Crayons to Chaos

lombardi goes local, gets clips, and returns to the old obsessions

As I commence another all-nighter, and continue with my nearly-unbroken wail of "I can't write!", I wanted to mention some slightly more encouraging developments as well.

I guess I can start by just limning the week:

The same day as my last post, I got a call from a small Queens weekly, which had already expressed interest in my mold story. The editor (J  '04, by the way) wanted to know if I would cover a debate in the 26th City Council District - one that went on without the front-runner in this Democratic town, Eric Gioia. Still recovering from my cold, I trudged to Long Island City, to observe a debate between Robyn Sklar -- a typical Green, smart, well-meaning and a bit clueless - and Nancy Jackson of that chameleon Independence Party, who couldn't quire conceal her true wingnut characteristics. The resulting article, as well as the editor's analysis,  appears here - in addition to the mold story, which ran on the front page of the paper this week.

A poor thing, but mine own: I'm perhaps irrationally quite thrilled at my first clip in weeks. And now, he's already expressed a desire for the food pantry and even the Z Crew stories: so I'm real, in my own way. (It's nice to know if I'm not CJR caliber, I'm good enough for the Queens Chronicle.)

Also,  some good progress on reporting for the two magazine pieces: I went to this yesterday, and after the obligatory VIP breakfast, started stalking young men with very short hair and guarded expressions, in the hope I'd find people willing to be part of a piece we might as well title "The Things They Carry."  Surprisingly, allmost none outright refused to talk to me - too well bred, and maybe I'm about the age of their mom? And I met a few who might, I hope, be the characters I'm looking for. Meanwhile, my takeout story,  on domestic violence in immigrant communities, has turned up a bunch of great possibilities, including this. I'm not giving any more detail for fear of jinxing myself.

Meanwhile, the prep for the spring is beginning -- and it don't look any easier. And this morning, I went to the briefing session for this class, which sounds like it guarantees that no-easier bit - while it helps you develop a viable book proposal. I'm now worrying frantically over my one-paragraph email pitch, which may or may not get me into the class. (I also learned yesterday that the fall scholarship money hasn't actually been given out yet. Which doesn't mean I'm anywhere near the top of the class, but it somehow cheered me to feel like it ain't over till it's over.)

What haven't I mentioned? My RW1 story for this week. Which I should have written after my return on Monday to I.S. 126, and Betty Pansione's library space, to hang out with the kids at Ramadan.  But  instead I tried to go to a kids' Diwali celebration on Wednesday, which didn't happen, and then to sniff at these guys' mosque yesterday, the first day of Eid, which turned out to be closed. Ultimately I wandered around the hood re-remembering stuff like the ecumenically named Allah Tawwakil Grocery, which advertises both Halal Meat and Spanish Grocery, and the park where amid all the Spanish one kid calls to another. "Wait, Ishmael!" All of the above in search of the "rock 'n'roll feature" demanded by the syllabus. I wish I'd had the stamina and nerve to go for a beer with one of the GIs, and I'd have declared a topic change.

I still might. Let's see if I can't weave something out of the gentle rabbi-voice and round face of young Naur,  who responded to a generalized question about the Pakistani earthquake with "When one of us suffers, we all suffer."  (Even the corpses, pal.) And hope that this good-reporting-energy doesn't dissolve under the conviction that I can't, actually, write a word.

a filigree of stories

I'm supposed to have a draft tonight, of my second story on the Z Crew. But my brain is stuffed with too many stories competing for space - two of which are due next week, two of which need to be started next week - bouncing against one another like ping-pong balls. In short, the messy plate sliding off my brain's crowded table:

• Z Crew in Action.  Or How a Bunch of 12-Year-Olds Started a Movement. I'm going back to the same school I invaded in August, but tonight (after this spill) I need to sketch out the story as I see it. Due Saturday noon, setting me up for a Friday all-nighter at this rate.




• House v. Bell.  Since the supreme court keeps refusing to agree to hear Hamdan v . Rumsfeld, despite all the reasons it should, I've taken on a different case for my first story for the legal reporting class: House v. Bell, one of the scores of death penalty cases where DNA evidence has emerged to challenge these sentences. The story told me by House's attorney yesterday, which I'll spill a little on Sunday as I get ready to write, sounds like an episode of CSI:  spilled vials of blood, evidence disappearing and re-appearing, and fantabulous stories by the prosecution, along with a political subtext that reminds you that court-stacking is about more than Roe v. Wade. (That last point, citing House, was made elegantly in a Times editorial last year.) Due Wednesday, October 19. at 4:30 p.m.




• Astoria business story. A new power plant is going up - reportedly so  mean, clean and environmental that even NYPIRG loves it, after years of opposition. Peter Vallone, the local poo-bah, and a coalition community groups fought it until the New York Power Authority agreed to also shut down,  by 2008,  the much dirtier plant next door. I talk to Vallone Friday, and go poke around the site Monday, while trying to get 2 or 3 person-at-the-plant interviews.  Due 7 p.m. Thursday, October 20 at 7 p.m.


• Rant for "Critical Issues in Journalism." I haven't written much about this wild strange class of ours, led by Richard Wald -- wherein 235 students (combined full and part-time) listen to speakers and then engage in a sort of Oprah/Donahue open mike. I'll likely talk about it further as I'm breeding that paper, 750 words on "something we've talked about."  One of which was "Are bloggers journalists?" I'll likely talk mostly about my hero Lindsay, 18 yrs younger than I, whose lovely blog served as the base for an investigative trip to New Orleans -- and inspired her to quit her big pharm job for the freelance life. Due Friday, October 21 - and you can be sure I'll be writing it in the middle of the night, too.


• Astoria feature. This week I need also to start reporting on a long fuzzy feature, a "mood and feel" piece: I'm thinking about the food pantry I've visited; a profile of a Muslim woman I'm about to interview;  or a comparison between Fr. Brady's two parishes - the one by the housing project, which is scheduled for closure, and the one that has services in 5 languages and a more middle-class congregation. Due: full draft noon Thursday, October 27, t work on in  lab.
• Take-home. A long, more complex story, perhaps relating to the masters' project (see below).  I have to generate 3  and send them to Dale and Stacy tomorrow (when??).


• Masters' project. The first draft isn't due till January, but a proposal is due 11/18 and we need to be doing an interview a week. Next week, I'm talking to the gatekeeper at the New York Veterans Administration Centers -- my way into the returning soldiers coordinators, and the lives of those who try to help vets sort out their lives when they come home. Whose story will emerge from all that is anyone's guess.

I'm tired even writing this. Will I have the energy for the girls and boys of the Z Crew? I just wish I already had a camera-phone, for my trip to the school tomorrow.

How can I possibly juggle so many stories? How can so many characters vie for attention? How can I do justice to any of them? Is this phase of the program meant to be like stroke recovery, and have us grow new neurons?

I talked to Sree, for just a moment, yesterday. He said this is much more overload than in a real job. But is that really true? No wonder I want to write books - though I bet most who do are doing that on top of all of the above.

the train coming from the other end?

Wow. I came home last night from RW1 and didn't feel like s&^&&*t.

I don't want to jinx myself here, and may soon be caterwauling as usual - but today was the first day of RW1 since early August that I haven't gone home feeling like a compleat failure. Not that the story I got back, from Stacy, wasn't justly chopped up; not that I didn't flee screaming from the Boston Globe guy calmly outlining how their famed summer internship was only available to people who'd put in time at a college  newspaper. and anyway had odds that make Ph.D. programs in literature look welcoming. Not that i didn't sweat the drill.

But actually - the drill was using data from a homeless survey and details of a case study. It may be 17 years or so since I shilled for the Maryland Food Committee, but if I couldn't write a quick sketch of the kind of story I once tried so hard to get others to write, I really would have been a sorry excuse for a writer.

And I was irrationally happy to be a B student, for once.

Of course, next week we get our mid-term evaluations (and with them, the likely stake in the heart of any new scholarship allocation. I won't let myself talk personal finance here, as that's the easiest path to immobility..). God knows how I'll feel after those.

But this second I'm making phone calls about a death penalty case for my Covering Courts and Trials class, and veterans groups for my masters' project, and running off to Astoria in the rain. And I can't stop a smile from sneaking around the edges.

This bubble will burst too. But it would sure be nice to take a break from the kind of gasping, racking sobs that have been my unfortunate companion of late.

If fear is an indispensable aspect of courage and courage is an acquired taste, like caviar,  then these weeks have been a festival of acquiring a taste for your own whiny tears. Here's to hoping that that phase is in a waning point (at least until I become completely convinced my masters' project is a failure).

God what would I do in real basic training, busting bones as well as ego?