Page flutter

I am usually an open book. This makes it hard to be a poker player in a live setting. With emotions and sleeves and all, I'm often tempted to wear sleeveless shirts. However, those who know me know I don't necessarily pack a lot of heat in the guns department, so anything that shows off my arms is usually more embarrassing than whatever part of my fragile emotional base I'm giving away.

A big part of this has to do with impulse control. I only bring this up because I just had to take my kid's train set away from him. He is developing a nasty habit of pushing down his preschool classmates and, in lieu of smacking him around a bit, I took away his most prized possessions. His teacher--who also happens to be a very understanding good friend--suggests the kid's impulse control isn't necessarily keeping up with the rest of rapidly advancing brain. I worry sometimes that might be my fault.

That's not actually not why I sat down to write. In fact, I sat down to tell you I'm not going to give much away today. Instead of an open book, I'm going to be more like the fluttering pages of a book when you're flipping through it looking for a picture, or money, or a note from an old girlfriend. I'm not being coy, nor do I have any big secret. I'm just feeling a bit like a camel right now.

So, a bit of an early week mental massage for you.

Massage #1: After some good research and a weigh-in from Brother Otis MD, it appears that trying to measure the volume of a giraffe's vagina as compared to a cow's vagina is a futile activity. Apparently, a better way to measure is to consider the size of of their male counterparts' junk. Some quick research shows a bull has about a three-foot penis (one-inch in diameter). I don't have the exact measurements of a male giraffe's penis, but a picture provided in the comments of the last post indicate the giraffe ain't as well hung. So, thereya go? Oh, and why did I want to know?

Well, some of the places I play poker aren't necessarily frequented by gentlemen. As such, I actually heard the phrase, "Tighter than a giraffe's pussy" at a game last week. That spawned a long discussion about the relative tightness and, eventually, how it compared to a cow. I argued that despite the relative height, that a giraffe would have a smaller vagina. So, thereyago.

Massage #2: I love the theme songs from 1970s and 1980s TV. These days, people don't write many show-opens or show-closers that are worth much. Jerry Bruckheimer users music to open a lot of his shows, but he is such a big fan of The Who that we don't get any original material. Think back to the 1970s and 1980s and you'll remember a ton of good theme songs. From "Cheers" to "Moonlighting" to "Barney Miller," the music was about as good as you could want for the era.

I have long argued that the two best theme songs ever on television actually came from the same TV show. Which was that? Well, "WKRP" of course. Now, everybody knows the opening song. The outro is the lesser-appreciated tune. I spent years trying to figure out the lyrics. As it turns out, according to IMDB, while there is singing in the song, there are no lyrics. Apparently the exit song was the work of a bunch of studio musicians in Atlanta. While recording, they needed a vocal track to help them keep time with the music. So, somebody recorded a bunch of gibberish (which I'm sure contains the word "bartender" at least twice), and laid it down. When the producers heard the tune with the gibberish vocal track, they said, "We'll take it!" And that was that. What I'd really like to know is where those studio musicians ended up and whether they ever recorded anything else I like.

Massage #3: As you might have read elsewhere, my wife's car was burgled over the weekend. Lost in the crime was one of my most prized technological possessions: my Bose QC3s. At first I was like, "Ah, well. Them's the breaks." However, upon further thought, the Bose QC3s completed my technological circle. Without them I feel empty and leaking. And that makes me sad.

And that's all, except for a picture of the resident therapy mutt--a great thinker on the subject unconditional love, provided that unconditionality doesn't involve a fight for food or the new neighbors' dog.

HDTV (W-H-Y-?)

Mt. Otis is technologically sound. Within the short time it would take to tour both floors of the home, you would find four operational computers, two iPods, various stereo equipment, speaker systems that allow me to listen to my music anywhere on my property, satellite radio, a TV satellite with more channels than I've ever seen, four digital cameras, four digital camera lenses, several cordless phones with digital answering services, and enough remote controls (should I give them to charity) to keep the homeless in their lazyboys for the next decade.

I use this technology well. My PC has a 24-inch monitor with picture-in-picture and will display any of my satellite TV channels in the corner of the screen while I work. I have outdoor speakers on my deck so I can listen to my iPod while I tend to the grill. I have wireless speakers that I can carry anywhere and set up for easy listening. I have Bose QC3s for when I want to listen to music and nothing else. I have a cellular phone that will work just about anywhere in the world. I have a wireless broadband card for my laptop so I can work just about anywhere in the U.S. My wife's new car has a DVD player, drop down screen, satellite radio, and a electric plug in. That means, should the whim strike us, we could load the kid in the car with a bunch of DVDs, and while he is watching the DVD on a set of wireless headphones in the back, we could listen to XM radio in the back while we drive. Further, should I need to use my laptop, I could plug it into the electric outlet and use my broadband card to access the Internet while we cross the country. Next thing you know, my work-week is over and we're at Wally World.

Reading back over this, it all sounds pretty excessive, especially in light of the fact that I've long considered myself a Luddite. Still, we use everything we have here and are quite happy to have it.

In the past few weeks, I've had more than a few people ask me whether I have HDTV. In each case, I laughed and said, "Well, no. Do you?" It seemed a silly idea. Last I head, I'd have to auction my wife on the Internet if I wanted to watch a few high-def channels on TV. And while I'm a liberal thinker, I don't want to give any of my well bank-rolled friends a shot at my wife just because they know how to use an auction sniping service.

"You have no idea," my friend T said one night.

"What do you mean I have no idea?" I said. I like a clear picture and all, but I'd rather spend my money on other things.

"Have you ever seen a football game in high-def?" Badblood asked one night.

"Can't say I have," I said, almost completely disinterested.

The subject came up at a poker game a few nights later. Someone again brought up HD and I rolled my eyes.

"You must not watch much sports on TV," a guy said, clearly making it a point to further emasculate me.

Thing is, I do. I subscribe to NFL Sunday ticket and watch as many games as possible. March Madness is on TV right now. I'm no sports expert, but I enjoy watching games as much as the next guy.

Fearing I might protest too much, I finally just shut up.

I have three TVs in my home, only one of which gets watched very much. It's a 32-inch flat screen that I bought several years ago after my wife told me I couldn't buy one any larger.

"I will not have a TV as the focal point of my living area," she protested.

[This space left for you to wrap you head around that one for a second.]

I currently have no plans to buy a new TV. If things don't change, I should like be able to acquire (notice, I didn't say buy) this TV by the end of the year. However, I'm not really itching for it, and if it wasn't going to be essentially free, I probably wouldn't bother.

I guess I just don't get it. When people tell me about their HD experience, I look at them much in the same way they look at me when I tell them about my Ecco shoes. The HD converts get such a glazed, orgasmy look about them that I almost think they bought their set from Jim Jones' ghost.

Me, I haven't just bought into it yet. If that makes me a woman, then sign me up for the Internet booty auction. Maybe they'll broadcast my exploits in HD.

Ronnie Sheppard: The Fall of a Sleazeball

Television news is not a glamorous business. It's cheap, it's tiring, and it makes you old before you're supposed to be. It's not what you see in movies. It's not romantic, dangerous, and sexy.

Except for when it is.

There was a two-year period of my TV news career that I spent fielding anonymous phone calls, meeting Deep Throat sources in dark offices, chasing paper trails, nailing the big interviews, and watching people go to prison.

The Carolina Investors saga began after I was already established as a reporter here in town. Twenty-four hours into the story, I was assigned as the lead reporter, a role I would both relish and hate for the rest of my TV news career. How many stories did I file? I don't even know. Although this page will give you some idea.

Re-telling the whole story would take way too much time. I do remember the first few months, though, when I realized the whole thing started well before I was born with the death of a child.

Dwight Holder stood in the middle of the small plot of land and stared down at his first child's grave. Weeds grew up around the headstone. Holder looked up and surveyed the graves around him. In such a place, weeds are unwelcome.

Holder had returned from World War II and service on a PT boat.

The idea that would define the rest of his business life came as he stood in the middle of an overgrown graveyard in the middle of Pickens County.

Holder was a good man, as were the many men who ended up following in his footsteps. I wrote the first long piece on the Carolina Investors story in May of 2003. In a world where only blood, guts, and gas price stories made it to TV, it was a challenge to make a story about an investment scam interesting enough for people to watch.

The simple fact was, however, that what was once a venerable investment company had turned into South Carolina's version of Enron. The hard-working farmers and mill workers of this community lost a combined $280 million. One investor committed suicide. Other folks thought about it.

I got to know an old preacher during my time on the story. He was one of the investors.

The Rev. Joe Trotter stood in a northern Greenville County fish pond and guided a young boy's head under the water.

The ceremony was one of seven baptisms Trotter performed in his first year as a minister at a small mission church.

The boy would eventually grow up to be a minister himself. It was the beginning of Trotter's life's work.

While he worked for his Lord, Trotter also worked to live. The early days of his ministry did not provide enough to put food on his family's table.

"They would take up offerings sometimes and I'd get 50 cents," Trotter remembered decades later. "Sometimes I'd get nothing."

So, Trotter worked, sometimes in a mill's cloth room, sometimes as a carpenter.

"Jesus was a carpenter," he reminded an afternoon visitor as he discussed his various careers.

During his time as a mill worker, Trotter grossed about $32 a week.

Pennies went to Social Security. Trotter put as much as he could afford into savings. He saved for his retirement.

Over time, Trotter amassed a working man's fortune, the dollar amount of which his wife of more than 60 years begs him not to discuss.

He put almost all of it into a reputable investment company called Carolina Investors and felt it was safe there. Each month of his retirement, he received a check to complement a small Social Security benefit.

He bought his daughter a car, put a grandson through college, and paid private-school tuition for his great-grandchild. He did it all while spending 40 years preaching the gospel.

On a sunny April 2003 afternoon, Trotter struggled to explain how his life savings had disappeared.

"I've helped everybody and led so many to the Lord," he said. "Now everything's gone."

Watching an old man cry on his front porch helped me realize that, even if TV drained every bit of my spirit, I was at least telling stories that needed to be told.

While there was a lot of fault to go around in the story, it was clear after a few months of investigation that the chief villian in the saga was a 9th grade drop-out who had somehow become CEO of a mortgage company that bought out Carolina Investors. For several years, he cooked the books, got rich, and, essentially stole the life savings of people who had lived in this community their entire lives. While I've known this to be fact since late 2003, I was never able to really say it until now.

Nearly four years since Carolina Investors closed its doors, Ronnie Sheppard is in prison, sentenced to 20 years for a variety of securties fraud and conspiracy charges.

There are days I miss being a TV news reporter. This happens to be one of them.

Sleepless and stumpy

I can't find my clever lever at this late hour, but I have to remind myself to congratulate the ad buyers for the overnight 4:30 am showing of "Scarface" on AMC. In one commercial break I saw commercials for...

ExtenZe, the natural male enhancement pill.

and...

Relacore, a product that once claimed to reduce cortisol in the blood and cut weight gain and now markets itself as an herbal sleep aid.

I mean, in the span of 90 seconds, they hit the insomniacs and the self-loathers.

Talk about knowing your audience.