Wall Street Journal Reporter Rolfe Winkler
Wall Street Journal reporter Rolfe Winkler has a special bond with the famous Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, you might almost say he has adopted it. That's because he likes to sell it to unsuspecting tourists on weekends -- to supplement his journalist's meager income.
Being a technology reporter in San Francisco is like being a showgirl in Las Vegas -- they are a dime a dozen, a drug on the market, and as such are paid mostly in Starbucks gift coupons and bus tokens. With an occasional jar of naval jelly thrown in for good measure.
But Winkler was not always a weekend cozener. Before he began his technology beat for the Wall Street Journal he developed a thriving business selling vinyl carpeting to Carthusian monasteries throughout Italy and Croatia. But when Prime Minister Primo Carnera set up a steep vinyl tariff in 2009, Winkler's empire went flatter than a roadkill snake. Penniless and prematurely hirsute, he gravitated to the newspaper trade because, he said, it was better than sailing gunboats up the Yangtze River -- the only other profession open to him during the Recession years. Recently Winkler claims that he was misquoted, and that what he really said was that it was better than sailing gumboots up the Yalu River. Either way, deep water is what he is wont to tread.
His alma mater is unknown, although word on the street is that he went to night school for a degree in woodworking.
He likes to relax with a wax effigy of Spalding Gray, which he takes to parties and introduces as Rupert Murdoch. So far, no one has been able to tell the difference.
He will reach perihelion on July 16th, 2021.
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