"NEWS IS SOMETHING THE PUBLIC HAS NOT HEARD BEFORE"

That's what they teach you in journalism school. Of course to some people it's news that the sun rises in the East.

A music professor taught me "it's deviations from the norm that sell tickets. You see a pig with two front legs you don't look at it twice, you see a pig with three front legs, you can't take your eyes off it."  My landlady and I were talking about a guy we know who treats Facebook as his diary "I had my favourite breakfast of prune Danish and Oolong tea." And a woman whose posts are worse "I'm on the #42 bus" or "I made meatloaf for dinner." I want to say to both of them "can't either of you eat something more interesting?" Really we should fix them up together. This woman also has a childcare business and posts about the kids she takes care of: "little Johnny burped" or "little Suzy drooled." I wouldn't care if these kids were somehow related to her or even the kids of a close friend but jeez. And she talks about my "negative Nancy" posts. When my father was dying my blog was full of four-letter words. She asked "do you have to use such vulgarity?" My answer was "yes."

I would rather hear about what people hate, what drives them nuts, what scares the bejeezus out of them. I don't care which bus/train/trolley you're on unless an Inuit woman with seven bratty little kids gets on and they're all singing Inuit folk songs. Another woman told me how draining it was to read my posts. I felt like saying "do you have any idea how draining it is to experience it?"

urbanexile@mail.com