need, or I guess the reason, why ticket brokering sites exist.  I just hope the guy sitting next to me on Saturday night doesn’t wonder if I was the one at FedEx this afternoon overnighting his tickets.