A weekly look at
a topic important to us
, 1
Conquering living obstacles
gives sense of freedom, rebellion
Gatekeepers rule this world. And they die in the
process...
***
After 12 rings, somebody finally answered. It took
five more minutes to get around to what I really wanted.
Movie man answers with voice that screams poached
salmon in a pink tofu sauce.
“I’d like to interview Jennifer Jason Leigh.”
“And you work for whomT
“The Daily Nebraskan.”
“And that is in?”
The professional world out there occasionally screens
for college newspapers to make sure they’re not talking to
some university jerk-off like me. So I’ve learned the
power of vagueness.
“Nebraska,” I say.
“In Nebraska whereT
“Lincoln.”
“And that is how big a city?”
“Haifa million.”
My pants are on fire.
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe a little less. But the metro area, it’s pretty
close.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, it is. I’m not lying.”
“I mean, I don’t think she’ll want to speak to you.”
“Why not?”
Line goes dead.
* ***
The name could be Rick. Or Richard. Or Thomas. Or
Dick. But it was Sam. Somehow, her name was Sam.
“So if you’re him, who’s this lady who just called me
from the airport saying she was you?” this woman asked
me. “And what am I supposed to do with her reserva
tion?”
And she’s got this “You’ve got a room, can’t you just
leave me?” look on her face that makes me think “and so
on and so on this will go until she sees tilings my way.”
She had a cast on her right hand. Carpal tunnel
woman.
At least 15 rings on her left hand. Gypsy lady.
She looked old, like a railroad tie. Maybe die Arizona
sun drained the youth out of her.
A few days later, while some runny eggs and I
watched from a restaurant next door to the hotel, she
arrived in a beat-up blue van. She hugged her son, twice,
before she got out Tried to fix his mussed-up hair. Then
she came into the restaurant, looked at my runny eggs, lit
a cigarette and guzzled some coffee at the counter.
But that was later...
We had called from the airport She said she didn’t
have our reservation. But she did when we called back.
And when we got there, she said there were two reserva
tions - mine, and that of this ok! lady, the one who called,
my new relative, the one that would be over any minute
now - the old lady I knew did not exist.
Because there are about 12 people in America who
share my last name. And none of them was in Phoenix for
the Fiesta Bowl.
But gypsy lady was adamant. She had her out in the
customer-ahvays-being-right clause and chose not to take
it, opting for the lesser-traveled road of trying to tell me I
had a long-lost grandmother, and today was my lucky
day.
“Same last name. Spelled it the same and everything.
I sent a taxi out to the airport for her.”
“Here is my ID,” I said. “I am me. Do you see that?
Me.”
“Well, she had...”
“This woman does not exist. She is not real. See?”
1 step back and flutter my hands up and down. I talk
with my hands when I get serious. Ask my roommates.
“Not real woman,” I said. “Not real.”
“Well, if she comes here and shows proper ID, then
somebody has to pay for that room,” she said.
“It’s not going to be me,” I said
“Well, it won’t be her.”
Gypsy lady’s nonsense has me blinking with disbe
lief. The 200 or so brochures in die lobby waited in rap
ture for my response.
“OK, so how is it you didn’t have my reservation a
few minutes ago, then I call back and you have it? How
do you have it now? Where’d it go?”
“Well, you didn’t have a reservation.”
“What do you mean?”
“You had a room.”
“So I had a reservation.”
“No, you had a room.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes.”
The old lady, apparently, she came. She had a reserva
tion, not a room. And then, unexpectedly, she left. Or so
coffee-guzzler told me, a few days later.
***
There exists, in a world parallel to ours, a utopia
where there are no such things as traffic cops - these men
and women of disco gyrations used to inevitably clog up
the roads.
On this night in Lawrence, Kan., we are upon them
again, only yards from Allen Fieldhouse, one of those
meccas of college basketball. And once again, the fuzz is
out in force, along with the yellow jackets who help keep
the rich people in the rich parking spots and the poor peo
ple a day’s hike away.
And thank God I am not driving, because the
moment played out much better from the back seat.
“Media paiking.. .where is it?” Josh asks.
This stumps traffic cop, who has done this before,
who has lived in Lawrence for many years, who treats
this question as if it were that SAT math problem he never
studied for and kept him out of the college of his dreams,
forcing him to do disco gyrations in 40-degree weather.
He ponders his next train of words carefully, lest he shat
ter die balance of life’s fragile ecosystem again.
“That’s a good question...” he says. “Uh, I think it’s
up here on the left side. Just take a left right up there.”
Up there, we find the cop down there was wrong.
“No, you should’ve turned right,” traffic cop two
says, quite sure of bis answer. “So what you’ve got to do
is turn left here, go through that parking lot, around the
baseball field complex, back down there, where you’ll
have to turn right, then turn around, then come back up
here.”
That parking lot is a restricted area, this we can tell,
for there are about five yellow jackets and an orange
pullover waiting for us. They lounge against the car in
classic gatekeeper stance. One stands slightly away from
die car, legs wide apart like a cowboy, which makes him
look like either a) he just ate two racks of ribs and
dropped a five-pound ball of junk in his pants or b) he
can give smooth lovin’ all night long.
They wait for us, to see our pass, to see we don’t have
one, to send us back from whence we came and when we
get to whence, whence will direct us right back here. It is
a hassle we do not need.
And so we come closer and closer and closer. We
ease on through the mythical road Mock.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA,
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!” the men cackle, like geese,
fully aware they’re about to lose control, that they’ll have
to leave their posts, that everybody will rush in, that
chaos will ensue, that they’ll be fired, that they’ll have to
eat chuck instead of steak, that all the smooth-lovin’ abili
ty will go for naught because no woman can love a failed
gatekeeper, one who could not complete his duties as a
tool of die program.
So they give chase for a moment. Orange pullover
raises his arms, palms out and waves them around, uni
versal sign for deaf applause and.
“Stop... don’t you see? I’m in a pullover!”
We do not stop. We hack die code. We feel like
Springsteen, bom to run, bom to whip around this park
ing lot, back down to there, where we’ll take a right, turn
around, come back up here, take a right, and find our
deserved place in the media parking zone where our car
will assuredly be guarded by those yellow jackets and
orange pullovers ’til we come forth from the great arena
to battle with them again.
Orange pullover calls off his chase.He’s beaten, we’ve
won and though we’ve won nothing, breaking the estab
lishment is a gift from God, our own freedom. A chance,
like our granddaddies in the Old West, to be our own
gatekeepers. To rule the world.
Samuel McKewon is a junior political science major
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
watching
Glut of celebrities, star-watchersforces
loss of the meaning of true heroes
The most famous person I’ve ever
seen in the true-to-life-not-a-flickering
television-image flesh is Yoko Ono.
Not that I was profoundly impressed
with my brief interaction (I only discov
ered her name as someone screamed it
across a city block), but at least I can say
I had some brush with greatness in my
lifetime.
But what I remember most was how
sorry I felt for her.
I was 10 years old and on a week
long excursion in New York City with
my grandmother.
One afternoon, we were walking
past all the stately apartment buildings
near central ranc
when I caught the eye
of a short woman with
jet-black hair wearing
sunglasses and a scarf
around her neck. She
beamed at me politely,
and I at her, and my
grandmother and I
(neither of us having
any true perception or mental picture of
Yoko) continued our stroll.
Moments later, no fewer than two
cars and a taxi came to a screeching halt
in front of the building on the comer of
the block, and out jumped several
esteemed members of the paparazzi.
As we reached the end of the block, I
turned to see Yoko hike her scarf up over
her head and start on a jog toward the
comer building. The paparazzi was clos
ing fast, and a curious crowd had blos
somed into a spoiling mass, some gasp
ing and shouting, “It’s Yoko! Yoko Ono!”
I surmised that these were probably
not New Yorkers, but rustic folk like me,
eager for a story to tell their grandkids.
Aside from the fact that I already
had my story (as I had just discovered its
relevance to my life when I inquired as
to the identity of the woman, and a man
said, “She killed die Beatles, kid.”), and
could now understand somewhat the
pressing of die masses, I mainly
watched with utter disdain and astonish
ment as the photographers clicked and
flashed and shouted at her to turn around
as she ascended the front steps and
swept into the building with as much
grace as the situation would allow.
The crowd soon dispersed, but two
of the photographers, not content with
having captured die suddenly shattered
remains ofYoko’s afternoon leisure,
lolled around and waited for another
chance to ply their vicious avocation.
Ten years later, I became a sports
writer.
And to a large extent, I became
guilty of the very thing that had so
appalled me on that day in New York.
I had to hound people. Sometimes I
had to ask them questions to which I
already knew the answers.
I found myself going through all the
proper channels just to talk to some
coach for five minutes about something
that really had no bearing. And it was
necessary, I learned, that I sometimes
had to talk to three secretaries and an
athletic director before I had the person I
needed on the phone.
I found those people to be indispens
Celebrities then
were national
treasures, not
disposable idols.
able in our day of unabashed hero wor
ship and celebrity hounding.
Sports writing is not doing the world
any favors. I saw it to be work without
consequence.
For me, it was soul-claiming.
Still, there are those who have a cer
tain gift for it, the truly poetic sports
writers who the world needs to extrapo
late on the arts of the playing grounds.
But hordes of reporters vying for the
time of one person, or ballyhooing at a
press conference, is unmerciful overkill.
Some of those conferences would
never end but for a few “enforcers” who
have to play the bad guys. The scene is
sometimes reduced to a primeval shout
ing match.
Others are hardly as exciting, but no
less trying, as a few folks make with
nuance and inference to get an intervie
wee to give them that one golden nugget
to hold audiences captive until the next
game. And then there are the all-glorious
locker-room interviews.
The public is partly to blame for this
mess, for we have so imbued ourselves
in this vein ot celebri
ty-craze that the
media must provide
an even more over
whelming opiate for
the masses. I’m
guilty -1 watched the
Super Bowl on
Sunday, though most
ly with apathy,
bathing in its splendid capitalism.
We have focused so much attention
on our celebrities that even our public
officials and servants, trumpeted forth
on the evening news, become a new
form of amusement.
But that is what America (and the
world in general) has become in our life
time - an entertainment state that pays
homage to the golden heroes that put on
the shows for the people.
And so many people repay them
with perpetual press conferences, prying
questions and belligerent autograph
hunting.
Not only has this made its mark on
the general society, but it has signifi
cantly changed the behavior of our
celebrities as well. V
Even the local hi- h school stars are
becoming accustom* *1 to dodging the
crowds and isolating themselves from a
normal life.
You don’t see Derek Jeter playing
stickball in the streets of New York with
the kids like Willie Mays did. He could
n’t even if he wanted to. There’d be a
media crush.
We don’t get the stories of children
watching in silent, reverential awe as
Babe Ruth ambled through a hotel
lobby, doffing his hat and saying, “Hey,
kids!” without consulting his agent
Who needed an autograph so bad
when Babe Ruth said “hey” to you?
Celebrities then were national trea
sures, not disposable idols. Celebrity
didn’t come cheap in the Ruthian era.
And their fame didn’t get overdone.
Something over time caused the line
between that respect of the past and our
present-day obsession to blur. We got
wrapped up in the gjitz, and we were no
longer content with our own normal
lives, but had to see how the people on
the top lived.
In the 21st century, everything is
going to be more outlandish, louder and
faster. We’ll need more anti-heroic
heroes than we can handle through the
airwaves.
And in our obsession, we’ll continue
to foiget what a real celebrity was.
Adam J. Khnker is a junior English and history major and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist
