To the guy who brought me water when I passed out

Dear Kind Sir, 

I don't know your name, I never saw your face and I barely remember your voice. Hell, if Courtney didn't vouch for you I might even doubt your existence. But you know who you are. 

You saw a slightly overweight guy wander away from his girlfriend, stagger, bump into a handful of people and collapse on the grass, right near the Southern Comfort slushie machine at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis. You could have, like so many around you, assumed that I was just another idiot who couldn't hold his liquor. Maybe you did. But you came over anyway. 

You didn't know that I had been pleasantly buzzed, yet far from drunk, when my right foot started to sting and itch. You didn't see when I rubbed at my foot or hear when I told Courtney. You didn't notice as the itch spread from my foot to my hand, then my chest and finally my neck and head. All you saw was that I collapsed. 

You bought me a $3 bottle of water. I tried to pay you back for it. Or at least I think I tried, I'm not really sure. Either way, you didn't take it. And when Courtney had to find her friends and bring them to me, you stayed and watched me. I'm sure that was fun.

You summoned the paramedics who, wrongly, assumed I was another drunk idiot. You helped make sure that, despite passing out, I managed to not lose my wallet, cell phone, watch, class ring and a key to Courtney's house. 

You did all this, and I don't know who you are. 

I just wanted to tell you that I am fine. They did a lot of tests at the hospital and everything came back negative. I've felt better over the past few days, except for on my arms where I was pricked eight times because the nurses struggled to get blood out of me. I want to tell you that it was confirmed that I wasn't just a drunken idiot. I had an allergic reaction to something. My guess: ant bites. 

Chances are you'll never read this blog, but I wanted to put this on the internet and give you a fighting chance to find it. 

To the guy who brought me water when I passed out: Thank you for being an awesome human being. 

P.S. I hope you enjoyed Girl Talk, because I sure as hell didn't get to see him .... 

P.P.S. Many thanks also go out to Courtney, who I yelled at to "stop touching me" several times while on the ground. And to her roommate, who was the collector of my things on the scene and came with Courtney to the hospital. You two are also pretty awesome human beings. 

[Tuesday Guilty Pleasure] IS BACK (maybe)

Longtime readers of my blogs (read: my mom*) will remember a series of posts I used to do called "Tuesday Guilty Pleasure." Like most series I have started, it petered out after a while.

I guess I'm not good at commitment. At least not when it comes to my blog.

I even broke out the old logo!

Anyway, the idea of TGP was to embarrass myself on a weekly basis with something from pop culture (usually a song) that I absolutely love that I really, really shouldn't. It started with Britney Spears and went downhill from there (click here for a full list, still on the old Noise Bazaar blog).

Well, faithful readers, TGP is back. Well, at least once. No promises on how long it will continue. (I mean honestly, it's late Tuesday night and I'm just now sitting down to write it. What is wrong with me?)

This week's guilty pleasure: "Call Me Maybe."



I realize that most of my guilty pleasures are girl pop songs. I'm not sure what that says about me. But this may be the best bubble gum pop song I have heard in a long time. I guarantee this thing will be stuck in your head all day at work. I look forward to the Twitter hate mail for that.

I listened to this song five times in a row once. I chair danced each time. I listened to it three times while writing this post.

The video is even cute, if you can hang on until the end.

The only thing that weirds me out a bit is that Carly Rae Jepsen is 26 and she's apparently tight with The Bieber. This song is a bit to high school-y for a 26-year-old woman, but whatever. It's still catchy.

Speaking of Biebs, you can see a video of him and other teeny-boppers I don't know lip syncing the song. The only reason I found that was because of a contest between the UNC and Duke girls' lacrosse teams where people voted for which video of "Call Me Maybe" they liked better. Ah, the black hole that is YouTube.

This post has gone on entirely too long. I'm up to four listens now. See you next Tuesday. Maybe.

*I'm pretty sure my mom doesn't even read my blog. This is a test. 

[The Corey Project] It's not the 13 miles that get you; it's the last .1

This seems like a fitting end to The Corey Project series.

If you've been following me on Twitter or Facebook for the past three months, you've probably been annoyed with my Runkeeper postings and running rants. That's because after 12 weeks of training, I ran in the Charlotte RaceFest half marathon in the SouthPark area April 14. 

It was my first organized race of any length, outside of my one year of track in high school. (Yes, I ran track in high school.) My goal was to run all 13.1 miles. I didn't accomplish that, but I'm still proud of finishing the race. 

Before starting the training, my longest run was four miles and I had only done that twice. I considered three miles a "long weekend run." The idea of running five miles during the second week terrified me. Now I can run five and six miles without too much trouble. 

The training went really well well until my 10-mile long weekend run. Whether it was mental or physical, I struggled with every training run more than 10 miles. My long runs for the last four weeks were really, really bad, which is why I was worried about the actual race. If I couldn't run 10 miles straight in a training run, how was I supposed to run 13 on race day? 

That's why, despite not completing my goal of running the whole thing, I'm happy with my finish. 

The weather was perfect: sunny but cool all morning.I started out running a 10-minute mile pace, slower than I normally do but it felt good. I made it nine miles without stopping, except for a quick pause to grab a cup of Gatorade at mile eight. 

After nine miles, things started to go downhill. Actually, uphill. The end of the course winds through the very hilly Foxcroft neighborhood. My legs were exhausted by that point and I had to walk on the first big hill after the nine-mile mark. For the last four miles, I alternated walking and running. I ran the last mile to finish strong. 

I finished the half marathon in two hours and 28 minutes, slower than I would have liked but still respectable. It averages out to about an 11:30 mile pace, including the walking. I was tired after, but felt good. 

I don't plan on running half marathons often, but I would like to go through training again and run an entire race. The best thing that came from my training is the ability to run for longer distances. I hope to keep going on three- and four-mile runs during the week and saving longer, five- or six-mile runs, for the weekends. I also want to improve my speed so that when I decide to train for another half, I will be at a faster pace and will be ahead of where I was when I started training for this one. 

I never expected to run a half marathon. At the beginning of The Corey Project, I hated running. I still don't love it, but it has become a part of my life. 

Since starting The Corey Project about a year and a half ago, I've lost about 65 pounds. I would still like to lose a little more, but I couldn't be happier with my progress. 

I will continue to update my fitness progress here, though posts won't come as frequently as they did at the beginning. Thanks to everyone that has supported me and offered advice during my project and my half marathon training. I couldn't have done it without you guys. 

Non non-fiction: How much does truth matter in storytelling?

Be forewarned: This post will ramble, is made up of thoughts off the top of my head and will likely provide more questions than answers.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned about two things that happened about five years apart but deal with the same basic topic: how much does truth matter? Or, in strictly literary terms (which is mostly what we're dealing with here): when does fiction become nonfiction?

Let's start back in 2007. I found this article from The New Republic about author/storyteller David Sedaris. If you don't know Sedaris, he's the author of many books of short, supposedly true, and mostly funny stories about his family, growing up in Raleigh, his adventures during and after college and dealing with his homosexuality. His books are usually labeled "nonfiction."

I've read two of Sedaris' books - Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day - and loved both.  I'm willing to give some license to a memoir when it's about a time many years earlier. The dialogue isn't going to be exact and the timeline of events may not be perfect.  But some of the stories seemed too good to be true.

Apparently Alex Heard at The New Republic thought the same thing. Heard went back and researched many of the stories and found that a good number were, at least, greatly exaggerated (read the article for specific examples).

Heard confronted Sedaris about it. Here's what he said.

"... he certainly doesn't see himself as a journalist. In interviews, he's groaned about the time Esquire sent him to cover life at a morgue in Phoenix. The problem: He had to restrict himself to what actually happened. "I couldn't exaggerate at all," he told an interviewer. "It gave me a whole new appreciation for people who can honestly tell the truth, because people just didn't always say what I wanted them to." For Sedaris, it's all about telling "good stories." During our conversation, he told me he wouldn't care a bit if he found out that Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes was written by "some guy in Montana who made the whole thing up," because the tale he spins is so beautiful.  

"OK, but last time I checked, you're supposed to call that fiction. Sedaris honestly doesn't see the difference, and his audience isn't complaining. Should that be good enough for the rest of us?"

To be clear, Heard and I are not comparing Sedaris to a James Frey or Jayson Blair. I still like Sedaris' work. He's a wonderful writer and storyteller. But now that I know some of his stories are, at minimum, bending the truth, I'm going to wonder about it with each story I read.

So my question is: Should these books be nonfiction? Does it change the stories if they are marked as fiction? If the reader goes in thinking the stories are real, does it change how he/she enjoys or understands them?

The same day, I heard a slightly different example of the same problem. The NPR radio show This American Life devoted an entire episode earlier this year to a story about factories in China that manufacture Apple products like iPads and iPhones. The story was adapted from a one-man show by Mike Daisey called "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."

To sum it up, the story talked about poor labor conditions in these factories, where workers were being overworked, hurt and exposed to dangerous chemicals. Daisey went to China and interviewed workers. He supposedly did his research. It's obvious that this is a subject he cares deeply about.

A few weeks later, TAL retracted the episode citing "numerous fabrications." The show devoted another hour to finding out the truth by talking to Daisey's translator and Daisey himself.

(Both of these episodes are online and worth a listen.)

Daisey claimed in his show to see things first-hand that he didn't. It's not to say they didn't happen, but it was hearsay. Host Ira Glass said in the retraction show that the show's staff stressed to Daisey that they were fact-checking this story as if it were a piece of journalism. The fact checking fell short when Daisey lied about his translator and the show's producers were not able to get in touch with her to corroborate his story. Another NPR producer found her and his interview with her can be found on the retraction episode.

The points Glass spends much of the show harping on with Daisey may seem minor, but his point is that when a piece is being presented journalistically it can't have any fabrications. Fabrications, no matter how small, undermine the journalistic credibility of the entire piece.

But Daisey isn't a journalist and never claimed to be, which is what he uses as his defense. He's trying to tell his audience what is happening in the factories in an engaging way. Sometimes that means stretching the truth or lying about seeing something.

Daisey runs into trouble when he repeats some of these claims in news interviews and later apologizes for the way the story was presented.

The fact is that much of his story is true and it's an important issue. It was easily the most popular episode TAL has had in a while. So do the fabrications take away from the story as a whole? Would his story had been weaker if instead of saying he saw things he said he heard about them? At what point do those small fabrications tarnish the whole story? How will the revelation of the fabrications affect the way the show is received in the future?

How much does the truth matter in these situations?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Corey's Nuggets of Wisdom

Someone thought it was a good idea for me to talk to a journalism class at Queens University of Charlotte last week. Scary, right? Even more scary: my first contact with the professor was when she emailed me to tell me I misspelled her son's name in a football story I wrote.

Anyway, I ended up essentially teaching a class on profile writing, going through the process of how I find ideas, prep for interviews, conduct interviews and write.

It went pretty well, I think. No one fell asleep.

Since I only had one chance to talk to these kids, I wanted to also share random bits of knowledge that I've picked up in my 2+ short years on the job. I called them "Corey's Nuggets of Wisdom." Seriously. I printed out a sheet of paper with that in bold and underlined at the top of the page. It ended up getting copied and passed out to the class.

It's nothing earth-shattering, but I thought I would share. There are nine. I'm sure there are some I forgot. Is there something you would add? Throw it in the comments and I'll update it.

Corey’s Nuggets of Wisdom 

1. Read. A lot. 
1. The best way to become a better writer is to read other writers and see what they do that you like and don’t like. 
2. Write. A lot. 
1. Practice, whether it’s just for yourself or on a blog. 
2. Always have a notebook and pen with you. 
3. Be versatile. 
1.  Journalism is changing and jobs are scarcer. Rise to the top by being able to do more: write, take pictures, design, shoot video. 
2. You don’t have to be an expert, but have some knowledge and be open to it. 
4. Get to know -- and love -- new technology. 
1. Learn about blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Google+. 
5.  Build your brand. 
1. What comes up when you Google your name? 
2.  Make sure it’s something that represents you. 
3. Buy a URL, use your real name on social media and blogs. 
6. If you get an opportunity to cover something, take it. 
1.  Don’t be scared of new experiences. You might learn something new. 
2. Plus, bosses might start to give you the good assignments. 
7. Respond to emails/tweets/calls immediately. 
1. If someone compliments your work, thank them. 
2.  If they recommend an idea -- even if it’s the worst -- thank them. 
3. If they hate your work, respond. Usually they don’t expect you to, so they might end up liking you before it’s all over. 
8.  Own up to your mistakes. 
1. If you did something wrong, apologize and correct it. Don’t try to blame someone else or make excuses. 
9.  Spend as much time -- or more -- out of the office than you do in. 
1.  It’s much harder to find stories at your desk.

The saddest promotion ever. Thanks, Bobcats

Just before tip off at the Bobcats game. Taken by Sergio Tovar.

I went to a Charlotte Bobcats game on Monday night. The reason I went tells you everything you need to know about the Bobcats exercise in futility this season.

There are the injuries, of course. There are the 15 straight losses, often by at least 20 points. There's the pathetically low attendance for most games.

Yet there's nothing quite as sad as the promotion that gave me the opportunity to go to the Bobcats game Monday night.

A friend and colleague went to a Bobcats game on Jan. 28. During the fourth quarter of that game, they announced this promotion: If the Bobcats make a three-point basket in that quarter, everyone gets free tickets to Monday's game against the Philadelphia 76ers.

I'm going to repeat that: if the Bobcats managed to make one three-pointer in the entire fourth quarter, everyone got free tickets. It didn't have to be a certain player, didn't have to be shot from a certain point on the court. And it wasn't that you got a voucher for a discounted ticket, the box office handed you free tickets.

That says three things to me:

1. The Bobcats are so pathetic that there's a legitimate chance the team won't make a three-point basket in 12 minutes. 
2. The attendance was so pathetic at that game that the Bobcats knew they had enough tickets to another game for everyone there. 
3. The ticket sales were so pathetic for Monday's game that there was plenty of room to accommodate everyone. 

That just reeks of desperation. 

You might be thinking, "The game must have been pretty packed Monday, right?" 

Ha. Wrong. 

If everyone at the game brought a friend, it still wouldn't have been full. (See photo.)

Here's the kicker: I had fun. It was a good game. The Cats ended up losing by nine, but they were close most of the game, even getting within one possession several times in the second half. It was frustrating to watch them blow chances, but it was nice to watch a competitive game. 

Time Warner Cable Arena is a great venue (except for the $8 beer). We were on the top row of the upper level and they weren't bad seats. The halftime entertainment was a little weird, but funny. And it's nice see people gathering uptown.

I want to be a Bobcats fan. Every year I try. It's just hard to be a fan of a team that struggles this much. Charlotteans may be mad about the way the Hornets left and may not like the way the new stadium was  built, but if the Bobcats can manage some degree of respectability people will come out. (Saturday's game against the Clippers was legitimately sold out, from what I've heard.)

Charlotte can support and fall in love with a new NBA team, but something has to change. Someday, that promotion won't be possible. Maybe we will look back on it and laugh. 

Right now, though, I think the Bobcats would finish third in the ACC. At best. 

Twitter for journalism: Is there a line?

This week I was working on a story about a high school athlete at one of the schools I cover. It was an athlete I had talked with and written about before and we followed each other on Twitter. We'd communicated various times on there.

So when I needed to get the student on the phone quickly at the end of the week before my story was due, I used Twitter. I said I'd like to talk if the student had a chance. The student sent me a cell phone number. We talked for maybe 10 minutes for the story.

An official at the school found out what I had done and called me on Friday. This is a school that likes you to go through administration or coaches before you talk to students, which I normally do. But when I was looking to get in touch with the athlete quickly, I used the best way I knew how.

The official wasn't mad at me, per se. It was more curiosity: Are other journalists talking to students this way? Is this something the school should be watching out for? Does the newspaper have a policy about contacting student athletes?

I understand the concern. The school doesn't want a journalist talking to a young kid who says something he/she shouldn't. But as a journalist, I'm going to use the best and quickest way to get in touch with a source that I can and social media makes that very easy sometimes. And the student agreed to talk to me.

I talked to one of my editors and he agreed with me. Even before social media, we would get students cell phone numbers to call them with questions about stories. If they agreed, we had no problem using them.

So here's the question: When it comes to high school students, should there be rules in how you should be able to contact them?

If a student-athlete I cover has an unprotected Twitter account, is there anything wrong with me following it?

Should schools (high schools or colleges) have policies that force journalists to go through certain channels to talk with students? If the student agrees to talk outside of those channels, should the journalist be punished?

Take this case study from last year at the University of Kentucky, when a journalist with the student paper approached two walk-on basketball players directly for an interview. The publication was banned from an upcoming press conference.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.