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laurelangrist — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:24:06 CDT

Fourteen sad and desperate journalism graduate students share their wisdom about covering life from the bottom rung.

Content:

Adventures in Journalism

"Burlesque Dancers and Sideshow Freaks" by Brian Childs

It’s the first night of the Brooklyn Burlesque Blitz in Park Slope and I’m neck deep in filthy/filthy-rich hipsters, I’m drinking one too many Circus Boy Beers by Magic Hat because it just feels right.
Onstage, the World Famous Bob (a woman) is wearing nothing but pasties and a smile.

"Adopting Lovely Lilly" by Lizette van Hecke

My bike’s name is Lilly. It’s a white beach cruiser with pink rims and cute brown leather handlebars with pink Hawaiian style flowers.
When I couldn’t handle the loud and dirty dungeons of New York’s subway anymore, I knew I needed a bicycle

"Telecommuting Love" by Herman Wong

The legions of people who transplant their lives from elsewhere to make it in New York City invariably leave people behind. Often this person is a girlfriend or boyfriend, forcing couples to either break up or try their hand at the dreaded long-distance relationship. While fighting to stay together in absence can be difficult enough, throw in a time difference and the displacement reaches a new level of chaos.

Lessons Learned

"D.C. Confidential" By Christopher Romig

Last March, as the cherry blossoms bloomed and Congress crammed before their spring recess, I took a bus to Washington, D.C., for my first journalistic expedition outside of New York. I was writing a story about a big, loud group of lobbyists, and they invited me along to watch them work the halls of Capitol Hill for two days. When it was all over, I went back home with a bag full of notes, writer’s cramp, and a little more journalistic wisdom than I had headed south with.

"Film Fatigue" by Ariel Vered

I sat in the darkened theater, waiting for the program to begin. My eyes wandered to the bright red Exit sign above the door; I contemplated my escape. I was nearing my limit. I was experiencing film fatigue. I didn’t want to watch any more student films; I didn’t want to watch any more films, period. I was determined to watch as many as possible, for
the good of my story. But how fun can it be when you aren’t even allowed popcorn in a movie theater?

"Good Journalist are not Nice People" by Jackie Barba
Last August at our journalism department’s orientation for incoming students, a certain unnamed faculty member spouted a cliché which I hated, and which would unfortunately prove true.
“Good journalists are not nice people,” he said (or something along those lines — I’m taking liberties because I wasn’t taking notes). Journalists are pushy, bossy, and aggressive, he said. You all look like nice people. In a few months you
won’t recognize yourselves.

"Last Tango in Journalism" by Sarah J Hart
I discovered tango in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I loved the dance instantly, perhaps because I found it easy. One time, I overheard someone say that I had natural grace. I clung to that distinction like it was a winning lottery ticket. Latent in me, I was sure, was a magnificent dancer impatient to unfold her glorious wings.

"Plan of Attack" By Jennifer Bergin

I remember very little from my frantic and dizzying first week of graduate school – and that’s probably a good thing.
I recall nothing of what was said on orientation day - except this, “Don’t plan on sleeping. You’re only here for three semesters. You can sleep after that.”

"Wait, Journalists Report?" by Aimee Rawlins
It was a crisp Sunday afternoon in September, and I walked through the East Village, my heart beating faster with every block. Past Tompkins Square Park, down 9th Street, Avenue C, practically to the projects – scanning faces, street signs, store fronts –anything that might provide a story.
The assignment was to find a story – any story – in the neighborhood that we were covering, and I told myself that I couldn’t go back into my apartment until I had done it. That was two hours ago.

"Worlds Apart" By Anuradha Kher

Before I came to New York in the spring of 2006, I worked as a reporter for The Times of India in Pune, a city in the western part of India. It was easy to get stories published in Pune, partly because the journalism standards are not as high as in the United States and partly because I knew exactly what my editor wanted to publish. It was also easy to
get people to talk to me because I was affiliated to a publication.

Living On the Cheap

"Excellent Dumpling House" by Bill Kerr

We had about six angry Chinese immigrants screaming at each other and us in Cantonese. The Second our plates arrived, the check slid across the table with a flick of the wrist from our brow-furrowed waitress. I had ordered beef with broccoli over rice for $4.30, which came with hot and sour soup and a fried dumpling on the side, and was out the door in 15 minutes

"Grand Sample Station" By Rachel Winters

I arrived in Manhattan to begin graduate school with the insane illusion that I was superwoman. The terribly delusional part was that I made my financial plans accordingly. I believed I was capable of juggling life as a full-time student along with a serious long-distance relationship with a surgical medical resident and a lucrative job bar tending at an exclusive Chelsea martini lounge.

"Non-Deluxe Bus" By Cynthia Allen

I knew my life as a graduate student would involve penny pinching. Like my fellow students, it is a rite of passage to search for the cheapest rent, food, books and anything else I need to navigate through the NYU journalism program. Unlike most of my peers, however, I don’t live full-time in New York City. I make the trek almost
weekly to my home—and my husband—in Alexandria, Virginia, about five miles outside of Washington, DC.

BIGnews

laurelangrist — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:19:36 CDT

Wait, Journalists Report?

arawlins — Sun, 06 May 2007 21:45:32 CDT

by Aimee Rawlins

It was a crisp Sunday afternoon in September, and I walked through the East Village, my heart beating faster with every block. Past Tompkins Square Park, down 9th Street, Avenue C, practically to the projects – scanning faces, street signs, store fronts –anything that might provide a story.

The assignment was to find a story – any story – in the neighborhood that we were covering, and I told myself that I couldn’t go back into my apartment until I had done it. That was two hours ago.

The thought of walking up to strangers and asking about their life was terrifying. There was a mom sitting on a stoop while her kids tossed a ball on the sidewalk. That might have potential … But I continued walking. Some men gathered outside a bodega … Again, my body refused to listen to my brain that was screaming: Just talk to someone! You have to do it!

I walked and walked, becoming increasingly frustrated and panicked with each block that yielded nothing. Finally I walked by a maroon awning with the words “Psychic Crystal Readings,” with red neon signs adding “TAROT CARDS” and “PALM READER” in each window.

That could be interesting … A psychic’s perspective on how the East Village has changed and what her clientele is like …

I walked by several times, summoning the courage to knock on the door and go inside.

When I finally did, the experience only got worse. Amanda Petro, or “Gina” as her card read, would only answer my questions about the neighborhood after I let her do a reading. While the sign outside advertised $5, she insisted that I pay $15 if I wanted anything even remotely accurate. Desperate for the interview, I agreed. I probably would have paid a lot more just to be done.

Whether she had uncanny psychic abilities, or was just reading the sheer desperation on my face, she ‘sensed’ that I was surrounded by negative energy and promised that a mere $75 worth of crystals would dispel it. While I did feel negative energy emanating from every pore, I attempted to graciously decline the offer, knowing that all the crystals in the world wouldn’t protect me from my professor’s wrath when I returned with no story.

By the time I got around to asking my questions, she was sullen, answering in short, monosyllabic phrases while trying to keep her two children from running around the room. (I could see her living room through a crack in the door and her small children scampered back and forth.)

I finally escaped to actually write the story, which, appropriately, was also an abysmal failure.

When I got the paper back, my professor had marked at least half the paragraphs with, “I don’t care. I don’t care. What’s the point? I don’t care,” along with a general comment that it was “very thin and overwritten. You let her off the hook. Don’t be afraid to ask people questions.”

Here’s the thing: I was afraid to ask people questions. I considered myself a writer, not a reporter and somehow I had come to journalism school thinking that I could be one without the other. I had never liked talking to strangers – I had always been slightly uncomfortable with people who I didn’t know – and, while I loved the process of writing, it was physically agonizing to approach these people for the sake of a story.

I spent three years at the University of Puget Sound working on our campus newspaper, primarily as an editor where I could pick and choose my assignments. I doled out the stories that focused on unfamiliar subjects or that required an obnoxious amount of interviews, tending towards soft features and arts related pieces. Commentary was even better; I could simply write my opinion and didn’t need to interview anyone! Consequently, while my editing skills improved, my interviewing skills did not.

After spending two years post-graduation at a publishing company, I made the arduous decision to attend graduate school. I hoped to circumvent the grind of “beat reporting” at a local newspaper by obtaining my master’s degree and ending up at a magazine, where I amusingly believed that interviewing would be completely different, if not irrelevant altogether.

It was a delusion that was quickly dispelled as my classmates and I were sent out in Manhattan to interview subway musicians, police officers, and the ever elusive “man on the street.”

It was hell.

Sometimes I worked past my fear of strangers and sometimes I didn’t, in which case I would attempt to write a story based purely on my descriptive prowess, which, for the record, is a bad, bad idea. Particularly when the assignment is to cover the Halloween Parade and the final piece lacks a single quote from any of the thousands who attended. My professor was livid, and I acutely felt her disappointment. I knew I had to push myself and was determined to prove that I was not inept. Miraculously this determination carried me through the New York Marathon, where I forced myself to stay in Central Park until I had found an interview subject worthy of the “colorful anecdote” we were ordered to obtain.

I left the park feeling exhilarated – both from my fantastic interview and from knowing that I had successfully trounced the terrified voice inside of me. Yes, it took three hours in the freezing cold, but I had done it.

This process lasted the entire semester – just as I completed a successful interview, I would get handed a new assignment that was accompanied by a fresh wave of fears. But somehow I survived, and ended up with glowing reviews from the professor who had scrawled “I DON’T CARE” all over my dreadful story.

It’s still painful to approach strangers for a story, and my heart beats at about twice the normal rate when I even pick up the phone to call a source. To the great detriment of my stories, I still put off interviews until the last possible second and avoid situations that require me to just walk up and introduce myself with questions.

It probably doesn’t sound like I have come very far, but in truth, I have. Part of the process is just figuring out what works for me: wandering around the East Village looking for someone to interview isn’t really my strong point; pre-arranging interview times with potential sources produces significantly less panic. The rest of it is just acknowledging the reality: I really don’t like interviewing. But if I want to be a journalist, I have to get over it. We’ve been told that it really does get easier with each interview we do, and I repeat that to myself when I’m anxiety-ridden. If you want to be a journalist, you have to do this.

Which, by the way, is the greatest thing I’ve learned so far: I do, actually, want to be a journalist. And not just the elusive non-interviewing magazine kind from my dreams either.

Adopting Lovely Lilly

illynoiz — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:22:54 CDT

by Lizette van Hecke

My bike’s name is Lilly. It’s a white beach cruiser with pink rims and cute brown leather handlebars with pink Hawaiian style flowers. She kept me sane.

When I couldn’t handle the loud and dirty dungeons of New York’s subway anymore, I knew I needed a bicycle. No more underground, where the temperature is always thirty degrees higher than a normal person can stomach. No more waiting for a train that might never show up, rubbing shoulders with thousands of uptight salary slaves. No more being late for class or appointments…

Lilly was waiting for me in Williamsburg, where a girl was ready to give up her bicycle after moving in with her boyfriend. I am still grateful she put Lilly up for adoption on Craigslist.

From the moment I picked her up we clicked. She took me over the Williamsburg Bridge while a heavy breeze was trying to blow me off, but Lilly’s fat wheels and steady grip steered me home to the Westside within twenty minutes.

For years I had cycled all over picturesque Amsterdam, but there is nothing like New York City’s skyline. Outside on the neatly paved streets the air is crispier and the view more vibrant than underground. And I don’t need a helmet, thank you very much. The Dutch have helmets built in by birth.

My experience overall has been purely positive. Peddling for hours when stuck in writers block, finding hidden visual treasures of New York and literally cycling into new stories.

The first week I took Lilly out, a cab on Eighth Avenue cut me off. I slapped his trunk and shrugged my shoulders with a “what do you think you’re doing” look on my face. The cabbie immediately jumped out and started swearing as if I had just spit in his face.

Quickly after I recovered from the shock I looked him straight in the eye and said: “If I were you I would step back in your car, because I am on a cycle path and WILL sue you…” And so he did. The words automatically rolled off my tongue, as if I had used that combination of words many times before. Suing somebody. It led me to write a little commentary on the oddity of this aspect in the US public life.

Another story Lilly found me was the growing number of pedicabs. These big bullet-like bicycle taxis have two seats in the back and a retractable parasol to keep clients dry in case of rain. After a couple of weeks on the road Lilly started to get recognized by the bicycle taxi drivers. “Hey, I love your bike! …Very pink.” I would smile politely and ring Lilly’s adorable bell. Standing still in front of traffic lights, I slowly started to learn more about the pedicab driver community.

Many pedicab drivers were youngsters that liked to be outside the whole day and didn’t take well to a boss above them. “There’s a whole bunch of us living together, you know,” Christofer, a 25 year-old Canadian said. “We share a couple of bikes and rotate, take off whenever we want and start late. I would say it’s the last bohemian job left.”

Most of the cabbies would gather in the Russian Bathhouse in the East Village every Monday night to sooth sore muscles. I got invited on several occasions, but Lilly declined with a gracious tingelingeling. Because her bell has such a friendly ring to it, Lilly doesn't piss people off. On the other hand the bell is too sweet to let jaywalking pedestrians or double parked cars know she is coming. For those risky moments I got her a pink horn with a loud hooting sound. That works much better.

Lilly is wonderful in making contact. She receives so many compliments you’d think she’s a puppy. Even big hairy tattooed bad guys can’t resist her. I found that out when I moved to an apartment across from the headquarters of the Hells Angels in the East Village.

I made my move with a taxi and told him stop next to the Harleys that are parked in front of my front door. Big mistake! Apparently the Angels don’t like other motorized vehicles parking anywhere near their beloved Harleys.

“Move!” a scary looking hooded figure dressed in black yelled. “Move your f*cking car!” The cab driver was taken at back and stuttered: “But, but she has very large bags that she needs to…” He suddenly finished his sentence when he looked out of the window and saw how tall the two Angels were. “It’s ok, just take it a little further,” I said and added semi-seriously, “They’ll help me carry.” Which, surprisingly, they did.

The next morning I was unlocking Lilly when I heard a low whiskey voice across the street shouting something. “Yo, lizard.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was calling me. “Yo, lizard… Hey, I see you are a biker too!” It was Vinnie, one of the scary Angels from the night before, who seemed real pleased with the joke he just made. Lilly had, once again, made friends.

So a few weeks later, when the NYPD blocked off the street to raid the Hells Angels after they supposedly beat up a woman, I wrote a hard news story about it and got a great quote from Lilly’s “friend” Vinnie.

Long story short: get yourself a bicycle!

A white one, with pink rims, if you can find another one…

Lessons Learned

BCKids1208 — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:06:14 CDT

Lessons Learned

"D.C. Confidential" By Christopher Romig

Last March, as the cherry blossoms bloomed and Congress crammed before their spring recess, I took a bus to Washington, D.C., for my first journalistic expedition outside of New York. I was writing a story about a big, loud group of lobbyists, and they invited me along to watch them work the halls of Capitol Hill for two days. When it was all over, I went back home with a bag full of notes, writer’s cramp, and a little more journalistic wisdom than I had headed south with.

"Film Fatigue" by Ariel Vered

I sat in the darkened theater, waiting for the program to begin. My eyes wandered to the bright red Exit sign above the door; I contemplated my escape. I was nearing my limit. I was experiencing film fatigue. I didn’t want to watch any more student films; I didn’t want to watch any more films, period. I was determined to watch as many as possible,
for the good of my story. But how fun can it be when you aren’t even allowed popcorn in a movie theater?

"Good Journalist are not Nice People" by Jackie Barba

Last August at our journalism department’s orientation for incoming students, a certain unnamed faculty member spouted a cliché which I hated, and which would unfortunately prove true. “Good journalists are not nice people,” he said (or something along those lines — I’m taking liberties because I wasn’t taking notes). Journalists are pushy, bossy, and aggressive, he said. You all look like nice people. In a few months you won’t recognize yourselves.

"Last Tango in Journalism" by Sarah J Hart

I discovered tango in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I loved the dance instantly, perhaps because I found it easy. One time, I overheard someone say that I had natural grace. I clung to that distinction like it was a winning lottery ticket. Latent in me, I was sure, was a magnificent dancer impatient to unfold her glorious wings.

"Plan of Attack" By Jennifer Bergin

I remember very little from my frantic and dizzying first week of graduate school – and that’s probably a good thing. I recall nothing of what was said on orientation day - except this, “Don’t plan on sleeping. You’re only here for three semesters. You can sleep after that.” I can’t recall who said it or in what context, I only remember thinking to myself, “Three semesters? I thought this program was only a year.”

"Wait, Journalist Report?" by Aimee Rawlins
It was a crisp Sunday afternoon in September, and I walked through the East Village, my heart beating faster with every block. Past Tompkins Square Park, down 9th Street, Avenue C, practically to the projects – scanning faces, street signs, store fronts –anything that might provide a story.
The assignment was to find a story – any story – in the neighborhood that we were covering, and I told myself that I couldn’t go back into my apartment until I had done it. That was two hours ago.

Last Tango in Journalism

BCKids1208 — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:04:08 CDT

by Sarah J Hart

I discovered tango in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I loved the dance instantly, perhaps because I found it easy. One time, I overheard someone say that I had natural grace. I clung to that distinction like it was a winning lottery ticket. Latent in me, I was sure, was a magnificent dancer impatient to unfold her glorious wings.
Though I loved tango, I found the small, tight-knit dance scene in Michigan dreary. We practiced in church basements, refreshed with apple juice, and wore drab, practical shoes.
So different were the New York City dancers! Occasionally a group of them swooped in on one of our annual tango festivals. Flowing fabric, unnecessary sequins, gaudy four-inch heels…these exotics electrified our church basement air and sparked the floor with daring-do moves that we, traditionalists, were urged to frown on.

In August 2006, I moved to New York to attend the journalism program at New York University. I was thrilled to be in The Big City, and eager for school. A childhood steeped in books had instilled in me a deep affection for words which I’d always assumed translated to an innate talent with them. I thought for sure I’d flourish in journalism school and, soon, become a great writer.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of New Yorkers dance tango. The first thing I realized was that, among so many others, “natural grace” didn’t count for much. To dance well, let along to distinguish oneself as a particularly good dancer, took nothing short of hard work and practice. Hours of practice. And a willingness to learn from bruising mistakes.
“Sarah, you have a habit of bad posture,” said my teacher Robin, eyeing me coldly. On my gorgeous new tango shoes I towered above his bald pate. “That’s fundamental. You need to fix that.”
He prescribed an exercise that I should do every day, for half an hour, during any private moments I could snatch, such as in the bathroom—where I could use the wall as a partner.

Mid-semester, I suffered a crisis in one of my classes—Professor Norman’s Journalistic Traditions to be exact. I thought I’d done well on Assignment #3. It returned dripping with red ink. Crushed, I reviewed the comments one by one and learned that 1) I had utterly missed the point of the assignment and 2) my writing—my cherished art—was weak and diseased. Overwriting, jargon, lack of clarity and a host of other plagues afflicted every sentence.
I was totally humiliated.
Yet, weeks of the class stretched ahead of me still, a paper due in each one. I had no choice but to face my failings head on and try to fix them. I gulped down my pride and asked Professor Norman for help.
“Study grammar, Sarah!” he insisted, his eyes pinning me to my chair. “You’ve absolutely got to master the basics.”
So for the next month I spent every subway ride studying grammar from a high school text. I hoped the other passengers thought I was learning English as a Second Language.

The New York tango scene is stratified and pyramid-shaped. The dazzlers I’d swooned over in Michigan were at the top and they only danced with each other. To rise to that rank, I quickly learned, took more than mastery of the dance.
Besides attending hundreds of classes, a new tango dancer should also attend extracurricular tango events—showing up early, staying late, and eagerly volunteering as chair stacker, coffee brewer, floor sweeper…whatever was needed.
She should know, and adhere to, all the traditional rules.
Most importantly, she should gratefully accept offers to dance from absolutely anyone who asked her. Never mind the foul breath. To get snobby about partner choice before having earned that right spelled instant doom to one’s advancement.
None of this appealed to me, at all.

“Learn to write what readers want!”
“Intern for free. Run errands, get coffee.”
“Network, network, network. That’s the only way you’re going to get a job.”
“Write about dogs! Trends in hairstyles! New electrical gadgets!”
“So you want to write for the New Yorker!? Ha!”
“Your average reader, remember, has 6th grade reading level.”
“Sorry, but no one wants to read about Africa.”
“And by all means, get published clips! Now! Any clips, it doesn’t matter. Anything, anything, anything.”

Within a few short months, my love of tango and even my egotistical desire to become great were subsumed by a growing distaste for the scene. By December, I’d dropped out.

I did not, however, drop out of journalism school. And even though my future as a writer remains tenuous (I’ve failed miserably to become practical. Stubbornly, probably to my own determent, I still dream that idealism and beauty will prove enough, will sustain me, will somehow float me above the fray), I’ve learned some invaluable lessons and skills.
For one, humility. This one was perhaps inevitable.
Second, humor. When in doubt, resort to humor and ride out the rough spots.
Last, journalism school encourages one to experience the world while at the same time remaining removed enough to calculate the story potential of every experience. This habit renders one invincible. No humiliation, no boredom, no tragic frustration is too much to bear as long as one milks it for the great story it might provide.

So, clearly, journalism school has equipped me for tango. At last, I have the ticket to become that fabulous dancer I know I’m capable of, damn it.
Summer is fast approaching. Summer is tango season...warm breezes, slippery skirts…outdoor dancing under hazy moons.
I’d like to go back and try again. I dream of dancing in Central Park—of gliding effortlessly, eloquently, in the arms of some skillful partner.
I know, of course, the gauntlet that actually awaits me. I know I’ll have to draw on humor and humility again and again to get through long hours practicing against bathroom walls and circling classrooms in the clutch of graceless stiffs, new to tango, who trample my toes and breathe their dinners all over my face. Over their shoulders I’ll watch the tango peacocks swirl. One day, I’ll be one of them...and until then, I’ll write about it in my reporter’s notebook.

Burlesque Dancers and Sideshow Freaks

BCKids1208 — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:11:06 CDT

By Brian Childs

It’s the first night of the Brooklyn Burlesque Blitz in Park Slope and I’m neck deep in filthy/filthy-rich hipsters, I’m drinking one too many Circus Boy Beers by Magic Hat because it just feels right.

Onstage, the World Famous Bob (a woman) is wearing nothing but pasties and a smile. Her vagina is pierced which makes it look like it’s full of stars, or maybe I’m just primed because she’s stripping to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to show your vagina in public in this city, but Bob’s stripping in tribute to some burlesque dancer who just died, and who’s going to turn her in anyway? Not the hipsters. Bob’s a lot of woman and looks like she could take out at least five or six hipster males if there was a ruckus.

My girlfriend’s tipsy and annoyed, she has a headache and I feel for the kid, but I can’t leave till I’ve interviewed Jonny Porkpie the mayor of New York City burlesque.

This is not fiction.

It may seem silly but these dancers and freaks (literally, sideshow freaks) are about to play a pivotal role in a $2 billion development deal and as far as I know I’m the only one with the story.

My interviews over the phone have all gone well, digressing into freak show gossip and gab. My interviews in person, in general, have not gone as well. I’m a square. I have a buzz cut and no visible tattoos. I’m wearing a skinny pink tie and a blue jean jacket; I look like a boy scout. I am a boy scout. The bar is packed and people are not hesitating to step on my shoes.

Where the hell is Jonny Porkpie?

Suddenly, he’s onstage dressed as Jesus, stripping to the tune of “I believe in miracles (you sexy thing).” Great. This is absurd. I look around for someone else to interview and see a now all too familiar character bobbing through the crowd. I cleared my throat and steel myself, “Excuse me, Ms. Bob, may I ask you a few questions.” She walks past me without hearing or perhaps she's ignoring and I’m too tired or too cowardly to chase after her.

-------

School. Home. Coney Island and back again; I’m living my life on the train. The hobos who frequent the D and N have become familiar faces.

That first, relatively innocuous, uncomfortable evening has led me from one person to the next into the belly of the beast.

“You should really talk to Bambi the Mermaid,” Jonny Porkpie told me.

“Have you met Bunny Love?” Bambi asks, “What about Dick Zigun?”

I interview the Lizardman, Insectevora, and Dick Zigun,“the Mayor of Coney Island.” My stutter calms itself; my posture becomes more confident. I find myself bonding with Dirty Martini, Miss Erotic World 2004 over the phone. I’m having a drink with Captain Bob.

People with face tattoos that smirked at me when I first arrived, greet me when I walk through the door. It’s six o’clock on a Sunday night and I’m soaking wet and shaking hands with a bearded lady.

Growing up I loved comic books, Spider Man and such. Now I find myself inside one. I haven’t fallen down the rabbit hole so much as boarded the southbound express train. I have escaped into an alternate reality and I’m writing the non-fiction equivalent to a fantasy novel.

I’ve been taught how to eat fire, received pointers on eating glass. The key to eating glass, by the way, is to not do it. It turns out it can kill you. Who knew? But then again, who knew eating fire was relatively safe?

By following the thread, I feel like I’ve uncovered enough stories for a life time. The sideshow leads to antique monkey-organ collectors and juggling conventions. I have more stories than I can write up, and I can’t wait till summer when school is out of my way.

I’m introduced by a friend to Red Stuart, who holds a world record for swallowing 26 swords. He has four teeth. I step forward and shake his hand, look him in the eye.

“Hi, I’m Brian Childs, I’m a reporter. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

Adventures

BCKids1208 — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:06:38 CDT

Adventures

"Burlesque Dancers and Sideshow Freaks" by Brian Childs

It’s the first night of the Brooklyn Burlesque Blitz in Park Slope and I’m neck deep in filthy/filthy-rich hipsters, I’m drinking one too many Circus Boy Beers by Magic Hat because it just feels right.
Onstage, the World Famous Bob (a woman) is wearing nothing but pasties and a smile.

"BIGnews" by Laurel Angrist

Most of the jobs I’d held directly after college had all left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. I wrote about tooth decay for a dentists’ magazine. I snapped cheesy portraits of tourists at a restaurant in Central Park. I waited hand and foot on a drunk corporate crowd at a local Mexican restaurant and rediscovered my love for Tequila. I was clearly in a rut.

"Adopting Lovely Lilly" by Lizette van Hecke

My bike’s name is Lilly. It’s a white beach cruiser with pink rims and cute brown leather handlebars with pink Hawaiian style flowers. She kept me sane.
When I couldn’t handle the loud and dirty dungeons of New York’s subway anymore, I knew I needed a bicycle...

Worlds Apart

anuradha_kher — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:16:29 CDT

By Anuradha Kher

Before I came to New York in the spring of 2006, I worked as a reporter for The Times of India in Pune, a city in the western part of India. It was easy to get stories published in Pune, partly because the journalism standards there are not as high as in the United States and partly because I knew exactly what my editor wanted to publish. It was also easy to get people to talk to me because I was affiliated to a publication.

Coming from that comfort zone, I started my first semester at New York University’s journalism school with somewhat lofty expectations. I thought I would get a story published right away, but the reality is that my first published story did not come until the second semester. I thought I was a good writer; but in a class full of talented scribes I felt average. With these jolting revelations, it became quite clear that I would have to work harder and write better than I ever imagined possible in Pune. Still, as the months went by, getting anything published in an American newspaper started looking more and more like an impossible dream.

Meanwhile, there were still some things I needed to figure out. Like why my sources were asking me to repeat my questions so often. If what I was saying wasn’t clear, I had to find an alternative. Back home, the alternative was to switch from English to Hindi—the national language—or Marathi—a regional language. The alternative here was to swiftly switch from my Indian accent to an acquired ‘sort-of-but-not-really-American’ accent. The fake accent had benefits. It gave me the confidence that my sources understood my questions clearly. My fear was that if I didn’t roll my R’s and soften my T’s, my sources would end up confused. I certainly didn’t want to sound like a call center operator in New Delhi. So no matter how reluctant I was to fake an accent, I needed to do it. No more, no less.

Wiser and more adaptable, I entered the second semester at NYU, speaking English, sort of the American way, but still with limited knowledge of the country’s current affairs. In India, it was easy to feel connected to news. Here, I felt detached from America’s ups and downs, which all seemed trivial compared to India’s problems. Then something changed. I took the editing class, in which we were graded on a current affairs quiz every Friday and soon I started needing my daily fix of all the news I could get. The fear of the quiz is long gone, but my growing affinity for Americans keeps me interested. I learned that as a journalism student—and a foreign one at that—I had to read articles and follow events even if I wasn’t interested in them. Because, if I didn’t, I would never be interested. And that of course would be my loss.

With that lesson, the second semester approached its end, and one of my first semester stories finally ran in a couple of newspapers. Even though my joy over this was overcome by just plain relief, at least I learned that getting something published was not an impossible dream.

Good Journalists are Not Nice People

profquigley — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:28:52 CDT

by Jackie Barba

Last August at our journalism department’s orientation for incoming students, a certain unnamed faculty member spouted a cliché which I hated, and which would unfortunately prove true.

“Good journalists are not nice people,” he said (or something along those lines — I’m taking liberties because I wasn’t taking notes). Journalists are pushy, bossy, and aggressive, he said. You all look like nice people. In a few months you won’t recognize yourselves.
We were only about 20 minutes into journalism school at this point, and as if the idea of being a regular journalist wasn’t frightening enough, now we had to concern ourselves with becoming Rude Journalists. Because only Rude Journalists would survive the industry, while “nice” journalists would end up cowering in tears in some corner of the newsroom.

It took me nearly a full semester to find out exactly what punishment befalls nice, sweet journalists, who feign interest in the most disinteresting things; who say “but thank you for your time” when the source says ‘No;’ who hear ‘No’ and think, “well, that certainly sounds like a No.”
Cute works for Katie Couric, but not for most journalists.

What happens to nice journalists like this is they end up giving two-hour phone interviews to useless and borderline psychotic sources who refuse to hang up on the other end.

My first such source was an animal therapist at a psychiatric center on Long Island. All day long he introduces schizophrenics to bunnies and miniature horses and chickens and sheep. And I just needed one — just one — fluffy anecdote to include in a fluffy article on the subject. I thought it would be a quick chat, an easy write-up, and after we’d all agreed that Animals Are The Cutest we could call it a day.

But he wasn’t a quick chatter. And he didn’t really want to talk about his patients, or his animals. He wanted to talk about his training, his past, his former ambitions. What had gone awry in his life.

A Rude Journalist would have picked up on the sad desperation in his voice and put an end to the call, fast. But I didn’t want to be rude, so I sat on the phone with this man for nearly two hours, trying over and over again in my most polite voice to get him to say something mildly useful. Whenever I attempted to deflect him from his ramblings, he got back at me by reading aloud from the center’s brochure in a deliberate monotone. Then he’d clear his throat, and give a “now where was I?” sort of murmur, and we were off again.

At the time I felt subject to some cosmically precise punishment for trivializing this man’s career; that, perceiving of my superficial reporting and transparent motives, he must be teaching me a lesson. Looking back, I’m sure he was just a lonely old man with no one to talk to all day but schizophrenics and farm animals. And less polite journalists than myself.

But I realized afterward, with my phone-ear still aching and my head not faring much better, that I could have easily extracted myself from this messy and miserable situation by putting on a bit of the Rude Journalist Persona. Being rude has its advantages. It allows you to be abrupt, which keeps you efficient. It saves invaluable writing time by cutting short useless chatter. And it gives you full right to hang up on needy eccentrics.

I still find it hard to be rude or abrupt with strangers, and I think there are people who will always find rudeness and abruptness uncomfortable and sometimes impossible. I would advise incoming students to practice on their family and friends. Because efficiency is an indispensable tool; and because it’s a journalist’s prerogative to say No, too.

Excellent Dumpling House

billkerr — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:01:48 CDT

by Bill Kerr

We had about six angry Chinese immigrants screaming at each other and us in Cantonese. The Second our plates arrived, the check slid across the table with a flick of the wrist from our brow-furrowed waitress. I had ordered beef with broccoli over rice for $4.30, which came with hot and sour soup and a fried dumpling on the side, and was out the door in 15 minutes.

My first experience at Excellent Dumpling House, a shack on the corner of Canal and Lafayette streets was unlike any restaurant experience I have ever had. Complete strangers were placed together at ten-person tables, food was prepared and served at mercurial speeds and the wait staff was always in a bad mood.
Next year, I will begin repaying an over $100,000 debt, the price of attending graduate school at NYU. I am conscious of this looming loan every time I buy a newspaper or a packet of gum - just another dollar I will be paying interest on. My friend Brendan, a 26-year-old cartoon artist and student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, is in a similar situation. He quit his job in order to commute to school full time via the Long Island Railroad. Every subway swipe and vending machine purchase is mentally tabulated.

So, in the hopes of fending off starvation without being reduced to dumpster diving, we set out to find a meal in Manhattan for a fistful of singles. Excellent Dumpling House, where the adventurous patron can get a full stomach on $3, has become our headquarters in Lower Manhattan. I eat there as much during the week as I can stomach. Chinese food is unique in its flavoring from any other food I have experienced - I’m never quite sure what the mystery spice was or how they manage to morph the beef to have that consistency and taste.

I found the place when I was on the first assignment for my “Chinatown beat,” and in many ways the shop has become an analogy for my entire neighborhood. Its dizzying speeds, multilingual shouting and diverse clientele are all representations of Chinatown. Every time I walk out of the door of my apartment, I witness basically the same scene, only without the fortune cookie. Past places that I have lived all had their own personality, but Chinatown is unique in that it exists as its own Petri dish in New York; while there is obviously the Chinese influence that the name suggests, the area is full of a wide array of ethnic flavors, from the West Africans that sell fake Rolexes, blast hip hop music and start impromptu dance circles on the street to the Afghanis who cook kababs and make falafel sandwiches from their street carts, the distinctive sent lingering down the block. Much like when I order beef with broccoli at Excellent Dumpling House, I’m never quite sure what I am going to get when I walk out of my front door.

I live on Canal Street, on the border of Chinatown and Tribeca, so I often go to Excellent Dumpling House alone, and every available Friday with Brendan. In my area, the closest supermarket is over a dozen blocks away, and grocery-bought meals average $10 a meal.

Brendan is bent on ordering a new dish every week. I have found that result can be achieved by ordering the same thing every time – they are just going to ignore me and serve whatever the hell they want to anyway. I order beef with broccoli; I might as well say meat and vegetable/other meat. Beef interchanged with chicken, tofu, shrimp and pork; broccoli replaced by baby carrots, fried dumplings, steamed cabbage and pan -fried octopi.
There’s only so much I can take before the feeling of Canal Street starts to wash down my throat along with the Wonton soup. It’s hard to understand what I mean by this until you see the roving cyclones of trash swirl around here after a particularly busy day for the street vendors. Living on the street has made me intensely skeptical of any product sold there. Sometimes, the vision of what garbage strewn across Canal Street looked like a couple hours into the New Year’s Parade pops into my head while I’m eating. I manage to swallow my bean sprouts anyway, occasionally suppressing a gag reflex or two.

Still, there is not much alternative. The areas around Chinatown, aka SoHo and Tribeca, aren’t exactly known for their bargains, food or otherwise. When I first moved into the area, I went out to lunch with my girlfriend and shelled out $8 for a hot dog, fries not included. Going out to dinner, I am hard pressed to find a place with entrees under $20, unless those meals come with the “super size” option.
As one can probably image, I am a regular customer now at Excellent Dumpling House. Not that this changes the level of service; the servers still look me over like I’m planning to steal something, I still get new and creative versions of beef with broccoli and the speed couldn’t get any faster this side of the space-time continuum anyway. With at least one more semester before I can start collecting a steady paycheck, there’s no doubt that I will keep coming back. I might never eat take-out Chinese again after NYU, but at least I’ll have a good excuse when someone asks why I’m passing on the beef with broccoli.

Living on the Cheap

illynoiz — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:34:07 CDT

Living On the Cheap

"Excellent Dumpling House" by Bill Kerr

We had about six angry Chinese immigrants screaming at each other and us in Cantonese. The Second our plates arrived, the check slid across the table with a flick of the wrist from our brow-furrowed waitress. I had ordered beef with broccoli over rice for $4.30, which came with hot and sour soup and a fried dumpling on the side, and was out the door in 15 minutes

"Grand Sample Station" By Rachel Winters

I arrived in Manhattan to begin graduate school with the insane illusion that I was superwoman. The terribly delusional part was that I made my financial plans accordingly. I believed I was capable of juggling life as a full-time student along with a serious long-distance relationship with a surgical medical resident and a lucrative job bar tending at an exclusive Chelsea martini lounge.

"Non-Deluxe Bus" By Cynthia Allen

I knew my life as a graduate student would involve penny pinching. Like my fellow students, it is a rite of passage to search for the cheapest rent, food, books and anything else I need to navigate through the NYU journalism program. Unlike most of my peers, however, I don’t live full-time in New York City. I make the trek almost weekly to my home—and my husband—in Alexandria, Virginia, about five miles outside of Washington, DC.

Plan of Attack

jcb376 — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:22:22 CDT

By Jennifer Bergin

I remember very little from my frantic and dizzying first week of graduate school – and that’s probably a good thing.

I recall nothing of what was said on orientation day except this, “Don’t plan on sleeping. You’re only here for three semesters. You can sleep after that.” I can’t recall who said it or in what context, I only remember thinking to myself, “Three semesters? I thought this program was only a year.”

Oh yes, it was my first day of graduate school and I had no idea how long the program was. I didn’t bring a map of the campus. I was attempting to traipse all around Manhattan in heels. And, not only did I certainly plan on sleeping – I was half asleep at that very moment. As if that is not a shocking enough lack of foresight, I had not even planned for somewhere to live. I was “homeless” in New York City and about to immediately embark on my most intensive academic experience thus far.

I realize that I must seem completely irresponsible. I would like to attempt to defend myself by noting that I am obsessively organized. I make lists and organize my lists on post-its and then I color-coordinate the post-its. I can tell my mom precisely where to locate the most mundane of items in my childhood bedroom. I rarely forget things. Yet I am a classic procrastinator. My lists make me feel better, but I don’t actually do what is on them. And when my lists grow too long - I freeze. I can’t do anything. I become immobilized. I do not plan ahead – and this I would learn, was to be a major problem.

I came to NYU from a small town in upstate New York and brought nothing with me except one giant, orange suitcase. I had no apartment, but I did have a number of friends in the city. My “plan” was to sleep on their couches until I got a feel for the neighborhoods and found a place of my own. I did not anticipate being sent out to report stories and given deadlines during my first week of classes. I had imagined that we would have a period of “orientation” and practice elementary journalism fundamentals such as story structure and the inverted pyramid. No such luck.

Instead, I was told to go into the subway and interview a subway musician as one of my first assignments. I didn’t even know how to use the subway. I had no Internet access and got lost every time I tried to get from Queens to … anywhere. I did not realize that once the program began I would have no free time, let alone the amount of time it takes to find a livable apartment in New York City.

The final straw was when my wonderful and flamboyant friend Kevin, on whose couch I was crashing, had a “Project Runway” party in his living room the night before my first major deadline. There was endless Pinot Noir, incessant yelling at the TV and countless pausing for commentary, turning an hour-long television show into a five-hour drunken marathon. And they were on the couch - my bedroom! I did not sleep that night or many that followed. It was only then that I realized – I need a damn plan!

I eventually found an apartment. And as I realized the true joy of sleeping in a bed, instead of on an air mattress or a hand-me-down futon, I also realized the truth to the saying: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. I quickly learned the importance of planning for your stories. You have to actually contact your sources in advance to set up an interview if you want to speak with them for an article you’re researching. I missed out on some great sources and even better stories, because I had not given a subject enough time to respond to my request for an interview. I realized that it’s pretty hard to get an author to talk to you about her new book, when she’s in the middle of a book tour and you call her the night before your deadline!

And in New York, it’s important to always have a Plan B. You must know exactly how to get to where you’re going, back-up routes to get there and take into consideration things like debris on the subway tracks slowing the A train, or you will be late, which I have been - to class, to interviews and to my internships. Most disastrous was when I was assigned to cover the New York City marathon – the finish line, and just kind of showed up. Well so did two million other cheering spectators and I couldn’t even see the finish line – let alone get close enough to get a good story.

As I look back on this year, I have one word of advice for new graduate students - plan. Plan for internships and apply early. Plan for this to fly by. Plan to question your talents and decisions and plan to write a story you love, only to hear your professor say, “so what?” Plan to stay up all night, not drinking but reworking a lead.

Plan to surprise yourself because you will.

Telecommuting Love

billkerr — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:13:58 CDT

by Herman Wong

The legions of people who transplant their lives from elsewhere to make it in New York City invariably leave people behind. Often this person is a girlfriend or boyfriend, forcing couples to either break up or try their hand at the dreaded long-distance relationship. While fighting to stay together in absence can be difficult enough, throw in a time difference and the displacement reaches a new level of chaos.

My girlfriend of four and a half years and I live 6881 miles apart. We can do nothing about it. She has a bank job in South Korea and I have graduate school in New York.

So now, we co-exist thirteen hours apart. When she wakes up in Seoul, the sun sets on my day. We call everyday if we can – she doesn’t like emails. I get up in the mornings a few hours before classes so I can call Korea through Skype, the Internet telephone network (7 cents a minute to her cell phone, 2 cents a minute for the home). When we can’t, she leaves me text messages that range from the mundane to the mischievous. “Callme” she’ll write one day. Or “didn’t call me again. Hate you.”

It is a life of inconvenience. Like most long-distance couples, we grapple with our disconnected lives. The first question is always ‘So what did you do today?’ though neither side really has much to report. Luckily we have the weather (it’s cold there, it’s cold here; we commiserate). She listens to me talk about classes and classmates she knows nothing about and I parse what I can from her news about work and friends. I miss having her beside me, and you can only feel so close to someone without those afternoons at the coffee shop or just watching television together all night. But our main trouble lies trying to catch each other on the phone.

My cell phone can receive overseas calls but can’t make them; so once I leave my apartment I have to wait till my night/her morning to reach her again. I have to race home in the afternoons to get on the Internet to call, but the window of opportunity closes quickly. Calls can’t come before she’s finished showering and dressing in the mornings. Nor after she’s arrived at the office. Her challenge is to catch me when my subway is still above ground, or before I step into class.

Our relationship has also become a comedy of timing. Our dissonance in time means any given Wednesday afternoon here in New York can be interrupted by a call that doesn’t quite fit the hour.

One time my girlfriend called me at my 6 pm, catching me on my way to Happy Hour. But at 4 am Seoul time, she was ending a night of drinking with friends and making the obligatory drunken phone call, talking of breaking up. What made total sense to her - a past midnight-type of call - was too unexpected for me to handle in New York.

Like overcoming jetlag, I’ve gotten used to these calls that arrive before their appropriate time. But it seems I only pick up the bad calls - the good often slips to voice mail. For every heartfelt, loneliness-inspired inebriated plea to split, my lovely girlfriend also leaves me rambling but moving messages that come while I’m in class or work.

“Hey I’m going home now. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning in Korea. I was crossing the road and there were so many cars and I thought they were going to hit me. I’m going home and I’m going to sleep and I really, really miss you. I think you should be here because I’m so easily tempted to break up. I hope you can come here and we can be together. So goodbye, and I love you.”

I find these calls infinitely touching, her voice a bit wobbly but so genuine. But by the time I check the message and attempt to call her back, she’s asleep.

Film Fatigue

Princess_Ariel — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:03:39 CDT

By: Ariel Vered

I sat in the darkened theater, waiting for the program to begin. My eyes wandered to the bright red Exit sign above the door; I contemplated my escape. I was nearing my limit. I was experiencing film fatigue. I didn’t want to watch any more student films; I didn’t want to watch any more films, period. I was determined to watch as many as possible, for the good of my story. But how fun can it be when you aren’t even allowed popcorn in a movie theater?

Over the course of six days, I saw a boy drown his dog, a man with big ears channeling Cyrano de Bergerac, the rise of a political movement based on the philosophy of Groucho Marx, a man’s jaw fall off from excess radium consumption, and a woman with a gun stuck in her vagina. Not your average multiplex movie.

I’ve been to a lot of independent film events over the course of the semester while following independent film as my beat. It all crescendoed in the second week of April with the Tisch First Run Film Festival – six straight days of student films that ranged from inventive and entertaining to disturbing and boring. If this semester has taught me anything, it’s that watching endless movies is not all it’s cracked up to be. Especially when you are writing about film.

Writing about film is not the same as, say, writing about television. With television, you can tape a show and watch it hundreds of time to scrutinize every last detail. Watching a film in the theater means you have to take notes during the film, haphazardly scrawled across the page and with a definite downwards slant. But then you miss out on an essential part of film watching: the total absorption in a narrative.

Of course, many of the films had no narrative, or at least no narrative that was comprehensible. The short film time constraints (the running times ranged from two minutes and 53 seconds to 38 minutes) often influenced the writer/director (in most cases, they were one and the same person) to go one of two routes of creative expression: high-intensity screaming scenes or no dialogue at all.

In “Initial Conditions,” the two main characters, a glorified meteorologist and his brother-in-law science professor, engage in endless highly emotional debates about a scientific theory; I spent the whole 27 minutes of the movie not understanding – and not caring.

By contrast, “Mary, Mary” depicted an electric future, where all people are plugged into wall power sockets. Mary, the main character, chases a little boy in a tuxedo for his blue flower corsage, but it is left up to the viewer to make sense of what it all means. While looks exchanged between two characters can be rife with emotion, it is often hard to decipher meaning without accompanying dialogue.

Maybe I just didn’t “get” those films. It’s hard to judge from audience reaction, because often it was only a handful of people who were associated with the film. Regardless of my personal likes and dislikes, though, all the films were certainly a cut above the amateur videos posted on YouTube. These films represented the cream of the crop of Tisch students, the culmination of the four-year undergraduate program and three-year graduate program.

The six days of the Tisch First Run Festival allowed each of the 125 films to be screened twice at the Cantor Film Center. The most popular screenings were the evening ones, especially the 6:30 p.m. program, which showcased the films that got the highest judging scores. By contrast, I went to a screening at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. There were six people in the room, besides myself, the family of one of the featured filmmakers. I often felt like a lurker, an odd girl who took a seat near the back of the theater, but had no reason to be there.

And yet that did not stop me from unknowingly breaking the rules, by bringing in food. Once I brought in a cupcake, because I was going to watch three hours of student films on a Friday night instead of going out with friends. Twice I brought in an apple because it seemed to me a healthy snack. As I attempted to quietly chew my apple (not an easy task), I realized the obnoxiousness of my snack choice. Only on the second last day of the festival did I notice the many signs prohibiting bringing in food and drink – as I smuggled hot chocolate in a thermos.

On the last full day of the festival, New York was experiencing a re-enactment of the Biblical Flood. I walked from my apartment to the Cantor Film Center wielding a neon pink umbrella and clad in a black raincoat and black rain boots, with my jeans tucked in. I arrived at the theater soaking wet, embittered that I would be spending the next three hours sitting damp and cold. I wished for a fleece blanket, or pajamas, or a bed. My hand ached from taking so many notes. And I was tired from little sleep the night before watching movies (though these ones were Hollywood).

But I was resolved to catch as many of the films as possible. So there I was, ready to watch the next batch. Except that I fell asleep towards the end of the program. It was during a film that had no dialogue and an instrumental soundtrack. I was powerless to resist the seductiveness of a 20-second nap; there was simply nothing to keep me awake.

The next evening, there was a screening of the festival award winners. I sneaked into the screening a few minutes late to a theater that was almost to capacity, the biggest audience of the festival. And for good reason. As I watched the two-hour program of the festival’s best films, I was struck by the quality of the work, the artful manner in which the directors depicted their film worlds. Perhaps it helped that I didn’t take notes, but just sat back and let myself be transported to the worlds of a young African American lesbian’s identity crisis or a young American trying to dodge army service. It’s hard to describe what makes a great movie. The industry judges must have had specific criteria to award these films the big cash prizes. For myself, I found that I wasn’t waiting for these films to end. They presented a keyhole into a world that I would have been more than happy to peep through for a little while longer.

D.C. Confidential

rolloroyce — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:56:57 CDT

By Christopher Romig

Last March, as the cherry blossoms bloomed and Congress crammed before their spring recess, I took a bus to Washington, D.C., for my first journalistic expedition outside of New York. I was writing a story about a big, loud group of lobbyists, and they invited me along to watch them work the halls of Capitol Hill for two days. When it was all over, I went back home with a bag full of notes, writer’s cramp, and a little more journalistic wisdom than I had headed south with.

For me, the whole point of the trip was to sit in on the lobbyists’ meetings with Congress members and their aides. I wanted to see the posh interiors of those giant marble Congressional office buildings on Independence Avenue. I wanted to hear how lobbyists and legislators really talk to each other. I wanted explore the blurry line between the voice of constituents and the demands of special interests. Of course, I wasn’t there just to satisfy my own civic curiosity. I intended to publish a magazine article about what I saw, and I thought my role was clear after introducing myself as a reporter to every member of the lobbying group I met.

I filled up three reporter’s notebooks on day one. I was surprised at how much access the lobbyists were giving me, although sometimes they treated me strangely. Every meeting in the representatives’ offices ended with a group photo, and the lobbyists invariably invited me to be in it, like one of them. I kept refusing, but they kept insisting. It got awkward. To get out of the pictures, I started offering to take them, but that never worked. “No, you’re with us!” they said. No, I’m here to report. More than once, the main lobbyist I was following introduced me as “our fellow activist,” and I had to correct her. No, I’m a journalist. She even tried to get me to lobby with them. “Why don’t you give this to your local representative?” she said, handing me a folder of their lobbying materials. Didn’t she understand what I was doing there?

I assumed that the lobbying group, media-savvy and image-oriented, would wonder about the journalist in their midst. I assumed that they discussed me when I wasn’t around. Apparently, they hadn’t – until the middle of the second day. When I showed up for the fifth congress member meeting of the day, the lobbyists’ communications director was waiting for me in the hallway. She stopped me at the office door. “I wanted to make sure,” she said, “you know that everything in those meetings is off the record, right?”

I answered instantly. “I do not know that. No one ever used the words ‘off the record’ to me.” I was emphatic, but I realized that I wasn’t as certain as I should be. I stood my ground anyway. “There’s no way I would have come all the way to Washington and openly taken notes in reporter’s notebooks for two days if I thought I couldn’t use any of it,” I told her.

“Then you shouldn’t go to this meeting,” she said. I walked away.

Now I was really confused. I sat in a park across from the Senate office buildings and called my professor back in New York. As he answered, John Kerry walked by. “Oh look, there’s John Kerry,” I said. “Loser!” yelled my professor.

I explained my predicament. First, could they really call things off the record after the fact? “Too late!” he said gleefully. My real problem was stickier. I had gotten what I needed from the meetings, but I needed to keep my access to the lobbying group to finish my story. I felt sure they thought of me as poison now. And anyway, I even had some sympathy for the lobbyists. They clearly hadn’t thought through my presence. I did want to use some material that I was sure they would find embarrassing, but it wasn’t my goal to screw them over. How hard line should I be about using material from the meetings? “Some journalists are purists on this,” my professor said, “but I don’t see anything wrong with striking a compromise.”

Later that night, the lobbyists were having a snacks-and-beer reception to unwind after 48 hours of democratic activity. I did not want to go, but I knew I needed to resolve the situation, the sooner the better.

Feeling radioactive, I approached the main lobbyist I’d been following. I was glad I’d stood firm. It was clear that she knew I could use anything from the meetings I wanted. If I had backed down when the communications director confronted me, I would have lost it all. She explained that she was getting heat from her bosses for not laying any ground rules with me. She had a proposal: if I ended up using anything specific from the meetings, would I run it by them, so they’d know what I was using? That was fine with me. I agreed, and got out of there before she tried to renegotiate.

I thought about what I could have done differently. Aside from writing PRESS on my forehead with a Sharpie, I don’t know how I could have made it any clearer that I was there as a reporter. The next day, I met a veteran Washington journalist, and told her about my predicament. She laughed. “People in D.C. try to pull that all the time,” she said.

For more on the power of “off the record”: http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a617.asp As for what “off the record” really means, apparently even the pros get confused: http://www.slate.com/id/1003063/

Non-Deluxe Bus

cynallen — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:51:04 CDT

By Cynthia Allen

I knew my life as a graduate student would involve penny pinching. Like my fellow students, it is a rite of passage to search for the cheapest rent, food, books and anything else I need to navigate through the NYU journalism program. Unlike most of my peers, however, I don’t live full-time in New York City. I make the trek almost weekly to my home—and my husband—in Alexandria, Virginia, about five miles outside of Washington, DC.

So, when I discovered the Washington Deluxe Bus early in the first semester, one of many bus companies offering $35 round-trip tickets between New York City and Washington, DC, I gave myself a celebratory “pat on the back.” Cheap is good.

I quickly learned that the name “Deluxe” was more than just misleading; it was a downright lie. If the company’s name truly conveyed the quality of service and accommodations, it should have been called the Washington “pay for what you get which is really not all that much” bus company. I realize, of course, deluxe has a much better ring to it.

The bus drivers are crotchety and an unpleasant smell permeating from the bathroom area on the bus is almost a requirement of the trip. (Once, the bus driver warned us not to, “do a number two” in the bathroom because it wasn’t “equipped” to handle it.)

The Deluxe, and its competitors, grew out of the success of the “Chinatown” buses—ones that took eager, but broke, travelers from the Chinatown section of Manhattan to the neighborhood bearing the same name in DC. There are now multiple lines that run under the “Chinatown” banner, including Deluxe, Apex, Dragon Coach and Today’s Bus (by far the least creative name of the group).

They are cost effective, but also notorious. Rumors about horrible conditions and unimaginable situations spread like a virus through the sub-culture of frugal travelers. Like all good urban legends, nothing bad ever happened to the person telling the story. It is always, “my friend had a friend that knew someone that…”

My friends seemed to delight in telling me tales of when the bus tipped over or the time it broke down and someone they knew had to walk to the nearest rest stop. I tried to take the stories for what they were—just stories—but I could feel the anxiousness rise in my body.

I am not a fun travel buddy in even the best of circumstances. I arrive at least two hours early for a flight that I have also checked in for online. (What if the security line is long?) I study, sometimes memorize, directions before driving someplace new in case I lose them. A broken-down bus would challenge my patience for travel drama so I was reluctant about my choice.

Still, it was only $35.

After eight months and more than 50 hours on the bus I learned that the rumors were true. I was never on a bus that broke down or tipped over, but I had my own, unbelievable stories to tell—stories that would one day be handed down like folklore to the new graduate students who take my seat on the Deluxe.

There was the time it took eight hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike to get back to New York on a Sunday night. The trip is normally four or five hours (at most).

Then, there was the pastor who wanted to save my soul.

Only 20 minutes outside of Manhattan (and into the movie, “Analyze That”), the pastor rose from his seat at the front of the bus. He held a large, leather-bound bible in his hand and moved to the center of the aisle to address me and my fellow passengers as if we were his congregation.

“God will judge you when you meet him,” he said, his voice booming above Robert DeNiro’s best Italian-mobster accent. “Raise your hand if you agree with me that this movie, this language is vulgar and must be shut off.”

I didn’t raise my hand. No one did. He sat down and rode out the rest of the trip in silence. I was thankful the driver hadn’t selected “Goodfellas.”

Movies helped to pass the time, though I always promised I would use the five-hour trip for more productive pursuits like schoolwork, but the quality of the discs and the DVD players also didn’t meet up to my “deluxe” expectations. At least one screen didn’t work, usually the one closest to me so I had to twist my neck and strain my eyes to see the movie on another one.

There is one person and story that I remember most fondly from my time on the Washington Deluxe. I didn’t notice him at first, but as the smell of alcohol and sweat spread from the rear of the bus, it was hard to miss the man passed out in the back row.

“Get up!” “You have to buy an extra seat if you want two.” “Come on man…we have people waiting.” The ticket collector shouted in a Jamaican accent. No response.

The bus driver tried next. Nothing.

This went on for 20 minutes. The bus driver and the ticket collector took turns yelling at the man as 80 other people twisted in their seats to see what was happening. The NYPD arrived next and two officers dragged the man from the bus. Each person winced at the smell as he moved past us. The toxic odor lingered for the entire trip.

The aroma of the bus was another problem. It varied with the dinner choices of the diverse patrons. I was the one that gave the bus a particularly pungent combination of vinegar and Subway’s famous, freshly baked bread one night with an Italian sub I saved for the journey.

My list of complaints about bus travel is endless—its unique odors, traffic and offensive cell-phone talkers. But, it is cheap and I cannot stress enough that cheap is good. Train tickets cost at least $120 roundtrip and planes are more with taxi rides. What other options are there?

The best advice I can give, as a seasoned traveler of the NYC-DC route, is to accept the bus company for all its faults and expect the worst. Or, get creative and fill Christmas and birthday wish lists with Amtrak gift certificates and travel in truly “deluxe” accommodations.

Grand Sample Station

rwinters — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:50:19 CDT

By Rachel Winters

I arrived in Manhattan to begin graduate school with the insane illusion that I was superwoman. The terribly delusional part was that I made my financial plans accordingly. I believed I was capable of juggling life as a full-time student along with a serious long-distance relationship with a surgical medical resident and a lucrative job bartending at an exclusive Chelsea martini lounge. Not to mention my ambitions to emerge as a star on the New York City social scene.

Just two weeks into my first semester as an NYU graduate journalism student, however, I found myself too buried in books to manage another fabulous night of bartending until dawn. And so, I also found myself unemployed and completely broke.

I needed a plan and I needed it fast. Over the following weeks my financial duress led me to discover that with some calculated research and a smile, I could both feed and caffeinate myself for only pennies. I developed what I called “the loop.”

My monthly bills tallied roughly $1,300 after rent, health insurance and T-mobile. After paying tuition, I was maxed out. As a “freelance everything” I catered at the New York Junior League for $20/hr, substituted as a spinning instructor at Crunch for $75/class and babysat for members of The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism for a pathetic $11/hr.

Still, New York is every unsubsidized student’s nightmare, and I couldn’t seem to produce the $200 a week I had initially budgeted for food, including dinner out or drinks with friends, my morning Starbucks vanilla latte and my CVS needs. My assets frozen, I was down to $10 a week for basic necessitates.

Assuming that drugstores wouldn’t be overly sympathetic to requests for handouts, I decided to find a way to eat lunch, and sometimes even dinner, for free.

My mission for free sustenance and thus the initial groundwork for my loop began one afternoon when, hungry for lunch, I set out from my East Village apartment for the Union Square Whole Foods market. The eco-friendly grocery store, otherwise known as “Whole Paycheck,” was famous in Philadelphia for providing free samples of fresh fruit, baked goods and delicious prepared foods.

On my way to Whole Foods, I struck gold. Halfway between my apartment and the glowing green promise of the Whole Foods entrance was Trader Joe’s, a wallet-friendly provider of organic groceries. They too provided shoppers with a few free morsels of some tasty treat.

I cased the bustling isles until I spotted, nestled in the back of the store, the aptly named “Grand Sample Station.” I ate three-cheese, pesto ravioli from a paper cup with a mini plastic spoon and wandered on. While I found the New York Whole Foods’ offerings to be much stingier than their Philadelphia counterparts, there was a large array of sliced oranges, grapefruits and apples, chocolate chip cookies and whitefish salad with spelt crackers.

Out of ideas for the day and still slightly hungry, I opened my wallet, bought a slice of pizza for $1.98, and headed for home.

Emboldened, I discovered another gem. The Food Emporium, just at the corner of 4th Avenue and 14th Street, provided savory shares of quality products during lunchtime. There was always a nice man in a chef’s hat and Food Emporium apron handing out mini-sandwiches of the deli’s daily specialty. Beside the sandwich man was cubed orange cheese and Carr’s water crackers, and in seafood an unidentifiable fish product swimming in jalapeno mayonnaise was generously heaped on bruschetta. In baked goods were thick chunks of pound cake or gooey bits of cinnamon roll. Beside the exit onto 15th Street (I always left from a different entrance than the one I came through, hoping to remain anonymous) was diced, fresh fruit.

Then, a few weeks into my well-rehearsed loop, I made my most lucrative discovery.

On a search to find another part-time job and having just hit-up my red-headed lady friend ladling out small, scrumptious cups of clam chowder at Grand Sample Station, I went to my university’s Career Resource Center at 13th Street and 3rd Avenue.

It was like discovering the kingdom of Oz, as the bounty that lay before me glistened and sparkled under the florescent lights.

The career center had a full coffee bar with a variety of selections ranging from Milky Way cappuccinos to hazelnut mochachinos to lemon calm herbal tea with all the fixings and little shakers of cinnamon and powdered chocolate. And it was all free. Just sitting there for the taking by unemployed students to consume at their pleasure. And that was just the beginning.

Beside the coffee station was a large spread of food, including bagels with strawberry, scallion and light cream cheese, fruit salad, little finger sandwiches and a sign that read: “Please enjoy refreshments in our student café.” The overwhelming joy was indescribable.

I learned the next day that while the coffee was a dependable entity, the free lunch was not and had been leftovers from an event the center had hosted earlier that afternoon. It was customary that these catered events and seminars, which took place anywhere from three times a day to once a week, produced mountains of leftovers which the career center staff would leave for others to enjoy. It didn’t take me long, clever investigative journalist that I was, to realize that by consulting the center’s calendar of events I could manage to arrive half an hour after each ended to reap the benefits of the bountiful harvest.

My loop was finally complete. I could spend indulgent, carefree days far afield from the 40 cent packages of ramen noodles that lined the shelves of my apartment. After many mornings of trial and error, I was even able to operate the resource center’s coffee equipment with enough skill and precision to re-create my Starbucks vanilla latte to perfection.

I felt guilty and sheepish at times, worried I would be discovered at one of my regular spots, and hang my head in shame at the inevitable banishment that would incur. Yet, day after day I was greeted with smiles at the door. I always asked polite questions about my samples, taking the time to carefully inspect their packages, and then I always walked away. I wasn’t stealing, after all, just taking advantage of what was being offered.

I discovered that being a broke graduate student wasn’t all that bad, and even managed to gain a few pounds along the way.