Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Huntington And Everything After
Monday
April 29, 2002
"And I finally found
That everybody loves to love you
When you're far away"
-Better Than Ezra "At The Stars"
"Avoid the drama in your life
Now you're free from all the pain"
-Mary J. Blige "No More Drama"
"I can't believe that life's so complex"
-P.J. Harvey "This Is Love"
"It's a fool (who) looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
-Ulysses Everett McGill in
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
First of all, I want to send a hello out to all my friends in Huntington who I saw over the weekend. It was great to have the chance to spend some time with all of you. I wish I could've seen more of my friends from WSAZ, but when you're talking about less than a 48 hour timeframe, sometimes it just doesn't work out. One situation in particular (not involving WSAZ) didn't work out the way I thought it would. Live and learn, I suppose.
The big return to Huntington was interesting. Seeing the town, it's virtually unchanged, save for a bar here or there. Oh, and the parking garage they're building near Marshall's campus. What struck me the most was how compact everything is there. I mean, it's no different than when I left, but my perspective has changed in my year plus here in the Tampa Bay area. In a way, it's like how when you go back to your old grade school and look at how small the desks are and think "They're smaller than they used to be". But really it's just you who's grown. Or this case, grown in a level of outlook, more a change of perspective and familiarity.
Returning to Sharkey's was interesting as well. It was nice to see my good friend Scott Niles, whose band Westlake has a big concert tomorrow night in Huntington at the X106.3 (WAMX) 5th Anniversary show. Scott told me that label reps from three record companies will be there to hear them. This is huge, and could help them get that big break. They have all the skills needed to make it in the music business, and I hope they can pull it off.
The Marshall Hall of Fame Cafe was very cool. A bunch of us had dinner there on Friday night, and I was quite impressed with their setup. If you're ever in Huntington, check it out.
Work this morning sucked. Try turning your sleep schedule upside-down and then get thrown into a lion's den like that and see how you do. Luckily I did get some sleep on the flight back yesterday and before I went in last night, so I wasn't totally running on empty.
Unfortunately, that late sleep turned me into a mid-afternoon insomniac today. Such is life. It did give me the opportunity by chance to see a 30 minute special on HBO about the making of the movie Almost Famous. Normally those sorts of things tend to be either completely phony or highly pretentious (on the self-promotion tip), but this one was somehow gripping. Maybe it's because of how it was based in part on real-life experiences by director Cameron Crowe. Whatever the case, it's worth seeing, especially if you've already seen the movie.
I re-upped on my lease here at my apartment complex, so I'll be here through May 2003. My contract at WTSP runs through April 2003, so I figure that'll be about right, no matter how things pan out. I love Tampa and really don't want to leave, but I know professionally you have to go where the opportunities are. So we'll see what transpires in the next year...
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