so you may or may not know but uh I am
the editor and associate publisher of
the alt Weekly which is a paper over it
is a partner up so I have to thank over
it and only over it having said that you
know two things about me they’re not
particularly well looked upon I’m a
suck-up anima journalist and as we all
know a journalism has been under attack
increasingly in the last decade to the
point where now we have the President of
the United States vilifying us we have
governor’s across the country trying to
undermine journalism limit access
Governor Andrew Cuomo bill de blasio
Donald Trump across party lines their
tactic is to smear us as villains
fabricators and yeah suck ups so this is
my story about how I became a journalist
because I think it’s increasingly
important for the press to make it clear
that we are human beings that what we do
we do because of our humanity of our
because of our will and want to make the
world a better place and it might be
cliche but this is the story about how I
decided that I would get into the lowest
paying career I could possibly find
despite despite seeing on my professors
door know that very distinctly noted how
little I’d ever possibly be able to get
paid a career where as I said we’re
constantly attacked and made to feel
undermined as on your minors and it all
starts with my father so thanks dad I
don’t and I don’t mean that in the happy
fuzzy sort of sense I’m sorry this is
actually sort of a downer but a lot of
the time I spend as a journalist these
days is by the phone waiting for the
call from an important source Yeti is
you know this person will call me give
me a sense of what I should look for
maybe a tidbit of dirt perhaps they’ll
pull back the curtain in some way it’s
very similar to how I spent my childhood
I was waiting by the phone hoping that
my father would call he there you go we
I grew up mostly without my father he
was a British immigrant without a green
card my mother met him on the drive up
from the Taconic from from Manhattan she
was a successful journalist she had a
career in journalism in PR she worked
for a minute made one minute late was
first the company she reported on Andy
Warhol she went to parties with folks
like Stephen Sondheim she had quite
quite a life and it’s extremely
inspiring and then she met my father and
it just so happened their cars had both
broken down they are at a shop on the
Taconic and they both weren’t grieving
my mother had lost the best friend the
cancer my father his first life he died
suddenly of heart failure
so rather than cancel her vacation my
father offered that to give her a lift
and then at the end of her vacation
there he was waiting to pick her up
shortly thereafter they bought a house
in Germantown they decided to renovate
it and they had me the problem was that
my dad had an interesting sense of what
it meant to be an American coming from
Britain a very small country as you know
and having grown up in a workhouse at
that at one point he felt that America
was a flailing it was a place to escape
it was a wide-open space for him to
explore and because of that he drove
tour bus
he drove big rigs he would tell us
stories about driving Pink Floyd across
the country he would tell me about
Manhattan Transfer
and how he would illegally Shepherd
stolen goods across the Mexican and
Canadian borders so eventually my mother
said to him run when I was 2 years old
Phil we need you here you either stay
here or you get lost then we deal with
life without you because your son wants
you here and he’s confused
my dad got up and left now our house was
in the midst of an amazing renovation
there were missing floorboards missing
insulation insulation it was a New York
winter was on coming and the kind of
winters we used to get the kind of snow
that we claim that we love and miss but
shut down the world and my mother spent
her days with me cuddled by a heater
trying to make sure neither of us froze
I think it’s important to understand
that my mother never said my father a
negative thing about my father
she took less a says he would give
anyone the shirt off of his back what
that translated to was never needed a
washer our washer was theirs if they
needed
a heater the heater was theirs we were
still home without a heater without a
washer and that Lass’s that was his idea
of being a good neighbor it just wasn’t
that great of a father so when we talked
about journalists today journalism we
know that people have lost the great
amount of trust in us now with the Trump
presidency there there has been an
increase a face in reporting from
newspapers but it’s still very it’s
nowhere near where it used to be the
trust the public has in journalism as
you can see it’s we’re still nowhere
near where we were in the 1980’s the
1990s and this was a picture of me as a
child v so growing up my mother taught
me the value of arts entertainment books
literature psychology and I was becoming
a smart little kid and then my dad
reappeared in my life he said I want to
bring you back to Missouri I want to
spend some quality time with you
and like a lot of people who consume
news I was hoping there was another
truth out there I was hoping that what I
learned about my father the fact that he
wasn’t there was simply not true that
perhaps it was really a good person and
perhaps if I hoped hard enough and gave
him a chance he would become the person
I wanted him to be so I got up and left
I remember being in the airport with my
mother having a panic attack thinking
I’m getting on an airplane to meet a man
I’ve never met before up until this
point I’d been in I spent time with him
in an arcade where he’d give me change
buy me a cowboy hat maybe have a
breakfast with him in a greasy spoon
truck stop cafe
I never met spent much time with him so
finally I arrived in Missouri and
despite all the things he had told me he
had a wife he had moved on and there was
no chance he was coming home I was there
because he wanted to fix me he was going
to create a version of me it was better
than what my mother had done which is
completely unlikely given that his his
version of America was one where Walmart
was perhaps the greatest pinnacle of
creation where literature and thought
didn’t really matter because America
provided opportunity limitless
opportunity and he said about telling me
how I should get involved in I look
forward to doing the community college
to become a roadie it didn’t sound
particularly good to me particularly
sensible but when your dad tells you you
know you should get into rock and roll
it’s sort of tempting and what he tells
you I know Roger Waters I know Mick
Jagger I can hook you up with Pete
Townsend and your kid you think hey
maybe this is the way we should go but
then my dad said you know what I have I
have a 5 another commitment I need to go
on a trucking run from Chicago to Texas
to Seattle so for two weeks I was in the
bunk of a 16-wheeler traveling across
the United States listening my father
tell me that my mother had raised me
improperly I spent most that time asleep
because I couldn’t really listen to it
and reconcile what I was hearing
what matters news journalist is truth
it’s getting to the bottom of hypocrisy
of lies of helping the public better
understand the people who control their
lives as much as I’d like to tell you
that I’m objective it’s simply not true
and I don’t think any journalists can
tell you that they’re actually objective
I’m a journalist because I wanted to
answer
my father I wanted a value truth and
exploration of issues over accepting
what was presented to me this is from
contrast Thompson not a journalist whose
work I think I respect but who is honest
I think the biggest mistake we’ve seen
some of the larger companies from the
New York Times The Times Union the
biggest the mistake they’ve made in
reaction to the fake news hysteria has
been to say we are real news you can
trust us more than anyone else forget
those other guys they’re horrible but we
we produce real news it’s fairly
dishonest it it sort of throws everyone
else under the bus and since they’re the
people with the credentials to do this
and only trust them
the truth is humanity can’t be erased
opinion can’t be erased objectivity
can’t be erased this is what Norman
Mailer said about journalism if a person
is not talented enough to be a novelist
not smart enough to be a lawyer and his
answer to shaking reform operations
he becomes a journalist and I can tell
you that’s exactly where I was in
college it was a little surprising in
some people that I made it to college
after that adventure across the country
with my father I returned home and
started going to school less and less
started going to shows in New York City
rather than going taking tests I avoided
school as much as possible until it
actually became impossible for me to
avoid because I was sent to a school for
kids who were being very bad
but I made it through college and while
I was there I thought I’d be a doctor
because I wanted to help people I wanted
a way to give back to the community I
wanted to feel like I made a difference
I wanted to I wanted to be important but
there was still that lingering feeling
that I needed the truth that the most
important thing I could do is find out
what was really going on to hold power
accountable to deal with hypocrisy so
there was a mistake when I went to the
college paper wrote a story about how
the internet wasn’t working on campus
that one call I made to the tech company
was a revelation they begged me not to
print that their money and time had been
wasted and that they were behind
schedule and that we wouldn’t be getting
internet service for another few months
it was news that students obviously
weren’t going to be very happy about but
right there off the bat I was holding
power accountable and I banned it all
plans to be a psychologist to be a
doctor they were gone I was addicted
everything from there I think what’s a
bit of luck unlike everyone else in
journalism I landed a job straight out
of college I’ve been employed as a
journalist straight on since I’ve never
been forced to freelance and I think it
is luck as you know you may not know PR
professionals outnumber journalists five
to one these days PR professionals are
told give up on getting a story in print
they’re just enough journalists to
actually write it and I know that it’s
true being a journalist we get more
press releases than we can possibly
handle we have so many stories we’re
already looking and working on in depth
that the idea that we’re going to print
the story about a mall opening or a
store opening it’s ridiculous so with
the amount of money that’s put into
journalism these days the only value I
see is doing in-depth reporting and
boosting those who are doing good work
in the community so
sorry the having been a successful
journalist for a few years
successful suddenly my father again
appeared out of nowhere I wasn’t
expecting to hear from him ever again
it had been about ten years I was dating
the woman of my dreams I had a fiance
things were going very well for me
and I said to myself I should take
advantage of this I should go talk to my
father
I should force myself to confront this
person who has motivated me so deeply
throughout my life with his lies so my
wife and I formulated a plan I would go
to Wisconsin Beaver Dam Wisconsin a town
of I don’t know I’m honored and I would
confront my father and document it I
would ask him about growing up with Mick
Jagger playing soccer with Dudley Moore
some of these things are true he has
pictures of himself playing soccer with
Dudley Moore there there there’s no
disputing him so we arrived in Chicago
after a 16-hour train ride the night
before I had a bit of an anxiety attack
and I wasn’t hospitalized not because of
the anxiety attack but because I had
stomach pains I just couldn’t explain my
blood pressure was up and her said to me
are you worried about something
I said yeah I think so
and I took out the IV in my arm and went
home to pack my wife and I spent those
16 hours on the train mostly in silence
we really weren’t sure what to expect I
haven’t seen this man in 10 years it’s a
British man who some reason had a braced
truck driving when he came to America
and there was so much expectations this
is a man who had promised weakly to come
to the base little league games and that
showed up a man who at one point my
mother had to hide me forced my mother
to hide me because he had ended some
night on a tour bus drive drunk and
drugged out of his mind and threatening
to kidnap an you’ll bring me back to
England so there was obviously issues of
trust going in wood we arrived my father
was there and his cowboy boots just as
he always had been a cowboy hat he still
had his hair but his face was like a
melting bowl of pudding
he didn’t have any teeth he didn’t have
any dentures and he looked like the
saddest sack of humanity I’d ever seen
he wasn’t he was no longer threatening
and I thought to myself there’s no
reason to attack this man there’s no
reason to pick apart his stories there’s
no truth to be found here and it was
right for the next two weeks my father
talked about his morning calls with
McTaggart how he advised Pete Townsend
how to write his first book how the
British government was set to unleash a
conspiracy against hounds and smearing
him with child pedophilia allegations he
told us about how when he was in the
workhouse which we do believe is true he
would go out back and give Winston
Churchill baths or run errands for him
while he was old enough for that to have
happened for some reason I just didn’t
believe him and it kept going on he
explained my wife that he was
disappointed in his daughter back in
England because she had married a
footballer he a professional footballer
it sounds good to me
it’s turns out the problem was he was an
immigrant and he wasn’t white
my wife my father hadn’t noticed was
half african-american and yet he
continued on this route one night we
were walking the streets of Beaver Dam
my wife and I she wasn’t my wife at the
time but fiance we are out walking
because I couldn’t stand being in the
house I couldn’t listen any more lies
and I said there were two things I was
considering I was either gonna get in a
taxi and go to the train station or to
the airport or I was going to smother my
father to death with a pillow and she
told me you know honey I think there’s a
better route I still think there’s
something to salvage from this at that
point I was sure there wasn’t a book
there wasn’t a documentary
there wasn’t anything of value there
wasn’t a way for me to claim justice
there wasn’t a way for me to expose this
person there was nothing left to expose
he was his lies he was an old man with
no teeth living in a hundred person town
in Beaver Dam Wisconsin the man who
would have justified my entire existence
was little more than a delusional truck
driver it made little sense it was hard
to reconcile on the day that we left for
home my father insisted he drive he
picked us up in a green brand-new Jaguar
it didn’t make sense to me that he’d
have such a car and he told me he was
proud of it because he was going to give
it to his my stuff my stepmother his
grandson and I struck a chord because
this may had it only given me a cowboy
hat and 25 cents as a kid so he decided
not to take the Jaguar he took a brand
new f450 our luggage was strapped in the
back and we drove from Beaver Dam
Wisconsin to Chicago eventually one of
the straps snaps and our luggage got
loose
my father insisted that he take care of
it himself while he was doing this I
noticed he really couldn’t use his arm
for some reason hit it escape didn’t
escape me much earlier I was too busy
listening about to Pete Townsend stories
and he struggled eventually the wire
snapped and smashed the back window I
felt really sorry for him I tell he
couldn’t move properly turns out he was
giving a tour of the back of the docks
of Walmart doing a safety check when he
opened one of the doors to a truck the
cargo pallet fell out and crushed him he
nearly died his arm was paralyzed
permanently they told him that his
lymphedema is so bad and his blood
pressure so high that he’d never drive
again because sitting for extended
period of time would lead to a deathly
blood clot and he couldn’t use a
steering wheel it all became clear to me
just how sad this was at that moment and
my father said to me David uh you know I
can’t really afford to send to pay for
this trip I’m sorry I told you if you
came here I pay for it and also I have
to get my grandson a present I sort of
snapped at that point very small and
said well you know dad this is October
next month is November it’s my birthday
coming up too I don’t know if you
remember this he said to me as he was
fixing the windshield I’ll give you I
could use a drink
why don’t you go get a drink he handed
me a hundred dollars and said keep the
change
it’s the least I could do for your
birthday I said no dad that’s okay
I’m not thirsty we got to the train
station
and I hope my dad would just get in the
car and drive away but he did he stood
there with nothing to say the saddest
person I’ve ever seen on the planet
sunken face arm paralyzed a red hue
because he had struggled so much to fix
the windshield and it was at that point
but I couldn’t take it anymore I started
balling my wife consoled me and my
father could see how much he
disappointed me it was absolutely clear
to him he walked away and got in his car
I got on the train
looked out the window and as I didn’t a
kid I still hope to catch a glimpse of
my father but this time I wanted to see
a better version I wanted to see the
version that I thought I would meet but
it was too late we got home my wife and
I were to be married the next year and
while I didn’t come away with the book
and I didn’t come away with a
documentary I thought maybe I could take
pity on my father so I invited him to
our wedding our wedding past my father
didn’t show up I got a I got a letter
from his wife saying he had fallen off
the roof in October and was even worse
off than he was before she wasn’t sure
if he was gonna live my wedding was in
September it wasn’t an excuse it was lie
again so he gave we gave up I haven’t
talked to my father since there was no
reconciliation after a year with my wife
we had a child and it got me to thinking
what is truth what was it that I was
looking for from my father is it
something I can find in journalism I
think it’s something I had already found
by the time I went to get to meet my
father
it was everything my mother had
instilled in me the value of truth the
value of learning the value of holding
power accountable it was already there
and when I went to meet my father that’s
when it all became perfectly clear that
everything I needed was already there I
was looking for something that was
already read in my lap two years later I
had a child we named her Asha Sanskrit
for truth
and my father has never seen him
I think journalism for me is extremely
personal and I think for a number of
other journalists it is – they’ll tell
you they don’t vote keep people away
from influencing a race that they knew
too much about they’ll tell you they are
completely unbiased when they write a
story but we’re all motivated by human
emotions by everything that brought us
to that point and there’s no escaping it
I believe the public knows this almost
better than we do and they’ve lost
respect for us because we insist there
were our bias and we’re more than human
that we can escape all of this and the
truth is we can’t that we should
journalists should be more upfront about
the fact that they are human and what
they’re doing is trying to serve the
public I hope in the coming years we
have a better a better approval rating
but I don’t think it really matters one
way or the other because we have to do
our jobs and we’ll continue to do them
for the foreseeable future thank you
very much
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you
the editor and associate publisher of
the alt Weekly which is a paper over it
is a partner up so I have to thank over
it and only over it having said that you
know two things about me they’re not
particularly well looked upon I’m a
suck-up anima journalist and as we all
know a journalism has been under attack
increasingly in the last decade to the
point where now we have the President of
the United States vilifying us we have
governor’s across the country trying to
undermine journalism limit access
Governor Andrew Cuomo bill de blasio
Donald Trump across party lines their
tactic is to smear us as villains
fabricators and yeah suck ups so this is
my story about how I became a journalist
because I think it’s increasingly
important for the press to make it clear
that we are human beings that what we do
we do because of our humanity of our
because of our will and want to make the
world a better place and it might be
cliche but this is the story about how I
decided that I would get into the lowest
paying career I could possibly find
despite despite seeing on my professors
door know that very distinctly noted how
little I’d ever possibly be able to get
paid a career where as I said we’re
constantly attacked and made to feel
undermined as on your minors and it all
starts with my father so thanks dad I
don’t and I don’t mean that in the happy
fuzzy sort of sense I’m sorry this is
actually sort of a downer but a lot of
the time I spend as a journalist these
days is by the phone waiting for the
call from an important source Yeti is
you know this person will call me give
me a sense of what I should look for
maybe a tidbit of dirt perhaps they’ll
pull back the curtain in some way it’s
very similar to how I spent my childhood
I was waiting by the phone hoping that
my father would call he there you go we
I grew up mostly without my father he
was a British immigrant without a green
card my mother met him on the drive up
from the Taconic from from Manhattan she
was a successful journalist she had a
career in journalism in PR she worked
for a minute made one minute late was
first the company she reported on Andy
Warhol she went to parties with folks
like Stephen Sondheim she had quite
quite a life and it’s extremely
inspiring and then she met my father and
it just so happened their cars had both
broken down they are at a shop on the
Taconic and they both weren’t grieving
my mother had lost the best friend the
cancer my father his first life he died
suddenly of heart failure
so rather than cancel her vacation my
father offered that to give her a lift
and then at the end of her vacation
there he was waiting to pick her up
shortly thereafter they bought a house
in Germantown they decided to renovate
it and they had me the problem was that
my dad had an interesting sense of what
it meant to be an American coming from
Britain a very small country as you know
and having grown up in a workhouse at
that at one point he felt that America
was a flailing it was a place to escape
it was a wide-open space for him to
explore and because of that he drove
tour bus
he drove big rigs he would tell us
stories about driving Pink Floyd across
the country he would tell me about
Manhattan Transfer
and how he would illegally Shepherd
stolen goods across the Mexican and
Canadian borders so eventually my mother
said to him run when I was 2 years old
Phil we need you here you either stay
here or you get lost then we deal with
life without you because your son wants
you here and he’s confused
my dad got up and left now our house was
in the midst of an amazing renovation
there were missing floorboards missing
insulation insulation it was a New York
winter was on coming and the kind of
winters we used to get the kind of snow
that we claim that we love and miss but
shut down the world and my mother spent
her days with me cuddled by a heater
trying to make sure neither of us froze
I think it’s important to understand
that my mother never said my father a
negative thing about my father
she took less a says he would give
anyone the shirt off of his back what
that translated to was never needed a
washer our washer was theirs if they
needed
a heater the heater was theirs we were
still home without a heater without a
washer and that Lass’s that was his idea
of being a good neighbor it just wasn’t
that great of a father so when we talked
about journalists today journalism we
know that people have lost the great
amount of trust in us now with the Trump
presidency there there has been an
increase a face in reporting from
newspapers but it’s still very it’s
nowhere near where it used to be the
trust the public has in journalism as
you can see it’s we’re still nowhere
near where we were in the 1980’s the
1990s and this was a picture of me as a
child v so growing up my mother taught
me the value of arts entertainment books
literature psychology and I was becoming
a smart little kid and then my dad
reappeared in my life he said I want to
bring you back to Missouri I want to
spend some quality time with you
and like a lot of people who consume
news I was hoping there was another
truth out there I was hoping that what I
learned about my father the fact that he
wasn’t there was simply not true that
perhaps it was really a good person and
perhaps if I hoped hard enough and gave
him a chance he would become the person
I wanted him to be so I got up and left
I remember being in the airport with my
mother having a panic attack thinking
I’m getting on an airplane to meet a man
I’ve never met before up until this
point I’d been in I spent time with him
in an arcade where he’d give me change
buy me a cowboy hat maybe have a
breakfast with him in a greasy spoon
truck stop cafe
I never met spent much time with him so
finally I arrived in Missouri and
despite all the things he had told me he
had a wife he had moved on and there was
no chance he was coming home I was there
because he wanted to fix me he was going
to create a version of me it was better
than what my mother had done which is
completely unlikely given that his his
version of America was one where Walmart
was perhaps the greatest pinnacle of
creation where literature and thought
didn’t really matter because America
provided opportunity limitless
opportunity and he said about telling me
how I should get involved in I look
forward to doing the community college
to become a roadie it didn’t sound
particularly good to me particularly
sensible but when your dad tells you you
know you should get into rock and roll
it’s sort of tempting and what he tells
you I know Roger Waters I know Mick
Jagger I can hook you up with Pete
Townsend and your kid you think hey
maybe this is the way we should go but
then my dad said you know what I have I
have a 5 another commitment I need to go
on a trucking run from Chicago to Texas
to Seattle so for two weeks I was in the
bunk of a 16-wheeler traveling across
the United States listening my father
tell me that my mother had raised me
improperly I spent most that time asleep
because I couldn’t really listen to it
and reconcile what I was hearing
what matters news journalist is truth
it’s getting to the bottom of hypocrisy
of lies of helping the public better
understand the people who control their
lives as much as I’d like to tell you
that I’m objective it’s simply not true
and I don’t think any journalists can
tell you that they’re actually objective
I’m a journalist because I wanted to
answer
my father I wanted a value truth and
exploration of issues over accepting
what was presented to me this is from
contrast Thompson not a journalist whose
work I think I respect but who is honest
I think the biggest mistake we’ve seen
some of the larger companies from the
New York Times The Times Union the
biggest the mistake they’ve made in
reaction to the fake news hysteria has
been to say we are real news you can
trust us more than anyone else forget
those other guys they’re horrible but we
we produce real news it’s fairly
dishonest it it sort of throws everyone
else under the bus and since they’re the
people with the credentials to do this
and only trust them
the truth is humanity can’t be erased
opinion can’t be erased objectivity
can’t be erased this is what Norman
Mailer said about journalism if a person
is not talented enough to be a novelist
not smart enough to be a lawyer and his
answer to shaking reform operations
he becomes a journalist and I can tell
you that’s exactly where I was in
college it was a little surprising in
some people that I made it to college
after that adventure across the country
with my father I returned home and
started going to school less and less
started going to shows in New York City
rather than going taking tests I avoided
school as much as possible until it
actually became impossible for me to
avoid because I was sent to a school for
kids who were being very bad
but I made it through college and while
I was there I thought I’d be a doctor
because I wanted to help people I wanted
a way to give back to the community I
wanted to feel like I made a difference
I wanted to I wanted to be important but
there was still that lingering feeling
that I needed the truth that the most
important thing I could do is find out
what was really going on to hold power
accountable to deal with hypocrisy so
there was a mistake when I went to the
college paper wrote a story about how
the internet wasn’t working on campus
that one call I made to the tech company
was a revelation they begged me not to
print that their money and time had been
wasted and that they were behind
schedule and that we wouldn’t be getting
internet service for another few months
it was news that students obviously
weren’t going to be very happy about but
right there off the bat I was holding
power accountable and I banned it all
plans to be a psychologist to be a
doctor they were gone I was addicted
everything from there I think what’s a
bit of luck unlike everyone else in
journalism I landed a job straight out
of college I’ve been employed as a
journalist straight on since I’ve never
been forced to freelance and I think it
is luck as you know you may not know PR
professionals outnumber journalists five
to one these days PR professionals are
told give up on getting a story in print
they’re just enough journalists to
actually write it and I know that it’s
true being a journalist we get more
press releases than we can possibly
handle we have so many stories we’re
already looking and working on in depth
that the idea that we’re going to print
the story about a mall opening or a
store opening it’s ridiculous so with
the amount of money that’s put into
journalism these days the only value I
see is doing in-depth reporting and
boosting those who are doing good work
in the community so
sorry the having been a successful
journalist for a few years
successful suddenly my father again
appeared out of nowhere I wasn’t
expecting to hear from him ever again
it had been about ten years I was dating
the woman of my dreams I had a fiance
things were going very well for me
and I said to myself I should take
advantage of this I should go talk to my
father
I should force myself to confront this
person who has motivated me so deeply
throughout my life with his lies so my
wife and I formulated a plan I would go
to Wisconsin Beaver Dam Wisconsin a town
of I don’t know I’m honored and I would
confront my father and document it I
would ask him about growing up with Mick
Jagger playing soccer with Dudley Moore
some of these things are true he has
pictures of himself playing soccer with
Dudley Moore there there there’s no
disputing him so we arrived in Chicago
after a 16-hour train ride the night
before I had a bit of an anxiety attack
and I wasn’t hospitalized not because of
the anxiety attack but because I had
stomach pains I just couldn’t explain my
blood pressure was up and her said to me
are you worried about something
I said yeah I think so
and I took out the IV in my arm and went
home to pack my wife and I spent those
16 hours on the train mostly in silence
we really weren’t sure what to expect I
haven’t seen this man in 10 years it’s a
British man who some reason had a braced
truck driving when he came to America
and there was so much expectations this
is a man who had promised weakly to come
to the base little league games and that
showed up a man who at one point my
mother had to hide me forced my mother
to hide me because he had ended some
night on a tour bus drive drunk and
drugged out of his mind and threatening
to kidnap an you’ll bring me back to
England so there was obviously issues of
trust going in wood we arrived my father
was there and his cowboy boots just as
he always had been a cowboy hat he still
had his hair but his face was like a
melting bowl of pudding
he didn’t have any teeth he didn’t have
any dentures and he looked like the
saddest sack of humanity I’d ever seen
he wasn’t he was no longer threatening
and I thought to myself there’s no
reason to attack this man there’s no
reason to pick apart his stories there’s
no truth to be found here and it was
right for the next two weeks my father
talked about his morning calls with
McTaggart how he advised Pete Townsend
how to write his first book how the
British government was set to unleash a
conspiracy against hounds and smearing
him with child pedophilia allegations he
told us about how when he was in the
workhouse which we do believe is true he
would go out back and give Winston
Churchill baths or run errands for him
while he was old enough for that to have
happened for some reason I just didn’t
believe him and it kept going on he
explained my wife that he was
disappointed in his daughter back in
England because she had married a
footballer he a professional footballer
it sounds good to me
it’s turns out the problem was he was an
immigrant and he wasn’t white
my wife my father hadn’t noticed was
half african-american and yet he
continued on this route one night we
were walking the streets of Beaver Dam
my wife and I she wasn’t my wife at the
time but fiance we are out walking
because I couldn’t stand being in the
house I couldn’t listen any more lies
and I said there were two things I was
considering I was either gonna get in a
taxi and go to the train station or to
the airport or I was going to smother my
father to death with a pillow and she
told me you know honey I think there’s a
better route I still think there’s
something to salvage from this at that
point I was sure there wasn’t a book
there wasn’t a documentary
there wasn’t anything of value there
wasn’t a way for me to claim justice
there wasn’t a way for me to expose this
person there was nothing left to expose
he was his lies he was an old man with
no teeth living in a hundred person town
in Beaver Dam Wisconsin the man who
would have justified my entire existence
was little more than a delusional truck
driver it made little sense it was hard
to reconcile on the day that we left for
home my father insisted he drive he
picked us up in a green brand-new Jaguar
it didn’t make sense to me that he’d
have such a car and he told me he was
proud of it because he was going to give
it to his my stuff my stepmother his
grandson and I struck a chord because
this may had it only given me a cowboy
hat and 25 cents as a kid so he decided
not to take the Jaguar he took a brand
new f450 our luggage was strapped in the
back and we drove from Beaver Dam
Wisconsin to Chicago eventually one of
the straps snaps and our luggage got
loose
my father insisted that he take care of
it himself while he was doing this I
noticed he really couldn’t use his arm
for some reason hit it escape didn’t
escape me much earlier I was too busy
listening about to Pete Townsend stories
and he struggled eventually the wire
snapped and smashed the back window I
felt really sorry for him I tell he
couldn’t move properly turns out he was
giving a tour of the back of the docks
of Walmart doing a safety check when he
opened one of the doors to a truck the
cargo pallet fell out and crushed him he
nearly died his arm was paralyzed
permanently they told him that his
lymphedema is so bad and his blood
pressure so high that he’d never drive
again because sitting for extended
period of time would lead to a deathly
blood clot and he couldn’t use a
steering wheel it all became clear to me
just how sad this was at that moment and
my father said to me David uh you know I
can’t really afford to send to pay for
this trip I’m sorry I told you if you
came here I pay for it and also I have
to get my grandson a present I sort of
snapped at that point very small and
said well you know dad this is October
next month is November it’s my birthday
coming up too I don’t know if you
remember this he said to me as he was
fixing the windshield I’ll give you I
could use a drink
why don’t you go get a drink he handed
me a hundred dollars and said keep the
change
it’s the least I could do for your
birthday I said no dad that’s okay
I’m not thirsty we got to the train
station
and I hope my dad would just get in the
car and drive away but he did he stood
there with nothing to say the saddest
person I’ve ever seen on the planet
sunken face arm paralyzed a red hue
because he had struggled so much to fix
the windshield and it was at that point
but I couldn’t take it anymore I started
balling my wife consoled me and my
father could see how much he
disappointed me it was absolutely clear
to him he walked away and got in his car
I got on the train
looked out the window and as I didn’t a
kid I still hope to catch a glimpse of
my father but this time I wanted to see
a better version I wanted to see the
version that I thought I would meet but
it was too late we got home my wife and
I were to be married the next year and
while I didn’t come away with the book
and I didn’t come away with a
documentary I thought maybe I could take
pity on my father so I invited him to
our wedding our wedding past my father
didn’t show up I got a I got a letter
from his wife saying he had fallen off
the roof in October and was even worse
off than he was before she wasn’t sure
if he was gonna live my wedding was in
September it wasn’t an excuse it was lie
again so he gave we gave up I haven’t
talked to my father since there was no
reconciliation after a year with my wife
we had a child and it got me to thinking
what is truth what was it that I was
looking for from my father is it
something I can find in journalism I
think it’s something I had already found
by the time I went to get to meet my
father
it was everything my mother had
instilled in me the value of truth the
value of learning the value of holding
power accountable it was already there
and when I went to meet my father that’s
when it all became perfectly clear that
everything I needed was already there I
was looking for something that was
already read in my lap two years later I
had a child we named her Asha Sanskrit
for truth
and my father has never seen him
I think journalism for me is extremely
personal and I think for a number of
other journalists it is – they’ll tell
you they don’t vote keep people away
from influencing a race that they knew
too much about they’ll tell you they are
completely unbiased when they write a
story but we’re all motivated by human
emotions by everything that brought us
to that point and there’s no escaping it
I believe the public knows this almost
better than we do and they’ve lost
respect for us because we insist there
were our bias and we’re more than human
that we can escape all of this and the
truth is we can’t that we should
journalists should be more upfront about
the fact that they are human and what
they’re doing is trying to serve the
public I hope in the coming years we
have a better a better approval rating
but I don’t think it really matters one
way or the other because we have to do
our jobs and we’ll continue to do them
for the foreseeable future thank you
very much
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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