Industry Covers

I landed cover stories on both the Gear Trends magazines this season. For the outdoor mag, I wrote on the rise of recreational and fishing kayaks becoming the driving force in the paddlesports market. For the fitness book, I wrote on how the specialty retailer of the future must evolve to become an entertainer as well as a multi-faceted service provider.

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Moyers on the Media

Bill Moyes gives me hope. His intellectual range and uncompromising dedication to journalistic integrity are a constant inpiration to me—and I hope they can be an influence on my own work. But most of all, I love the way he engages the people he interviews. His questions come from true intellectural curiosity.

Take a look at/listen to his interview with FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps and his investiagtion into the consolidation of media outlets.

COPPS: ….all those big issues get filtered and funneled through big media. That’s how the people hear about it. That’s what sets the parameters of the debate. And that’s what maybe limits intelligent decision making for the future of our democracy.

I’m Sorry My Son

While we were all patting ourselves on the back for our green ethos at OR, mountaintop removal become the law of the land.

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John Prine already said it all:

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Did I tell you my sneakers are organic?

Copp an Attitude

I ran into longtime friend Jon Copp yesterday, doing the Boulder/bohemian thing, working in Amante cafe. If you don’t know him, he is one of the best alpine climbers on the planet as well as the director of the Boulder Adventure Film Festival. He’s also a talented photographer. Take a look at some of his images of climbing everywhere from the Himalayas to Patagonia (and read about his upcoming trip to try an unclimbed peak in Kashmir’s Shafaat Valley with Micah Dash) on his new web site CoppWorks.com.
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The Workload

I am deep, deep in the midst of putting together the preshow copy for the OR Show Dailies. From August 6-12 at the show in Salt Lake City, I’ll be heading up a team that includes Peter Kray, Erinn Morgan, Kate Siber, and Wendy Booher, pumping out four days of dailies. It’s a satisfying project and a fantastic way to keep up with the industry. I’m also quite pleased with the improvement we have made on previous versions of the Daily. This show, we will feature interviews with author and Conservation Alliance speaker Jonathan Waterman and Icebreaker founder Jeremy Moon. We will also have an exclusive interview with Marmot and Nau founder Eric Reynolds, who is launching a 30-year project to fight for a Constitutional amendment that will require that corporation include a clause to “do no harm” in their charters. We are also adding guest columns that will be authored by Black Diamond’s Peter Metcalf, Alpine Experience owner Joe Hyer, Verde PR founder Kristin Carpenter, and Polartec’s Andy Vecchione.

Otherwise, since I wrapped up the Winter OR Show Dailies in late January, I have gone through the busiest six months of my freelance career. Publications/projects have included:

*A trip to Italy for a feature on Andy Hampsten and his Cinghiale bike tours for the fall issue of Outside’s Go travel magazine.
* An interview with economist Paul Zane Pilzer for the upcoming Health and Fitness Business Expo in Denver
* A feature on multi-day mountain biking and hot-tubbing during the first week of NFL season for Adventure Cyclist magazine
* Reviews of hard shells, snow pants, and ski/snowboard packs for Outside’s upcoming fall Buyer’s Guide
* Reviews of goggles and gloves for Skiing’s Gear Guide and reviews of resort jackets and pants for Skiing’s Outfitter department.
* The completion and production of ethnography/training videos for Qwest through my contract work with Radar Communications, which was purchased by Crispin, Porter, Bogusky
* A high-end travel piece on Denver for Out Traveler
* An unfiltered interview with kayak fishing guide Jim Sammons, a news piece on kayaker Jessie Stone’s non-profit that brought inner city kids to her clinic in Uganda to distribute mosquito nets, and a travel piece on Denver paddling in the July issue of Canoe & Kayak
* An unfiltered interview with expedition paddler and former Czech dissident Stanislav Chladek in the June issue of Canoe & Kayak
* Profiles on environmental activists David de Rothschild, Chad Pregracke, and the Oil+Water project in the April issue of Canoe & Kayak
* A sunglass review and travel piece on summer ski/snowboard destinations for Men’s Journal
* A feature on trends in the paddle sports market for the summer issue of Gear Trends magazine
* A feature on the future of specialty fitness retail for the Fitness issue of Gear Trends
* Stream reports on the Green River, Provo River, and Strawberry Reservoir for Tight Lines magazine
* A personal essay on fishing the high mountain lakes of the Madison range for the Big Sky Journal’s flyfishing special issue
* A poem, in Spenserian stanzas, lauding the launch off Backcountry.com’s Green Goat program, for Base Camp Communications
* A travel piece on Sayulita, Mexico, for a fall issue of Backpacker
* Food and wine pieces on The Fort restaurant in Colorado and the Rainbow Ranch in Montana for American Cowboy
* Partnering with Travels in Paradise to oversee the redesign of the site and manage content
* Building a green web portal and community called SustainAbler with my friend Lin Alder

Throw in a new, beautiful baby boy and what has turned into months of waiting to close on the house we put an offer on in April, and it just could have been the busiest six months of my life.

Farewell, Mr. Butch

All of us who went to BU in the 80s, slam-danced at the Rat, head-banged at Narcissus, and fell in love with Fenway will not forget you.

mr. butch

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I want to be lifted up
By some great white bird unknown to the police,
And soar for a thousand miles and be carefully hidden
Modest and golden as one last corn grain,
Stored with the secrets of the wheat and the mysterious lives
Of the unnamed poor.
—James Wright

Commodity and Service

While I was playing with my daughter at the park yesterday, a group of Mennonite teenagers on a “discovery project” from Virginia came up to me and asked me what I thought a land ethic was. (Only in Boulder.) I immediately thought of Aldo Leopold, which made them happy since Leopold was the impetus for their project. But I thought too of this quote from Montaigne:

Who have persuaded [man] that this admirable moving of heavens vaults, that the eternal light of these lampes so fiercely rowling over his head, that the horror-moving and continuall motion of this infinite vaste ocean were established, and contine so many ages for his commoditie and service? Is it possible to imagine so ridiculous as this miserable and wretched creature, which is not so much as master of himselfe, exposed and subject to offences of all things, and yet dareth call himself Master and Emperor.

I would hesitate to use it as some type of green or environmental rallying cry, instead it is a reminder both to be humble and look within to understand the world. I see very little humanism in our world and even less humility—everyone, from greens to fundamentalists, believes that they are absolutely and unequivocally right.

First Fish

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Isa caught her first fish over 4th of July while we were camping up in the Indian Peaks. I cast for her and she hooked it and reeled it in (with a little help). She can’t stop talking about the “trout fish” she caught. I got skunked. As one of the kids who watched said, “Sometimes little girls catch fish better than grown adults.”

Ro Sham Bo

I just saw the World Series of Rock, Paper, Scissors on ESPN2. I thought it was a joke, or a Christopher Guest movie. Nope. Real. I can’t help but wonder why outdoor sports can’t get a foothold on ESPN if the network is showing spelling bees, bass fishing, European soccer, and arena football. The sports are sexy and entertaining. Sure the spelling bee is cute once a year. What I really don’t understand is why the network doesn’t want to take the risk on, say, freestyle kayaking. The X Games seems to do well for ESPN. I had a short discussion about this with Joel Heath up at the Teva Mountain Games. ESPN has no interest in broadcasting the event.

Any thoughts?

Man vs. Roosterfish

I’m up at the Teva Mountain Games this weekend and had the chance to see Felt Soul Media’s 14-minute film “Running Down the Man,” which chronicles fly-fishing maniacs in Baja sprinting down the beach trying to catch roosterfish off the surf. It was the most enjoyable outdoor sport movie I have seen in recent memory. while we were watching, an editor sitting next to me whispered, “Am I just getting older or is this better than any ski movie I have ever seen?” Yes and yes.

Check out the trailer HERE.