ENEMIES: A MISUNDERSTANDING

Today represented a big day in the life of Phil X: I made my first political enemy. Let’s hear it for me! Woooo!

I inadvertently planted the seeds for that adversarial thing last week, while making calls for a story I was working on. It had to do with an intermediate school in Queens that got burgled last year. The culprits broke into a trailer, and made off with roughly $25,000 in new computer equipment. A prominent city councilman—who, of course, will remain anonymous—responded to the crisis by raising $250,000 in funds. The money, however, wasn’t earmarked for replacing the lost computers, but to fit the school with cameras. Now the young charges of I.S. ___ will be monitored by big brother inside, outside, quite possibly up their backsides.

Anyway, I wasn’t calling the councilman’s office to write a critical piece on him—even though I couldn’t help mentioning in my article that funds to replace the computers won’t be available until next year. Like a good reporter, I just wanted some facts, like who was going to install the cameras, what kind of cameras they were going to be, etc. I ended up contacting the city councilman’s “Deputy Communications Director” (hereafter “DCD”). During our conversation, I may have said something along the lines of: “Instead of using all this taxpayer money to fit I.S. ___ with state-of-art cameras, why not put it towards replacing the trailer, which could conceivably be burgled again?”

Now, I know it costs more than $250,000 to build a new school annex. I wasn’t trying to be a smartass. Actually, I wanted to know if the replacement computers, when they finally arrived, would still be stored in an evidently-vulnerable trailer. Conceivably, some administrator of I.S. ___ could decide to move them into the school building, which would theoretically be more secure (I mean, how many heist movies have you seen that involved breaking into a public school—don’t they have guards and shit? And how would you find anything, unless you had an inside man…?). But if the school had room for computers, wouldn’t the stolen ones have been there in the first place, instead of in the trailer…?

So DCD probably thought I was being a prick. And yet, that isn’t where our relationship hit its definitive snag. What happened was that the man prefaced our entire conversation with: “This is just background…” By “background,” I thought he meant facts and figures, such as how far back in time the city councilman had been involved with the school, etc. Why did I believe this? Because our conversation consisted of facts and figures, such as how far back in time the city councilman had been involved with the school, etc.

But noooooooooooo. According to the peeved-sounding phone call I got today from DCD, “background” is his special code with reporters, meaning “off the record.” At least, that’s what the punk alleges. Naturally, I was cordial as hell, downright apologetic (Let’s face it, it’s probably not in my best interest to actively piss off the media dude of a prominent city politico). However, before getting off the horn with him, I made what I felt was a compelling argument that my quoting him in print and by name was a misunderstanding, and not a self-serving action on my part.

“If you had said, ‘This is off the record,’ I wouldn’t have used your name,” I said.

In hindsight, I suppose that was my smart-ass way of saying, “Why don’t you just say ‘off the record’ if you want something to be ‘off the record?’”

DCD didn’t give me any verbal reprisal for what I said. But I just had to tell my editor what happened, and while he assured me that the episode probably won’t affect my ability to get a quote from the city councilman’s office, he said I should nevertheless “be careful.”

“DCD’s kind of a jerk about that kind of stuff,” he added.

Incidentally, I mentioned to my editor one of DCD’s particularly whiny complaints, that the story I wrote, thanks to my attributing quotes to him by name, had become “all about him.” Bullsh*t. It continues to be apparent from the article that the plan to replace the cameras is the subject, not the evasions of a borough politician’s lapdog.

“Yeah, that’s a bit of a stretch,” my editor said about DCD’s comment.

In hindsight, I suppose that was his smart-ass way of saying, “What a f*cking asshole that guy is!”