As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted . . .
This is one of the strangest days of my life. As I’m writing what will be my first column in The Post, I’m a few hours away from going to the last official Rocky party/wake.
It’s like going to your own funeral and bris on the same day. Call it The Curious Case of Your Humble Correspondent — except that, in this case, our protagonist doesn’t look anything like Brad Pitt.
Wake behavior is right there in the old-guy-reporter’s playbook. You drink, but hopefully not enough to get sloppy. You cry, and it doesn’t matter if you are sloppy. You hug. You hug some more. You say goodbye, without ever saying the word “goodbye.”
But mostly you tell fabled stories of the old days. Of scotch in the middle desk drawer. Of ringing teletype machines announcing that Nixon had resigned. Of the days when you sent your copy via Western Union and of the reporter who, on the way to a bar, handed off his copy to a cabdriver who never delivered it. Of the reporter/compulsive gambler who quit the day before the knee-breakers came to the office to find him. Of the sports reporter who was fired for not reporting a big story on a team bus because he was putting in for taxi rides on his expense account. Of the guy who was buried, literally, in the walls of the old Rocky building.
I’ll tell the story of the day I was hired at the L.A. Times. After a late-night, cross-country flight, I had gotten to the hotel around 3 in the morning before a noon meeting with the editor. Either I slept through the wake-up call or the call never came, but at 12:30 my not-yet boss called asking where the hell I was. I jumped in the shower, got dressed, raced downstairs to get a cab, and as I stepped into the cab, my pants — for the first and only time in my life — split right along the seam on my backside.
What to do? I was more than an hour late for the most important meeting of my life. My dress slacks were completely split — and the only other pair I had brought with me were raggedy jeans. And so, I decided to go ahead. And I spent the entire day walking, yes, backward. Somehow, I got the job anyway. Here was my salary negotiation, which some of you kids can learn from. I sat down at the desk across from the editor, who wrote a number on a piece of paper, folded it in half and handed it to me. I took the paper, opened it up, looked at the number and asked, “So when do I start?”
And when the wake is over and the stories are finished, I’ll go home — and, like you, eventually I’ll get up, open the door and pick up the Sunday paper, and, strangely, there I’ll be.
What is it the French say: Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Not that anyone cares what the French say, but I just like to class up the column now and again. This will be my sixth newspaper gig. Only two of the newspapers are gone. Of course, two others belong to a company in bankruptcy. And another was just withdrawn from the market because there are no buyers.
I’ve been writing a column at assorted newspapers for 25 years. This is not really a change in jobs. Many of you know me, and I know many of you — thanks, in part, to the fact that all you Post readers got the ill-conceived Saturday Rocky, and, of course, to the fact that many of you are long and loyal Rocky readers. I’ll do the same job, just in a strangely different format — for you and for me.
People often ask me how I come up with column ideas three times a week. The hard part is not coming up with ideas, but figuring out what to leave out. It’s a complicated world. And it’s a funny world. And there are characters to meet and there are characters who, once met, need to be watched carefully.
A column, on the good days, is the closest thing on the printed paper to a conversation between reader and writer, which is why, on the good days, I enjoy it so much.
But today, what’s on my mind is the troubled newspaper business and the end of the Rocky and the wake that I’m heading to, and knowing that while it won’t be the last wake, it will be the hardest. But I’ll be back here every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, as we take on the world together and try to figure something out. We don’t have any choice, really.
As Dylan put it, “It’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.”
Mike Littwin’s column runs Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1096 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.
