Posted May 6, 2011, 4:06 pm
War stories and weirdos of the newsroom are the stuff of legend.
Thus has it ever been. Newspapers and those who fill them with words have been the wellspring of material in stage, screen, radio and the boob tube for-EV-er.
The latest contribution to this literature is "Stu! Your Hair's On Fire!" It's a rollicking account of the life and death of the Tucson Citizen.
Until its presses screeched to a halt in May of 2009 the Citizen was Arizona's oldest continuous daily publication, born in the frontier dust of 1870.
According to the authors, veteran newsmen Paul L. Allen and Peter M. Pegnam, the cause of death was "corporate indifference."
Their combined 60 years on the Citizen gave Allen and Pegnam an up-close and personal view on the operation of the newspaper — and more importantly, the characters who put it out.
"Stu! Your Hair's On Fire!" is a salute to a parade of eccentrics worthy of all the movies and plays you've enjoyed over the years. Yes, those crazy people you've heard about—the type you saw in "Front Page" and "Lou Grant"—really did exist.
When a couple of newspaper veterans with impish personalities of the caliber of Allen and Pegnam, clear away the cobwebs of their memory-attic and compare notes, it has to be a riot.
Concerned about keeping quality reporting alive in Tucson?
A metro area of nearly 1 million deserves a vital & sustainable source of news that's independent and locally run.
Support TucsonSentinel.com with a contribution today!
And that pretty well describes "Stu! Your Hair's On Fire."
The book is available at Lulu.com.
This is the fourth book by the team of Pegnam and Allen. They combined on award-winning journalistic series turned in to the following books:
"Treasure Troves & Tales," "Our Forgotten Past" and "Arizona Territory: Baptism in Blood."
In addition to their writing, both men are accomplished in other fields. Pegnam is a well known painter, and Allen has made by hand, saddles, collectible knives, black powder rifles and meerschaum pipes.
Just what it is that has attracted oddballs into journalism, especially in the old days, I'm not sure. But the business has had its share of them and then some.
One was the copy editor who, in the days when tobacco smoke was as common as the clickety-clack of typewriters in the newsroom, dozed off one morning with his head resting on one hand. Between two fingers of that hand he held a cigarette.
First came the smell of hair, then, from across the room, the scream of one of the women staffers:
"Stu! Your hair's on fire!"
A lot of reporters in the old days dragged their rear-ends to work half drunk. Then there were the old grouches. Every newsroom had its No. 1 curmudgeon, and the Citizen had one who was world-class.
Sponsorships available
Support TucsonSentinel.com & let thousands of daily readers know
your business cares about creating a HEALTHIER, MORE INFORMED Tucson
Some, usually due to drink, managed to go slightly afoul of the law. Others were famous for their expense accounts, real and imagined.
The re-write bank-or desk- was a magnet for crank and crazy telephone calls, such as one from a lady who claimed she could make objects move by twitching the muscles in her face. Another called with the hot news that his television came on by itself in the middle of the night, the suggestion being it was caused by space aliens.
Such was the life at the Tucson Citizen and most newspapers.
"A newsroom is a crossroads for an assortment of humanity," writes Paul Allen. "(They are) bright folks, contentious types, skewed and out-of-kilter individuals, drinkers and tee-totalers, blasphemers and bible-beaters, workaholics and lay-abouts, cranks, curmudgeons, an occasional fresh-faced optimist and a goodly number of the just out-and-out weird."
On the other hand, contends Pete Pegnam, "As the old newsrooms sobered up, as the oddballs drifted away, as political correctness took hold, a strange thing happened. People in great numbers quit reading."
Pegnam wonders whether there was a connection.
Nobody can answer that question. But for sure it was a strange and wonderful cavalcade of characters — not just writers and editors but the inarticulate pooh-bahs of upper management — who carried the banner of the old Tucson Citizen.
And "Stu! Your Hair's On Fire!" captures them in an absolutely hilarious book.
Corky Simpson is a former Tucson Citizen columnist who writes a weekly column for the Green Valley News, where this piece was originally published.
Comments
There are no comments on this report. Sorry, comments are closed.