tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-128068842024-03-13T03:03:47.503-07:00First TakeFirst Take is the name of my favorite album from one of my favorite singers. This is the online journal of Ben Guest.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.comBlogger480125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-48776484817054330402020-10-14T03:18:00.002-07:002020-10-14T03:18:24.257-07:00Who's Better, Michael Jordan or LeBron James?<p><span style="color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, .SFNSText-Regular, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's why LeBron is better: In 1993, Jordan retires and the Bulls go from 57 wins to 55 wins (with Peter Myers as the starting shooting guard!). In 2010, LeBron leaves the Cavs and they go from 61 wins to 19 wins. In 2014, LeBron leaves the Heat and they go from 54 wins to 37 wins. In 2018, LeBron leaves the Cavs (again) and they go from 50 wins to 20 wins. Basically, LeBron is "worth" 30 wins to whatever team he's on. Jordan, on the other hand, is worth 2 wins.</span></span></p>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-30590153879843243102016-11-20T06:20:00.001-08:002016-11-20T06:20:35.068-08:00Will a Trump Presidency really be that bad?<div class="p1">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Trump has Republican majorities in the House and Senate.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">There are numerous long-term consequences, none of them good.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Let’s go topic by topic:</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Immigration</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I think the wall is bullshit. Even most Repubs won’t be able to stomach financing it. It won’t get built. They’ll come up with some term like “virtual wall” to explain it away. Or maybe keeping your campaign promises doesn’t even matter anymore. Trump has certainly proved that facts and the truth are not important.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">In any event, Trump will undo Obama’s executive actions. Goodbye Dreamers.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">“Stop and Show Me Your Papers” laws are passed. Some police and immigration officers resign in protest. They’re replaced by racists who can’t wait to kick the shit out of some “Mexicans.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Hate crimes increase dramatically. </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Economy</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Paul Ryan is salivating at the mouth.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Goodbye Obamacare (and you 20 million who are covered).</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Huge tax cuts for the rich (already at historic lows).</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Even more gutting of the little social safety net that exists. Blame will be placed on poor people for a) being lazy and b) not being born rich.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Rolling back of Medicaid, probably replaced by market-based vouchers, turning a successful health care policy for the poor into a profit center for health insurance companies.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Ryan will try, but perhaps fail, to transform Medicare into Personal Health Savings Accounts (a long way of saying, “Privatizing and making for-profit”). Health insurance industry celebrates in the streets. Good times are here again.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Goodbye financial regulation.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Hello to the next financial bubble.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">For a few years things will actually be okay. We’ll run up another bubble, unchecked by any regulations, and there will be some paper millionaires. Trump will be hailed, in some quarters, as a genius, as this decade’s Ronald Reagan.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Then the bubble will burst. Huge losses. Tax-payer bailout. Millions of people fall into poverty with no safety net or access to healthcare.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Wall Street execs give themselves another round of bonuses funded by the tax payers.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Poor people and minorities are blamed for fucking up the bubble.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">As Bruce Springsteen wrote, “Banker man gets fat, working man gets thin/It’s all happened before. It’ll happen again.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Corporate America is like a rabid dog in a room full of raw meat. They are going to tear this country to shreds.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Gun Control</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">What little regulations we have will be gutted.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Trump and the Repubs will promote a gun culture to protect us from terrorists (read: Muslims) and criminals (read: black people).</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Guns will be made even easier to get. More people will buy them. Shootings of all kinds will increase.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Trump will promote a more heavily armed society to protect ourselves like he did after the Pulse nightclub shooting. The bullshit idea that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Even more mass shootings to follow…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Law and Order</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Going along with guns, Trump will promote a “Law and Order” society.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Police will be encouraged to “get tough” with criminals. There will be more shootings by police officers, especially of minorities.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Instead of a president who at least acknowledges that there are issues on both sides and that Black Lives Matter, Trump will promote and advocate the police to crackdown on black people.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Areas with a high concentration of black and brown people will be even more heavily policed, more arrests, more convictions (which have the added benefit of taking away their voting rights), more shootings.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">It’s not a coincidence that stocks in the private prison industries rose almost 50% in the days after the election.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">If there is an event like Hurricane Katrina (likely because global warming will be even more rapid now), Trump will encourage police/National Guard/army/private contractors and even civilians (read: white people) to shoot the “looters” on sight.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Terrorism</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Welcome back torture and Guantanamo.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Trump will appoint loyalist cronies to all positions.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Homeland Security will be asleep at the wheel.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">There could well be another terrorist attack.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">If that happens, we intern Muslims, and likely attack some country full of brown people.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">The chances that we do this anyway depend on how long it takes for the financial bubble that the Repubs create to burst. If they make it past 2020 before the next Great Recession, then we won’t invade anyone for awhile. If the bubble bursts before then ,Trump will invade a country to gin up patriotism and get everyone’s mind off of the economy.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<b><span class="s2"></span><br /></b></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Health Care</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Obamacare is repealed but not replaced.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Lip service is given to pre-existing conditions.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">But, in the dark rooms of power occupied by House and Senate Republicans and Health Insurance Lobbyists, everything is rolled back.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Health Care is a for-profit industry. There is no profit in covering pre-existing conditions.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">The rich will get great health care. Everyone else needs to stay healthy.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Cuba</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">So listen… About last night…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Right to Choose</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Kicked back to the States by a far-right Supreme Court. If you’re poor and pregnant in the south you have no options.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Gay Marriage</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Want some good news? I think this is one of the few points of progress and humanism that will stand. Chief Justice Roberts, that champion of Corporate America, will be mindful of all the positive coverage he received and will want to uphold his legacy.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Gay marriage stands.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">But…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Laws will be passed, upheld by the Supreme Court, allowing government officials (namely County Clerks) to exercise a Religious Exemption from issuing marriage certificates.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">So, like a tree falling in the woods, if a marriage license isn’t issued did it actually happen? </span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Supreme Court</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Ginsburg is 83. If Trump gets one more Justice, the Court is set to the hard right for the next 30 years.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">They will protect corporate America at all costs.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">They will uphold every law passed by the Republican House and Senate.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Kagan and Sotomayor will write the most grief-stricken and angry dissents ever read.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<b><span class="s2"></span><br /></b></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Muslims</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">We may well start a “registry.” Hate crimes will go through the roof. If they are already happening in <a href="https://havurahaddisoncounty.org/2016/11/16/vandalism-at-havurah-house/"><span class="s1">Middlebury</span></a>, VT and <a href="http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/racist_anti-semetic_and_pro-do.html"><span class="s1">Western Mass</span></a> (bastions of liberalism) what’s going to happen in St. Cloud, Minnesota or Dearborn, Michigan?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">If there is a terrorist attack it is certainly within the realm of possibility that we start internment camps.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Environment</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Here’s where it gets really scary. For days after the election, and even now, I’ve been depressed.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I wake with a feeling dread almost immediately washing over me.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">This is why.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Everything else that Trump and the Repubs are able to jam through (huge tax cuts, enormous deficit, rolling back of minority rights, repealing Obamacare) can be fixed.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">It may take decades (likely will take decades because the Supreme Court will be shifted even more to the Right for the next 30 years) but it is fixable.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">There is one issue that, once a tipping point is reached, is no longer fixable. The environment.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">By not addressing global climate change now (and we may already be past the tipping point) we are potentially setting up an extinction level event one hundred years from now.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">At the very least, there will be huge water shortages which will lead to increased starvation and resource conflict.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">More severe weather systems. Drought. Flooding. Islands sinking.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Increased poising of our water, food and air systems from de-regulated industry.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Hundreds of millions of people will die.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I guess I won’t be here for the worst of it.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">But my niece. My god kids. All of whom are under the age of ten. What kind of world will they inherit?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I think that the Gore/Bush election was really our chance to address this issue. But Trump and the Repubs, by gutting all environmental regulations, will kill this issue once and for all.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">We will hit the two degree Celsius threshold even quicker. And then, it’s just math. Like the Titanic after that fourth wall was breached. Even if the ship is still afloat it is just a matter of time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Everything we do, as a civilization, is just rearranging the deck chairs.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Media</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Investigative reporting has already been gutted. As David Simon is fond of saying, “There are no citizen journalists down at City Hall.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">The New York Times is, perhaps, the only institution that can muster some resources to uncovering corruption, opaque business dealings, criminal activity and everything else that is going to go on in the Trump White House.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">And even then it’s probably ten years too late.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">The time of a newspaper tasking two reporters to one story for more than a year, as the Washington Post did with Watergate, is long since past.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Absent whistleblowers, on which there will be a legal crackdown, nothing of substance is likely to come out.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">On the other hand, in the creepy netherworld of the alt-right, Breitbart will be the lead mouthpiece.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">News stories of (insert vulnerable group here) being harassed, assaulted or perhaps even killed will be dismissed as made up. Like Newtown. If people don’t accept that it happened they don’t have to feel bad about it.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Fox News won’t got that far. But they will be cheerleaders. The White Citizens Council to the lower-rent KKK’ers of Breitbart.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Media conglomerates are profit centers. Les Moonves, chair of CBS, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464"><span class="s1">said</span></a> of Trump and the Presidential race, “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Watch the money come rolling in…</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2"><b>Best Case Scenario</b></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Everything I’ve just outlined, including destroying our planet courtesy of climate change and global warming, is best case scenario.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">I think there is a high probability that all of the things I’ve just outlined come to pass.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">But what if some state-sponsored terrorist group detonates a dirty bomb somewhere in the US. Does Trump nuke Iran? Or North Korea? Is there a retaliatory strike?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">What if Putin invades eastern Europe and a feckless Trump looks the other way?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">What if a reporter uncovers some criminal act and Trump orders a drone strike to execute him or her?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">The scenarios are numerous and terrifying.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">Trump is obsessed with being perceived as strong.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">This is the guy who, when being filmed welcoming children to Trump Tower, talked to a ten-year-old girl and the turned to the camera and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAIi-vJZ1Rg"><span class="s1">said</span></a>, “I’ll be dating her in ten years.”</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">He’s insane.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; min-height: 13.0px}
span.s1 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none}
span.s2 {font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s2">So to answer my question: Yes, a Trump Presidency is going to be that bad.</span></div>
Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-4254026912329867642014-07-18T10:07:00.001-07:002014-07-18T10:07:24.211-07:00Bob Knight Coaching NotesI recently purchased Championship Productions' "<a href="http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/p/Basketball/Geno-Auriemma-and-Bob-Knight-Learn-from-the-Legends-Series_BD-04483.html?crm=c-1019&id=Mo5WYbKbJXtj" target="_blank">Learn From the Legends Series.</a>" It is six videos of Coach Geno Auriemma and Coach Bob Knight talking about and demonstrating their offensive and defensive philosophies. Here are my notes for Coach Knight's portion of the series. For the first two videos I didn't take any notes.<br />
<br />
<b>Bob Knight Notes</b><br />
<br />
<b>Motion Offense</b><br />
<br />
-Post player should set-up the first line above the block<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Like a bounce pass to the post man<br />
<br />
-Develop situations where practice is more difficult than a game<br />
<br />
-Play without the dribble at times in practice<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Eliminates kids standing around and watching<br />
<br />
-Take a Timeout in Practice. Mention three things. Ask kids to write down what you just said.<br />
<br />
-3 on 3 at both ends is a must every night<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Early part of practice<br />
<br />
-Prepped for a press by having 7 defenders press<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Zone Offense</b><br />
<br />
-First thing against any zone is beating the zone down the floor<br />
<br />
-Play 4 on 4 or 5 on 5 where the offense is trying to keep the ball and the defense is trying to steal it. No scoring.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-How many passes can you make?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-How many minutes can you keep it without a turnover?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-One minute? Two minutes<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Defense can take it the other way<br />
<br />
-The dribble is the most effective way to attack a zone<br />
<br />
-Against a zone continually force two people to guard one offensive player<br />
<br />
-Distort the Zone Defense<br />
<br />
-You can not dribble the ball and pass in the same direction<br />
<br />
-Never pass the ball to the same player who just passed you the ball away (unless you dribble away)<br />
<br />
-Screen the Zone<br />
<br />
-The Zone is designed to play the pass<br />
<br />
-The most unused move in basketball is the SHOT FAKE<br />
<br />
-Pass fake and reverse the ball the other way<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Drills</b><br />
<br />
-Every night you have to work on shooting<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Have to do it in a game-like condition<br />
<br />
-Block out at an angle<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Work in pairs<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Coach says “Go”<br />
<br />
-When shooting Free Throws players should keep their eyes on the back of the room<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Coaches should check players’ eyes when they are shooting FTs<br />
<br />
-When setting screen lock your wrist in your other hand. Keeps you from throwing an elbow/illegal screen. Lets you use your arms as a buffer.<br />
<br />
-The screener should/will always have a chance to score.<br />
<br />
-Always screen a guy below you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Defensive Tactics and Defending Screens</b><br />
<br />
-There are more ways to get beat playing Zone than playing Man to Man.<br />
<br />
-Rarely picks up full court<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Gives up layups/easy scores<br />
<br />
-Defense starts with good block-out<br />
<br />
-Elbows out when blocking out<br />
<br />
-Work the block-out every day<br />
<br />
-Picks up between center line and three point line<br />
<br />
-Keep things going to the side<br />
<br />
-Help is the most important thing in Defensive Play<br />
<br />
-If you can’t help and recover you don’t have a good defense<br />
<br />
-Doesn’t like to front the post. Leaves the lob open.<br />
<br />
-Player sets a screen at the same distance from which he can shoot<br />
<br />
-Great players usually don’t make great coaches. A bench player pays more attention.<br />
<br />
-“Victory favors the team making the fewest mistakes.”<br />
<br />
-Foul when up three at the end of the game.<br />
<br />
-With Help and Recover never Help off a great shooter. Rest of the team has to understand this.<br />
<br />
-The best coaches are the most demanding coaches.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-44237058274274967662014-07-18T10:03:00.001-07:002014-07-18T10:07:34.201-07:00Geno Auriemma Coaching NotesI recently purchased Championship Productions' "<a href="http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/p/Basketball/Geno-Auriemma-and-Bob-Knight-Learn-from-the-Legends-Series_BD-04483.html?crm=c-1019&id=Mo5WYbKbJXtj" target="_blank">Learn From the Legends Series.</a>" It is six videos of Coach Geno Auriemma and Coach Bob Knight talking about and demonstrating their offensive and defensive philosophies. Here are my notes for Coach Auriemma's portion of the series. Note that I didn't take many notes on the first three videos (for one I didn't take any notes).<br />
<br />
<b>Geno Auriemma Notes</b><br />
<br />
<b>The Essentials of Coaching</b><br />
<br />
-Starts practice the same way every day. Not a lot of drills but the uses the same ones every day. Only covers things that players will do in a game.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Building Creativity into Your Motion Offense</b><br />
<br />
-You want the best offensive player on your team catching the ball at the high post.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Zone Offense</b><br />
<br />
-Spend more time on your offense than defense<br />
<br />
-“If you can’t make a shot, what difference what plays you’re running?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-If you don’t have good shooters, work on shooting the ball, a lot, in practice<br />
<br />
-Don’t put anyone on the floor who can’t help you offensively.<br />
<br />
-Practice different types of layups<br />
<br />
-All the great offenses in the world won’t work if you can’t dribble, pass, catch, and shoot.<br />
<br />
-Spend time shooting the ball every day<br />
<br />
-The guy who hits the other guy first wins<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Post-ups<br />
<br />
<i>Zone Offense Strategies</i><br />
<br />
-Penetrate the Zone with a dribble or a pass<br />
<br />
-Girls don’t play zone or press because girls aren’t big and fast enough<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-They don’t take up enough space<br />
<br />
-On closeouts it is impossible to take away the three AND stop the drive<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-One or the other<br />
<br />
-Don’t shoot jump shots against the trap<br />
<br />
<b>Drills</b><br />
<br />
-There’s only so many things you can be good at<br />
<br />
-There’s a lot of different ways you can win. You have to decide what works for you.<br />
<br />
-First Man to Man Defense decision: Where do you pick up?<br />
<br />
-You are either a pressing team or you’re not. If you press you have to be committed to it.<br />
<br />
-At some point your Half-court Defense is going to have to win a game for you<br />
<br />
-A mistake players make on D is, once they player starts dribbling, they body up and foul. KEEP YOUR SEPARATION.<br />
<br />
-Coach A fronts the post but is undecided if this is the best strategy because it gives up an offensive rebound.<br />
<br />
-4 on 4. Defensive 4 start in the paint. Offensive four outside the arc. Coach passes to a random offensive player. Defenders must closeout and/or position themselves accurately based on how many passes away they are.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Defensive Tactics</b><br />
<br />
-No easy way to defend good ball screens<br />
<br />
-UConn does a hard hedge on a ball screen. Then recover quickly.<br />
<br />
-Run ball screens for a really good player. Don’t run ball screens for a weak player.<br />
<br />
-Pick and roll is an opportunity to trap. But very difficult to trap in the middle of the court. Sides are much better. Trap any screen going to the sideline.<br />
<br />
-Pick one way to guard Pick and Roll<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Trap<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Switch<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Hard Hedge (Auriemma prefers Hard Hedge)<br />
<br />
-You’ve got to coach like your best stuff won’t work<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-Be ready to adjust<br />
<br />
-The easiest teams to play are the teams that run a set play. Once you take that away they fall apart.<br />
<br />
-When playing a better/more talented team, back up your defense. Play soft, sagging man to man. On offense try to fast break. Don’t want to let a good team set-up their defense. Try to set-up your offense where your two best offensive players are together on one side of the floor. Everybody else screens. Hope the other team plays poorly.<br />
<br />
-If you don’t give up open three’s and you don’t put people on the FT line do you know how many two’s a team has to make to beat you? A lot.<br />
<br />
-My timeouts have gotten better because I’ve realized my players are dumb. Only give players two things to do. No more.<br />
<br />
-Put best big athlete on the ball on inbound situations.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-430162736886088782014-01-18T06:03:00.003-08:002014-03-05T01:20:56.981-08:00Best Films of 20132013 was a down year for films, especially compared to the <a href="http://bguest.blogspot.com/2013/11/addendum-to-best-films-of-2102.html">treasure trove of 2012</a>. That being said, the two films at the top of this list are all outstanding. After the first two there is a significant drop-off.<br />
<br />
1) 12 Years a Slave<br />
An un-blinking look at slavery.<br />
<br />
2) Blue Jasmine<br />
I couldn't finish "Midnight in Paris," barely finished "To Rome With Love," and now Allen drops this masterpiece.<br />
<br />
3) World War Z<br />
4) Frances Ha<br />
5) Afternoon Delight<br />
6) Dallas Buyers Club<br />
7) Gravity<br />
8) All is Lost<br />
<br />
Yep, that's it. Told you it was a down year.<br />
<br />
Note: I intend to but haven't yet seen Nebraska, Philomena, Blue is the Warmest Color, Mud, Short Term 12, Upstream Color, or Blackfish. I will revise the list if necessary.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-77485494793105241002013-11-19T22:38:00.003-08:002014-01-18T06:04:57.860-08:00Addendum to Best Films of 2102Caught up with two movies this year that should have been on the 2012 List. Cloud Atlas and The Place Beyond the Pines. Both were fantastic. Cloud Atlas would rank third and The Place Beyond the Pines would rank 11th. The updates 2012 List looks like this:<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">14) Ted</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">13) Safety Not Guaranteed</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">12) John Carter</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 20.796875px;">11) The Place Beyond the Pines</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">10) Amour</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">9) The Waiting Room</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">8) Argo</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">7) 21 Jump Street</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">6) Avengers</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">5) The Cabin in the Woods</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">4) Magic Mike</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="line-height: 20.796875px;">3) Cloud Atlas</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">2) Django Unchained</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 20.796875px;">1) Haywire</span>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-40734892133942607892013-11-19T22:34:00.000-08:002013-11-19T22:34:13.696-08:00Advice to a First-Year TeacherA friend of mine who is a first year Teach For America teacher recently reached out for some advice. Here is my response (with a few edits). This will look mighty familiar to hundreds of Mississippi Teacher Corps teachers :-)<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
A lot of stuff of going on (all of it normal for a first-year alternate route teacher). The good news is you are through the roughest patch. The most difficult part of the school year (for any teacher, but especially for first-years) is October through November break. There are couple reasons for this:</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-The kids start acting up as the "newness" of the school year fades.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-You get overwhelmed with planning and grading.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-The weather changes. You pick up a cold and can't shake it.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-There is no off day, just six or seven or eight straight weeks of school (for these same reasons the second hardest stretch is February through March break).</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
So the good news is you have officially weathered the toughest stretch of a first-year teacher. December will fly by as will the weeks after spring break.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
A couple of other thoughts:</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Have one day (Saturday or Sunday) where you do nothing school related. No planning, no grading, etc. Do something you like to do. Go out to eat, go to the movies, exercise, whatever. This is key. And this is the most important piece of advice I can give you.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Do you have a lot of outstanding grading that needs to be done? If so put a check+ on everything and give it back. Having grading hanging over your head can be a constant source of stress. Once you do that from now on do all of the grading immediately after school or first thing the next morning.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Speaking of the next morning it is much more efficient to wake up early and do work than to stay up late. Better to go to bed at 8:00 PM and get up at 4:00 AM than go to bed at 10:00 PM and get up at 6:00 AM. You'll get twice as much work done in the morning when you are (relatively) fresh.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Your friends will understand. Your immediate family, your best friend, and your significant other are the only folks you need to keep updated.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Take all of Thanksgiving break to relax and recharge. If you do decide to work only do it on the Saturday and Sunday before school. However, for December break spend an hour or two each day of the <b>second</b> week planning. This will help you immeasurably once school starts.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-Classroom management comes down to three questions: Do you have rules and consequences? Are you enforcing them? Are you enforcing them consistently? Ask yourself each of these questions. This solves 99% of of management problems.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
-The gaps in knowledge between students will have to wait. You don't have the skill-set and experience to adequately address this yet. You will have to forgive yourself for this (easy to say, hard to do).</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-75537162103170686602013-01-06T16:09:00.001-08:002013-01-06T16:10:50.955-08:00Best Films of 2012Before I get to the list here are the acclaimed 2012 films I have not yet seen: The Grey; End of Watch; Life of Pi; Les Mis; Promised Land; Holy Motors; How to Survive a Plague. On to the list:<br />
<br />
12) Ted<br />
11) Safety Not Guaranteed<br />
10) John Carter<br />
9) Amour<br />
8) The Waiting Room<br />
7) Argo<br />
6) 21 Jump Street<br />
5) Avengers<br />
4) The Cabin in the Woods<br />
3) Magic Mike<br />
2) Django Unchained<br />
1) Haywire<br />
<br />
Two notes...<br />
<br />
First, it was not a good year for documentaries. Only one, The Waiting Room, made the list. Second, it was the year of Soderbergh. My favorite director working today and his two films are one and three on my list. Soderbergh has two more films in the pipeline ("Side Effects" and "Behind the Candelabra") and then is <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Steven-Soderbergh-His-Retirement-His-Career-His-Childhood-Shoplifting-Phase-29033.html">retiring</a>.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-55511170388081993812013-01-06T15:59:00.002-08:002013-01-06T16:11:09.129-08:00Amherst Eats-Miss SaigonHad two meals today at <a href="http://www.amherstpho.com/">Miss Saigon</a>, a Vietnamese spot that opened in Amherst in 2009. Lunch was Mi Chay, a big bowl of vegetarian egg noodle soup. Before the bowl comes out they deposit a plate of fresh basil and jalapeños to garnish. The soup itself was outstanding, filled with vegetables, tofu, and noodles. The best way to describe the soup is that it is like ramen on steroids. As per the waitress' suggestion I added a dose of Sriracha.<br />
<br />
Dinner was an order of veggie spring rolls and a hot and sour soup. Spring rolls were delicious, served cold and wrapped in soft noodle paper. Crispy lettuce, avocado, carrot, and fresh mint. Two dipping sauces: peanut and something light and clear.<br />
<br />
Amherst has several outstanding spots on Pleasant Street. My two favorites are <a href="http://www.antoniospizza.com/index.php/home">Antonio's</a> and <a href="http://www.motiamherst.com/">Moti</a>. Miss Saigon is now my third.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-7647524819241188462012-10-31T14:04:00.002-07:002012-10-31T14:04:32.432-07:00Star WarsTop five directors I'd like to see direct the next Star Wars. Criteria is someone who has made at least one film, has a good grasp of story, and experience with effects. Trying to be somewhat realistic in who would say "Yes" so no Cameron, Whedon, Spielberg, Zemeckis, or Tarantino (among others).
1) Alfonso Curaon. See "Children of Men." 'Nuff said.
2) Andrew Stanton. I thought "John Carter" was great. Excellent story and use of effects.
3) Drew Goddard. "Cabin in the Woods" had a new take on genre with killer story.
4) Steven Soderbergh. The master. Retiring from moviemaking unless he can find something new to spark his interest. Maybe this is it. He's only done one sci-fi film...
5) John McTiernan. Phenomenal action director. "Die Hard" and "Predator" are classics.
And here is one more for the road: Lawrence Kasdan. Once upon a time Kasden directed classics like "Body Heat" and "The Big Chill." Has effects experience from "Dreamcatcher." And made his bones as a script writer. Starting with a little indie called "The Empire Strikes Back."
Who do I think it will be? As the internets have been speculating, I think it will likely be: J.J. Abrams (too much lens flare); Brad Bird (I thought MI4 was boring); or Joe Johnston (has never directed a great movie).Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-32207120836989849522012-03-29T08:24:00.002-07:002012-03-29T08:26:06.648-07:00The NRA and "Stand Your Ground"As senseless as the Trayvon Martin killing is the real culprits are the lawmakers of Florida and the lobbyists of the National Rifle Association. Without easy, legal, access to guns and a concealed carry permit Zimmerman wouldn't be patrolling his gated neighborhood with a gat. Without the ridiculous "Stand Your Ground" law he couldn't claim self-defense. <br /><br />For my first point NRA nuts will say "But if guns were illegal then only criminals would have guns." And they are right of course. If you look at countries that have strict gun laws they still have a high rate of gun-related crime. Oh, wait. It's actually just the opposite. <br /><br />As for my second point, racists will say, "But if we can't use our own prejudices to claim fear how can we legally justify shooting unarmed minorities?" To which I have no response.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-69059267133541730572012-03-28T14:01:00.009-07:002012-03-28T14:43:21.704-07:00Storytelling Tips from Ira GlassFour short videos and a three-part written manifesto on the construction of story from This American Life's master story-teller Ira Glass. Great stuff.<br /><br />Couple of notes:<br /><br />-There are two building blocks of story. The first is the sequence of events. The second is the why or the moment of reflection. There is 1) what happens and 2) why it is important. Successful stories must have both. To quote Ira:<br /><br />"I usually think of a radio story (the kind of story we do on This American Life, anyway) as having two basic parts to it. There’s the plot, where someone goes through some experience. And then there are moments of reflection, where this person (or another character in the story, or the narrator) says something interesting about what’s happened. Or, put another way, there’s the action of the story and there are the conclusions. And both have to be pretty interesting. A person can walk through lava, cure a disease, find true love, lose true love, discover he was adopted, discover he was NOT adopted, have all manner of amazing experiences, but if he (or the narrator) can’t say something big and surprising about what that experience means, if the story doesn’t lead to some interesting idea about how the world works, then it doesn’t work for radio. Or, anyway, it’s not going to be as powerful as the best radio stories. The best radio stories have both. So one way to get an ailing story to work (and to determine if it’s a story at all) is to figure out what surprising conclusions about the world might come from that story."<br /><br />-You need a sympathetic character.<br /><br />-Surprise is important. If there are no surprises the story is boring.<br /><br />-You should always be asking, "What's the conflict? What's the drama?"<br /><br />-How does the little issue speak to the bigger issue?<br /><br />Here are the four short videos:<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/loxJ3FtCJJA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KW6x7lOIsPE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BI23U7U2aUY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/baCJFAGEuJM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />And here is the entire manifesto, cut and pasted into this post. Notice that most of the links don't work. You can read the original entires, with embedded audio and working links, <a href="http://transom.org/?p=6978&cpage=2">here</a>, <a href="http://transom.org/?page_id=7031">here</a>, and <a href="http://transom.org/?page_id=7025">here</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ira Glass's Manifesto</span><br /><br />Rather than talk about radio in a Big Picture way, I'm going to start with some simple things that might be useful to the radio beginners who come to Transom. I'm going to try to avoid repeating things I've said elsewhere about making radio stories, but I'm guessing some repetition is going to be inevitable. Elsewhere on the web you can find an old (and deeply edited) speech about making radio more fun here. There are some pages from the This American Life " How to Make Radio" comic book here.<br /><br />1. Learning Curve<br /><br />I started working at NPR's headquarters in Washington when I was 19 but I wasn't competent at writing and structuring my own stories until I was 27. I've never met anyone who took longer, and I've met hundreds of people who work in radio. Back then, I made my living by filling in as a production assistant on the various national news shows, and by taking day jobs as a temp typist around Washington. I was sort of hopeless at all the basic tasks of recognizing and shaping a story.<br /><br />If this sounds like exaggeration, here's a typical report from when I was in my mid-20's. If you listen to the first minute you'll get the idea. The writing's stilted. I'm a horrible reader, underlining every other word for emphasis. The people in the story are two-dimensional props, used to make an argument. It's hard to even tell what this story's about. I refer to things that no one's ever heard of (like "the international debate over meat and grain production") as if we all have heard of them. The tone of the thing is all wrong. There's no pleasure, no sense of discovery, no humor, no genuine human moment, no fun.<br /><br />Listen to the Supermarket Excerpt in MP3 - 1:03 (764 kb) http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ supermarket_excerpt.mp3<br /><br />A few years ago, one of the producers of This American Life, Alix Spiegel, had an idea for a story about chickens and I remembered that I'd done a story on a similar subject as part of this supermarket series. I dug up a tape. She listened. "There's nothing in here," she reported to me, "showing any talent at all. There's nothing in here that indicates that you were ever going to get it." (For a sense of what my aesthetics were like when I was 19 and first worked at NPR, here are two radio spots I did back in college, a month or two before I first set foot in the building. These are possibly the most embarrassing things I could possibly post on the Internet. I was a very corny wannabe humorist. I appear in both spots.) In retrospect, I'm not exactly sure what kept me going. Part of it, I'm sure, was that I didn't have any other prospects. I certainly didn't have any other skills.<br /><br />Listen to the WNUR Spot #1 - :49 (580 kb)<br />http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ wnur_spot1.mp3<br /><br />Listen to the WNUR Spot #2 - 1:03 (400 kb)<br />http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ wnur_spot2.mp3<br /><br />I bring all of this up to say that if you're someone who wants to make radio stories (or do any kind of creative work), you're probably going to have a period when things might not come too easily. For some people, that's just a year. For others, like me, it's eight years. You might feel completely alone and lost during this period -- God knows I did -- and I hope it's reassuring in some small way to hear that what you're going through is completely normal. Most people go through it. And there are things you can do during this period of mediocrity that will get you to the next step, that will drive you toward skill and competence.<br /><br />Force yourself to do a lot of stories. This is the most important thing you can do. Get yourself in a situation where people are expecting work out of you, or where you simply force yourself to do a certain number of stories every month. Turn the stuff out. Deadlines are your friend.<br /><br />Create your own projects. Some of these can be based on what you're good at. I was always a very good tape cutter. It was the one part of making radio that I got right from the start and did well. I was an okay interviewer and, as we've established, a horrible reader and writer. So I invented this series of stories where I'd interview people and then edit myself out of the tape completely. They'd tell stories and reflect on what the stories meant. No script. No narration.<br /><br />Here are two of those stories, done several years after the supermarket stories. You can hear something in their tone that would eventually morph into This American Life.<br /><br />Listen to Bradley - 5:27(3.7 mb)<br />http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ bradley.mp3<br /><br />Listen to Yasuko - 5:29 (3.7 mb)<br />http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ yasuko.mp3<br /><br />Half the people I'd interviewed for this series didn't work out. Their stories weren't interesting enough. That was something else I learned through this series, that lots of things will never be radio stories.<br /><br />Have your own agenda. By the time I was in my 30's, I was getting reporting assignments from NPR and on any given story, in addition to whatever my editor wanted, I had my own goals. For instance, every story, even the stories thrown together in one day, had to have a tape-to-tape transition. (That is, the story would go from one quote directly to the next ... or from a quote to location sound, to another quote, with no narration. This was to keep me alert to pacing. Too many radio stories just go back and forth from script to tape to script to tape.) Every story had to have some moment that was there to amuse me -- a funny moment, an emotional moment, some original observation I'd made on the scene that no other reporter had. It could just be a nice moment in the script. Every story had to have someone who was more than a talking head, spouting out their point of view on the issue of the day. To make them more human, it sometimes only took a line of description, an original thought about who they were and why they believed what they believed, a surprising moment, a funny moment on tape.<br /><br />What I'm saying is, there was lots I was bad at and I consciously set out to make myself better. For a while, I forced myself in every story to have some moment where I interacted with someone on tape during the story. I did this because I'd noticed that in other people's stories, usually the most interesting stuff came when they talked to the people in the stories, where there was a back and forth. Like most beginning radio reporters, I didn't like to hear myself on tape. I didn't like how I sounded asking the questions. So much of the time I was awkward or cloying. Trying too hard in one way or another. It was embarrassing. But at some point I decided that omitting this kind of tape meant I was accidentally omitting a kind of drama from my stories, neglecting some of the tools at my disposal, neglecting part of the power and fun of the medium, and I forced myself through it, in story after story.<br /><br />Even today, if I had to give just one piece of advice to beginning reporters about the single fastest way they could improve their stories, it'd be to get themselves into the quotes. Asking tough questions. Cajoling the interviewee. Joking with the interviewee. Thinking out loud and chatting with the interviewee. The daily reporting on public radio would be so much more fun to listen to, and so much more informative about the character of the interviewees, if there were more of this.<br />Imitate others. Painters do it. Why don't we?<br /><br />Back when I really didn't understand how to write a radio story, one thing that helped a lot was to mimic other people's writing. I specifically remember stealing this one move I'd heard Alex Chadwick make in a story. It's a good move and I encourage you to steal it too.<br /><br />To understand the move, put yourself in Alex's position for a second. He's writing the intro to a story about frogs. That story: A high school girl refused to dissect a frog in class. She thought it was inhumane to kill the frog. A judge ruled that she still had to do the assignment, but the school had to provide her with a frog that died of natural causes. I was working at All Things Considered and saw this item in the paper and thought it was pretty funny, that some school administrators were now going to have to find frogs who were just on the verge of dying, or just recently dead, and so I produced a little story with Alex about it. We went out with a naturalist to a swamp where frogs live, to look for some recently- dead or dying frogs, to illustrate the new hell this school science teacher would now find himself in.<br /><br />So okay, you're Alex Chadwick. You have to write the opening of this story. Most of us would be kind of, I don't know, workaday and boring about it. We'd write something summarizing the court case, maybe along the lines of what I just wrote above:<br />Earlier this week in Victorville California, a high school girl refused to dissect a frog in class. She thought it was inhumane to kill the frog. She ended up in court, where a judge came to this Solomonic ruling: she still had to do the assignment ... but the school had to provide her with a frog that died ... of natural causes. But does such a thing even exist? We decided to figure it out.<br /><br />Okay, that's lame, I know. But I'm making a point. Listen to Alex's version of the opening. I remember when he showed me the script, I was stunned at how long it was. I figured he'd knock it off in three or four sentences, but he was taking so much time. (And needless to say, because we were on All Things Considered, we needed things to be short.) I thought he was nuts. But what he did was so much more engaging than what most radio writers do, because, for one thing, it actually has a human voice to it. He sounds like a real guy telling you something he's interested in, not a news-robot.<br /><br />Listen to the Frog Intro - 1:03 (1.2 mb)<br />http:/ / www.transom.org/ sounds/ 2004/ guests/ 200405_glass/ frog.mp3<br /><br />In addition, he makes that move, the one that you're going to steal. It comes here: "It bothered her that any creature should have to die so she could cut it open for study. It was a matter of principle. And as with many such issues, it wound up in court." I know it seems like a small thing, but that's the move. Namely, when he says "as with many such issues," he steps out of the facts of this particular story and toward a big general point about How Things Work. Also, framing it as a matter of principle makes it seem bigger and grander and more like a story with something happening in it. This is so much a part of the style of the radio show I work on now that if I open my script for last week's show, I come to an example of it immediately, in the intro to Act One:<br /><br />And now ... the story of a man with a simple mission: to give a little special treatment to a group of people whose contribution to society is often overlooked: the men and women of the food service industry.<br /><br />Not the greatest piece of writing, but a decent one. Thanks, Alex.<br /><br />2. What’s a Story?<br /><br />The people who run Transom had this suggestion:<br /><br />From all the submissions you get, you must have a sense of Things That Tend NOT To Work… and maybe some ideas for GETTING them to work. For instance, what moves the personal story toward something more? Are there stories that are just not worth pursuing and what do they have in common?<br /><br />Some stories definitely aren’t worth pursuing. These are stories where everything reminds you too much of other stories you’ve already heard, and stories where there’s no sympathetic character (it’s hard for the story to carry much feeling if there’s no one in the story to relate to), and stories where everything kind of works out as you’d sort of expect. Surprise is important.<br /><br />And some stories just have a kind of, I don’t know the word, charisma or something. There definitely is a X factor, some extra exciting something in certain stories, that when you tell a friend the story, you feel yourself get charged up. It’s got some juice in it. Sometimes it’s the alchemy of the characters and the situation and the plot turns. Sometimes it’s just one moment where someone says something or does something or realizes something that’s so perfect and pleasing to think about. Understanding what it is that attracts you to the story in the first place is a big part of making the story work.<br /><br /><br />One simple way to test whether your story is worth telling on the radio is to tell it to your friends, and notice how you feel. Do you feel like you’re dragging through one tedious moment after another, always on the verge of losing their interest, and sometimes you’re not even sure what the story’s about or why you’re telling certain parts? Or are your friends laughing and buying you drinks and begging you for more details about the characters? When you’re done, does everyone at the table launch into an excited discussion of similar things that happened to them? Heed these signs. If you can’t tell the story compellingly to a friend, it means either you haven’t figured out what the story is really about, or much more likely it never will be possible to tell this story compellingly over the radio.<br /><br />(Also notice, incidentally, the way you tell your friends the story: where you begin it, what background facts you feel compelled to throw in and where you throw them in, what parts of the story you tell in what order, what parts of the story you leave out, what parts of the story seem weaker when you tell them. The way you tell the story to your friends is often the most structure for the story on the radio. Sometimes, when someone’s stuck on writing a story for our show, I or one of the other producers will have them put down their notes and logs and just tell us the story, to hear the structure they naturally use in telling it aloud.)<br /><br />And yes, there are ways to get a story to work. Often this means you have to think about what the heart of the story is about, and figure out how to make that more present. This can involve adding moments and scenes that build up the central conflict (and pruning away the ones that don’t). It can mean making explicit what the story means, stating more directly what the point of the whole thing is. More about that below.<br /><br />Some Basics About Story Construction<br /><br />I usually think of a radio story (the kind of story we do on This American Life, anyway) as having two basic parts to it. There’s the plot, where someone goes through some experience. And then there are moments of reflection, where this person (or another character in the story, or the narrator) says something interesting about what’s happened. Or, put another way, there’s the action of the story and there are the conclusions. And both have to be pretty interesting. A person can walk through lava, cure a disease, find true love, lose true love, discover he was adopted, discover he was NOT adopted, have all manner of amazing experiences, but if he (or the narrator) can’t say something big and surprising about what that experience means, if the story doesn’t lead to some interesting idea about how the world works, then it doesn’t work for radio. Or, anyway, it’s not going to be as powerful as the best radio stories. The best radio stories have both. So one way to get an ailing story to work (and to determine if it’s a story at all) is to figure out what surprising conclusions about the world might come from that story.<br /><br />Here’s an example of a personal story that reaches for bigger, universal ideas. It’s a pretty old story, one I did for Morning Edition with a reporter named Margy Rochlin. The pacing and music choices are a little less dynamic than I’d probably go for today. (Years later, we collected this story and a bunch from the same series into the Liars episode of This American Life.)<br /><br />If you listen, you’ll hear that this lays out in two clear sections. There’s the plotline about the narrator’s freshman roommate, and how he told this big lie, and how the lie unfolded, and how it was discovered. Then there’s the idea section of the story. If you haven’t listened to the story yet, but think you will someday, you might want to skip down four paragraphs to avoid some spoilers.<br /><br />There are three ideas in this story. The first is about life in a small town, and how lonely it is, and how it can lead you to this kind of lie. That’s a nice one because it’s so anthropological. I love when the narrator says “Have you ever been to a really a small town? If you’ve ever been to a really small town and you’re a different kind of kid … ” I love how he leaps to a big general principle he’s noticed, based on his own experience, an experience that’s so different from mine.<br /><br />The second idea made more sense years ago, back when this story was produced, because the Kennedy legend was a little shinier then. Our narrator talks about the power of the Kennedy myth, and how “if you’re going to try to embroider a life, a life in America, what myth are you going to try to hook yourself onto?” The soundmix in here where the second voice comes in still makes me really happy, every time I hear it. This is the sparkliest of the three ideas, the most original, I think.<br /><br />The third idea explains how our narrator was complicit in the lie. How he kind of enjoyed the lie. Which is nice because it makes the drama of the story more complicated.<br /><br />It’s best to try to figure out the possible Big Ideas in your story before you go out and start interviewing people, because knowing what the Big Ideas might turn out to be will shape your interviews. Any idea that happens in a radio story, you’ll want tape to illustrate. That’s as true in this kind of story as in a news report on Morning Edition. You’ll need tape of your interviewees talking about the Big Ideas.<br /><br />And yes, lots of times when you get in the field, you discover that either no one in the story has anything interesting to say about what happened, or the facts of the story turn out differently than you thought, or some other damn thing fails to fall into place and your story just dissipates into vapor. Probably half the interviews I do never make it onto the air for this very reason. Some moment in the story is interesting, but there’s nothing interesting to say about it.<br /><br /><br />It’s helpful to build into the way you think about stories the notion that lots of ideas aren’t going to pan out. Our show’s acquisitions budget, even at very beginning when we were still struggling for every dollar, was set up to commission a fourth more stories than we’d ever run, with the assumption we’ll be killing lots of ideas.<br /><br />So How Do You Find the Ideas Inherent in a Story?<br /><br />Consider this story. It’s about this guy, Adam Davidson, whose mom is Israeli and whose dad is American. When he was a teenager, Adam read the biography of David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the state of Israel. Ben-Gurion was a compulsive diarest and in Adam’s diary at 16, Adam wrote with the quiet conviction that he, Adam, was destined for a fate like Ben-Gurion’s. Someday he would be the Prime Minister of Israel.<br /><br />Adam’s a regular contributor to our show and this whole story was mainly an excuse to read his really funny, cringeworthy teenage diary entries on the air. Here’s a sample:<br /><br />So interviews for this style of story (and by that I mean most interviews I do for our show) generally take the following form. For a while I get the person to lay out the plot of what happened, getting them to be very specific about the turning points in the story and about any other moments and details that interest and amuse me (including, in this case, reading from diary entries). I comment and I get them to comment on anything intriguing that comes up along the way.<br /><br />And then there’s the part of the interview really, it can be interspersed throughout the interview too where I look for the Big Ideas.<br /><br />So once I had Adam explain the diary and read a bunch of funny excerpts, I started in on the Big Idea part of things, which mostly involves a lot of fishing around, asking every idea-oriented question I can possibly think of.<br /><br />To come up with these questions, mainly I just imagine the story from Adam’s perspective. I try to imagine what it would mean to be that 16-year-old version of Adam, and what the story says about kids like that. The questions can be as direct as: “Why you? Why were you the one kid who thought he’d be prime minister of Israel?” Or one can ask the same thing in a more abstract way, to elicit a more general kind of answer: “What sort of teenager do you think ends up writing a diary like this?”<br /><br />In the end, out of all the questions I asked, two areas led to interesting thoughts you could say on the radio. One came from these questions about what sort of kid he was. Adam said that he was the sort of awkward kid who never could get a girl to kiss him, and so it was nice when he was 16 to have this space where he was “one of the greats.”<br /><br />But the really beautiful and original and surprising part of the interview came by accident, out of a question that was actually kind of a throwaway.<br /><br />Honestly, if you’ve never felt that feeling, that way of looking at your parents, then you were not a teenager in America. It’s so big and universal and easy to relate to. This moment takes a funny story and makes it really huge and special. And that’s not just because of that sappy music I put under it.<br /><br />But to get that nice answer on tape – to get so lucky – I had to try dozens of different things during the interview. I threw out all sorts of half-baked questions and speculations and proddings. To give you a sense of just how far-ranging and ill-conceived some of these are, I put together this montage of all the Big Idea questions that went nowhere in that one hour interview. Note that the reason there are lots of questions about cringing is that the theme of the show this was recorded for, was Cringes (though it later ended up in a different show).<br /><br />In putting this montage together for Transom, I found many of the things I said to be embarrassing. I’m trying so hard. Some of the ideas I throw out there are really too far out. But this, honestly, is typical for me. I don’t want to sound dumb on the air, but I’m willing to sound dumb during an interview. And trying a lot of different ideas of various sorts is the only way I know to get the kind of tape I want.<br /><br />3. What’s Not a Story?<br /><br />Before we close down this discussion, there was one other thing I had notes about, that I want to write. It’s part of my answer to the original questions the people at Transom posed to me:<br /><br />From all the submissions you get, you must have a sense of Things That Tend NOT To Work… and maybe some ideas for GETTING them to work. For instance, what moves the personal story toward something more? Are there stories that are just not worth pursuing and what do they have in common?<br /><br />Weeks ago, as part of answering this, I turned to Julie Snyder, the Senior Producer of This American Life, who’s in charge of overseeing all the submissions. Much more than me, she actually knows the kinds of ideas people send in that don’t work. I also asked another producer on the show, Alex Blumberg, who teaches a radio documentary class at Columbia in New York, what kinds of things his students attempt that have little chance of succeeding. What ideas should they kill before they ever start work on them?<br /><br />Julie told me that one common problem in the pitches we get is that often, people don’t understand that in a narrative story, something has to be at stake. They’ll say, “I’m going to be driving across the country and I’ve bought this tape recorder and I was thinking I’d record the people I meet along the way.” That kind of idea would be hard to turn into a narrative story because there’s nothing at stake. There’s no question driving it forward, nothing compelling that the characters are trying to figure out in these scenes. Also: there’s no conflict. Narrative can’t happen without conflict, without people who want different things, or see things in different ways.<br /><br />Compare that pitch with one of the few travel stories we’ve done on the show, in an episode of the program we called “Trek.”In that story, two best friends went to South Africa for the first time, shortly after the end of apartheid. There were two things at stake in the story. First, one of the guys had found out he had distant relatives in South Africa and he wanted to meet them, hoping they hadn’t been racists and supporters of the apartheid state, but instead part of the political opposition. This was the mission/question part of the story. This mission actually gets them into some dramatic discussions with the guy’s family and with each other, scenes where it really feels like people are sizing each other up and talking and arguing.<br /><br />The second conflict in the story comes from the fact that one of the guys was black and one was white. In America, as best friends, they’d never really talked much about race. Once they were in South Africa, they had very different reactions to the people they met and the things they saw, and started arguing about race a lot, and fighting for the first time in their friendship.<br /><br />Julie also said it’s common for someone to pitch us a story that’s not really a story but just the germ of an idea that could lead to a story. They’ll write saying “I thought it’d be interesting to …” but haven’t worked out the characters or conflict. Like: “I thought it’d be interesting to check with a family that won the lottery four years ago, to see what happened to them.” That’s the kind of thing it’s hard for us to say yes to because again, there’s no conflict and nothing at stake. In this kind of case, Julie will suggest that the person pitching go out and find a family, to see if there’s anything surprising and compelling to report, some interesting experience they went through, with hopefully at least one person who’s a good talker.<br /><br />Sometimes, Julie says, reporters who are used to a more traditional kind of reporting especially reporters who’ve worked mostly in print — don’t understand that one big difference between print and radio is that a radio story needs a certain amount of suspense and surprise to keep people listening. They’ll pitch descriptive kinds of feature stories that might work in print, but that aren’t inherently compelling as radio. An example: more than once, reporters have pitched us the idea of doing stories about the “sandhogs,” the workers who dig tunnels around big East Coast cities. Some families have generations of sandhogs in them. “It’s perfect for radio,” the reporters say, “because these guys have these great voices, and you’ll hear the echoes of the tunnels, and the sounds of the equipment.” Julie asks them, what’s the conflict, what’s the drama? And the reporters might point to some news peg a tunnel completed by these guys, maybe. But for our kind of show, that’s not enough. We need more of a narrative. Julie sometimes tells people that for a story like this to work in our show, it has to center around one drama, like a Hollywood movie does. If there were a feature movie about these guys, just meeting a few of them wouldn’t be enough. You’d need, I don’t know, an older guy who wants his son to get into the family sandhog business, or stay out of the family sandhog business, and the kid wants something different from his old man, and it’s all coming to a head. Or you’d need a woman who wants to join the union and do the work her father and grandfather did, work that’s always been done by men, and everyone opposes it at first. Those are corny examples that all sound like lost Elia Kazan films from the 50′s, but you get the idea: You need a drama, with specific characters. At least to do our kind of story. There are lots of other kinds of reporting. There may even be a nice way to do this on radio.<br /><br />I feel like a lot of this advice comes down to saying: know what the story is, know what the conflict is, before you get your tape. But I need to also say to you: there are plenty of times especially as a beginner when you should just go out and record an interview, even if you don’t know what the story is. I sat down with Bradley and Yasuko (whose MP3′s appear earlier in this Manifesto) without knowing anything about what kind of tape I’d get. I just thought they were interesting, expressive, emotional talkers. I figured I’d ask them a bunch of questions and look for a story. Then, during the interviews, when I caught the hint of little stories, I fished around to make sure I had everything I needed to put the story on the radio: a beginning, middle and end … plus some moments where they say some ideas about what it all means. Sometimes you should go get the tape, and then pitch it to the big national program afterwards. With Bradley and Yasuko, I did the interviews and cut the interviews and then pitched them to Morning Edition. Even then, my pitch wasn’t much of a pitch. I explained that I had this tape and it was funny and sort of unusual and they should just listen. Because I had a good track record with them, and the tape was so short, that worked out fine.<br /><br />And here’s another caveat. A few paragraphs back, I said that when people pitch us stories like “I’m driving cross-country and I’ll tape the people I meet along the way,” Julie and I always say no. But one of the best radio reporters in the country, Scott Carrier, began in radio by doing that very story: he hitchhiked across the country and interviewed each person who picked him up. What made his story work was the compelling quality of the interviews, and his writing, and the overall tone of the thing. It had its own sad, yearny sound.<br /><br />It wasn’t a narrative story. It wasn’t the kind of thing we usually do on our show. In a sense, it was a harder kind of story to pull off. One thing that makes narrative stories easier than other kinds of stories is that the plot will pull listeners along. There are other kinds of stories, stories whose structure isn’t as strict. But even more than narrative stories, they require luck in finding interviewees and compelling interviews. You can’t rely on the overall plot to keep people listening so every moment of tape has to be pretty great.<br /><br />Which is to say: There are other ways to make radio stories. This just happens to be the way we do it at our radio program.<br /><br />Alex had a very different take on problem stories, based on his experience teaching at Columbia. He said a common problem his students run into is that they get seduced by the sound of things, by a kind of public radio documentary aesthetic. They think a good idea for a radio story is when they find an interviewee whose voice and delivery remind them of things they’ve already heard on public radio. If it sounds like one of those David Isay sound portrait stories where people are talking slowly and deliberately with a sincere sound in their voices, maybe in some sort of accent, the students focus on that sound more than on the actual content of what’s being said. So they end up with pretty sounding tape that doesn’t have a compelling story. At some point in the editing, they realize it’s hard to put together, because all the material is just okay nothing’s great, nothing’s terrible. There’s no central story that just kills every time they hear it, that actually gets them excited. There’s just a nice accent, plus meaningful pauses here and there.<br /><br />Another problem: Alex’s students often want to do a story about an artist, or a subculture, or they want to hang out in a subculture, without any ideas about that subculture that would give the story meaning or make it feel like it matters. They want to spend time with Hells Angels, or people who collect Beanie Babies, or ham radio operators, or knitters. But it’s not enough to just visit with these people. The story has to have more in it than “here’s what they do.” They need to make up theories about the interviewees, Alex says, putting them in categories, comparing them with other things, attaching them to bigger ideas. They need to always be thinking “this is like this,” “this means that,” “this little thing is an example of this bigger thing.” Especially “this little thing is an example of this bigger thing.”<br /><br />Some of his students get in trouble when their reason for doing a story is basically, that they just like the person in the story. One student wanted to do a story about a professor who had this theory the student found interesting. The professor said our problem today is that we have too much choice. We’re paralyzed by choice. In the end, the theory was too eggheady to work in the kind of interview and story the student was putting together. But it was hard for the student to see that. He wasn’t objective about the story and what was working and what wasn’t, because he liked the professor too much. It clouded his judgment about whether certain moments in the story were working.<br /><br />Another student wanted to do a story about a Haitian-American artist in a Haitian-American artist collective. She did art that reflected her Haitian identity. Alex asked the student what interested her about the story. She said it was interesting that the artist was expressing her Haitian identity through her art. Alex asked the student if she really found that interesting. She said no. But it’s the type of story you might hear on the radio. That’s why she was attracted to it. She didn’t think it was interesting, but she thought one was supposed to find it interesting. It was like the answer to a question on a test: What should your public radio story be about? This one had art, culture and someone from a minority group. It was a triple threat.<br /><br />Alex says this happens a lot. His students will pitch ideas and say that they’re interested in them when really, they’re not. They just think they’re supposed to be interested in them.<br /><br />He says the lesson they need to learn is not just to trust their instincts … but also to know when they’re telling themselves the truth about what they’re feeling. A much better story pitch, he says, came from the student who declared that he wanted to find out how to become a major league umpire. All sorts of things make that a challenging story to put on radio, but at least it’s motivated by a sincere feeling, a sincere desire to figure something out. He’s not pretending to be interested in that subject; he’s truly interested.<br /><br />Finally, Alex says that beginners should abandon their ideas way quicker then they usually do. He says that understandably, because they haven’t done many stories, they often blame themselves if a story isn’t working. They try to make it work. They stick with it. They think it’s their fault if they can’t find the story in someone.<br /><br />There’s a myth that everyone has a story, Alex says. Everyone does have a story, sure, but it’s not necessarily a story that should be told on the radio. It’s important to know when there’s nothing interesting, truly interesting, in your tape, and move on. This is where playing your tape for other people and getting an honest reaction can be really helpful. Killing your story is nothing to be ashamed of. I figure, if I’m not killing at least a third of the interviews I do for the radio show, we’re not taking enough chances. Killing stories is just part of the process of finding great stories.<br /><br />If one interview doesn’t work, try another, and another. Follow the things that interest you and attract you. Amuse yourself. Keep getting more tape until luck kicks in.<br /><br />Luck will always kick in.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-52235669615960715832012-03-11T19:56:00.004-07:002012-03-11T20:18:01.312-07:00Three Things I've Learned in Making DocumentariesThree things I've learned in making three documentaries (<a href="http://vimeo.com/4592051">Ten Dollars an Hour</a>; <a href="http://vimeo.com/11076828">The South Will Rise Again</a>; <a href="http://vimeo.com/30503817">SHOWTIME</a>):<br /><br />1) Follow your movie star.<br /><br />When in doubt point the camera at your star. Who is your star? The one who "pops" on-camera.<br /><br />2) There is the story you want to tell and there is the story you can actually tell.<br /><br />In all three of my movies there has been a better story I wanted to tell but, for various reasons (people don't want to talk on-camera; I wasn't there to capture the footage; time considerations; lack of skill as a filmmaker), couldn't. I have the feeling this is true of all documentaries ever made. In "Ten Dollars an Hour" it was a) Leesa's life outside of the Sigma Nu house and b) a deeper understanding of Janice's life. In "The South Will Rise Again" it was the political maneuverings of the Athletic Department and the Chancellor's Office to end the chant. In "SHOWTIME" it was a) the personal conflicts among various teammates and b) the class differences among teammates.<br /><br />3) Good sound is important.<br /><br />Believe it or not, although film is a visual medium, sound is what casts the spell. Mess with the sound and you pull people out of their engagement of the film (or, in the best films, their entrancement). People will accept bad visuals as long as the sound is good and consistent. Sound (and music) reach a deeper part of our unconscious and, thus, it is more jarring when done poorly.<br /><br />In addition, as a fan of documentaries, here are two things I often don't like:<br /><br />1) Recreations<br /><br />Almost always takes me out of the film.<br /><br />2) Narration<br /><br />Almost always sounds stilted.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-41815762490410250342012-02-13T20:09:00.000-08:002012-02-13T20:16:42.998-08:00In the Moment (or Jordan as Buddhist)True story: A reporter was curious about Michael Jordan's mindset in game-winning situations. He asked how Jordan felt when the game was on the line. <br /><br />Reporter-Don't you think about previous times you have been in that situation and missed?<br /><br />Jordan-Why would I think about a shot I've already taken?<br /><br />Reporter-Well, don't you worry about what will happen if you miss?<br /><br />Jordan-Why would I think about a shot I haven't yet taken?Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-17349925324682264422011-10-18T11:06:00.000-07:002011-10-18T11:07:43.537-07:00SHOWTIME<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/30503817?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/30503817">SHOWTIME</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/bguest">Ben Guest</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p><br /><br />My latest documentary. You're going to need an hour for this one. I've never worked harder on a project. Or been more fulfilled.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-79850245664997156672011-07-10T18:12:00.000-07:002011-07-10T18:16:45.948-07:00Trailer (The South Will Rise Again)My short documentary "<a href="http://vimeo.com/11076828">The South Will Rise Again</a>" has been accepted to the <a href="http://docuwestfest.com/">DocuWest Film Festival</a> in Golden, CO. They asked me to create a trailer for the film which I was happy to do. Here it is.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26234969?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-68555067905088952322011-06-18T20:46:00.000-07:002011-06-18T20:48:58.768-07:00Trailer (Showtime)<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24754970?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Trailer for my next film, "Showtime," an hour-long documentary that follows a girls' high school basketball team, the H.W. Byers Lady Lions, through an entire season. The film will be released online August 22nd.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-57874130954930182862011-05-22T04:20:00.001-07:002011-05-22T04:21:25.020-07:00Teaser (Final)<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24063471?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Fourth, and final, teaser trailer for my new film. The film will be released online August 22nd.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-23823511869528308022011-05-15T06:24:00.001-07:002011-05-15T06:25:21.086-07:00Teaser (Coliseum)<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23019980?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Third teaser trailer for my new film. Fourth, and final, teaser will go up May 22nd.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-81796040645542912742011-05-08T15:43:00.000-07:002011-05-08T15:45:03.363-07:00Teaser (Look)<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23019895?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Second teaser (of four) for my upcoming film. Next teaser will go up on May 15th.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-61533055929031795602011-05-01T07:26:00.001-07:002011-05-01T07:30:59.374-07:00Teaser (Jersey)<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23019349?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&autoplay=1" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />First teaser (of four) for my latest documentary. I will post a new one each Sunday.Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-38065867384526900662011-03-22T10:41:00.000-07:002011-03-22T10:43:37.334-07:00Why "Waiting for Superman" is BSThis month I'll be part of a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187405657961204">panel discussion</a> at the University of Alabama after a screening of the documentary "Waiting for Superman."<div><br /></div><div>Here is a general overview of my feelings about the film:</div><div><br /></div><div>- The film does an excellent job of documenting the utter desperation low-income families feel when it comes to a lack of good options for their children's education.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The filmmakers interview a billionaire (Bill Gates), a multi-millionaire (Geoffrey Canada), superintendents, principals, parents, and students. The one group not represented in the film? Teachers.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The average person (i.e. my mom) leaves the theater thinking two things: 1) Unions are the problem. 2) Charters are the solution. The film quickly glosses over four significant facts related to these two issues:</div><div><br /></div><div><ol><li>Only 17% of charters are more successful than their corresponding public schools. Most charters perform worse than their corresponding public schools.</li><li>Unions give teachers basic protections that they need and deserve. If unions were the problem than Mississippi, a right to work state (no unions), would be first in the nation when it comes to education. Instead, Mississippi is dead last.</li><li>The teachers of Finland, which the film accurately points out is the <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/">highest performing country</a> in the world when it comes to education, are 100% unionized.</li><li>The director of the film belongs to a union.</li></ol></div><div><br /></div><div>- The film bashes the idea of "rubber rooms" where teachers facing a disciplinary review get paid a full salary while sitting around reading the newspaper. Why is this a bad thing? You should have a review before getting fired (as many of our MTC teachers who have been summarily non-renewed can attest) and you shouldn't be in the classroom while waiting for said review.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The film makes it seem that the process of firing teachers is second only to climbing Mt. Everest. In fact, the process is fairly simple. Several observations and a plan of improvement. How is this unfair? A principal should not be able to arbitrarily fire a teacher (as many MTC teachers who have been summarily non-renewed can attest) and a teacher should be given the chance to improve.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The problem IS teacher quality but the solutions are not more charters and breaking unions. The solution is to pay teachers significantly more money (starting salary of $100,000 and a ceiling of $250,000). This dramatically increases the talent pool of incoming teachers and allows a district many more options when hiring teachers. How will states pay for this? Easy. Increase taxes.</div><div><br /></div><div>- A few other solutions while I'm at it...</div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A National Curriculum with national standards.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A huge bonus (say $30,000) for veteran teachers to teach in critical-need districts.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A longer training model for new teachers. Simulate the residency component of <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>medical school with new teachers interning for two years in veteran teachers' <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>classrooms.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Universal Pre-K for all families starting at age zero.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Universal health care for all.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Get rid of standardized testing (although I reserve the right to change my mind about <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>this).</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Schools run as a partnership where the teachers elect their principal. Teachers and <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>administrators should be equals.</li></ul><div>If you want to hear more come out to the Honors College at the University of Alabama on <a href="http://uahighered.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-if-documentary-film-series-waiting.html">March 23rd</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>More on why "Waiting for Superman" is BS:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.notwaitingforsuperman.org/">NOT Waiting for Superman</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/">New York Review of Books</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/superman-education-film-100610.html">Professor Linda Darling-Hammond</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/154986/grading-waiting-superman">Grading "Waiting for Superman"</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/">How Finland is kicking our a**</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/how-states-with-no-teacher-uni.html">The effects of Unions</a></div>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-25886598410383329412011-03-13T17:20:00.000-07:002011-03-13T20:03:33.527-07:00Why "Waiting for Superman" is BullshitThis month I'll be part of a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187405657961204">panel discussion</a> at the University of Alabama after a screening of the documentary "Waiting for Superman."<div><br /></div><div>Here is a general overview of my feelings about the film:</div><div><br /></div><div>- The film does an excellent job of documenting the utter desperation low-income families feel when it comes to a lack of good options for their children's education.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The filmmakers interview a billionaire (Bill Gates), a multi-millionaire (Geoffrey Canada), superintendents, principals, parents, and students. The one group not represented in the film? Teachers.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The average person (i.e. my mom) leaves the theater thinking two things: 1) Unions are the problem. 2) Charters are the solution. The film quickly glosses over four significant facts related to these two issues:</div><div><br /></div><div><ol><li>Only 17% of charters are more successful than their corresponding public schools. Most charters perform worse than their corresponding public schools.</li><li>Unions give teachers basic protections that they need and deserve. If unions were the problem than Mississippi, a right to work state (no unions), would be first in the nation when it comes to education. Instead, Mississippi is dead last.</li><li>The teachers of Finland, which the film accurately points out is the <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/">highest performing country</a> in the world when it comes to education, are 100% unionized.</li><li>The director of the film belongs to a union.</li></ol></div><div><br /></div><div>- The film bashes the idea of "rubber rooms" where teachers facing a disciplinary review get paid a full salary while sitting around reading the newspaper. Why is this a bad thing? You should have a review before getting fired (as many of our MTC teachers who have been summarily non-renewed can attest) and you shouldn't be in the classroom while waiting for said review.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The film makes it seem that the process of firing teachers is second only to climbing Mt. Everest. In fact, the process is fairly simple. Several observations and a plan of improvement. How is this unfair? A principal should not be able to arbitrarily fire a teacher (as many MTC teachers who have been summarily non-renewed can attest) and a teacher should be given the chance to improve.</div><div><br /></div><div>- The problem IS teacher quality but the solutions are not more charters and breaking unions. The solution is to pay teachers significantly more money (starting salary of $100,000 and a ceiling of $250,000). This dramatically increases the talent pool of incoming teachers and allows a district many more options when hiring teachers. How will states pay for this? Easy. Increase taxes.</div><div><br /></div><div>- A few other solutions while I'm at it...</div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A National Curriculum with national standards.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A huge bonus (say $30,000) for veteran teachers to teach in critical-need districts.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A longer training model for new teachers. Simulate the residency component of <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>medical school with new teachers interning for two years in veteran teachers' <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>classrooms.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Universal Pre-K for all families starting at age zero.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Universal health care for all.</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Get rid of standardized testing (although I reserve the right to change my mind about <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>this).</li><li><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Schools run as a partnership where the teachers elect their principal. Teachers and <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>administrators should be equals.</li></ul><div>If you want to hear more come out to the Honors College at the University of Alabama on <a href="http://uahighered.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-if-documentary-film-series-waiting.html">March 23rd</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>More on why "Waiting for Superman" is bullshit:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.NOTwaitingforsuperman.org/">NOT Waiting for Superman</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/">New York Review of Books</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/superman-education-film-100610.html">Professor Linda Darling-Hammond</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/154986/grading-waiting-superman">Grading "Waiting for Superman"</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/">How Finland is kicking our ass</a></div><div><br /></div>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-20063915654022574162011-03-02T08:14:00.000-08:002011-03-02T08:14:54.641-08:00Interview at the Oxford Film Festival<iframe width="480" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3BbpkMtO5rw?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12806884.post-14056172187188940382011-02-13T16:12:00.001-08:002011-02-13T16:14:47.548-08:00Oxford Film FestMy short documentary "The South Will Rise Again" was awarded "Best Mississippi Documentary" at this year's Oxford Film Festival. You can see my acceptance speech here:<div><br /><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/19883712?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="398" height="224" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And you can see the actual film here:</div><div><br /></div><div><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/11076828?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="398" height="299" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /></div>Ben Guesthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12482490488011015815noreply@blogger.com0