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Bill

billchapin

About Me

Hello, and welcome to the Myspace profile of Bill Chapin. I'm a reporter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot, and since I use this profile for work, I'm not going to put a whole bunch of personal junk up here. I will tell you that I live with a lovely little cat named Pica who won't stay off the keyboard when I'm trying to type somewhetiogb. Also, I play in a Port Huron-based folk rock band whenever we manage to get together. You can learn more about us here or here .

My Interests

See every other entry on this page.

I'd like to meet:

People whom I already know and people whom I'm trying to contact for interviews. But I will probably add you if you ask ... as long as you're not trying to get me to visit some scam of a Web site.

Music:

Ben Folds (Five), Wilco, Steve Earle, The Decemberists, Great Lakes Myth Society, Fiona Apple, The Beatles, Beck, Cake, Sheryl Crow, The Flaming Lips, Fountains of Wayne, Fruit Bats, Robbie Fulks, Garbage, Elton John, Tom Petty, Radiohead, R.E.M., Squirrel Nut Zippers, Stone Temple Pilots, They Might Be Giants, Uncle Tupelo, Weezer, The White Stripes, Aimee Mann, Alice In Chains, Andrew Bird, The Avett Brothers, Blanche, (early) Barenaked Ladies, (early) Dave Matthews Band, Ambulance LTD, Ani DiFranco, A Tribe Called Quest, The Lyricists, The Beach Boys, Brandon Wiard, Billy Joel, Broken Social Scene, David Bowie, Calexico, Cracker, Death Cab for Cutie, Doves, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Foo Fighters, The Format, Gorillaz, Guster, Heirs, The Hold Steady, Indigo Girls, Iron & Wine, Johnny Cash, John Mellencamp, Kathleen Edwards, Lou Barlow, Margot & The Nuclear So And So's, Mates of State, The Meat Purveyors, Mellowdrone, Micheal Penn, Modest Mouse, Morphine, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Nada Surf, The New Pornographers, Nickel Creek, Nil Lara, Pixies, Poe, Puffy AmiYumi, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Ryan Adams, Whiskeytown, The Red Shift, Northern Whiskey Syndicate, Sam & Dave, Scurvy Pirates, Snow Patrol, Simon & Garfunkle, The Starlight Mints, Sufjan Stevens, System of a Down, The Temptations, Tenacious D, Chris Thile, Viva Voce, Stevie Wonder, Ween and The Who, Amy Winehouse, The Zombies ... just to name a few.And now, the other greatest music video ever:

Movies:

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, North By Northwest, Bridge on the River Kwai, Annie Hall, Shaun of the Dead, Swingers, Ed Wood.I don't know who these guys are, but they are geniuses:I have no idea why the videos in this section won't play on Foxfire. It's not because I'm an idiot and can't figure out HMTL coding. Try it with Internet Explorer or Safari. It works there for some reason.

Television:

Entourage, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Home Movies, Freaks & Geeks, Arrested Development, Lost, The Venture Brothers, Flight of the Conchords.

Books:

I rarely have time to read an entire book. The last three I've read are "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music" by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg; "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson (read this if you haven't already); and "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss; Currently working on "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace.

Heroes:

Parents go without saying, right? Um, Dave Barry, Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray. Hmmm, my heroes are all comedians. Yes, even my parents. No, not actual comedians.

My Blog

Goin’ to Jackson

Yup, folks, it finally happened. After six years of slaving away at the Times Herald and years of looking, I have found a new job. I have been offered and accepted a job at the Jackson Citizen Patriot...
Posted by Bill on Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:01:00 PST

One more Daily sample column

... and then I'm done. Seriously. There's nothing else I wrote for the Daily Northwestern. OK, there was some news feature about a study involving female tenured faculty or something, but I seem to re...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:35:00 PST

Attack of the killer vending machines!

I apparently submitted this, too, as a sample column while applying to be a Daily Northwestern columnist ... and I included an introduction at the time that pretty much speaks for itself:"This is the ...
Posted by Bill on Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:28:00 PST

Attention all smokers!

I don't mean to go off on some kind of rant here, but this has been on my mind for a while. If you're ...A. over at someone's house for a partyB. and are unable to find an ashtrayC. and decide to ash/...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:41:00 PST

a cappella mea culpa

I'm just cleaning out the remains of what's left in my "old Daily Northwestern columns" folder on my computer before I move on to posting columns from my current job and/or my high school paper. My mo...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:22:00 PST

Daily Northwestern sample column

So this is the column I submitted to the Daily that convinced them to let me be a weekly columnist for a semester. I think they also ran it as the first column that introduced me to people. Warning: b...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:11:00 PST

Daily Northwestern column 9

See what I mean? Sappy with a capital "ugh"! Anyway, I've really enjoyed posting these. I've still got the sample column I wrote that landed me this gig, but I'd like to keep this going. Maybe I'll st...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:27:00 PST

Blownout in Hamtramck

OK, so I think I'm going to write about something else in my Spin column this week, so that means if I want to blab about my experience at the Hamtramck Blowout on Saturday, this is the place to do it...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:09:00 PST

Daily Northwestern column 8

And now, the long-awaited results to the Witty Graffiti Contest! I know you've been waiting all week to learn the outcome to a pointless challenge from seven years ago. (Northwestern in-jokes explaine...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:02:00 PST

Top 10 The Format moments

My Top 10 lyrical moments on "Dog Problems" by The Format, my new favorire obesession, in chronological order:1. "Tick tock, you're not a clock / you're a time bomb, baby."2. "She says she's leaving o...
Posted by Bill on Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:41:00 PST