Duke University - Chanticleer Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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People don ' t want to accept that about themselves, that they ' re part of the general rot, and they react to that angrily, which is a very pure reaction, and it ' s good that it happened in a sense. For even the most politicized people here at Duke, they share a common dream, and that dream has to do with finding an interesting profession, a stable job that will allow them to rise on the ladder, a marriage that ' s stable and sustains them for a long time, a sheltered kind of environment where they ' re protected against not only misfortune, but surprise. There ' s that certainty of waking up and knowing that that day ' s not going to be different from the day before — it ' s all part of that myth. And here comes this nut on stage with his Wild Turkey swinging from his hips telling them not only is that image crap, filled with rot and corruption, but it ain ' t gonna happen. No matter how much you invest and how many chips you put on the table and how many graduate schools you attend and how many teachers you suck up to and how many unintelligible theses you write, it ain ' t gonna happen. Because somewhere at the center of this society something is broken, and it ' s not gonna be repaired by dreaming a myth or believing in a myth. When someone presents that kind of truth it ' s so incomprehensible it ' s really tough to deal with. — From November, 1974, interview with Bernard Lefkowitz, journalist and visiting Duke professor. Reporter, ri por ter, n. One who reports; a member of a newspaper staff whose duty it is to give an account of the proceedings of public meetings and entertainments, collects information respecting interesting or important events, and the like. — Webster, not a Duke professor or a journalist. gonzoid specimen number 1

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Page Auditorium. October 22, about nine-thirty. This will be hard. Leaving with the chaos vibes I kick a paper airplane that somehow got long-armed to the back rows and wonder how this will be done. Cannot find Dean Griffith but talk briefly to badly shaken Denise Creech in Flowers Lounge. Leave the poor girl alone. Deliberately shirk my responsibility to COVER (the whole) STORY and go with Jane to the CI where people jokingly console me about having to resurrect some front page fire from the ashes of this whiskeyed journalist ' s speech. I make notes. My head has been spinning all evening long from this darvon Pickens gave me for the eye infection and it makes the two beers go twice as far, so am roughly in Hunter ' s shape when I get around to mounting two flights of stairs, open a closed door that says Editor on it. I am not up to this. Where have you been anyway? David asks. The bad stare is justified, of course. I have been fucking around in the Cambridge Inn instead of transforming myself into the relentless amphetemined lemming that all good reporters are. He is used to this kind of flaming imcompetence on the Chronicle, only not so carefully planned and executed. Steve is staring blankly at the floor, thinking, hopefully, and some Union heavies are assembled for their official backstage report to the press. Tried to find Dean Griffith, I explain, talked to Denise there a little — uh, hi Denise — but mainly went to the CI. Didn ' t want to go into it, really, that dinner at the pits, my eye, the coffee to kill the darvon, the speech bummer and now these beers were making me ill. My eye throbbed and I wanted to go to bed. Steve finally lifts his head. Look, it ' s manageable, it ' s manageable. Dan does the speech story, David, you do the Union side of it. We ' ll run two stories. It is 10:30. Leave with my notebook for the managing editor ' s cubby hole to start typing, pause briefly to notice perhaps for the hundredth time that magic-markered gem scribbled over the drinking fountain: ' The only dope worth shooting is Nixon. At least four years old, it is — even if half-serious — a vestige of the political pretensions the Chronicle once had or pretended to have. Maybe they have never been more than nice, introverted suburban kids exchanging polo shirts and Bass Weejuns for workshirts and