The Gonzo Assignment of a Lifetime
By Bob Patterson as told to Belle Starr, Outlawyer
On the morning of July 14, Bastille Day, The World’s Laziest Journalist, got an assignment card from the great assignment desk in the sky: have a stoke then write a gonzo punditry column about the recovery process and the various thoughts that occur to you in the hospital bed.
75 years ago the high-water mark for broadcast journalism was set by Edward R. Murrow as he was reporting live at The Battle of Britain. Now, airlines are worrying that drones are being used to endanger commercial airlines.
My friend, Belle Starr, Outlawyer and Write-In Candidate for San Francisco Mayor, will get an assist credit on this column.
We’ve collected various thoughts and topics over the past few days.
There are themes running in popular culture that seem reminiscent of my stay in a hospital in 1970 repeating here in 2015 where I am in a hospital recovering from a stroke.
A stroke is an educational process. Culture is a trend. A journalist’s job is to spot trends. The new word from “The Graduate”, replacing plastics, is EKSO. (Full Disclosure: Belle wants to buy more of their stock and I want to be in on the action too … )
The exoskeleton from the military is being deployed in this hospital to rehabilitate the world’s laziest journalist and it fits fine and does all the work…with some electrical stimulation.
PHOTO Rachael Adams
(Google Hint : Ekso Bionics (helps survivors of stroke, spinal cord injury … to walk again. )
When I first started writing and posting online, I had decided to follow a Walter Winchell style. He was the master and originator of three-dot-journalism …
Stringing information together. You know why writers are stringers? They used to be paid by the column inch and the editor measured with a string to determine the pay when they paid. The length of the string was converted into the amount of the paycheck. The string was carefully kept for tax and accounting purposes…NOT!
Then came Herb Caen who continued the … with a necklace of terms from beatnik to hippie and all the intervening dots and stories from Baghdad by the Bay.
(Snide Aside: How things have changed – Baghdad, psychedelia and rock’n’roll to shock and awe and Babylon.)
Lions and circuses - The social media shaming of a dentist for killing Disneyfied Cecil, the most beloved, with hyperbole that personifies the lion, but not nearly as cool as Frazier, the most sensuous lion alive, while depersonalizing a human being misses the point.
Frazier was randy and loved for it. He was survived by many, many cubs when he died of exhaustion (old age) somewhere in Africa…maybe Kenya.
“Unfortunately,” says the Zimbabwe government, “it was too late to apprehend the foreign poacher as he has absconded…” to Ricks’ in Casablanca, no doubt, where this backhanded payoff is as apparent as Looie’s winnings.
There’s a continent of garbage in the Pacific. Reunion Islands refuse and recycling opportunities. If it took until 1961-62 for remnants of the Battle of the Coral Sea to wash ashore and to be found by beachcombers in Baja, will it be twenty years for the continent of pacific plastic to wash ashore and choke the Reunion Islands?
Camp Justice , Guantanamo, Cuba Tent city lawyers are dying from cancer in droves.
(Bob is watching too much TV) In the hospital there is a lot of TV at night and if I am not worn out in my iron man suit. There are 17 republicans running picked by FOX and I ought to sue them.Take a note, counsellor, Dear FOX, I am the perfect side-kick for Bill O’Reilly and here’s why: I am related to Che’. That’s right, THE Che’. So, I am a Latino Irish Catholic pundit who is more effective at anti-democratic rants. (The Medical Director walks in) Doctors and caddies go together.
And speaking of TV, have you seen “Velocity”? Shut up and listen to me, Sandy, (if only you had listened…) you have to get a kid who does video and go “Barn Finding” like the 47 Caddy you found for Frank Nicodemus Castle Cadillac Restoration. When you get a vintage “barn find” we can have a segment “Barn Finding Safari” on Velocity.
I have got to sue FOX, counsellor! They are discriminating against me as a latino—irish-catholic-democratic pundit and Barbara Lee isn’t liberal enough. It’s all marketing hype.
Governments- North v South, SF BD v LA BD. Another 50 years in the discussing Candlestick vs Marina del Rey as best bucket without bottom for campaign contributions.
(News Tip: How the hell can someone get a news tip to Rachael Maddow? For that matter, how do you submit a news tip to The New York Times, because they specifically state the don’t want to be annoyed by news TIPS.)
“Catholics make the best fascists”.
(What me worry? : Death Panels as inevitable as health care and taxes.) What is a Whore’s bath and is it politically incorrect? Nurse didn’t know but didn’t think sex-worker’s bath meant the same thing.
(Health Tip: Belle says Turmeric is neuroregenerative. Nurse says I only have to watch sugar and carbs.)
(Sidebar with Lawyer: You can write about the app on indiegogo called “My Data 4 Sale”.)
“The app is to stop the filtching of your data, without compensation, by government, corporations and any hacker who passes by.”
“It’s your gig and you sell your habits for a time period to data miners who pay a certain per unit time fee to you. No more free lunch on your preferences – Your data, your habits, your gig in this gig economy.”
(Google Hint: indiegogo.com and look for mydata4sale. Over to you, BOB!
We need an official whistleblower’s protective association or union. Remember the whistleblower Victor Risell? In the 50’s? Labor? Acid thrown in his eyes? Is that why Belle wears sunglasses all the time?
This has been the toughest assignment of our journalistic life BUT it does give you a fresh perspective of “every day you wake up is a blessing”. Amen, brother! With a lot of work and effort we should be back in the column-a-week groove in about another month.
(Coming Attractions: Mid-August here in Berzerkeley is the 50th year since the founding of the Berkeley Barb.)
After California had a transgender “Woman of the Year” we now have a transgender on the cover of Vanity Fair.
It is now clear that men are smarter than women and men make better women than women do.
If Trump has gotten addicted to shocking the public how long before he drops the “N” word in an off-the-cuff sound bite?
Just in: My Outlawyer is implicated in the last two days Front Page News. Mayor Ed Lee is alleged to have taken bribes. Way to go, Mayor Starr! (Google Hint: SF Chron Bob Egelko and Emily Greene).
That’s Journalism!
Now the disk jockey will play a song that became a favorite from my last stay in a hospital in 1970, Carson, Tahoe: I Never Promised you a Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson; Waylon Jennings, I’ve Always Been Crazy and (from the movie Casablanca) As Time Goes By, by Dooley Wilson.
Have a “it will never happen to me” type week. Live life to the fullest and don’t postpone having fun. Live life as if you are a winner on a game show!
DISCLOSURE: The world’s laziest journalist reminds regular readers the column is being written under stressful conditions. We will try our best to maintain a high quality of editing and reporting. We thought keeping the 15 year string of weekly postings trumped being compulsive about spelling and punctuation.
