street roots
April 1, 2012
Got a question? The managing editor has all the answers!
Love your paper but what happened to all
the poetry?
— Trevor
All the poetry,
Trevor? All of it?Y! In
my day, if someone
EDITOR,
bleated out poetry in
the newsroom they
6 0 HHE1D!
were laughed out of
the office in a gale of
tobacco breath — as
they should be! This isn’t a poetry book,
Trev! This is journalism! Real, hard
journalism, with gritty, unpoetic things in it!
Judging by your Facebook page you look
about 24, 25? Am I right? Tell you what,
Trev. Let me buy you a drink, let a few Old
Fashioneds loosen you up. Then I’ll show
you poetry.
i
Midge Leffords
Midge Leffords has
been the managing
editor with Street
Roots for as long as
she can remember, so
roughly 42 minutes.
That musician on your cover last edition
was hot! But my vendor sold his last copy to
the guy in front of me. Who was that tall
drink of water!
— Silas
Oh, you men. That’s all you think about,
isn’t it. I’ll tell you what’s a tall drink, a
double vodka gimletAfter a hard days work,
a few of those are all you need to set a
relaxing mood for “Ellen.” Some days I can’t
squeeze the Smirnoff out of the plastic jug
fast enough.
You spoke at my PSU class last week, and
you only hinted at the “good ole days” of
journalism. Can you elaborate?
— Dylan
What do you care? You know what old-
school journalism was? A bottle of Wild
Turkey in the bottom drawer of a strapping
sports editor who knew how to handle the
hot lead machine and would show an
attractive, impressionable cub reporter what
the world had taught him after the paper
was put to bed. Those were the days.
I noticed a few mistakes in your paper. Why
is that?
— Peacock
You don’t know mistakes, sweetheart.
True mistakes are gremlins in your memory
that never let you forget all those miserable
decisions you made back when you still had
a chance. It’s the despair that shares your
pillow at night and stares back at you from
the other side of the desk all day long. It’s
all the wrinkles under your eyes and the
tears that ripple across them every
morning. It’s the litany of failure that only a
half-gallon of Dewars and a three-day
weekend can drown out. And that’s only
good for three days. Sometimes three-and-a-
half.
I was going to buy one of your papers, but
then I saw on Portlandia that you guys don’t
have a crossword puzzle. Kinda doesn’t seem
worth it without a puzzle, don’t you think?
— Riley
I’ll tell you what I think, Riley. I think you
should stop following the crowd. When I was
your age, TV was reserved for big important
events, like the moon landing or Truman’s
funeral. You didn’t just sit around, watching
whatever you wanted, when you wanted,
with a fridge full of microbrews. You stared
into the sink and drank Old Grand Dad. And
you drank it responsibly — alone, from a
coffee mug in case someone dropped by
before noon. Keeping up appearances
mattered in my day, Riley. Lunch was drunk
behind wooden doors in dark rooms, not
under airy tents in Waterfront Park. You
people make me want to puke.
Why does Street Roots need to be so
controversial all of the time. Can’t you find
something nice and peaceful to report on?
— Betty
Nice and peaceful, huh? Oh Betty, you
must still believe in something, anything. I
have been doing this a very long time
honey. Long enough to know that there’s
nothing nice and peaceful in the news, and
if there was we sure the hell wouldn’t be
running it. Do you think homelessness is
nice and peaceful. Maybe on a starry night
after a 12-pack of cheap beer. Do you have
any idea how hard it is to present this crap
every two weeks? The point is, Betty, we’re
old and jaded and the only time I’m going to
be peaceful is once they chuck me in the
ground. Until then, this is what you get.
Thanks for your letters, kids. That ought
to be enough for one year.
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Garcia, this book celebrates the major
victories born from a series of
questionable choices. Art's jocular
storytelling takes the reader along with
him in and out of the California prison
system over the course of 10 years until
he found the strength and courage to
pull himself up from the fall.
The book is available online at www.
blurb.com under searchword Art Garcia.
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