Roving Reporter

 

Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—Ernie Pyle drove around the Southwest writing six 1,000-word pieces a week for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain.

      That’s a lot of copy.

      On Thursday, Scrib wrote seven 750-word columns for The Daily By-Catch.

      On Friday, he only wrote three, but Balder visited him Friday afternoon.

      I wonder if I should write 1,000-word pieces instead of 750-word pieces.

      I feel comfortable at 750 words.  I’m used to it.

      I wrote a 750-word column for Gulf County Breeze, when I wrote for them.

      In fact, I wrote a murder mystery, BLACK HARVEST, as a collection of 750-word columns.

      Scrib serialized BLACK HARVEST in Old Sparky as 750-word columns.

      Scrib pitched a roman-feuilleton to the Tallahassee Democrat and the Panama City News-Herald.  He would be a roving reporter, and drive around to things like Possum Day, in Wausau, or the Worm Gruntin’ Festival, in Sopchoppy, and write about them.

      A roman-feuilleton is a saga-novel, like Jack Kerouac’s Duluoz saga.

      From foil, or leaf.  A roman-feuilleton is a collection of foils, or leaves.  Serialized in the feuilleton section of the newspaper.

      In Bay County, the Junior League cookbook used to be called Bay Leaves.

      Now it’s called Bay Fêtes.

      Fête is a familiar leitmotif in Scrib’s work.

      Fiesta!  Festival, fête, feast. 

      Feast of Flowers (Pascua Florida).  Enough is as good as a feast.

      Not enough is not enough.  The Tallahassee Democrat and the Panama City News-Herald did not even bother to reply to his proposal.  They didn’t even bother to tell him no.

      He would figure it out.

      So Scrib did it anyway, and published it on the web, at his web site.

      He wasn’t a roving reporter anyhow.  He was a raving reporter.

      Jack the Raver.

      Why do the heatherns rage?  Because they are heatherns.

      Scrib lived in a travel trailer up on cinder blocks behind a bait-beer-ice store in Slap Out, Alabama.  Whatever you asked for, they would say, “We’re slap out.”

      Scrib called Northwest Florida Lower Alabama (L. A.)

      When he worked for a museum in Panama City, as a handyman, he called the museum the L. A. (Lower Alabama) Folk Life Center

      He called himself the anthropologist-in-residence (AIR).

      He was a luftmensch, like Isaac Bashevis Singer.

      A man who lived on air, or with his head in the clouds.

      When the L. A. (Lower Alabama) Folk Life Center read a piece he wrote at his web site, The Daily By-Catch, “The Anthropologist-in-Residence (AIR) Creed,” he was fired for blogging.

      And blacklisted.

 

 

The Anthropologist-in-Residence (AIR) Creed

 

·       Steal whatever you have to and as much as you can without being caught, and fired for stealing.

·       If you are caught, and fired for stealing, hide it.  Lie about it.

·       Learn as much as you can about how your employer works and tell as many co-workers and outsiders as you can without being revealed as the informant.

·       Blow the whistle on managers and sabotage projects you don’t agree with.  Use the company’s own resources against it, if possible.

·       Air dirty linen.  Expose corruption.  Mock hypocrisy.

·       Debunk the myth of complexity, the need for secrecy, the importance of protocol, and the justification for inside knowledge, or a different code of behavior for insiders.  The anthropologist is an outsider, using his understanding to turn the tables on the status quo, the priestly caste, the fat cats, the proprietors who run the show.

·       The anthropologist is a spy.  He has to sneak.  Knowledge is dangerous.  They don’t like you.  They’re going to get you.  It wears you down.  You make mistakes.

·       You’re on your own.

·       Nobody gives a shit.

 


 

Contents

Previous Page | Next Page

Home | About | Mail