Throwaways

It's hard to blog about much else besides the mine disaster. Everyone, including me, is fixated on every scrap of news. In the newsroom where I work, I keep looking across the room from the edge where I sit toward the middle. This is where the hardcore newsies sit: the jounralists.

For the last couple of days, I've been watching them, hoping maybe to see or hear some snippet of what's going on, trying to get an idea if this all means anything. Honestly, I don't know, but it feels like this could be a tipping point.

It's weird to be here. This is what the point of this place is all about --dealing with the issues that affect the lives of the people where I live. While they're waiting for names of the dead, waiting for evidence to present to the public about what happened and sort of brewing ideas of how this might affect the rest of us later, I'm talking to comedian Tom Arnold. He's playing the Funnybone this weekend.

You can read about it tomorrow.

Fun fact: Arnold says he wouldn't have gotten into comedy like he did if he hadn't been fired from his job at a meat packing plant. He got fired after he was arrested for public nudity at an old folks home. It was a prank. He went streaking and got caught. The meat packing place fired him. Head west, young man.

Anyway, I like what I do. Chatting up the somewhat famous is fun and for me, kind of enlightening, though in a decidedly left-handed manner. However, it's during times like these that I wonder if I should be doing a bit more than looking for amusing anecdotes.

Of course, clowns have their place, too, I suppose.