This is Raleigh

The program about arts, culture, and life in the City of Oaks. Every Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Little Raleigh Radio, replays on Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

[benmcneely]

We talk with Sarah Collins and Sarah Ferguson about The Beehive Collective, its mission of supporting causes that empower women, and its famous annual fundraiser, the Bee Ball. Learn more about The Beehive Collective here:www.thebeehivecollective.org/

Music by Boneslinger: boneslinger.com/

[benmcneely]

We talk with Josh Kleinstreuer about his book "Waiting for the Last One." It's about living with epilepsy and the unorthodox treatment he went through to control it.

Josh's book is available at So and So Books: www.facebook.com/soandsobooks

Music "Patience is Expensive" by Bombadil "Summertime in New Jersey in 1998" by Iggy Cosky "Memories (Those Days are Over)" by Iggy Cosky

[benmcneely]

Our first-ever Show About Nothing. Richie Reno and I talk about ice cream, barbecue, a little bit of history, and if the new Star Wars movies are going to be good.

[benmcneely]

In this extended edition of 'This is Raleigh,' we talk with poet Dorianne Laux about her writing, life, death, sex, and everything in between. Laux will be reading at the NC Literary Festival at NC State University, April 3-6, 2014.

Find out more about the literary festival here: www.lib.ncsu.edu/literaryfestival/

Read more about Dorianne here: doriannelaux.com/index.html

[benmcneely]

We listen to stories from the second annual Oak City Bard Brawl. Storytellers include Billy Warden, Joel Frady, Will Huntsberry, and last year's winner Peggy Beach.

The third annual Bard Brawl is hosted by Raleigh Public Record and Little Raleigh Radio. It will be April 8 at Kings Barcade. Tickets are $10 at the door.

For more information: raleighpublicrecord.org/events/bard-b…storytellers/

[benmcneely]

Leo Suarez is the brains behind the blog "The Raleigh Connoisseur." We talk about how the blog got started, urban planning in Raleigh, and what the city should do about downtown parking.

Visit the blog, and get the walking tour of downtown Raleigh, at dtraleigh.com/

[benmcneely]

We talk with Cecilia Iliesiu, a soloist with Carolina Ballet, about her life and career as a ballet dancer.

Follow her adventures at her blog "Twirling Terpsichorean:"exploretheballet.wordpress.com/

Photo by Tim Lytvinenko

[benmcneely]

We talk with Little Raleigh Radio co-founder Jacob Downey about the station's mission, the low-power FM movement, and what community means to him.

[benmcneely]

In the pilot program, we talk with Raleigh photographer Tim Lytvinenko about how his first photographs and his work with Carolina Ballet. We also explore the story behind a famous Raleigh landmark that sparked a lifelong romance.

View Tim's work at newtim.com/

Read my column about the waterfall at the N.C. State Fairgrounds:raleighpublicrecord.org/opinion/2012/…helen-graham/

(Originally published by Raleigh Public Record on Oct. 15, 2012. Read the Record here: raleighpublicrecord.org/)

[benmcneely]

[benmcneely]

The train arrived at the Raleigh station on time, in the middle of a foggy, damp morning. 

By nightfall, it would have traveled up the Eastern Seaboard and end its journey in New York City.

My stop: Washington, DC. My assignment: To cover President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.

The whole perspective of the landscape is different from a train. When you travel by car, you see the fronts of houses. From a train, you see the backyards. 

It’s quiet on a train, for the most part, save for the occasional whistle blowing, as it rolls through towns. Stops are short, never more than 10 minutes. 

Passengers file up and down the aisles, stow their luggage,quietly take their seats, pull out a book or just stare out at the landscape. 

For alomst two centuries, trains have carried people and cargo across America. The railroads exerted so much power on society that even time itself bent under their will.

In 1869, at Promontory Summit, in Utah, the railroads running from the east and the west met, linking the country together. 

And presidents knew how to use the rails to gain political power. They used whistle-stop tours to see the country and get out among The People.

But there’s another symbolic effect of presidents traveling by train to the Nation’s Capital: They are traveling across the land without fear of reprisal or attack. All part of the peaceful transfer of power we enjoy.

That wasn’t the case 150 years ago. Abraham Lincoln had to sneak into Washington by train to avoid an assassination plot against his life. 

Long before the automobile became the symbol of American individualism, railroads provided wanderers of any class the chance to get away and see the wonder of the country on a ground level.

Air travel, with all its hassle, can’t provide the same experience. We lock ourselves up in an aluminum tube and shoot ourselves across the country. 

There’s a reason why the Midwest is called “the Flyover States.” No one pays attention. 

But the train is a sanctuary on wheels, a moving place within a place. 

“The railroad track is miles away,” wrote Edith St. Vincent Millay, in her poem, “Travel.”

The railroad track is miles away

And the day is loud with voices speaking,

Yet there isn't a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by, 

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,

But I see its cinders red on the sky,

And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,

And better friends I’ll not be knowing;

Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,

No matter where it’s going.

[benmcneely]

Everyone is out for the holidays and I’m left with the Staff Christmas Tree and my new french press full of coffee. 

This is where the memo begins to go off the rails, folks. You’ve been warned.

I dared to peek at the Twitter feed and it is full of nonsense. Frantic gibbersh about year-end lists and the “looming fiscal cliff.” 

I’m not surprised by any of this, but I immediately regretted taking a look. 

I also looked back at my “year in review” feature on Facebook. What the hell? According to Facebook, changing my profile picture a couple of weeks ago was an important event in my life in 2012. 

Is this to what we’ve been reduced? This is life boiled down to pixels and binary, and it is taking over everything.

-----

Just the other day, Facebook suggested I should buy a gift for a friend who is dead. 

Obviously, the algorithm is still too wonky, but the overall assumption is that Facebook can sum our lives up in photographs and the number of likes we garner. 

The Staff has tried to pry the iPhone from my hands when I get stuck in an infinite loop, seeking desperately any meaning from social media. There is none. It’s full of cold, hard pixels. Information: facts, opinion, jokes, laments, relationship statuses, birth and death and marriage notices. 

No meaning, just information -- pure and unfiltered.

It’s like going to the library and the register of deeds office and downloading the entire contents stored there into your brain EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 

After a while, the brain recoils in horror at overload and refuses to store anymore. Maybe our generation will see a spike of Alzheimer’s disease in our autumn years, just from the sheer volume of information we’ve consumed. 

(That could be a good longitudinal study. Someone write the NIH and get me a grant.)

But never mind all that. This is what is important. Listen: We are not our Facebook profiles. We are not our Twitter feeds. We are not the sum of all of that. We are more. 

And we’ve lost sight of that. I, just as much as anyone, perhaps more, am guilty. 

-----

I’m tired. Is anyone else tired? 

This year was just nuts. Nerve-wracking and exciting, bold and daring, scary and exhausting. There seemed to be little downtime, which is fine, well, and good with me, because idle hands do the Devil’s work. 

Still, though, I am tired. 

I’m tired of funerals for children gunned down in their classrooms and talkng heads spouting nonsense. 

I’m tired of reading about unemployment numbers and watching an entire generation of young people pissing away their futures in bars, because they feel helpless about their lives. 

I’m tired of … 

I’m just tired.

-----

Still, though, there is much for which to be grateful. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the world and lose sight of what’s important. 

I wrote this not-at-all-exhaustive-and-in-no-particular-order list on Thanksgiving: 

A good job, bourbon, good people in my life, family, the English language, the ability to express language, the radio, a roof over my head, a warm bed, too much to eat, bourbon, family who cares, friends who care, my pawpaw, with whom I can be goofy, the Twitters, the Land of the Pine, Mom and Pops, an incredible brother, bourbon, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relations, Busy Bee Cafe, people with whom I can generally be goofy, sweet taters, Freedom (which isn't free), bourbon, The City of Oaks, the typewritten word, a head full of ideas, and a heart (cold and dead as it is) humbly full of gratitude.

I add to that list good coffee, which I neglected before. 

It’s good to write down for what and for whom you are grateful. 

It keeps you humble.

-----

The other night, Timmy and I were sipping bourbon and considering the past year. 

It was quiet, a few weary travelers were in the hideaway bar. Just up the street, the Masses filled the bars, keeping the annoyed bartenders on their feet. 

The City of Oaks became a wind tunnel. It wasn’t crisp … it was cold. 

“What have we done, man?” I asked Timmy. 

“What do you mean?” he said, sipping his bourbon.

“What have we done this year?” 

He laughed. “Whatever we wanted.”

Hmm, I thought. This is true. We tend to go where we want, see who we want, and work on what we want. But is that necessarily good? 

“We focus on doing good work, on what matters, and good things are bound to happen,” he said. 

That is also true. If necessity is the mother of invention, and success is nine parts hard work and one part luck … oh my, I’m getting lost in cliches.

Looking back, it’s perhaps too easy to see what went wrong, instead of what went right.

-----

This section I stole from last year’s Memo, but I wanted to expand on it:

Kurt Vonnegut always wrote the phrase “So it goes” whenever a character died in his book, ‘Slaughterhouse-Five.’

I adopted it this way: So it goes, I suppose. I like the rhyme. 

But it seems that “So it goes” is too passive, too pessimistic for this day and age. Vonnegut was a part of the Greatest Generation, which grew up in the Great Depression and saved the world form fascism, only to bring us to the brink of annihilation during the Cold War. 

Our generation has a work ethic much like our grandparents, but it seems we have to reinvent ourselves constantly. 

Hasn’t it always been thus? Evolution is real. Change is the only constant in the universe.  

So I take back my "So it goes, I suppose” and replace it with "So we are ..."

So we are mortals and what happens between sunup and sundown is what counts.

So we are family and how we treat each other has lifelong repercussions.

So we are members of the human race, charged with keeping this Big Iron World and all who inhabit it.

-----

So where to? What next?



I'll start the new year as I always do -- to make amends for transgressions, whether real or perceived. I welcome anyone to my table to sit, eat, drink and make good conversation.



I will welcome the New Year with coffee, and some bourbon, a quiet thought and a humble prayer: Today starts another Year.

That is good and I am thankful for it.



The world will keep on a-spinnin' and that is good enough for me.

From a humble and grateful heart, I wish you a better year than the last -- for your life and your little corner of the world.



I know it is better anyway -- because you are in it.

[benmcneely]

Grab a mug of egg nog and gather the family around the fire to listen to songs, stories and merriment on A Very Benny Mac Christmas.

[benmcneely]

Where to? What next?

Buy our Book: Election 2012: Where to? What Next?

By tim lytvinenko

36 pages, published 11/9/2012

Essay by Tim Lytvinenko and Ben McNeely

Tuesday, Nov. 6 -- Election Day 2012 -- dawned gray 

The past weekend had seen the candidates race across the country in a last-ditch effort to court voters, but the voters already had their mind made up. 

Ground Zero was Ohio, where Mitt Romney led chants of "Four more days!" and President Barack Obama took the stage to chants of "Four more years!"

On Monday, the candidates made their final arguments, and it was done.

Something was stuck in my head — a weird, sentimental feeling. I voted early, so my plan was to eat a big meal and go to work for the rest of the night. 

I awoke early, and pulled out Carl Sandburg.

Of anyone, Sandburg would know what we're going through now: This weird sense that things aren't really great, but we haven't lost hope.

This election saw the worst in American politics, with nearly $4 billion spent by the campaign and super PACs to influence opinion and sway the electorate. 

It saw attack ad after attack ad, while Americans stood in the unemployment line going on their third year. 

And, yet, there was hope, a begrudging hope, that the sun would rise on Wednesday morning, all this would be over, and we could get back to business.

I flipped to the end of "The People, Yes," Sandburg's epic poem written in the depths of the Great Depression and read the final few lines.

He wrote: 

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.

    There are men who can't be bought.

    The fireborn are at home in fire.

    The stars make no noise,

    You can't hinder the wind from blowing.

    Time is a great teacher.

    Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief

    the people march.

In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people

march:

    "Where to? what next?" 

Those are the questions. 

I met Tim downtown at Morning Times for coffee (coffee first, always and forever). He opened his notebook o a page where he wrote "Election Day 2012" at the top. 

"Here, write something," he said. 

So I did, with Sandburg still rattling around in my mind:

Sitting at the Morning Times, contemplating the implications of tonight's results. 

The polls are tied. Anything can happen.

It's in the hands of the The People.

And the results will roll in tonight and power will be reaffirmed or will change hands.

And the sun will rise tomorrow.

And the questions will be: 'Where to? What next?'

———

We discussed a game plan: Tim would make photos around town, and I would write on cocktail napkins whatever I was thinking throughout the night. 

A meal was in order and we were indecisive on what we wanted to eat. Something hearty and delicious, something American. We thought about Big Ed's, but then we passed by Mecca Restaurant, with its neon sign and blue-plate specials.

Mecca was the first integrated restaurant in Raleigh, before Jim Crow went the way of the dinosaurs. Anyone with a hungry stomach has always been welcome at Mecca. 

It seemed the most democratic (that's with a small d) of all our choices. 

We went upstairs and sat down at a booth, with a black-and-white photo of Sen. Sam Ervin hanging just above. Sam Ervin headed the Watergate hearings and became a political legend in the Land of the Pine in his own right. 

We ordered the barbecue chicken plate and talked about the races, predictions, etc.

Judges Eddie Greene and Bob Orr, both former state supreme court justices, sat in the booth behind us, and did the same thing — discussed predictions.

"It could end up a tie," Judge Orr said. 

That would be the nightmare scenario, but the polls were close and pundits were talking about it. Then there was Nate Silver, who predicted a solid electoral college win for Obama.

My phone rang — it was my buddy.

"Dude, I had to tell you: I voted for Ron Paul."

Bahhahaha, why?

"I tried to write in 'Not the Mormon,' but I just couldn't do that. I had to vote for someone. I took a step back from the booth, took a deep breath, stepped back to the booth and voted Ron Paul."

Well, at least you voted your heart, and at our age, we have to look after our hearts, now don't we?

"Totally."

We demolished our chicken plates, then I took out a napkin and wrote 'Where to? What next?' on it, in big letters.

That was our theme. 

We paid our bills at the front. Behind the register were pictures of politicians who had eaten at Mecca — senators, governors, commissioners, Republicans, Democrats, Men of The People.

"Are you going to have a party here tonight? Tim asked the cashier.

"I don't know, I'll probably go home and watch a Lifetime movie," she replied, non-plussed. 

——-

I didn't leave the TV station until 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. I spent most of the evening analyzing exit poll data. 

Then about 11 or so, the networks called Ohio — and the election — for Obama.

There was relief and irritation in the newsroom — OK, fine, let's get on with the speeches, wrap this up and go home. 

The election was over.

Romney came out, read a concise concession speech, with pain in his eyes. He thought he was going to win. He was convinced of it. He was so close. 

Romney spoke from his heart. Where was the Mitt Romney during the campaign? Had he spoke form his heart all along, he would've won.

Obama spoke an hour later, and took 25 minutes to reaffirm American values for the 21st Century, when he could've done it in 10.

The results were more amusing than inspiring. After $4 billion spent (updated estimates came out the next day), after hatefulness broadcasted over the airwaves and the Internet, after pigeonholing Americans into voter blocs and demographics.

After all that, America had kept the status quo. 

What do you say about a country like that? God bless America.

I had to laugh at the thought of it all. HA!

So it goes, I suppose.

I thought back to a photo Tim had already taken earlier in the day. It was a simple sign that read: Everything Will Be OK. 

Where to? What next? 

[benmcneely]

Election post-mortem: The Queen's steppin' out.

The State Capitol rolled out a yellow carpet the other night.

Well, it's been a few days since the election and life went on pretty much as expected. 

Nothing changed. There wasn't excitement, just relief. Thank god it's over.

In North Carolina, the state Republicans solidified their hold on government. Who knows what's going to happen there with that, but the Democrats are in disarray.

It's a new era in politics in the Land of the Pine. All-new territory, with long-time conservative activists now backing the new governor, 'Mayor Pat' McCrory from Charlotte.

Down East ain't seen nothin' like Mayor Pat. Expect state government to be run like a business, and expect Charlotte to strut around like they own the place.

The Queen City may be the largest city in both Carolinas, but she certainly liked to keep to herself, that is, until she spent a week with presidents back in September. She got a taste of the Power and it tasted good.

She's in a rare mood and she won't take no for an answer. 

The Queen's got her boy in the Governor's Mansion, and she's gonna put on her party dress and strut around like she owns the joint.

She may be coming after me. 

I escaped her grip and fled back to Raleigh. The Queen has a long memory, and she doesn't take too kindly to turncoats.

I may be a son of the Land of the Pine, with many homes and hide-outs from Murphy to Manteo, but that won't protect me if she comes out a-swingin'.

There is nothing like a Queen scorned. 

Sorry, Lady, it wasn't you. It was me. Or something like that. We can still be friends, right? You're lookin' real good.

(Better keep the musket by the bed, just in case.)

Still, though, you have to wonder about a dude who really, really wants to be governor, so much so that he never stopped campaigning since 2008.

Sometimes, having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. Think about that, Mayor Pat.

It's not logical, but often, it's true. 

The governor's power in this state is weak. The seat of power is on Jones Street, in the General Assembly. 

What happens is Mayor Pat runs afoul of his party, as he is wont to do? That will be the real test of this governor: Can he say no to his own party? 

OK ....

[benmcneely]

Go vote

The people know the salt of the sea and the strength of the winds lashing the corners of the earth. The people take the earth as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope. Who else speaks for the Family of Man? They are in tune and step with constellations of universal law. The people is a polychrome, a spectrum and a prism held in a moving monolith, a console organ of changing themes, a clavilux of color poems wherein the sea offers fog and the fog moves off in rain and the labrador sunset shortens to a nocturne of clear stars serene over the shot spray of northern lights. The steel mill sky is alive. The fire breaks white and zigzag shot on a gun-metal gloaming. Man is a long time coming. Man will yet win. Brother may yet line up with brother: This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers. There are men who can't be bought. The fireborn are at home in fire. The stars make no noise, You can't hinder the wind from blowing. Time is a great teacher. Who can live without hope? In the darkness with a great bundle of grief the people march. In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march: "Where to? what next?" 

-from 'The People, Yes' by Carl Sandburg

[benmcneely]

Some thoughts ahead of Election Day

I've always maintained that anything and everything can, and will, happen in even years and presidential election years. 

Surprisingly, this year, despite all the money flying around and the mind-numbing attack ads, this election cycle has been rather predictable. 

A protracted and ridiculous Republican primary yielded the results we all knew months before it actually happen: Mitt Romney would be the nominee. 

This year will also be the most expensive election cycle in history, with billions spent by the campaigns and outside groups trying to influence the election.

This time around, there's no talk about hope and change is, well ... If there is a change in the Oval Office, it will be changing one aloof, out-of-touch leader for another to live in the fishbowl and fight for inches instead of history.

The new numbers

The pundits slamming Nate Silver for defending his statistical model remind me a lot of Billy Beane's scouts in "Moneyball." When the old ways are challenged, everyone practicing those ways always howl the loudest.

The Oakland A's may not have won the World Series, but Beane used statistical models instead of the players' superficial characteristics to field a team and fundamentally changed the way baseball was played. Pundits always go with their gut and "conventional wisdom." But that doesn't mean they are right. A good part of the time, they are wrong, and are more flip-floppy than the politicians they love to skewer.

The new political rock stars are the pollsters and the academics, who study trends. They don't have a crystal ball and they know there are anomalies. But you can't deny history and trends. Those candidates who can take that information, organize, then turn conventional wisdom on its head will win. 

Here's a stat that will blow your mind: A conservative super PAC just dropped $200,000 last week for an attack ad against state Supreme Court candidate Sam Ervin IV. That's right: $200,000. On a state Supreme Court race. 

This is what campaign finance "reform" has done: It means millionaires halfway across the country can influence local races.  

Tip O'Neil said, "All politics is local." Not anymore. It'll hit home when this sort of money filters its way down to county commission and city council races in the off-years.

And then where will we be? Local boards bought and paid for, making decisions based party ideology, not compromise for the good of the People.

But here's the thing: The People won't stand for such shenanigans much longer. They are sick of the attack ads, the robocalls, the snap polls and endless mailers predicting Doomsday if they vote the wrong way. 

The so-called class war isn't against the rich, it's the political elite vs. everyone else.

Many believe you can buy an election now with loose campaign finance laws. But they are chasing the wrong numbers. The numbers you chase are votes. Electoral College votes. Throw all the money you want at it, but that has never changed.

The voter has all the power. If you can't convince enough people to vote for you or your candidate, then all the money in the world won't buy an election. 

That's where the political elite lose. 

Step away from the ledge

There was all kinds of hyperventilating on the Sunday morning talk shows. Polls are tied; everyone is expecting a close race. Pundits are reading tea leaves while the candidates and their surrogates are criss-crossing the battleground states, pumping votes like pumping blood from rocks.

Everyone, take a breath and get a grip. I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend. Tuesday will come and go. The sun will rise on Wednesday. The world will keep on spinning.

But remember this: No matter who grabs the brass ring, he will be stuck dealing with the worst political gridlock since the Civil War. 

While everyone is focused on the White House, the president can't do crap without Congress. And Congress is so dead-locked right now that Washington needs an enema, badly. This election won't change that, either.  Should we celebrate or pity the poor bastard who gets elected? I say pity him. We've got real problems on the horizon, like massive cuts to the federal budget and the possibility of a double-dip recession.

But, hey, Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Go throw a penny in some poor politician's hat. Ha!

Go America.