Let Me Die Obscure and Forgotten

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Journalists do have their loyalties, to their former colleagues and thus, by extension, to themselves. A day or two ago the Chron ran an obit for Bob Bartlett, whom I remember from my own newspaper days. He quit in 1985 to practice law in Montana.

But the wine remembers. Or maybe I mean the drinkers remember.

For, indeed, I do not recall socializing with Bob in the newsroom but do recall having drinks with him at the old M&M, my own dear newspaper bar my association with which plugs me into something greater than myself, that is, the damp lies of clever journeymen content providers from back in the day in which the providers actually went out there and waded in the content.

He was kind of a blowhard, I recall, and *that's okay*. Modesty is ingratiating, but it's not very interesting. (And I will play the fool for you if you play the fool for me.)

Anyway, he died and some old guys in the Chron newsroom followed the accepted practice: When a former colleague dies, you give him an obit -- which is more or less an act of giving the profession, and thus yourself, a valentine because, as you read the obit currently on the table, you imagine your own obit when the time comes and how noble the great enterprise was.

I put in 11 years at the Chron and have stayed local as a "journalism educator" -- note the sly,self-effacing irony of the quotations marks -- so if I die tomorrow I will get my obit. (Here's looking at you, Nanette.)

But as I wrote to old Chron colleague JC, in his retirement fortress in Arkansas, it is my goal (as it should be his) not to have such an obit, not by declining the honor, but by outliving the very newspaper in which it would appear. (Sad: We will be dust as will the horse we rode in on.)

If we but only endure, it would seem the Chron will be a web-only enterprise, compiled by algorithm or outsourced to India. A tree will fall in the forest, except it will be the last tree in the forest.

And thus we will have the last laugh with no one to hear it.

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Tonight the Dude Will Abide

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By which I mean we are going to the home of H. and of N., a surviving Chronicle reporter, for a little New Year's Eve fictionary.

She is not the Dude. The Dude is the hero of the Big Lebowski and will be a topic of conversation if I am called upon.

Or if I choose to thrust myself forward, which I may: My wit bears fruit if watered, though isn't it a grand language in which one may be watered with things other than water? I mean after the second glass of wine I may feel like being heard. But with what thoughts shall I bruise the air?

Thoughts about the Big Lebowski. I just got done reading today's Arts section of the New York Times for the express purpose of finding stuff to talk about with the bright middle-aged things that we will be thrust among tonight.

And in an article therein I learn that The Big Lebowksi is:

the decade’s most venerated cult film. It’s got that elusive and addictive quality that a great midnight movie has to have: it blissfully widens and expands in your mind upon repeat viewings.

Its fans have yearly conferences at which they, well, vaguely drink, I guess, and play trivia with names and dialogue. (Nice marmot??)

And just now a volume of Lebowski Studies has been published by Indiana University Press, filled with so-called scholarly articles by so-called scholars, some of which sound like satire on themselves, but journalists are such little bitches, aren't they?

More than a few of this book’s essay titles will make you groan and laugh out loud at the same time (“ ‘The Big Lebowski’ and Paul de Man: Historicizing Irony and Ironizing Historicism”).

Is it all Pomo nonsense, applying academic electrolysis to the shaggier elements of popular culture?

I'll get back to you after the conversation tonight. I haven't decided which end of this stick I will grab and start flailing about.

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The Chronicle Tour: Yes, There Were Neutron Bomb Jokes

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I thought the Chronicle tour yesterday was a success, if only because the students must have thought, "With all these empty cubicles, there must be room for me."

Actually, the nightmare vision of holes in the fabric of the newsroom was a little misleading. We showed up at 11 a.m., and things are busier 3p-11p, when the business of putting the paper together gets serious. But a lot of familiar faces were absent -- Rubenstein, Rubin, Carl Hall, Bonnie Lemon, Tom Meyer, plus all those who came after I left in '91 who have since moved on.

The highlight of the tour was an impromptu rant from living legend Carl Nolte (USF, class of Cambrian Era) who more or less told the kids that, lacking a business model, journalism was something they needed to put in their rear view mirrors. Our guide, the wonderful Nanette Asimov, listened for a bit and then gently disagreed, suggesting quality journalism would find its way -- e-paper, anyone? -- and that people would want it, that some "monetized" delivery method would emerge. She told the kids not to give up, not just yet, not if journalism was something for which they had Passion.

The ever cheerful Kevin Fagan wandered over and shared his impatience with the self-styled "journalists" who cluttered the weird press conference he'd covered the day before at which a woman announced her dad was the Zodiac killer. But covering the various loonies was so much fun, he manifested, and God knows he's done enough good grim work to justify his pleasure in the occasional loon-fest.

His contribution to the discussion was more one of mood: Who knows the future but so much fun in the job today.

I don't know what the kids thought. They'll tell me on Tuesday. If they show up.

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