SIX MONTHS AND I’M RUNNING THE PLACE

It’s not quite August yet, but it will be soon, and that will mark both a small step and a giant leap for Phil X. Why? Because August – more specifically, the second Tuesday of the month – will mark six consecutive months as a paid newspaper reporter. Six months at my current job, people! I’d throw a party, but the odds are I’d let the euphoria get to my head, disappear into Canada for a few days, miss the usual Tuesday deadline, then get fired. That’s what you call irony, I think.

So maybe I’ll just post a congratulatory message to my blog or something. Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing. The reason that I’m writing is that something unexpected will be happening at the office during the fourth week of next month: Both my editors, “Blaine” and “Rick,” will be flying to Seattle to attend the wedding of a former colleague. They’ll be hanging out on the Pacific Coast for the entire week – AND LEAVING ME IN CHARGE! Of course, there poses a potential problem: With both editors out of town, most of the writing staff is effectively AWOL, too.

That’s where you loyal readers come in. Most of you live, if not work, in what is commonly referred to as the “outer boroughs,” i.e. Brooklyn and Queens. These happen to be the areas where our newspapers do most of their reporting. My proposition is this: During the fourth week of August, the week in which I am de facto Editor-in-Chief of our much-vaunted series of publications, I will happily deputize any of you as journalistic freelancers.

Don’t be intimidated, friends. Believe me, when I started out in this ink-stained racket, I couldn’t tell good reporting from a hole in the ground. I still can’t. But while I don’t have a clear grasp of what I do, even after all this time, I have a job, and I can teach you everything I know in under two hours.

Your mission, should you choose to accept is, is to attend and report back on anything cultural or newsworthy occurring in your respective neighborhoods. You can also take photos and submit them. Think of it as a way to give back to your local community, or to get a foot in the door of the hyper-competitive field of professional journalism.

And if that isn’t enough, we’ll pay you money.

PLAY BALL?!

Excerpt from an actual conversation on Monday between “Blaine,” the managing editor, and “Rick,” the community editor:

Blaine: Hey Rick, can you give (freelancer) Marlene Peralta a call to see if she can play softball on Friday?

Rick: Uh, isn’t she coming off spinal cord surgery?

Blaine: I’m not forfeiting Friday’s game, Rick!

Apparently, it’s time once again for the Outer Borough Newspaper Softball League to rear its ink-stained head. It leads to some funny moments, like the one I just mentioned. But there ain’t much fun in Reporter-ville. At least, not for someone like me, who detests participating in team sports of any kind.

I expect that in a typical newspaper office, my choice not to spend a Friday evening swinging at the proverbial grapefruit would hardly cause a stir. The problem is that we’re a small operation. Even after calling in all their able-bodied and willing freelancers, Blaine and Rick only had enough warm bodies to cover all four bases and mid-field.

As a result, they spent much of Monday trying to convince me to take up the glove and bat. They told me that I could play catcher. Blaine even said he would pay me to cover it like a typical journalistic assignment, with the kind of access that guys from ESPN never get. My reply: I’d think about it.

Perhaps I should have shown more backbone and told him outright, “Blaine, my father couldn’t coerce me into playing team sports, and you aren’t about to, either.” But what you need to understand is: We’re like a big family at our Queens-based office, so we try to be there for one another, even if deep down, we’d rather be someplace else (Like sitting in a dark, air-conditioned movie theater watching “Miami Vice”).

What you also have to understand is: Blaine hates – and I mean hates – the newspaper we’d be playing against on Friday. I suspect that thrashing those guys would probably make his entire summer, and that’s the kind of hate I can respect. But do I respect it enough to subject myself to some degree of painful humiliation, which I think is inevitable? Blaine and Rick actually keep themselves in decent shape for summer play. Meanwhile, I am in such woeful condition that I might need a respirator by the second inning.

Now, the wonderful K. – who has also been invited to participate in the summer classic, having published photos in our paper over the past few months – has pointed out that my co-workers are unlikely to expect much from me. They probably know that I don’t regularly exercise, much less participate in group athletics. And most likely, Blaine wouldn’t have even asked me, except that he was desperate not to forfeit the match, which is understandable. Who wouldn’t prefer to go down swinging against one’s rivals, as opposed to ignominious forfeiture, akin to surrender without a fight?

But no matter what kind of a team gets fielded on Friday, my concern is, how freely will the competitive juices be flowing? The reason that I dislike participating in any kind of team sport has always had to do with those juices, which are about as intoxicating as any alcoholic beverage. Now, I like being active. I like exercise. What I hate, however, is how competition turns people into assholes. I’ve seen it time and again throughout junior high and high school. I would rather stay out of the competitive sporting arena completely than deal with adrenaline-happy jerk-offs for whom the chasing after a cow-skin spheroid becomes a matter of life and death.

It’s only a game, you know? Why do sports have to inevitably turn into chest-thumping, humiliate-your-opponent bullshit? It’s tacky enough when it happens on the professional level; meanwhile, we’re journalists! The only sports-related injuries any of us have likely endured lately involved paper cuts from flipping through the sports section. Also, I graduated high school years ago, and for me, part of the legacy of receiving my diploma was the knowledge that I would never have to take part in anything resembling gym class ever again. I swore that if I ever tore an ACL, it would stand for Awkward Container of Licorice.

Aw crap, am I just overreacting? Anticipating the worst, when I’ll probably end up having a nice time? Maybe the only way for me to know for sure is to confess my reservations to the guys at work. They’re not big enough assholes that they would ostracize me if I ended up declining to play softball. Anyway, even if they did, I’m fairly certain that I could find another weekly newspaper to ply my trade at, just as easily as they could find a former Triple-A outfielder to be their new reporter.

FESTIVAL – ITALIAN CATHOLIC STYLE!

A few Sundays ago, I spent the afternoon at nearby Havemeyer St., observing the annual Giglio Festival hosted by Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. I had been sent there by my editor, who assured me that large men would be lifting a giant altar and carrying it down the street.

No, he wasn’t predicting a robbery; he meant it as part of the festival itself. Every year, able-bodied men of Williamsburg gather together to carry the “giglio,” which is an altar of lilies dedicated to Saint Paulinus, down Havemeyer St. This is no mean effort, let me assure you. The giglio stands about fifty-feet tall and supposedly weighs several tons. See, it’s not just lilies, but includes wooden cross-hatching, metal beams, and the weight of a small band that plays while the men lift.

Now, I assumed that the Giglio Parade would be a simple, albeit symbolic, lift-and-carry job. However, the parade actually stopped several times in the course of three hours, allowing fresher legs to be rotated into the mix. If giglio-lifting sounds like a sport, there was, in fact, a coach standing at the front lines, who barked loud instructions in Italian. Oh man, could he inspire those fellas to move! One second, the giglio would be fifteen feet away, and the next, it would be right on top of the crowds.

Speaking from my own experience, I had to turn and run numerous times to avoid being trampled. I think it had something to do with the fact that thirty guys were carrying it that made it lurch and behave unpredictably. Police were on-hand to try and keep people at least 20-feet away, for fear of injury and death. But professional journalists like me have to be up on the front lines snapping photos, risking life, limb, and being run over by big, sweaty Italians and their equally-oversized tribute.

Since I lived to tell the tale, I can admit it was a fun afternoon. Eventually, the giglio reached the intersection of Havemeyer and North 8^th St., where it met another giglio, a smaller one that looked like a boat. There was much music and merriment, which exploded into outright joy after someone announced that Italy beat France in the World Cup. The crowd had been on pins and needles up to that point. The news that Italy pulled the game out was like the lifting of a great weight from off the shoulders of the collective masses, perhaps even greater than the weight relieved from the lifters when they finally put the giglio to rest, though I sincerely doubt that.

Incidentally, K. and I went back to the festival on its final evening, to get what my girlfriend referred to as “old lady food.” By that, she meant the freshly-baked treats available at one of the neighborhood’s senior centers. We assumed that was the place to find the best goodies, and we were probably right. After indulging in flaky, cheese-filled pastries and a savory sausage sandwich, we walked past kiddie rides and amusement booths. I noticed that the crowds had dwindled somewhat since opening night two weeks prior, which reminded me of sadder times, specifically the fair each April at my old college in Miami. Its dying was a sign that the school year would soon be over.

But squeezing K.’s hand in mine, I did not feel depressed, for once, at the prospect of time passing. Instead, I was reminded of the good times we shared in the recent past, that we were enjoying at the present moment, and which we would have together in the foreseeable future.

TERRY GILLIAM HAS A NEW MOVIE!

It's called "Tideland." Sure, the preview looks weird, but it has Jeff Bridges. He and Gilliam worked together on "The Fisher King (1991)," which was terrific.

I'm really looking forward to this. Only three months until October.

PARTY OF MANY, MELANCHOLY OF ONE

I’ve been having a rough time as of late, and I think the main cause has been my job. Don’t get me wrong; I love being a reporter, but the news business is a fairly pessimistic one, and I think I got caught up in the bad vibes.

I probably bottomed out last weekend, when K. went out of town. Now, it should have represented a chance for me to enjoy having the apartment to myself, to cook lots of red meat, snort all the cocaine I wanted, etc. However, from Friday to Sunday I had to interview various people for news stories involving topics which I won’t get into. All you need to know is that these topics are contentious ones. Throughout interview after interview, I was bombarded with equal parts self-glorification and angry hate-spew, the latter of which was aimed at real estate developers, bar owners, old women, and the American educational system.

My point is, in my line of work, everyone I encounter in the field is a mouthpiece trying to recruit me for a cause. They’re either trying to sell me on the greatness of their own beliefs, or the irredeemable awfulness of somebody else. I try to play fair, and sometimes that blows up in my face. Last week, we got an anonymous e-mail accusing me of being the lapdog for a community activist group, because I showed up at an event and reported what actually transpired. Meanwhile, an equally-angry e-mail is probably on its way from the opposite side, accusing me of characterizing them as bullies. Welcome to my “Yojimbo;” only, instead of playing two sides against each other, I’m pitting them against myself.

So people suck, or at least, that’s what I thought before last Friday. That’s when K. and I had our long-awaited “joint birthday-housewarming” party. To tell you the truth, I was not looking forward to socializing with people. Yes, I mopped the floor and helped prepare non-alcoholic sangria, but most of the burden for preparing the apartment fell on K. All those cheeses and breads featured prominently on a glass chessboard? K.’s doing. Still, I tried not to be such a gloomy guss once guests actually arrived, and to that extent, I’m proud to say I rose to the occasion.

In hindsight, I’m glad that I pulled my ostrich-like head from out of my ass. It was fun having people over, pinballing back and forth between the gatherers in the living room and the exiles out on the fire escape. Also, everyone brought gifts to our humble abode, so now our apartment is festooned with fine food, fragrant flowers, and well wishes. But more importantly (for my own piece of mind, anyway), the party served as a reminder that there is no substitute for good friendships. Because friends talk to you; they don’t necessarily talk at you. They tell you their problems, but they don’t expect you to conjure up 500-700 words championing their cause, while defaming somebody else. Trust me, there’s a big difference.

Five hours talking to a news source is not nearly as pleasant as five minutes conversing with a friend. No news can be good news. Now I can save all that cocaine for when I’m really, really depressed.