When I was attending San Diego State University and writing for the campus newspaper The Daily Aztec, my second semester on staff I was given the Faculty Senate beat.
I was despondent. I wanted to cover the sciences, or maybe student government (which was embroiled in protests over its leasing of a yacht — with student fees! — on which to host receptions).
But the Faculty Senate?
I was complaining about this to the opinion page editor, Russell, who was a few years older than me and had been on staff for several years. He immediately told me this was by far the best beat on campus if I intended to pursue a career in journalism.
I must have looked at him oddly, because he rushed to explain:
The Faculty Senate has some of the most petty disagreements, he said. They’ll haggle over the smallest detail, call each other all kinds of vile names. Forget the image of somber academics in robes — this is going to be way more drama-filled even than the Associated Students or the campus administration.
I don’t think I was quite convinced yet, but then he set the hook firmly in my mouth.
“Jim, take this beat and it will prepare you for every school board meeting, every planning committee meeting, every city council meeting you’ll ever cover in your career.”
I took the beat.
Every meeting there was some proclamation on the issues of the day — rarely having anything at all to do with campus. And then there were actual campus policy decisions to be made (not that they were actually binding on the university president — everything was advisory).
In the midst of discussing and debating these ultimately meaningless agenda items, these professors behaved just as Russell predicted. They hit their opponents low, kicked them when they were down. It was not much different from a playground fight in elementary school — which took me aback, because these were some of the most brilliant minds on a very large, well-regarded campus.
One meeting, after I’d written an article in the Aztec about what had transpired at the previous meeting, one professor — fortunately one I never took a class from — came up to the dais to speak, and with trembling finger pointed at me and said I’d ruined his life with my previous article.
The whole room turned to look at me — although I don’t think any of the other faculty actually believed for a second I possessed the power to ruin someone’s life, even if I had misquoted someone. (I don’t believe I had, but it’s been a few years — he had certainly never reached out to me or my editor to request a correction.) Making it even more absurd, while I don’t remember what the article in question had been about, it had been rather mundane.
That was all they ever discussed, all that was in their domain: the mundane.
It was as awkward as it sounds reading it.
Looking back some 40 years later, having covered numerous city councils and planning commissions and school boards (and water boards and public hospital boards), Russell was absolutely correct.
Not one of those post-graduation government meetings has ever devolved into the kind of high drama I saw in the Faculty Senate.
Rather than an overly long weekly post with multiple sections, I’m going to break each section out into a separate post and see it how goes. This way, if you only want to read my music posts, you’ll only have to read my music posts.
The schedule (tentatively) will be culture on Mondays, slice of life features on Tuesday, music on Wednesday, technology history on Thursdays, books and other reading materials on Fridays, film and television on Saturday. Not every section will run every week (except Mondays).
I’m also going to start paid subscriptions in the new year. New posts will continue to be free, but you will have to subscribe to access the archive. I’ll keep it at the Substack minimum of $5/ month, but you can continue to stay on as a free subscriber as long as you like. Paid subscribers will also receive a twice-monthly podcast starting in 2023.
I appreciate the support and encouragement, and look forward to hearing folks’ response to the new schedule.
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Oh the tales I could tell.