By Shelton "Lee" Bumgarner
Ahssa! Creator and Author
His eyes said it all -- he had no idea who I was.
I was sitting on the front row of conference hall at COEX in Seoul,
waiting for the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) morning session
to begin.
Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. was chatting with wide-eyed Korean press
folks who would come up to him and give him his business card. I think
I saw him give his last business card away to someone, 'cause when the
last Hanguk walked up and gave him his business card, Mr. Sulzberger
made the universal sign for, "Shucks, dude, I just gave my last one
away."
He seemed pretty relaxed. Just hanging out.
I had positioned myself so I was straight in his line of sight. If he
looked forward, he was going to see me sitting there in my "lucky
suit." (So called because a friend found it at a second hand shop and
it fit me perfectly.)
So I looked up at him and I wondered -- had he read my blog and kept up
with my semi-serious quest to shake his hand?
I looked him straight in the eyes looking for some sort of recognition:
nothing.
He just looked a little weirded out by my behavior.
He was doing some serious thin-slice thinking: Is that young guy in the
front row nuts? Is he going to cause me some trouble?
It was about this time that it struck me that I probably could have
gone up there and talked to him without having to worry about waiting
until the end of the session. But...I was still getting my bearings. I
didn't want to walk up there and suddenly be dragged away by previously
hidden Custer-Battles people.
"Yeah, that's some news, isn't it..." I heard him say.
Of course, they're talking about the identity of Deep Throat being
discovered after all these days, I thought. I foggily remembered that
CNN had broken the story just as I was going to sleep the night before.
Woah. We know who Deep Throat is now. That's pretty deep.
He told the fellow next to him that he need to do something and he left
the podium and the auditorium for a moment.
Go to bathroom? Use his Blackberry? Call security and tell them to keep
an eye on me? Give me a chance to say hi to him and get it out of my
system? What?
He came back after a moment and eyed the area around him like a Master
of the Universe.
It was a this point that it struck me that there was a lot going on
with this dude. There was a lot more than met the eye. He was no
dissipated scion of a newspaper family -- this dude was probably doing
some serious profiling of me as I sat there quietly.
Anyway, the session began.
I started to steel myself up for the act of asking a question in such a
forum.
I was instantly reminded of this creepy dude that used to ask questions
at any event in Danville that involved an announcement of something
connected to VPI. He looked like that old near, nearsighted fellow on
The Simpsons and was just...well...creepy.
People would put up with his VPI-obsessed behavior in Danville, but I
was sure my fellow WAN participants would not brook me asking any
weird, poorly worded questions at such a prestigious event.
The moderator of the event was Gavin K. O'Reilly, the then acting
president of WAN.
After a moment's reservations, the crowd started asking questions.
I kept raising my hand, and O'Reilly kept ignoring me.
Had Mr. Sulzberger mentioned something about me looking at him weird or
did he just not think I was up to asking any good questions?
With that in mind, I started writing questions down.
The only problem was, I kept writing the damn questions and other
people kept asking questions that answered my questions. I finally
settled on a question about micropayments and newspapers, but I never
got to answer it.
So the session was over and I thought, "Here goes nothing."
I got in position and decided I might as well shake the man's damn
hand.
He came near me and I could tell from his expression he knew something
weird was going to happen.
This woman from a mobile phone company got in my way, at first.
"I saw you taking pictures with that thing," Mr. Sulzberger said to
her.
The Korean woman next to me babble something.
I finally got my chance.
"I just wanted to shake your hand and tell you I love your newspaper,
read it everyday...."
He seemed a bit taken aback by how, well, flustered I was.
I was starstruck. There is no other word for it.
He then did an odd thing -- he made the sign on the cross as though he
were a priest blessing me.
"I'm with the Society of Professional Journalists...."
He looked down at my name tag.
In hindsight, there is a lot more I could have said that would have
help my career. I could have given them the address of my blog, for
one.
And...yet...I don't know.
Yes, while many a career has been made by just that type of behavior, I
realized that such a hard-sell wasn't my style.
"I'm ambitious, but I'm not nuts," I said to myself, later,
rationalizing.
The session ended and I wondered around all the publishers and editors
contemplating what had just happened.
I noticed that Mr. Sulzberger used one of the two dozen public Internet
terminals that had been setup at the conference.
"Dude, don't you have a Blackberry?" I said to myself.
Again, I thought about how easy it would be to give him my blog
address. He was right there....I could sattle up to him and give him
the address! Thoughts of Jennifer 8. Lee calling me up and interviewing
me danced in my head.
Woot!
But I thought better of it.
He's a powerful dude, I'll give him his space.
So I did nothing. He walked around a bit and then vanished.
Before I left, however, I was determined to be just a bit mischievous.
I found every free Internet terminal I could find and pulled up my
blog. I also found a laptop that was hookedup to a Samsung HDTV monitor
and did the same thing.
I felt so evil as I walked home.
"Damn, I should have given him my blog address. I missed the chance of
a life time."
# posted by Lee Teacher @ 1:02 AM :: 1 comment:
There's no Blackberry service in Korea, bro. Also, what's up with
referring to a person as a "hanguk"?
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