Name-dropping
Now that I’m about a cat whisker away from losing my job, if not my sanity at the 73rd day of quarantine in Manila, I thought of joining Medium for one thing and one thing only: to write about my life as author and editor (thanks to H.L. Mencken for that) but with a bit of a twist.
I want it to be light, funny, and, perchance, happy. My goal is to reach out to student journalists and share the little that I can, through stories, to improve their craft.
Where I come from, journalism and happy are two words that don’t always see eye to eye. Salary leaves much to be desired, to say little of working conditions. Somber grey walls. Air-conditioning that smell of dust. Thursday deadlines that make one feel he’s in the middle of a cerebrovascular accident. Office politics that never seem to end.
Our polly-pocket newsroom fits roughly seven people prior to a hefty lunch. An inch fatter by suppertime and you’re barred from the pantry. Pizza’s good, though, and the local white noodles we order from across the street during musty afternoons. Free beers or whisky with the bosses are to die for.
Let’s not even go to where close to a hundred journalists have been murdered in my sad republic since 1992 to the present.
Well, enough of the horror stories. Much as it would please me to go on and on about the terrors that go with speaking truth to power, and use these to dissuade young aspiring journos on campus to pursue a career in this profession, there have been happy moments so far as I’m concerned.
Call them slapstick, if you will, but these were rare, I have to admit, though not totally impossible in a profession where even the best of us can feel like bumbling space cadets at times.
I recall one of my first few interviews as a young journalist. He was a gun enthusiast, and I, for what it’s worth, was barely two years in the profession. I was writing for a magazine no one knew existed, much less remember.
In fact, if you ask me now the name of the publication, I would have to go out of my way to strain my anterior and middle cerebral arteries. So, I’d rather not.
Anyway, I strolled to where the middle-aged man sat in a restaurant somewhere in Manila and flipped my recorder on the table. After the commonplace civility, I grabbed the chair and started the interview.
With legs crossed and eyes mocking that huge forehead, I began shooting questions roughly every six seconds. Having heard that he was used to firing semiautomatics, I figured, hell, maybe he can take a few shots from me, too.
And take each one he did. Amazing performance. He answered every single question like a pro, save one: my inquiry on why gun enthusiasts train shooters to shoot at wooden and metal objects that cannot shoot back.
I mean, in real life situations, aggressors carry firearms. “If I’m to use one to protect myself,” I said, “wouldn’t it improve my reflexes if I’m shooting at someone or something that can shoot back?”
Well, from hindsight, he’d have no way of answering my query because artificial intelligence hadn’t been invented yet, and Doom was several decades away.
His move was suave. Ordered two chilled beers from the waiter while he attempted to distract me with a family-size quadruple cheese pizza. I allowed myself to be totally distracted only too gladly.
So, rushing back to the newsroom, it hit me. I totally forgot to write down his name. I checked the recorder. It was slightly garbled. I immediately gave him a call using my analog cellular phone whose reception, back then, was closer to the sound a dot matrix printer made than what we have today.
Thinking I had his name down pat, I lost no time writing the piece. Overjoyed at what I can recall as my third interview, I submitted the piece way before deadline. It was the final article which the editor said would be included in tomorrow’s issue.
That evening, I treated myself to several rounds of beer at a sleazy, rundown girly bar no larger than a garage. It was my version of a pat on the back. Stayed there way past two in the morning.
I called in sick the next day, but received some good news from my editor. “I already have 500 copies of the magazine in my office. Have someone pick up your two copies.” Thrilled at seeing my name on paper — again — I had a friend pick them up pronto.
Talk about getting gobsmacked, I got the subject’s name wrong. I read it again and again — and again. It was definitely not his name! “What had gotten into me,” I hollered, writing the wrong name. But there it was on the published page. Worse, I did it not only once, twice, but in the whole article!
I felt my head breach the ceiling. I paced around the bedroom thinking, “This is the editor’s fault, that lazy no-good screwed-up illiterate!”
We — the editor and I — had a bit of a history. He once told me to write a piece on capital punishment. For some yet unknown reason, he edited and changed the word “executioner” to “executor”. What in Zeus’ underpants is executor in the context of capital punishment?
That was the first time I thought of bringing a shovel to work.
To cut to the chase, that afternoon, I got a call from the person I interviewed. He asked if he could buy a few hundred copies of the said magazine. I nearly fell off my seat. I had to think fast.
Suddenly, a stroke of genius. I would lie — brazenly and without remorse. “Sir, my editor told me right about an hour ago that 2,000 copies of the magazine were sold out.” It was evil, I know. Back then, it was either evil or my ass.
“This is what I’ll do, sir,” I added with juvenile pride, “I’ll fax the original article to you so you’ll have a copy of what I wrote. That’s the original article, so it must be worth something.”
Suffice it for this writing that I made someone really happy that day.
So, I rushed to my green monitor computer and replaced the errors with the correct name. Shortly after printing all of six pages, I faxed the piece with the hope that he will never find out. That was roughly thirty years ago, and I’m glad to say I am still alive.
Since then I learned my first big lesson in journalism: accuracy.
During the next several interviews, I always made it a point to ask my subject for his or her business card. I’m still at it today.
This piece, and, hopefully, several others more, would compel journalists on campus to walk with me down old-fangled roads and see what pebbles of learning we can pick up along the way.
It’s a thirty-year stretch, so expect more twists and turns.
