Michael Silver -- I just don't get it...

Zehme puts lime juice in the good tequila?

 

Don't get me wrong, I think Mr. Zehme is a fine writer. But he certainly helped capitalize the "I" in "profile."

 

I always thought Mr. Zehme did do a nice job mocking the practice of celebrity profiles, including his own obviously, with this Heather Graham feature in Esquire a few years ago.

http://www.esquire.com/women/ESQ0400-APR_HEATHER

 

Not while Kevin Sessums lives!

 

True indeed! You can't spell "touche" without "ouch!"

 

It's TV too, though. In the correspondents' little stand-ups after a report, or the gasbag analysts' studio or booth work, they started peppering their comments with "I asked--'' and "--told me" to justify their existences and prove to the boss or the audience that they did their own homework or had special access. Then print guys, seeing the path to stardom or just aping it mindlessly, started doing it too, even when it was implicit in their work.

Get the hell out of the way and tell the story, in best way possible.

 

First of all, unless another company snuck up on me in the past couple of years, it's:

Rose's Lime Juice. Not Rosie's.

Second, I have no problem with any of this.

First-person is bad when it's jarring or poorly done. These little references don't hit me that way, but I guess it's a personal preference. As a person who knows his way around a bar, I actually find it interesting he was drinking Patron and Rose's.

And then I ask: What exactly is the harm of this little detail?

I've become kind of anti-curmudgeonly on this kind of thing as I passed 50. I think we worry way too much about this stuff, much more than readers do. If it reads OK, it's OK. Pretty basic to me these days.

 

I said way back at the start of this thread that I have no problem with the drink details. Doesn't promise too much, doesn't make any big statement, tells me a little about James.

The "I" and "me" stuff does get in the way for me. I want a writer to take me to the scene, bring me along. Not make me stand five feet away, watching, while he rubs up against the guy or mugs in the snapshot he's supposedly providing.

None of us could write without our egos. But once you start leading with that ego, you're toast as a journalist. Just my view.

 

Fair enough. From my standpoint, it simply doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

If the writer is part of the scene, he's part of the sign. The words "I" and "me" don't jar me anymore, if done well.

That, of course, brings us back to the original point. What constitutes "well."

Superfly seems bothered by it as a matter of general, all-encompassing principle, and I'm not of that school of thought anymore.

 

Here's why, SF...

It leaves me with an empty feeling, just wanting to know so much more about the scene. When I read it, only three things came into my mind.

1) "Hmm, interesting drink. What a tool."

2) Was the bar dark or was it light? Was it crowded or empty? Was he surrounded by a bunch of 'lovely ladies' -- and man do i hate that line -- or was his entire entourage? Were there any more teammates there? (Further explanation-- earlier in the story, there was a line about how Edge went to Miami to celebrate the SB with former Colts teammates. Well, now is he that friendly with the Cards?)

3) It screamed -- LOOK AT ME. I'M THEEEE MICHAEL SILVER.

It's one thing to have access and to you use it well...shit, imagine being Talese and hanging out for weeks with Sinatra. THAT's access. And it's another thing to be standing at a bar with a guy and suckling at the teet of his fame.

It reminds me a lot of Arash Markazi, except that Markazi is a scene columnist, not a features writer.

 

Hey, SF_Express, please don't tell me you've been worn down to the point of accepting "Talk about the..." as a legitimate form of a question!

 

I think we can agree there's an art to being in the story without being the story ie, the collected SJ works on Peter King.

Would be interesting to post examples--not right now, just along the way--of pieces that pull it off.