Dino Baskovic Can't Lose

I'm taking the entire month of February off from Facebook.

Relax, this is not some publicity stunt. No, I'm not going all Leo Laporte here trying to make some statement about why Facebook is the embodiment of evil (and did he ever really leave?). Nor am I anti-Zuckerberg or anything, regardless of how the billionaire boy wonder continues to redefine awkwardness.

Honestly, I just need a Facebook vacation. Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of fun with the social network of choice for one-sixth of the solar system. It's become a part of me, and heck, it's a big part of my career. I forever owe my old web design students from LTU a debt of gratitude for goading me onto it five years ago and I've connected with wonderful people from my past and present ever since. Not a day goes by that I don't sign in several times to update my status, share links, post media, like this, like that, chat here, chat there. Which makes it awfully time-consuming (read: addicting) and makes for a not-as-productive-as-Dino-can-be me.

So, off I go until March 1. Someone already joked, "You'll just make up for lost time on Twitter." Good point, so no I won't. I do have my long-neglected LinkedIn profile to update, let alone several recommendations I've owed folks for months. There's this very blog I don't take seriously enough these days, never mind the "Pandering For Posts" series I sorely need to finish. In fact, I'm on at least a dozen other social media channels that I either need to tune in or turn off.

And, there's all these books I need to read. An APR to complete. Desks to clean and all that kinda crap. And yoga. Always wanted to try it out. Maybe a cigar. A really good cigar.

Seeing as how I can't quite go completely off-grid, I'm allowing myself a few exceptions:

1. Respond to "urgent" messages and wall posts, should some family or work matter arise. Hey, life happens. I'll keep an eye on email alerts but leave it at that. 
2. Accept incoming friend requests, assuming there is a legitimate reason not to wait until March. This one I have to play by ear. If I just met someone at a conference and they try to friend me, they may not understand my self-imposed experiment and I'd rather not be rude. Otherwise, my old bar buddies can wait.
3. Monitor work accounts. This only requires a few minutes each day, and thankfully I have an entire team dedicated to that cause. Vacation or no vacation, I can't neglect my duties as a social media and online PR manager, and that will always include Facebook. That said, my indoor soccer team can live without one group admin for the month.

Of my 550 Facebook friends, roughly 540 won't care. I imagine the rest will bear to live without my witty updates for a while, and will more than likely forget entirely about them by Groundhog's Day. Which, based on weather reports, is when hell freezes over in Michigan.

See you in March.

Photo: Evan Amos via Wikimedia Commons

My wife just asked, "How long is the typical blog post?"

I answered, "As long as it needs to be."

In this case, less is more.

I have a confession to make. I can't read.

Actually, I can read. Quite well, thank you. It's just that I never have time to finish—let alone start—the ever-growing pile of books on my desks at work and home, or on my iPad. If you consider all the newspapers, magazines, blogs, inane tweets and status updates I force myself to read, it leaves little time for anything "hard bound." I'm lucky if I can thumb through my Kindle versions of Travels in Siberia (pulp, Kindle) and Driving on the Rim (pulp, Kindle), both great gifts from my boss who shames me as a seasoned bookworm. I can't even cut a break with kid's books. My girls proudly read aloud to themselves at night now, so I can't even get in one fish, two fish…

No, I miss reading honest-to-goodness, real books. I'd blame being busy, but that's a poor excuse. Teddy Roosevelt was said to have read three lengthy books on average a night. To many a cynic's surprise, George W. Bush was an avid reader as were many others former presidents. They ran the entire country. The most I run is to the store to buy milk, or something else I was supposed to get, now I forget. Again, I have no excuse.

An old college classmate of mine challenged herself to read 100 books in 2010 and succeeded. One of my coworkers whose calendar is slightly messier than mine recently tore through two novels in one night. And my wife can tune out our two-year-old, the one who does a dead-on impression of a twin-engine Cessna, while engrossed in the latest Michael Pollan paperback.

So, time to put away The Twitter, lose the earbuds and rekindle (ahem) my love of those big heavy things. See the above photo? Those have been nagging me for a few months now:

• UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging (pulp, Kindle) by Scott Stratten 
• The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing? (pulp, Kindle) by Jeffrey Hayzlett
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (pulp, Kindle) by Tony Hsieh

I don't normally give much credence to business books, but lately I keep meeting authors that impress me to no end. Figure I can see to finishing their most recent tomes. For self-imposed deadlines' sake, I'll give myself until next Friday. After that, who knows what life will throw me?

Hopefully, more books. And the time to read them.

It was 1997, and I'd just relocated to Detroit to intern for a PR firm. I serviced several automotive accounts and fast learned that the North American International Auto Show was pretty much Mecca for the OEMs. Heck, I even learned what "OEM" meant.

Things were different then. There was no Twitter account for the show—for that matter, there was no Twitter. The old MSN CarPoint was the official website of the show, and if there were ever open discussion boards on that site, I'm guessing the top car execs weren't logged on congratulating each other with "Neat concept, can we steal? LOLz!" or "Aw, shucks, we didn't win car or truck of the year, but great for those other guys!"

So why are today's breed of execs doing just that? The slew of tweets these last few days between some well-known Motor City marketers is surreal. Granted, these individuals run in the same social circles as they do industry ones, so retweeting amongst themselves is not uncommon. So on top of sharing a common passion for cars or Detroit's rebirth or green tech, these gearheads blog about college football, juicy couture and their choice of best chili dog, garnished with a little ribbing all the while...

Which is nice when you think about it. Make no mistake, these peeps are pit against each other for market share. I wouldn't go so far as to call them buddy-buddy, but they are chummy with each other. As a consumer, that appeals to me. These are real people that drive the same cars and slog through the same morning commutes as the rest of us. And as a social media marketer or PR pro or whatever the heck I'm supposed to be these days, I find the camaraderie refreshing, perhaps even representative of some new form of Cola Wars where both sides aren't sworn enemies.

I myself chat with my industry counterparts on the more popular social networks. Mostly friendly talk, usually about what we hate and love about social media, or like today, why we can(not) wait to get the new Verizon iPhone. We're supposed to despise each other, but we don't. And why would we? We treat each other with mutual respect, and not because we may one day trade favors. We frequent the same trade shows and share the same stages in front our own peers. We learn from each others' failures and successes. Sometimes, we form friendships. Without question, we do it out in the open for all the web to see.

Is there something to all this hippie love between competing tweeps? Hard to say. It's likely to rattle some corporate cages, those run by the old business-is-war types with all their tired boardroom battle rhetoric. I never bought into that personally, and maybe this trend is more like-minded souls manifesting themselves one tweet at a time. Will it sell more cars? Hard to say, though maybe that's missing the point. Selling a car is one thing. Selling a brand is an entirely different matter altogether, especially when competing brands intertwine online.

Regardless, it makes for good "tweeple" watching.

So, I got sucked in, too. I welled up a bit watching the estranged son reunite with his mother live on national television. You know the news by now.

It's the end of the week, and if one was ever to end on a high note, this was it. And while the media cycle may die down, the story of Ted Williams is still in draft. Though Williams may have went from panhandling for mac and cheese to peddling it for Kraft, the formerly homeless man who is suddenly the most sought-after voice talent in history is far from a fairy-tale ending.

Don't get me wrong. I am rooting for Williams but I was at first skeptical. Sure, I swelled with pride when my hometown Cavs offered him a gig and a free house (well, at least the mortgage to cover one). Then my Spidey sense tingled. "It's a set-up," spoke my inner cynic. "The serendipitous Dispatcher, the whirlwind morning talk tour... we're getting 'Balloon-Boyed'." But then TSG ran Williams' mile-long rap sheet. Later, the poor fellow couldn't get on a plane without pleading a court for a copy of his birth certificate (the TSA doesn't take too kindly to convicted drug felons lacking photo ID boarding jets these days, so it seems). And then the touchy-feely TV reunion with "Hi Mommy! Hi Mommy! Hi Mommy...."

Fair enough, the guy's legit and gosh-darn likable. Nevertheless, the story of Ted Williams is still in draft.

I think back to another Ted. Ted Rodrigue was an indigent who became the subject of a 2005 Showtime documentary. Filmmakers planted $100,000 in a dumpster for him to "discover" (Rodrigue truly had no idea he'd find the money or that he'd part of any film project). Somewhat predictably, Rodrigue wasted his windfall, presumably for not having possessed any real fiscal sensibilities, and fell right back on hard times. Oprah Winfrey admonished Rodrigue on her talk show for throwing away a second chance at life, as well as the filmmaker for what she perceived to be veritable entrapment.

Why bring this up in relation to Ted Williams? Both men are cautionary tales. In defense of Rodrigue's filmmakers, they begged him to seek financial counsel once his spending sped wildly out of control. TiVo back to this week, when Williams was talking to Ann Curry and Al Roker on "The Today Show" and he doubted his own ability to pay basic bills beyond his (subsidized) mortgage. Curry marveled at that, noting he now had a job and could afford to do so.

Williams grinned, sheepishly. And then he shrugged. 

He's no dummy. He once lived a normal life (many of us were surprised to learn he made a good living in the radio business in the '80s) but the streets have shaken him. He's not the same person he once was, nor would any of us be after decades of pauperdom. He will soon endorse some rather large checks in the coming weeks and months and, let's face it, a simple checking account must seem like a luxury to him. Do you trust he knows what to do with thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars?

He needs professional help, and I hope he knows it.

He's going to need a financial planner. An accountant. And an attorney. I can already see the legal woes, given his rap sheet and his ex-wife. Yes, an agent for when "The Pursuit of Happyness 2" comes knocking. A PR consigliere, or at the very least a publicist. A physician. A bodyguard. And pretty soon, a plumber.

We know he has a web designer. And thanks to the press, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, a fervent social media following. That's all fine, but if the deafening silence of our dark and disenchanted world is ever to be shattered with the charmed, golden voice of a man like Ted Williams, it needs to be for the right reasons. 

Not because of brand marketing or broadcast journalism. And certainly not to quench our thirst from the office water cooler. No, it must be because that deep within ourselves, we dare to be inspired by fable and legend, folk lore and myth. For now, Ted Williams is the feel-good story of the week. It is my wish that Williams evolve into an epic for the ages. A hero's tale I can tell my two-year-old when she grows up, so that she may kindle her own children a generation from now. Not a story of blown chances or even second ones as we all damn well know our world scorns the imperfect and the impoverished, nor will it suddenly start doling out TV deals to every beggar and bum.

I mean the story of a man who was uplifted by his fellow man. How Doral Chenoweth III, web videographer for The Columbus Dispatch, unsure of what to make of his chance encounter with the drifter in camouflage holding a cardboard sign aside a highway, took his own leap of faith. And in an odd twist of fate, how it may have been Ted Williams that not only saved Chenoweth but perhaps all of us.

We need Ted Williams more than we may care to admit. Reason enough to help the man with the golden voice who so very much needs all of us.

I can't believe this is my first blog post in two months.

Even worse, I can't believe it's in defense of embattled University of Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez.

Worst of all, I am taking time away from the fourth quarter of the Sugar Bowl where The Ohio State Buckeyes, the only team I root for in all of college sports next to my alma mater and occasionally Michigan State, are dueling it out with Arkansas. I should be transfixed on this game, but nooooo. I have to defend the one collegiate athletic program I hate with all my heart and soul simply because of the raw deal dealt to them today by the sports press.

Memo to the media: Rich Rod is not fired.

At least not yet. Maybe he did get fired. Maybe he will get fired. Maybe he won't get fired. Maybe he will win the the next BCS National Championship Game. Maybe he will coach a nice and quiet Division III school, in a van down by the river.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. In other words: You. Don't. Know. And do you want to know why you don't know?

Because the University of Michigan said so:

"Everything that is being reported is media speculation at this point. The definitive voice on this matter is Dave Brandon and he will not speak publicly until a final decision has been made."

Now you tell me where, in that statement, the only official one that matters, does it say Coach Rodriguez is fired? Where? Where? Tell me where. Tell. Me. Where.

The headlines (I can't bear to repost such drivel) disgust me not only as a PR professional but as a sports fan. Heck, I am offended on the grounds that I, you know, just for kicks, stick to the facts and dismiss conjecture. Yes, I know that is virtually impossible in the tweet-first-truth-later digital era with journalists and bloggers practically car-bombing each other to get the scoop. But until the university makes it official, I don't care what your so-called sources say. Not even if Moses, Mary Sue Coleman and Mark Felt all came to you in a blinding vision, shining brightly as the fiery sun from heaven above, singing "Hallelujah! They shit-canned that son of a bitch!" Until the official statement shows up on my screen, Richard A. Rodriguez is still the head football coach for the Maize and Blue, whether Ann Arbor and everybody within earshot likes it or not.

31-26 with 4:43 to go? What the heck Ohio State, end this already...