Have I told you lately that I’m a writer? I feel like someone could put together a compilation of all the times I’ve said I’m a writer, similar to the one that was done of Meghan McCain constantly saying, “my father.”
Perhaps you’re thinking, “We get it already, you’re a writer!” Well, get it and get it good, because coming soon, I’ll be exploring a-whole-nother side of my writing abilities with you – journalism.
That’s right, come December (of this year) in addition to my unsolicited opinions about what’s happening in the news, musings about local travel on a low-budget and other stuff I write, I’m going to start interviewing people that I find interesting and post it here!
Isn’t that exciting? I’m excited about it!
Because when I say I’m a writer, I mean it in damn near every sense of the word. So I’ll have you know now, I consider myself to be a journalist too, though when it comes to a career in this field, I’ve been about as successful as I have writing movies and publishing books.
It’s hard out here for a writer.
Nevertheless, I just so happen to this platform where I can do whatever the fuck I want. And, sense I’m a pretty big journalism fan, it was only a matter of time before some element of that seeped in this space too—inevitable I tell you.
I often talk about the time I lived in New York, I actually moved there with the express purpose of being a magazine journalist. I wanted to work at O, The Oprah Magazine in particular — I did at least get an interview. It’s funny how it doesn’t even exist anymore (at least not the print edition). Magazines aren’t even really a thing anymore. But I love the writing of a good magazine feature—the style and creativity of it.
I also love a good television interview. With a magazine feature I get a sense of how the writer perceives this person, but with a television interview I get to see how the subject expresses themselves, and how the interviewer, in one way or another, coerces it out of them.
My favorite interviewer, whom I’ve seen so far at least, is Charlie Rose. I was disgusted to learn of his behavior that got him booted from both “CBS This Morning” and his own show on PBS (and rightly so), but the man could do an interview. What I liked about his show on PBS was that there were no bells and whistles. It was just him, and whomever he was interviewing in a black studio at a round table. He would get so much information out of these people in less than an hour’s time. Do you realize how incredibly hard that is?
At least it’s hard for me. I used to do profile pieces for a now defunct website, and I would spend hours with people in order to write around 1,500 words. I realize that that’s probably the norm when you’re writing a piece. Not to mention, I, nor the website I was writing for, had the industry stature of Charlie Rose. People probably came to him with their A game, wanting to sound smart and profound, or at the very least interesting. Still, his interviews, I thought were amazing.
Barbara Walters was another one. I remember this one time, while I was living in New York, after a company holiday party, a group of people I met from another department invited me to go clubbing with them. The company party was open bar, and the music had just started getting good, when everything stopped at 9:30pm sharp and these folks still had more partying left in them. I however, ended up turning them down because I had to—get this—race home and catch “Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People” special that was airing at 10pm. I remember getting home and being upset that I missed the beginning. I didn’t have a DVR or so much as a VCR to record it. Now I look back on that, and say, what was I thinking? I should have gone to the club with those accounting people, or whatever department they were from. But that was how much I was into Barbara Walters’ specials.
I guess I feel nostalgic for that old school journalism that I came up on, where interviewers were neutral…well as neutral as any biased person can be. Nowadays it’s like interviewers either have their head so far up the interviewees’ ass that it ends up looking more like a publicity session or they’re ridiculously combative, and…
I don’t know where I was going with that.
But anyway, I’m going to start posting interviews with people here. And to kick things off, leading up to the interviews to come in December, during the month of November I’m going to be posting some of my favorite journalism and interviews, along with why I like them so much. That’s every Saturday in the month of November!
But wait, there’s more. You’re still going to be getting a fresh new post every Wednesday, sometime before midnight – your girl’s doing double-duty.
Because ultimately, as my grandmother would say, what it all boils down to, is that I love telling stories. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, mine or someone else’s. I believe everyone has a story that has the potential to bless someone else’s life. And, well, I’m tryna be in the blessin’ business.
Stay tuned…
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