So I’m waiting for Amtrak Acela in D.C. And this tall, lanky dude walks by. Looks like Jesse Waters, the funniest TV man in the news.
Almost as funny as Greg Gutfeld, his Fox News colleague, who does not use video to great comic effect like Jesse Watters, but writes great funny books.
Watters wasn’t dressed like a big shot TV personality: Comfortable shoes. SuperCut doo. No entourage. He was not smiling. So I could not tell for sure.
I had just left the world headquarters of WND books, spending the day in the belly of the beast with the leaders of the vast right wing conspiracy, Joseph Farah and his posse.
We shot some video and talked about how we were going to spread the word about the new and upcoming edition of my book, White Girl Bleed Lot: The return of racial violence and how the media ignore it.
An Amazon #1 Best Seller, thank you very much. The WND edition coming soon to a Kindle and book store near you.
We talked about how, for the first time in a book of this kind, readers would be able to scan QR codes and then see the videos of the black mob violence as they are described in the book.
Very cool.
We also talked about how to get the book on the Bill O’Reilly show. And MSNBC.
But I wasn’t thinking about pumping the book when I spotted Bizarro Jesse Watters. I knew I was not shameless enough to start telling him about my book, and how I even mentioned him in it: The time Jesse Watters cornered the hapless editor of the Virginian-Pilot who was trying to keep the lid on a case of black mob violence directed at his reporters in Norfolk.
From the cracked window of his car, the editor explained to Jesse Watters why he did not think the black mob violence was worth reporting. It was a street altercation, quoth he. That’s it. Nothing more.
It was lame and O’Reilly called him out for it.I have never seen a more perfect representation of all the editors all over the country who just refuse to report black mob violence. And that is how I reported it in White Girl Bleed a Lot.
I called O’Reilly’s producers and told him that I documented — many with video — more than 500 examples of this recent black mob violence all over the country. Just like Norfolk. Many worse. All in White Girl Bleed a Lot.
But my affection was unrequited.
But I was not going to tell Jesse Watters — Real or Bizzaro — about that.
I just wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his work, then go on my merry way.
But the train boarded, and I decided it was not really Jesse Watters after all. He did not look cool enough.
As we rolled toward my destination — the Joseph R. Biden Amtrak station in Wilmington, Delaware — I thought I would roll up to the cafe car for a hot dog. And if I saw the Bizzaro Jesse, I would tell him how much I liked his work anyway.
No dice. He must be in first class, I decided as I pooled all the powers of observation and investigation that had led me to be showered with more than 50 awards for journalism, that no one really cared about except me.
I waited to order my hot dog.
Then Bizzaro Jesse got in line behind me. “Mr. Watters, you are very funny.”
Then came the smile. It was him.
So I asked him if he minded talking while we waited for the dogs. Never has anyone been more grateful for the surly and slow Amtrak crews.
I know everyone will be proud of me that I did not immediately assault Real Jesse with news about my fantastic book (An #1 Amazon Best Seller, thank you very much) and how he had a small but important role in it. And how WND is doing a new edition real soon.
I waited a good 60 seconds before I started in on that. Aren’t you proud of me?
Then he told me about the story he was working on in D.C. About Charlie Rangel. And how Rangel was a nice guy despite Jesse’s effort to sandbag him.
I told how I found myself in the company of Mr. Rangel for entire evening once. Rangel said sometimes he could not think of what to say on a TV interview show. So he shared his trick: He made stuff up.
Quoted some fake study. Cited false statistics. Everyone thought it was funny.
So I’m standing there, enjoying my favorite video funny guy talk about one of his adventures, when another dude walked up behind me.
“Mr. Eugene Robinson, good to see you,” quoth I. Yes we now had a threesome of journalistic titans: America’s most famous Pulitzer Prize-winning liberal newspaper columnist of Morning Joe and Washington Post fame, Jesse Watters, and your humble correspondent.
I introduced them. Please do not tell me that wasn’t very, very, cool. Because it was.
I think I called him Gene.
They of course knew each other’s work. And we started talking Rangel and Morning Joe and whatever else it was that we three extremely high level journalisticos talk about when we are in each other’s heady company.
Rest easy: I did not force my book on Gene Robinson. But in a lull in the conversation, I did ask the Pulitzer Prize winner if he minded if I told him about my own brush with the Pulitzer.
I was working as a reporter in Colorado Springs and I was getting on the front page a lot. My only buddy in the newsroom was a guy who worked the weekends and the cop’s beat.
That is about as unglamorous as it gets.
So Dave and I used to go to the local watering holes and solve all the world’s problems. Back when I still did that kind of thing.
He used to ask me how to do this, how to do that, thinking that because I was on the front page so often, I would be expected to know.
So I told him. At some length.
Every once in a while, Dave would offer his own idea for a story. I did not like it much, too sappy: A family got burned in an accident and recovered. The editors did not like it either.
I gently suggested to Dave on about, let me see, it had to be about … 200 occasions … that he listen to the editors and find another story to write if he wanted to escape the journalistic ghetto of weekend, night, cops. And get on the front page, like me.
The dumb bastard did not listen to a word I said. He wrote the story on his own time.
As he wrote it over a few weeks, all the while we were talking, and I was being as supportive as I could be, while politely trying to steer him away from it.
Truth be told, I tried to kill that story a few dozen times. Too sappy.
The story got published. It turned out pretty good. We shared the award at the paper for the best story of the quarter. I had written a story about poor pre-natal care for pregnant women in prison.
I went to the local hoosegow to interview a woman who was doing life for shooting a guy in the head. All of his buddies played poker for hours while he was a few feet away on couch, dead. They thought he was sleeping.
I think she liked me. I did not put that in the story.
Anyway, Dave and I took our $50 prize money and stayed out all night at the local drinking spots.
That’s how far $50 went in 1990. A few months later, I was back in San Diego, filing a few stories every now and then for UPI when the news came over the wire: My buddy Dave had just won the Pulitzer for the sappy story he had to write on his own time.
The one I tried to kill about a gajillion times.
So I finished up my encounter with Mr. Gene Robinson by suggesting he was lucky he had not met me a few years ago. Or else I would have probably tried to kill his Pulitzer Prize stories as well.
Gene Robinson asked Real Jesse about Bill O’Reilly: “He must be getting tired of the show,” Gene asked.
Real Jesse said Bill was still full of fire. Still enjoyed it. “In fact, his Killing Jesus book is coming out soon and you guys at Morning Joe will probably have a field day with that.”
It was good natured ribbing and Gene Robinson took it that way. Very graciously.
Soon, Real Jesse’s hamburger was ready. Though he wasn’t sure if he should eat it or not. “Can’t screw up a hot dog,” I said. I was now offering culinary opinions about the desirability of cancer-causing cured meat products to the Real Jesse. Because that’s what friends are for.
Gene Robinson assured Real Jesse his son had eaten the hamburgers here, and they seemed pretty good to him. “But then again, he could eat a bale of hay and think it was good,” Robinson said.
Now that was funny.
If you ever wanted to know what three journalistic giants talk about in their private moments, now you know.
Soon Jesse Watters returned to his seat, but not before giving me his card and making me promise to call him the next time I’m at Dempsey’s in Manhattan doing a book signing. “We’ll smoke some cigars,” he said.
“And sip some 25-year old Laphroaig,” chimed in Robinson.
Actually, that did not happen. The cigar and scotch part, that is. The book signing did, though.
Sorry. My life is a bit more boring than that. As one critic of my hitchhiking book, Redwood to Deadwood pointed out a few years ago.
Flash forward to the the Spring of 2013 and I’m writing a story about black mob violence in Syracuse when I come across a familiar name. The guy who said I was boring had a blog about the violent encounter I was writing about, so I quoted him.
Even including a link to his home page.
A link on WND will drive thousands and thousands of visitors to your site. That is good. And very, very rare. So I thought the guy was kind of a dick for trashing my hitchhiking book, mostly because he had written a hitchhiking book too, but mine had gotten all the reviews and awards and his had not.
No big deal. Not anymore. That was all in the past, right?
Anyway, the day before my big encounter with Real Jesse and Gene, I notice on Amazon the guy had reposted his review. Saying I was boring. Again.
After I had sent thousands of new visitors to his site. After he thanked me for doing so.
Dick.
While I was reveling in my new status as a international man of journalistic accomplishment, I did not want to commiserate with Real Jesse and Gene over creeps who trash your books.
I may have been guilty myself of failing to fully appreciate the liberal ruminations of my new friend Gracious Gene.
Besides, I had bigger burgers to fry. While we waited for our hot dogs, my shameless quotient kicked into high gear. Again.
“Two summers the Washington Post had a contest,” I said, reminding him of something in his own paper. “It was called the Washington Post Summer Spy Novel Contest. David Ignatius wrote the first chapter, and for the next five weeks, 500 readers submitted their chapters every week in a competition.
I won the first week. With Ignatius saying my work was his “strong favorite.” Nice.
But I figured they would not let the same person win twice, so I entered the competition under a fake name. No rules against it.
I won again. Ignatius was thrilled. The idea that anyone could turn his writing contest into a covert exercise “only enhanced (my) credibility.” That was pretty cool. I get a couple of nice blurbs for a thriller that I had not even written yet.
Its finished now. And yes, it will feature a blurb from my other best friend, David Ignatius. If I can get someone at WND to look at it, that is.
After I finished boring Robinson with my Spy Novel story, he gave me a look I had seen him give Joe Scarborough on many occasions: He was gracious enough to make me think it was a good story.
Soon we three journalistic titans were back at our seats, contemplating how our next offerings would change the known universe.
In the next seat over, some scrawny dude with a long beard was sipping iced tea out of a tupperware cup.
Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty?
I’ll let you know.
