Big Words Radio Episode 32: A Word In Spanish With Alexis Amore!

What a show!

 

    We wrapped in the studio last night after a captivating hour with adult film star and Peruvian import Alexis Amore.  Thanks are in order to Alexis, producer Richard Wicka and co-host Alie for taking the time to be part of one of the best show’s yet!  Big Words Radio just keeps getting bigger and better and you’ve all got a front row seat.  Here’s your synopsis:

 

2/25/09 Big Words I Know By Heart Episode 32: A Word In Spanish With Alexis Amore!
Tom and co-host Alie talk to busty Peruvian hottie Alexis Amore about the industry, simulated orgasms for the listener’s enjoyment, and the amount of research everyone invested into this episode beforehand.

 

    Tune in over at the Think Twice intraweb site and keep clicking back as national recording artist Lenny Revell’s ‘parter of two’ should be popping up some time within the next week.  The moment both of Revell’s shows are online, you’ll all be the first to know. 

    And don’t forget, adult film star Sara Jay is on deck for the next in-studio date on Wednesday, March 25th!  I’ve got some other phenomenal guests planned for future shows, but I don’t want to tip my hand too soon and I’d rather not jinx them.  A lot of work goes into each program and the behind-the-scenes labor involved factoring in phone calls, research, questions, and the general prospectus and theme of each show.  Trust me when I say that the next studio guest after March (if it works out) is a pioneer in his field. 

    Thanks for listening and feel free to click over directly at the link provided!

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

 

Have a great week!

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update! New Essay: Alternative Thinking

Alternative Thinking

In light of recent events, I thought I’d approach the subject of homosexuality. It’s a topic that (as an essayist), I’ve always wanted to weigh in on but haven’t had the proper context to discuss it with. Until now. I didn’t want to approach it from the wrong angle and risk offending people where this lifestyle is concerned because it’s not an issue to take a waffling opinion on or an essay that can be written with my usual screwball demeanor. After 33 years, I think I’m finally ready to write about the gay and lesbian culture in a way that properly explains my position.

Despite what many may think, I support the gay and lesbian subculture wholeheartedly for a number of reasons. For starters, the odds of two people finding each other on this planet, falling in love and making each other happy are infinitesimal enough as it is. If two people can find each other and help take a little agony and hardship out of each other’s lives by doing so, then what the hell is wrong with that? To take it one step further, if those two people are consenting adults and they happen to be the same gender, why should it be a big issue? Happiness is one of the most limited resources we have and it’s in far shorter supply than natural gas, coal, diamonds or any other known quantity in the universe. Call me pessimistic in thinking that way, but look at modern day relationships and prove me wrong.

We live in a world rife with climbing divorce rates, spousal abuse, infidelity, failed marriages that soldier on for the sake of children born within (and out of) wedlock, rampant pedophilia nationwide, co-dependant pairings that end in mutual self destruction, sexual addiction, gambling addiction, entire families destroyed by alcoholism, and five billion other maladies that occur intentionally (or by accident) when two people join into a relationship, move in together, or walk down the aisle together. There’s a strong possibility that gay and lesbian couples may actually be capable of teaching us how to maintain a healthy relationship with another person without letting it fall apart at the seams over the duration of the partnership. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

The very notion that same-sex relationships are wrong, forbidden, or singled out by any society in terms of progress is flat-out ridiculous. Quoting the Bible isn’t going to win any amens on my end, either, because the majority of the tenants brought down in the Old Testament were guidelines for health or complete crocks of shit. If you want to take up that argument with me, consider the possibility that perhaps sodomy was taboo over two thousand years ago for disease and health reasons rather than morality issues. It’s been postulated that the removal of Pork from the Jewish religion was set forth as a dietary guideline, so it’s not that far out of the ball park to claim that homosexuality was singled out for the sake of propagating a growing species and avoiding death by disease. A million other religious postulations have been overturned, thrown out or forgotten by organized religion and this is a belief that should have gone out a long time ago with the others. So take your scripture where this is concerned, roll it up and shove it in your mouth, because I don’t want to hear it.

If anything, we’re more overpopulated as a species than we have ever been, so from a survivalist standpoint as living organisms, it’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world that some men and women are pairing off with each other with no desires or plans to have children of their own. If our planet didn’t have so many inhabitants, we wouldn’t be running out of natural resources at the unnerving rate that we are, not to mention the fact that many committed same sex couples adopt, so on a very large scale, they’re helping straight people out on multiple levels. If heterosexual couples the world over used protection more often or made the decision not to have more than two children total (replacing only themselves from a mathematical standpoint), our resources would be in much better shape. There is no logical reason why couples should have four, five or eight children when you consider our survival and our evolution going forward as a species and same sex couples are helping a great deal where this is concerned.

No one can blame the disintegration of the nuclear family as an ideal on homosexuals because as a former value ideal, the breakdown is a hell of a lot more systemic than that and we’re all to blame, and who’s to say it’s an issue that’s deserving of blame? We have evolved and splintered and our culture has made room for multiple variations and alternate options in addition to the nuclear family. Single parent families. Same sex marriages with or without children. Children raised by their grandparents instead of their biological parents. These are all variations on a core value that’s no longer the standard to the way life really is. Hanging on to an ideal that doesn’t apply overall anymore is a losing battle and it’s best just to accept that we have more alternatives to growing older with our without a significant other and/or children of our own.

We’re also well aware some twenty years later that AIDs was not created or perpetuated by the gay and lesbian community. Heterosexuals have done more than their share of spreading this fatal disease since it was discovered and any theories to the contrary are false from a scientific standpoint. If anything (from personal experience), I’ve seen more cases of straight men willfully and maliciously spreading the virus without telling their partners than any other subsection of our culture. I would almost assume (based on the free programs and availability of protection within the subculture) that gays and lesbians are more protective and more sensible where the AIDs virus is concerned.

And I can understand (but wonder why) there’s a double standard where gays and lesbians are concerned. A lesbian lifestyle is held up on a pedestal in American pornography, marketing, advertising and in popular music as a fantasy designed for men’s enjoyment while gay men (on the other side of the coin) are often the victims of hate crimes, school hazing incidents and other forms of homophobic cruelty. I’m not saying that lesbians aren’t also the victims of homophobic brutality that is one hundred percent avoidable, but on the whole, this is how the subculture appears from a heterosexual’s point of view in our society.

As far as the lesbian fantasy/myth, it is exactly that. Not all lesbian women wear lipstick and garter belts 24 hours a day in the event that a man is watching. Odds are that lesbian women really don’t give a shit what men are watching. It’s not wrong to find two women having sex appealing, but there is a strong difference between what we see in adult film and pop videos versus how lesbians actually live their lives. It’s called reality, and to a greater extent, a three dimensional lifestyle. White males still influence the landscape of modern advertising and marketing because their consumer buying power holds that much sway, but that might not last forever either. A hundred years from now the gender and the race controlling our advertising dollars could be a whole different ball game. That’s if we make it another hundred years.

As someone who is firmly entrenched in an artistic community of writers, poets, journalists, musicians and other creative types, it would be foolish for me to take any other kind of stance when it comes to same sex partnerships. I’m a Republican, but I’m not a Republican from the Stone Ages, for chrissakes. One of my best friends growing up told me that he was gay some time around high school. Many of the friends that I have (or have had) in my life have been gay or lesbian. I’m also an Elton John fanatic, so it would be hypocritical to take an anti-homosexual stance when it comes to the people I talk to, the friendships I have, or the beliefs that I defend.

I’ve honestly never had a problem with it, and often wonder if the people who are most homophobic might have personal issues of their own to resolve before they project them on other people, if you know what I mean. Assuming that every gay person is going to hit on you (as a man) or that every lesbian woman will attempt to convert you (if you’re a girl) is narcissistic and false. Gay and lesbian people are not sexual werewolves with no impulse control and it doesn’t work that way. You’re ’safe’, so don’t obsess about homosexuals going out of their way to convert you. They’re not Mormons and they don’t have a vested interest in intentionally growing the population by recruiting people who aren’t interested. Think about it.

Love is the bottom line where relationships are concerned whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual. If you love someone and they love you back, where is there a problem? There isn’t one, and it shouldn’t be for anyone else involved, either. End of discussion.

Off the fence on another argument,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Chasing My Own Deadline To The Finish…

Another grueling, exhausting weekend. We’re going to make this quick because I’m pressed for time (again).
In light of my impending Big Words radio interview this Wednesday with adult film star Alexis Amore, Night Life hits stands today with my original ‘Found In Translation’ Puma Swede Interview. Grab a copy on stands and don’t forget to tune in to the Think Twice site late Wednesday night or early Thursday to catch all the insanity.
After a lot of editing and producing work on four hours worth of material, there are FOUR (count ‘em) new Monsters Of Verse shows up online over on the Think Twice Monsters site. Here are your synopses for those:
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 10: FYE Transit
Local comic writer/artist Kyle Kaczmarzcak (The Red Eye, Pulp) attempts the unthinkable by promoting his work for eleven continuous hours with Tom beginning at FYE Transit. Poet JR Finlayson discusses the intensive therapy it took to recover from his ’08 press junket as a founding Monster Of Verse.
(Bonus Round included)
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 11: ‘Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger Cliff-Hanger! (pt.I)’
After spending the afternoon at FYE Transit, Kyle Kaczmarzcak continues to expose himself to Tom’s insanity as they take their show down the road to Don’s Atomic Comics in Depew for a free beer promotion. In the spirit of cross-marketing, Part II can be found over on Tom’s pod cast site, Big Words I Know By Heart (also on Think Twice). Arrow over for the surprisingly violent conclusion!.
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 12: Talking Leaves Elmwood
Poets Anne Foster and Josh Smith share a round table discussion with local novelist Diane Meholick and Tom Waters on a Sunday afternoon at Talking Leaves. For the first time in months, poems are recited for a pod cast show that was intended to have more readings than appearances. Irony!.2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 13:     2/20/09 Borders Books And Music in Orchard Park
Long time show biz friends Diane Meholick (Buffalo Stories, Painting Katherine) and Tom Waters schmooze their way through a Borders promotion by schlepping each other’s wares to unsuspecting Valentine’s Day book buyers and discussing the finer points of local and national folk music, among other things.
I also had the good fortune of recording one interview hour and one concert hour with national piano great Lenny Revell, who will be joining me on stage as part of the bill from 7 p.m. onward on Wednesday April 1^st at Desiderio’s on Broadway for April Foolfest 2! This was the first time I’d ever met/heard Lenny play and he is without a doubt one of the most talented musicians in Buffalo, hands down. There’s a lot of post-production work to be done where his show is concerned, but I’ll let you all know the second it hit’s the web.
Don’t forget to check on back on Quixote Wednesday for some new information that will surprise and intrigue. This week’s curveball is a lot more shocking and unpredictable than anyone could have guessed! That’s all the time I have for today. Get caught up on all the radio shows by clicking your way over to:
http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html
And
http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

Let The Dirty Carpet Bombing Begin!

Good news, comic book lovers!

For the last few weeks, Don, Ian, Brian Platter and myself have been building a new patch of real estate on the super-information off-ramp we call the intraweb. As of today, the site becomes a reality. If you steer yourself over to the official Don’s Atomic Comics web site, you can click on ’The Dirty Bomb’ and find dualing comic book reviews, comic related rants and engaging posts from Ian and myself. I’ve been a big fan of Ian’s Dirty Bomb over the last two years and the two of us decided to team up in classic superhero fashion and join forces to combine our readerships.

From here on out, those of you who have been following my graphic novel reviews over on Comics Bulletin will be able to read them days, even weeks in advance before they go up over there. Comics Bulletin has been very good to me in the last few months, but Don has been good to me for almost a decade, and we had a very appealing idea: share the reviews with the regulars I shop with. Long and short, that’s my goal on the site. I’m sure a lot of other things will happen as a result of the new site, and Ian and I are looking forward to the curveballs that will come across the plate.

For your convenience, I’ve posted a direct link here on the home page to the right along with the 5 million other direct links provided. There are two posts up already, so pop on in, read some exclusive content (!) and say hello!

We’re entering a brave new world and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Thanks again to Brian Platter of Six Shot Studios for doing the hard work by creating the site, Don for letting us set up shop on his official site, and to Ian for crossing swords with me yet again (in that way). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Don’s Atomic Comics is family to me. Now you get to meet my twin brother Ian. And read what he has to say on a semi-regular basis. Tread lightly, ladies and gentleman, and treat him with the same respect you’d treat me with. He’s an Irishman too, and I certainly wouldn’t pick a fight with him (or, for that matter, try to beat him when it comes to drinking good scotch), so keep that in mind. Ian is also a great writer, and I’ll be tuning in just as often as everyone else to read what he has to say.

I’ll wrap up there. Enough work for one Saturday morning! Click your way over to:

 

 

http://donsatomiccomics.com/WordPress/

Big Words Radio Hour Episodes 30 & 31 Up Right NOW!

Hey folks!

 

Two new episodes of Big Words Radio are up and running on your worldwide superinformation off-ramp right this second!  Here are your ’synospsi’:

 

 

Big Words Episode 30: ‘Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger Cliff-Hanger!’ (pt.II)
 Tom throws his first official Poetry Kegger at Don’s Atomic Comics in Depew.  Distilled spirits are consumed, comics are purchased, and a fight almost breaks out at the end of the clip.  This episode concludes Part I, which can be found by clicking on the Monsters Of Verse pod-cast show (which can also be found on the Think Twice Site).  This is what’s known as ’cross-promotion’.

 

Big Words Episode 31: ‘The Large Verbiage We’ve Shared Through Rote Activity Podcast’
 With a Democrat firmly entrenched in the White House, Thomas Waters and ’Full Head Of Luxurious Hair Michael’ attempt a show reformat that’s kindler, gentler, and a hell of a lot more liberal.  Guest Lindsay Waters upsets the new world order of things by bringing the content rating of the show from PG to NC-17. 

 

    I would STRONGLY recommend that you wait until Part I of the Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger show appears over on the Monsters Of Verse show site before diving head first into PT. II on my own site.  Just a suggestion, though, and odds are that you’re going to do whatever you want. 

    Tonight, I’ll be recording an back to back interview and concert shows with highly acclaimed musician Lenny Revell.  As soon as the shows are finished and posted, you’ll be the first group to know.  In the mean time, perk up your ears and click away over at:

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

 

    Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you all on Monday for your regularly scheduled Monday Update,

 

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Six Degrees of University (pt. III of III)

Quixote Wednesday Update! Six Degrees Of University (Pt. III of III):

Let’s talk about Joe from Eastern Hills, shall we?

Back in 2005, I inherited Joe when I took over the Delaware location and the previous manager was terminated (thanks quite a bit to Joe‘s machinations). Joe was terminally incompetent but, since I went to high school with his wife, he got transferred to the Union Rd. store instead of being terminated. Joe managed to get Mike (the store manager at Union) fired. Instead of getting promoted to manager, Colleen (from Niagara Falls) got a promotion. At my insistence. Colleen couldn’t stand Joe, so Joe got transferred to the store outside of the Boulevard Mall in Eric‘s District.

Jeff (the manager outside of Boulevard) couldn’t stand Joe because of his incompetence. So again, Joe got transferred to the store inside the neighboring mall. A few months later, Chris (the store manager inside the mall) got terminated. Finally, after having a hand in getting three of his supervisors fired, Eric promoted Joe into a management position at the University location (outside of Eric’s District). After Eric got his neighboring DM fired (Mike), Eric dumped his dirty laundry (Joe) into a separate District so that he wouldn’t have to deal with him.

Lisa was promoted from outside the company as District Manager after ’deciding to leave her former company’ (Starbucks, after sleeping with one of the managers she was in charge of) and got Joe as part of her new District. It was widely known that Joe was a completely clueless, but his ability to kiss ass and sell everyone out from under him was a quality that had served him well under the new Gamestop corporate structure. Lisa admired these qualities. Even though Joe’s employee’s at University complained of his inability to manage a store, prioritize his job duties in a timely manner, or even complete any assigned tasks on his own without bungling them completely, Lisa ignored the obvious and transferred him to the Eastern Hills location after terminating the manager there for a loss prevention issue.

Eastern Hills was viewed as a retirement home of sorts in my previous District. Michelle (the former manager) had mismanaged the store so well that it barely escaped closing before the lease was renewed post-merger. With limited foot traffic, shoddy sales numbers and a staff that ignored most walk-in customers, Joe was awarded the store when it became obvious that he couldn’t handle a high traffic location. Instead of terminating Joe, Lisa awarded Joe’s penchant for obvious ass-kissing by transferring him to another location. So far, Joe had been transferred out to another store by two other DM’s so that they wouldn’t have to fire him. His reputation for laying down brownie points as a substitute for competence was already cemented, and it got him a store in a low volume location in the middle of nowhere.

Curtis (my previous manager) was forced to move from an award-winning location that he built up from nothing by threat of termination (per Ki’yeoh, the regional manager, Lisa’s supervisor) to Joe’s store at University. Curt was a workaholic, and he was pushed into a situation that he didn’t want and bullied by the regional into cleaning up a store by a manager who never should have been promoted in the first place. Curt’s first inventory was a nightmare thanks largely in part to Joe’s incompetence. Lisa swept it under the rug and ignored obvious signs that Joe had no clue as to what he was doing. Much like Mike and Eric before her, Lisa chose to honor Joe’s loyalty to getting his supervisors fired over Joe’s complete inability to do his job.

Joe remains a joke to the managers who work in his district as well as the people he inherited. It astonished his peers that he managed to maintain employment by selling out the managers he worked under while displaying obvious and blatant incompetence as a salesman and a member of management, but the new Gamestop regime was insistent on keeping people who lived in a moral vacuum who were willing to sell out anyone to get ahead. See also: Eric, Stewart, Glenn and company within the Buffalo region.

Even with a low volume store, reports came rolling in that Joe had no clue what he was doing. It took him an inordinate amount of time to complete job tasks that most managers could finish within a reasonable amount time frame. His employees (inherited under another manager) complained that he had no idea what he was doing. Fellow managers in the same district lamented that he called them constantly for simple problems that most members of management knew how to resolve after a mere month or two with the company. Joe was an embarrassment. He’d been swept under the rug and transferred out by so many DMs (instead of being terminated) that he finally got hidden away at the smallest store in Buffalo.

When Joe had his first store inventory at his new store, he overslept. By two hours. After a year of kissing Lisa’s ass at the University location before his inexplicable transfer, no documentation was made. Long time employees at the Eastern Hills store complained that Joe would take an inordinate amount of time to compete simple tasks or that he was incapable of figuring out simple management duties. Now that Joe was at one of the smallest volume locations in the District, this was also ignored.

Much like Lewis (my last assistant manager who attended my wedding and had a hand in getting me fired on a technicality during the week of my honeymoon), Joe was more than happy to suck up to Lisa after I got terminated. Days after my termination, Joe brought print-outs from one of the web sites I posted to into a store meeting. I suppose when you make a career out of selling out your peers, you have no idea how to get by on professionalism or the bare minimum of job competency.

Recently, a new friend told me that he shops at Eastern Hills all the time. The employees consider him a regular by most standards. According to this kid, the employees (including Joe) award him for helping out the customers when it’s ’busy’ (and this is the lowest traffic store in three districts, mind you) by giving him an employee discount. This is a blatant violation of company policy. This is also grounds for termination. Joe remains employed to this day.

This third chapter closes out the University trilogy, a look at people who maintain their job security (for now) despite their ability to perform basic job tasks. Glenn (the first store manager at University in this scenario) had a hand in getting his DM fired and got promoted by Eric into another District to a better location. One of the current male employees followed a customer outside of the store, punched him in the face, and got away with it without any disciplinary action. Joe made a practice of badmouthing his supervisors and helping to get superiors fired until he finally got his own store and when he couldn’t handle the store he was promoted into, he was awarded a lower volume location so that another manager could clean up his mess.

If you look at the last three Quixote Wednesday posts, it becomes pretty apparent that Gamestop would rather keep unscrupulous employees with no values and no sense of basic morality in favor of hard workers or individuals with certifiable sales results. In the last four years (locally and nationwide), they’ve ’phased out’ local and national employees systematically as an alternative to layoffs, forced retirement or other suitable means of forcing employees out of their jobs.

Get your peers and supervisors fired and gain a promotion. Kiss ass and keep your job. Help the store you shop at take care of customers when more than eight people are in the store and get a free employee discount. Are these really the sort of values that any publicly traded company wants to enforce? With Gamestop (under regional Kiyeol’s leadership and Lisa’s District supervision), apparently so. What a brave new world we live in….

Monday Big Words Update! A Boat Load Of New Shows On The Horizon…

This is going to be one of the shortest Monday Updates in recent memory as time is an issue today and not much has occurred…yet.

A new issue of Night Life magazine hit’s the stands today with ‘Barometric Pressure’, a very honest look at the nature and progress of my own bipolar disorder. I’m rarely this open with my readers (aside from the poetry books), so scoop it up if you want to catch a different side of me.

Borders last Friday was a great time with author Diane Meholick and we recorded the event for Monsters Of Verse pod casting purposes. Diane will be joining me again as a rotating guest Monster on Saturday, March 21^st from 12-6 p.m. at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum for the 3^rd annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair. She’s a talented author and she was a joy to spend two hours with. You can catch our conversation soon on the Monsters Of Verse site on Think Twice Radio.

On Saturday, Lindsay, myself and ‘Luxurious Full Head Of Hair Michael’ recorded what will in all likelihood be the only episode of the ‘Large Verbiage We’ve Learned Through Rote Activity’ program. The Big Words format was completely reversed and after listening to the show with my buddy Ron, we were in stitches. Those unfamiliar with the previous 29 shows will have no goddamned idea what’s going on and will most likely turn the show off. Those of you who’ve heard some of the other shows will get what we’re doing and most likely piss yourselves laughing. The show isn’t up yet, but it will be very, very soon.

I spent Sunday editing and producing 6 hours worth of Big Words and Monsters shows and I’ll drop an update as soon as they’re all up. In total, there are 2 new Big Words shows and 4 Monsters pod casts going up THIS WEEK. That’s a lot of pod casting, folks.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Stay tuned for more information this week and don’t forget to tune back in for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday update! Take care and have a great week,

Tom Waters

Bonus Valentine’s Poem! ‘Be Mine’

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

This is the first new poem I’ve written in about three months.  Odds are that it will go into my next poetry collection, Poke The Scorpion With A Sharp Stick, which is due out some time in late 2010 or early 2011.  Enjoy the holiday,

Tom Waters

Be Mine

Real Love

is 3 millimeters between our open eyes

(not so much scanning as)

taking in every speckle, fleck & dilation of the pupil

in naked adulation

or the closest thing to total understanding

that two people can have among each other.

It’s:

the guerilla hug on the way out the door to work

an instinctive hand reaching for mine in our sleep

sharing a meal meant for one

sequestering ourselves from everyone else

just to be with each other

having a nap before or after bedroom elocutions

tracing the soft scent of skin

with my finger, nose or tongue

the hiccup of breath preceding a tear I anticipate the source of which is all thanks to me (and the fact of this brings about a horrid pall of shame and guilt I’m unfamiliar with)

your eyelids brushing my cheek when you wake

the comfortable feel of your ass with my hand

knowing every curve and bump and freckle and wrinkle and laugh line and chasm of sorrow on your body from back to front with my eyes closed and every embarrassing story, parable and anecdote about your life twice (most of them), the boys who hurt you and your parents who shaped you, the girls who hated you, or a world that changed us, found us, made us, dusted us off and dropped us into the same spot together so that we could find ourselves

à

HERE

Hers, His

Who fucking cares?

We made it

for now

we have one another

Today, tomorrow, next week

which makes the rest of it bearable

that has to be Real Love

or a facsimile

thereof.

Thoughts on the Flight 3407 Plane Crash…

I was very torn about whether or not to write about the horrific plane crash late Thursday night/early this morning, but I feel compelled to. While most people cope with any tragedy of this magnitude, they tend to relate to the event by making it about them. I’ve always shied away from writing about celebrity deaths or Buffalo tragedies because I would rather mourn in my own time than jump onto a bandwagon and vie for recognition in the classic journalistic tradition of grabbing headlines or boosting site hits by banking on the loss and grief of others.

While it’s appropriate and relevant to report an event regarding the who, what, where, why and how, oftentimes writers inject their own egos in situations like these where it’s not warranted (i.e. ‘I met Jimmy Griffin at a church function in ‘76’ or ‘September 11^th was important to ME because I was doing THIS on that day and my cousin’s sisters’ husband was down the street’, etc.). While many of my essays are egocentric, I strongly frown on this sort of narcissism in professional writing. Lives have been lost and this has nothing to do with me or anyone else who tries to make it about them. If more people read between the lines in whatever newspaper they read or any cable news station that milked such an awful occurrence for everything it was worth, they’d realize just how exploitative and heartless the field can be.

In this instance, I’d like to say a few things. I was born, raised and lived in Clarence for 26 years before moving out of town to Amherst and then Lancaster. It will always be a part of me and living a half an hour away, that sounds foolish, but there is a definite cultural difference between Clarence and Lancaster. I wrote an article some time back in the Buffalo News My View column about my love for Lancaster and the fact that (like anyone aging and finding out that they ‘can’t go home again’), Clarence has become more populated and less rural over the course of the last twenty years. Over the summer, the Town of Lancaster was kind enough to include this article in a time capsule that was sealed in a building for the next 100 years. Clarence loyalists didn’t take to this article too kindly, but many alumni from high school agreed.

Since my parents’ home is on the border of Williamsville, we spent the majority of our year directly in the flight path leading to and from the Buffalo airport. Most people who live in Clarence can hear the planes that depart and arrive throughout the day and it became so commonplace that we learned to tune it out. It was part of growing up and living in Clarence. For all of us.

In December, I obtained a part time job in Clarence where I remain and work three days a week. It’s given me a great opportunity to reconnect with the town I grew up in and visit with old school chums or familiarize myself with the surrounding townships, bars and roads. The Goodrich Road/Clarence Center Rd. area (where the crash took place) is not only five minutes away from Clarence Central High School, it’s also ten to fifteen minutes away from my place of employment. The Clarence Middle School is also five minutes away from the crash site.

My heart goes out to the victims and families of flight 3407. Early reports are already confirming that most of the 49 people who died in the crash were Buffalonians. It was a horrible, horrible tragedy and most of us will be coping with the loss and grieving in our own ways throughout the weekend and well beyond.

With any unexpected death or national disaster, I try and look for the positive effects and ramifications that weigh out all the negative and saddening events. For those familiar with the Goodrich Rd./Clarence Center area, it’s a highly populated, well-developed suburban area on the border of Amherst and Clarence Center.   With two neighboring schools, a firehall and densely populated neighborhoods, it’s a godsend that more people weren’t hurt. It’s also very fortunate that the crash took place so close to the Clarence Center Fire Hall. Luckily, their response time was much faster than it would have been had the crash taken place further away from their station. What happened was awful. If the crash happened further out, though, the fire could have cost more lives and caused more property damage (during a Buffalo winter where we’ve already had plenty) than it did.

It’s always especially painful when any deaths occur so close to a major holiday. It seems as if the really decent people always die near national holidays. Again, my condolences to the friends and family of the victims in the plane crash. You will be in everyone’s thoughts and prayers in spite of living in a world of exploitative, ulterior and sensationalistic media overexposure where any tragedy is concerned.

Hopefully Buffalo media outlets won’t milk the crash for their own selfish purposes too much in the coming weeks. It would be nice to see ANY media outlet take the moral high ground by being tasteful and conservative on their take as opposed to disrupting the grieving process by hammering surviving relatives with questions for weeks on end and conducting around-the-clock coverage long after all relevant facts have been released and the news portion of the story is gone and the dead horse portion of the exposure truly begins. Please be tasteful and remember that it’s not always ’all about you’ or ’all about Buffalo’ when handling the story. For once. See also: Tim Russert, Jimmy Griffin, anything having to do with the Goo Goo dolls, etc. Real journalists will attempt to write about the story tastefully and objectively within a short time frame. Again, our thoughts and prayers will be with you.

 

Quixote Wednesday Update! Six Degrees Of University (pt. II of III)

Here’s another great story…

I’ve been in retail since I was 16 and I’ve most likely been inundated with every form of customer service training module imaginable. I’ve been trained at bookstores, video stores, movie theaters, toy stores, carpet stores, super stores…you name it. And if there’s one common bond that I’ve noticed in my 17 years in retail, it’s this: taking care of the customer no matter what. That used to count for something. So where does punching a customer in the face fit in?

Focusing on the University location again, there was an incident a month or two ago. For those of you who haven’t been following this series, University is the store that Curt got fired from on his 7 year anniversary a week before I got fired on my 6^th anniversary. Curt was replaced by (you guessed it) a girl. From Galleria, where Lisa’s harem of personal friends and ass kissers reside.

Curt’s replacement must be doing a stellar job. According to one of my many informants, one of the employees kicked a customer out of the store. In addition to this, he followed this particular minor outside and physically assaulted him by punching the child in the face. Lisa (the District Manager who fired me) found out about it. What did she do to correct the situation? Nothing.

This is yet another double standard in a District that’s lousy with them. While people like Curt and myself got terminated on obscure technicalities that weren’t covered on a regular basis, pals of Lisa (and their employees) are running rampant: assaulting customers, closing stores early, giving out employee discounts to their friends, and so much more. I don’t want to give you all the goods just yet, though.

So again, I ask you: how is it good customer service at ANY Gamestop to punch a customer in the face? And why wasn’t any documentation given? The employee was given a firm talking to, and that’s it. No paperwork, no termination of employment…no cause and effect. Another great moment in leadership for Lisa, between replacing men in power with girls, friends of the family who are girls, and ignoring men who have proven their loyalty for promotion in favor of girls or friends of the family. Now we can add total neglect where ACTUAL disciplinary action is concerned.

How bad does it have to get before Lisa’s superior’s wake up and realize just how unfit she is for the job, because the last time I checked, punching consumers in the head after kicking them out wasn’t in any of the training manuals or videos. I’ve worked at ‘urban’ stores for the company, and I’ve been in some tense situations, but I’ve never gone so far as to walk outside the store and physically assault minors. This is completely unacceptable from any company standpoint. Let me rephrase that: it SHOULD be completely unacceptable from any company standpoint.

Power to the players? How about punches for the players? This District has become more of a joke in the last four months than it was in the first place. This male actually should have been fired for his actions and nothing has been done. How many faux pas’ can Lisa sweep under the rug before someone above her who knows how to do their job takes action? I guess we’ll have to keep count, won’t we?

That’s all the news that’s fit to print this week. Tune in next Wednesday for Part III of the University trilogy. I’ve still got some interesting information to dispense for all of you and as long as you keep driving those site hits up (and as long as Lisa still has a job), I’ll keep ‘dropping it like it’s hot’ every single Wednesday like clockwork.

So remember the new promotion at University: come into the store, get kicked out and physically assaulted! I wonder why they don’t have any catchy television ads to promote this unusual event?

Cheers,

Tom Waters

p.s. Remember that all information is confidential if you choose to keep your name and association with the company private.  Keep the whistle blowing by sending me your emails, comments, suggestions and internal intel at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

Monday Big Words Update! Promotional Aftermath, Calendar Additions…

Somebody get the number of that Mack Truck!

This weekend was a killer in the positive and negative sense of the term. On Friday night, I had a bar review I conducted with the wife for the Buffalo News. On Saturday, myself, Kyle Kaczmarzcack and JR Finlayson promoted for eleven consecutive hours at FYE Transit and Don’s Atomic Comics for my fifth Tom’s Atomic Kegger. When Sunday rolled around, I had a two hour stint promoting both Breathing Room books with Anne Foster, Josh Smith an unexpected guest star author Diane Meholick and a rag-tag cast of characters. Whoosh! The weekend is gone.

The outlandishly good news is that we kicked ass and took names. Don and the rest of us had our best crowd ever for the kegger and I the Monsters Of Verse and myself had the best turnout I’d ever seen at Talking Leaves Elmwood. Many, many books were sold and distributed throughout the greater Buffalo region this weekend and here’s some spectacular news: As of Saturday, both Breathing Rooms hit the 100 copies sold mark and kept going! For such a short amount of time with only a month or so of promotions (what with the holiday break), this is astoundingly good news for the two little poetry collections that could.

Much like Elton John and ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, one of his most popular singles, Breathing Room I and II continue to amaze me with how well they’ve been received. Readers LOVE these two books and I’m not sure how or why, but I certainly appreciate their patronage and the avalanche of praise I continue to receive regarding both collections. Who KNEW that poetry would be the genre that set me free from a publishing standpoint? I never would have guessed it in a million years, but let’s keep those copies moving!

To avoid making this a five page update, the new Night Life is out this week with a Big Words dose of ‘Chia Chick’, an old favorite about Valentine’s Day and relationships that I like to dust off for the holiday. It’s acerbic and readers really dig out, so scoop it up if you haven’t read it in my first book, Born Pissed!

Three new shows went up on Think Twice Radio over the weekend too, so if you haven’t had a chance, check ‘em out. This previous weekend’s promotional insanity was recorded and Rich Wicka and I should have those up online by the beginning of next week.

And finally, there have been a few great additions to the Event Calendar for the next three months. Some poets have been added and subtracted, but I’m hesitant to roll the whole calendar out again, so I’ll go over the bullet points.

-Author Diane Meholick (Buffalo Stories) and poet Josh Smith will be joining me THIS FRIDAY at Borders Books on McKinley Parkway from 7-9 p.m. We’ll all be selling and signing copies of our books in honor of Valentine’s Day. And we’ll be doing it because we’re greedy and we’re starving Buffalo Artists. So swing out, buy some books and say hello!

-On Sunday, March 21^st, The Monsters Of Verse will be joining the festivities at their very own table at the 3^rd Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair from 12-6. This prestigious hullabaloo is located at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum on Richmond Ave in Buffalo and it’s a great opportunity to meet the majority of Buffalo’s literati in one day under one roof.

-Last but not least, local musician Lenny Revell has agreed to perform an hour long set of his piano-based genius for April Foolfest 2 at Desiderio’s on Broadway on Wednesday, April 1^st. I’ll be ranting from 7-8 p.m., Lenny Revell will be playing from 9-10 p.m., and I’m still working on a second musical act for 8-9 p.m.. Buffalo is rife with talented musicians and I want to find a good fit for Desi’s. I’m really looking forward to seeing Lenny perform and it’s an added bonus to an event that’s sure to be a blast!

I’ll cut myself off at the knees there. There’s a lot more to go over, but we’ll save it for Friday or Saturday. Talk to you all on Wednesday for Part II of the Quixote Wednesday mini-series,

Tom Waters

3 Bookstore Promotions in 2 Days, 3 new Radio Shows up NOW!

Holy god it’s going to be a busy weekend!

 

    First off, I’ll be at FYE Transit and Don’s Atomic Comics TODAY from 1-4 and 6-midnight (respectively) promoting both Breathing Rooms!  Show up at FYE and dogpile into the Monsters Of Verse podcast!  Or show up and bring or buy a copy of EITHER Breathing Room and drink for FREE from 6-midnight!  Yes, that is the only catch.  Don and I have been getting my readers drunk for going on 8 books now and we’re certainly not going to stop now.  Come on up, bring a girl (20% off everything in the store if you do) and let’s get WRECKED! 

    I’ll also be at Talking Leaves on Elmwood from 2-4 tomorrow (Sunday) with poet Anne Foster (a guest Monster Of Verse), so stop out tomorrow if you’re busy today! 

    All three events will be podcast and should be up in the not too distant future.  As far as the radio shows go, there are THREE new shows up right now!  2 new episodes of Big Words Radio are up as we speak and there’s a new episode of Monsters Of Verse with JR Finlayson over on the Monsters Of Verse site.  Here are your synopsi:

 

Big Words Radio:

Episode 28: ‘The Real Deal’
   The insanity and frivolity get kicked up a few notches higher when forces beyond our control pair Tom with little brother and mad troubadour Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters. During guzzles of Jim Beam, Tom and Dave discuss family values, music, pizza and their love lives.

Episode 29: ‘How Dare You Sit There And Drink All Our Beer’
   Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters regales Tom and an unsuspecting Clarence audience (his downstairs neighbor) with an impromptu concert in his outside stairwell. Highlights include ‘Plastic Jesus’, ‘Texan Love Song’ and ‘The Man In Me’.

 

Monsters Of Verse Podcast:

1/20/09 Monsters Of Verse Episode 9: Dissertation
Poet emeritus and visiting professor JR ‘Jebrey’ Finlayson schools the Clarence High School Poetry Club regarding poetry, art, staying up until dawn, the joys and perils of having children, and his take on the future of the universe in just 20 minutes and change.

 

As always, you can dial up the following episodes on your Ipod at the intraweb post office boxes provided below.  Don’t forget to stop out to any of the events this weekend and be part of the madness that endless promotional junkets become!  Seeya soon,

Tom Waters

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

Quixote Wednesday Update: Six Degrees Of University (pt. I of III)

Wow, it appears as if we’re going local again on the Gamestop front. As they like to say in South Park, scissor me, Xerxes! If they’d stop doing so many asinine things I could attack from more of a global level, but this is TOO GOOD!

Everyone remembers Stewart, right? The only guy in either company history to be promoted as a District Manager into his own District? Violating every policy in every manual since the inception of both electronics chains dating back for the last thirty years? The weasel who’s gotten more people fired to keep his own ass out of the frying pan while he’s festered with self-loathing and paranoia in a job that he most likely despised a few years into it who somehow managed to stay employed for over twenty five years? That one? Yeah.

Well Stewart was promoted as a ‘district trainer’ a few months before he passed on things that Curt said in conversation on a company trip to Vegas in September. Curt and I sat together. In late September, Stewart and Lisa took a three day road trip to Philadelphia for a District Trainers power point presentation extravaganza. Colleagues and ass-kissers out of the same mold tend to make small talk when they take three day road trips. Less than a month later, we were out of a job. Case closed, eh?

Whelp, now that Stewart is in charge of the same District he’s worked in for going on almost thirty years, this leaves a vacancy. Keeping in league with the new Gamestop order of promoting total incompetence from within, Glenn got the job.

Glenn comes from a store near UB. Glenn used to give the local police, his relatives and good customers extra special discounts above and beyond what might be considered legal by company standards. Who knows, though, maybe that’s NOT grounds for termination based on their antics for the last few months.

When I was employed at the Thruway location, we shared plenty of customers, so I got all the information I needed from them. Curt took over the store after my previous DM Mike got wrongfully terminated and Lisa took over. Curt used to tell me about how many customers would come in ‘looking for the hookup’ and how Glenn’s relative (who happens to be a cop) kept coming in under the auspices that he was guaranteed pennied-out merchandise per Glenn. Giving away hint guides and items that are marked down to be ‘field destroyed’ is also grounds for termination. Not for Glenn, I guess.

Glenn had something to do with getting Mike fired. Like a festering little sore, Glenn hibernated in Mike’s District for a year and a half after a merger re-shuffling and curiously got awarded a bigger, better store at a mall on the boulevard in Eric’s District after Mike’s termination. For those who forgot, Eric is the neighboring DM who had a stellar habit of firing his competing DM’s because he was incapable of inspiring his own Districts or driving any sort of palpable profit gains by comparison. Eric is a Regional now, and medical studies have recently shown that whatever he had left of a spine has dissolved due to the new promotion.

As of this week, Glenn’s soul has become empty enough that he’s earned a starting position into a higher tax bracket as a ‘District Trainer’. Congratulations, pal. More positive proof that sales results don’t matter, integrity doesn’t matter, and adherence to day to day company policies is completely irrelevant. The only two things that matter for Gamestop are:

1. Whether or not you worked for Gamestop before the merger

-and-

2. Making sure you kiss the right ass and betray your peers to prove your loyalty to the company and your complete lack as a moral human being.

Well played, Glenn.

I’ve got two other very interesting discussions where the University store is concerned, but we’ll save them for next Wednesday and the Wednesday following. They call that a ‘cliff-hanger’. If you’re reading along, please turn your procedural manuals to page 285. Just kidding. Talk to you all next Wednesday,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Lead Time…

On Wednesday, I had a small experiment. Instead of ‘simul-casting’ Quixote Wednesday on all four or five or six sites at once, I posted it right here on the official site with a lead time of twelve hours or more to see if all of you would come here first. I did this for multiple reasons. 1.) I’d rather have the traffic here where I can track search terms, individual site hits, stats, and so forth. 2.) It’s nice to utilize sites like Myspace, Facebook, and BuffaloMe.com, but I’d rather let the site hits wash up on home turf before random users wander across it and 3.) The Gamestop Gestapo are going out of their way to brush everything under the carpet, so why not see how many of the goons are really reading the posts?

The Wednesday experiment paid off in spades. On Wednesday, January 28^th, the official Big Words site garnered a commanding 115 unique hits in one day (vs. 48 the previous Wednesday). What does this mean? This means that I’ll be changing the way I do things permanently. If you want to read the first edition hot off the press, then you damned well better show up to the official site first. From here on out, all Monday and Wednesday updates will be posting ASAP on tomfoolery4.wordpress first and foremost and rolling out tardy some time much later in the day on all of the other sites that are familiar with the first amendment or aren’t spooked by anonymous threats from menacing phone calls and emails (I’m talking about you, YourHub). Once more, if you want all the scoop that’s fit to print first, come to the official site. If you’d rather meander past it when you log in to one of your favorite community sites, that’s fine too, but after a taste of one day’s returns on a whim, I’ll be analyzing my information firsthand and reporting it right back to you.

Enough about all that nonsense, though. Now that we’re into the beginning of February, there’s a new batch of Night Life columns on deck! This week marks a short intro by the editor followed by the three month Monsters Of Verse calendar slightly in progress. If you want a copy for calendar purposes, scoop it up on stands this week!

And there are three very valuable venues for the Monsters Of Verse this week. On Saturday, we’ve got FYE on Transit and Wherle (1-4) followed by Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger(!) at Don’s Atomic Comics from 6-midnight or later! Saturday is going to be a real marathon, but I couldn’t think of two other places I’d rather spend the entire day at. On Sunday, JR Finlayson, myself and a third Monster will be showing up at Talking Leaves on Elmwood (2-4) for an appearance signing right on the main strip of the cultural crème de la crème. La de da! If you’re a downtown person, stop on by and buy some books! Or just stop by and schmooze. All three events will be pod cast for future Monsters Of Verse Show inclusion, so join in on the frivolity and find out what you’ve been missing!

And I just dropped off two back to back Big Words radio shows at the Think Twice Studios Home Of The Future this morning, so stay tuned for word on when they hit the intraweek airwaves. I’ve been toiling away on an interview/concert double header with my musically gifted little brother Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters and both shows are finally done. After a long break, Big Words Radio is back on track.

And finally, I’m pleased to announce a very important addition to the 2/09-5/09 Calendar. A benefit is being held for Gregg Sansonne. Gregg is an outlandishly talented Buffalo performer who’s been a dear, dear friend of mine for going well on eight years. He was kind enough to play at our wedding reception for free as a gift and honestly, we are kindred spirits insofar as our musical tastes and our senses of humor are concerned. He’s had some serious health issues as of late and a benefit is being held for him on March 29^th.

At the previous Buffalo Music Awards, Gregg won Solo Artist Of The Year for the 4^th time in a row. This is unheard of. I’ve always said that he plays Elton John’s ’Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding’ better than Elton did back in the ’70s and I mean that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my buddies.

One of the organizers asked me yesterday if I’d be willing to M.C. the event. More than a few local bands and artists will be performing to support Gregg when Buffalo needs him the most. Again, Gregg is like a brother to me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help out the friends who have stuck by me, so I’m honored to announce that I’ll be part of a benefit on his behalf. More details as they materialize.

That’s all there is to blather about for one Monday. Tune on back in two days time for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday Update! Read it here first on the official Big Words site! Sincerely,

Tom Waters