[Min Tull -- which means 'My Nonsense' in Norwegian -- is a burlesque of Karl Ove Knausgaard's runaway bestseller 'My Struggle' -- which has now stretched into six volumes, and threatens to grow even larger. In it he details his protagonist's Nordic life from childhood on up in a way that would have caused Proust's mustachios to bristle even more. It is so ludicrously detailed and self-serving that it demands to be lampooned. Besides, I have nothing else to do today except make a tuna salad for tomorrow's Sunday brunch . . . ]
I arrived in Williston, North Dakota, on a blustery spring morning in 1980. My friend from Brown Institute of Broadcasting, Dewey Moede, had lined up the News Director job at KGCX Radio for me. I took an immediate shine to the place. The men wore overalls with cowboy hats, the women, the older ones, all woofed out a loud "Uff-da!" whenever they sat down after a long spell in the kitchen making spitzen. The young women were blonde and freckled and had sharp blue eyes that promised nothing but hinted at much; but none of them, when I arrived, were my particular brand of Christian. I was leery of dating out of my Church, because, at the time, I was an insufferable snob. And I was obsessed with making a good marriage -- had been ever since I returned from my 2 year mission in Thailand.
To me North Dakota is the Land of New Beginnings. It's where I began my new, and brief, career as a newsman. The air, before fracking acid fouled it, smelled of sage and Canadian ozone and optimism. I met my wife Amy there, at Church the week after she graduated from BYU and took a teaching position up in Tioga. I learned to be pugnacious about my Norwegian heritage, instead of making deprecating jokes about it -- I always had Mrs. Olson's Lefse in the fridge and gobbled lutefisk with butter sauce at every Lutheran basement supper I went to (I could always count on a news story from the pastor about how far behind they were on the church mortgage.) Just like there is comfort food, there is also comfort space -- and for me that comfort space is North Dakota. I lived there with Amy and our growing family for fifteen years, off and on. I was usually off with the circus and Amy was usually on the lookout for a few extra dollars to keep the kids clothed and stuffed with potatoes and macaroni -- lefse was too expensive once our children started to arrive -- although Amy made it herself every Christmas.
During my tenure at KGCX I went to a news conference where the Governor, Arthur A. Link, announced plans to run for a second term. I ran into a reporter from the New York Times there -- back in those days they flew reporters hither and yon at the drop of an inverted pyramid just for a few paragraphs 'from the heartland.' I don't remember that particular reporter's name -- all I remember is that he told me he was a general assignment reporter -- a 'legman' he called himself -- who had been dragooned into coming out to the back of beyond to get a quote from Governor Link -- and he was nearly in tears over the fact that there were no bagels or Dr. Brown's Celery Tonic to be had. I tried to interest him in some rolled up lefse with butter and cinnamon sugar inside, but he was having none of it. He was smoking a long dark green cigar that could have come out of the hind end of a calf.
Which is why, in a roundabout way, I was interested to read a story about North Dakota in today's New York Times -- which I have gotten an online subscription to for $9.50 per month for one year, after which it goes up to $19.50 per month. I have been trying for months to get one of the reporters I know there, like John Schwartz or Dennis Overbye, to gift me with a free online subscription like Bob Davis did at the Wall Street Journal when I told him I couldn't afford the subscription rates anymore. But these NYT journalists are pretty tough customers -- they don't fall for my sob story about being on a fixed income and having to economize just to buy Metamucil.
The piece is by Maggie Astor, a political reporter. She's reporting on the disenfranchisement of North Dakota native Americans by a new voting law that requires a photo ID, like a driver's license, and doesn't accept a P.O. box as a legitimate address. Many North Dakotans don't have a street address on their ID, only a Post Office box -- and that's especially true of Native Americans living on North Dakota reservations. So, in effect, they are shut out from voting for the next Senator from North Dakota -- which, according to Astor, could determine if the Senate gets a Democratic majority or not.
So I had to pen a limerick, which I call a Timerick, about it:
A guy in the county of Steele
was told that his ID ain't real;
unable to vote,
he gave this fine quote:
"Is citizenship prone to repeal?"
Astor's article is concise and informative. I don't believe she actually went to North Dakota for the story. From the way it's written she probably telephoned a few people in the state, and the final paragraph quotes an email from the ND Secretary of State that "he wrote in a response that his office provided to The New York Times on Thursday." I'm assuming it was an email -- it may have been by carrier pigeon.
Long distance journalism, done by email, texting, and phone calls, is pretty standard for most newspaper stories today -- even for the New York Times, the last of the journalistic Big Time Spenders. I've been interviewed twice by the NYT in the last several years, and it was by phone. Nobody flew out to get the facts from me, face to face. I've also done several radio and podcast interviews in the last 3 years -- all on the phone. This encourages rambling hyperbole, on my part. Talking to a stranger on a cellphone brings out the fantasist in me.
In the past I have emailed my poems directly to the reporters themselves, but lately I have sent them the link to my blog where the poem about their story is posted. That's what I'm doing with Astor; she won't get the actual poem based on her story -- if she wants to read it she'll have to click on the link and come here for it. Chances are good that she won't bother -- the most common response I get from reporters, and others I email a link to, is that with hacking so prevalent they don't want to take a chance on clicking on a link that might introduce a virus into their smartphone or laptop. This is a sorry state of affairs, know what I mean Vern?
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The raven is a noble bird, but still I do not trust it.
It's thieving ways are quite well known, and royalty has cussed it.
Tradition may insist the bird is sacred to the scholar;
from what I've seen it's better called a sneaky feathered brawler.
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"Personally, I think that Torkildson fellah has a screw loose."
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