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Dan Kennedy (1:08)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy and the Moth features true stories told live without notes. All stories from the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York, Los Angeles and from our tour shows across the country.

Jay Allison (1:23)

Visit themoth.org hi, this is Jay Allison up on Cape Cod. Right now, we're producing our second batch of stories for the Moth Radio Hour. Our first season aired on over 200 public radio stations around the country, which makes it a big hit by public radio standards. So we're doing it again. To hear the Moth Radio Hour on the air, contact your local public radio station and find out when they'll be airing. We hope you like it. Thanks.

Dan Kennedy (1:49)

The story you're about to hear by Lewis Lapham was recorded live at the Moth main stage in 1999. The theme of the night was Mentor, Tormentor, Progenitor. An evening of stories on creatures who have shaped us.

Lewis Lapham (2:04)

This is a mentor story and it's a story about being inducted into the mysteries of the newspaper business and journalism. And it is the winter or, sorry, it's the autumn of 1957. I am 22 years old and I have just come back to the United States from Cambridge University in England. I have my first job, which is as a cub reporter for the San Francisco examiner, and I am sent to the Oakland City Hall Press Room. This is Oakland in the 1950s. This is before Mario Savio, before Haight, asbury it is still the old world. The press room looks like something out of front page radios on the walls, barren desks, typewriters, Underwood upright typewriters of the kind that you still see in some of the movies of the 1930s. Everybody is wearing a hat. The My tutor at Cambridge was CS Lewis and I am filled with poetic expectation. I on the driver driving across the Bay Bridge in the mornings. I memorized the cantos of Ezra Pound. I'm a precious youth, very out of tune with the press room, the Oakland City hall. And my three mentors are Crowley of the examiner, my own paper, Doogary of the Chronicle, and Swan of the call bulletin. These three gentlemen are in their 50s and they have reached the point in life when they all recline on couches lined against three of the walls. They never rise from their couch and they are cynical in the old sense of the word. And my first job as the cub in the morning is to produce a bottle of bourbon. I have to arrive at 9 o'clock. Doogaree, Crowley and Swan come in at 11 and on the desk there has to be a bottle of Jim Beam. And I have to extort this from one of the city officials that inhabit the Oakland City Hall. The Oakland City hall in those days it was not only the police department, it was also the courts and it was the mayor's office. And every official of any pretension to office was in the building. And the night before, Crowley or Dougary or Swann would leave a small piece of paper on my know, on the desk with just a single name. And it would. The name would be Milstein or Bethune or simply the lady in Red. And I was to take the name and present it to the official. And this was supposed to strike terror in the heart of the official because if the judge or the cop didn't come across with the bourbon, Duggery or Swann or somebody would, you know, publish a story in the paper that would leave him for dead. And if I wasn't given the bottle of bourbon, I had to buy it myself because no matter what, the bottle had to be on the table. Three times out of five the official would look at me and come across with the bourbon. And it was wonderful. It was all well understood and so forth. And that was my primary task. Once the bourbon was produced, I was then dispatched. The examiner was the richest of the three papers in those days and we actually had a photographer and a radio car. The photographer's name was Seymour Snare and Seymour was the original dirty old man. I Mean, he was about 5 foot 6, shark skin suit, hand painted tie, dark glasses, very oily hair and thought about nothing except women. It was the only thing that ever came into Seymour's mind. And we would drive around Alameda and Contra Costa county listening to the police radio and try to get to the scenes of the crime before the local police arrived. And Seymour had a competition with a photographer at the Chronicle, which was the other big paper in the San Francisco Bay area. His name was Aimsworth. And the question. These are the days of the Police Gazette photograph. This is before Playboy magazine. Seymour had a speed graphic camera, which is one of those big kind of cameras and a hat. And whenever we went on a story that involved a woman, Seymour would try to get her to take her clothes off so he could photograph her and then compete with Aimsworth of the Chronicle as to who could collect the best portfolio. And Seymour was never squeamish about these things. I mean we would walk in. I can remember once walking into a murder scene. The man was not yet dead and we had, we had arrived before the police. We happened to be very close by when the call came in on the radio and the girlfriend was in some degree of his. It wasn't clear how the man had died. He had four gunshot wounds. But nevertheless, whether she had shot him or he had shot himself or somebody who had left rather abruptly had shot him, none of this was clear. But Seymour was trying to get her to pose in a negligee standing over the dying, the dying man. And to my amazement he succeeded in this enterprise. Some days later we're driving around in our radio car. I've provided the bourbon. Everybody is calm back at the city hall and the word comes in from the office in San Francisco that a very prominent citizen of Oakland has been run over by a truck on Route 1 somewhere north of Marin County. And this is A man of 65 years old, a pillar of the community. Large mansion in Piedmont up in the Berkeley hills. And it's going to be an eight column headline in the afternoon edition. But we have no photograph of him. So the call comes in from San Francisco. Seymour and I are dispatched to get the photograph also by the way to inform the widow that she is a widow. And the. We drive up to this mansion in Piedmont, long, long, wonderful gravel drive, huge house, fountains, marble. And we get to the front door and I say, Seymour, you know how to do these things. I mean I just got back here from Cambridge. I mean this is not my kind of thing. I'm a sensitive person and I don't want to have to do this. And he's back of the hand. I mean, you know, I'm a fool and a kid from the east and I've got to learn the business somehow and go in there and tell a lady that her husband's dead and get the photograph and don't give me a hard time. So I walk around the house three or four times. I really did not want to do this. I ring the doorbell, the maid comes to the door. I explain that I'm from the examiner. And then I have very bad news. And the. She ushers me into the living room. A very large living room, at least as large as this bar. Furnished with mirrors and expensive furniture. The deceased is 64 or 5 years old. The woman that comes into the room is maybe 30. And as one of the most beautiful women I think I've ever seen in my entire life. And she. I explained to her the situation. I said, you know, your husband has been run over by a truck. And what we're asking for is a photograph because he's a very important person and we like to put his picture on page one of the first newspaper tomorrow morning in San Francisco. I understand what you mean, she says and leaves. And she says, I'll get you a picture. 20 minutes pass, she returns and she has changed into a nightgown much like one that you would see in an old Carol Lombard movie. I mean, it's got feathers and it's white satin. She got a bottle of champagne and two glasses. And she says to me, this is the happiest day of my life. And she said, we are going to fuck for three hours. And the. I understood that I was a recently returned from London Cambridge. And I understood that it was good manners to comfort the widow, which I did. And the three hours later I went out to the car. Seymour was asleep with his hat on the head of the wheel. And we drove away. And he said that I was somewhat slow coming back with a picture. I said I was. That was true. And the he's. Then he asked me what happened and I didn't have the heart to tell him. I couldn't. I couldn't say this to Seymour. And I tried not to and. But eventually he wrung the story out of me and never spoke to me again because I explained that whoever had walked through the door, that was. That was the way it was going to be. And see, it could have been you, Seymour. I said, he never forgave me for this. Meanwhile, back at the City Room, I'm sorry. Back at the Oakland press room, the refinement in those days was every Friday afternoon there was a showing of stag movies that were collected by the vice squad raids. And these are the old movies. This is before pornographic movies have become common on hbo. I mean, these are. People are wearing blue socks and, you know, brown shoes. It's an old kind of film, but nevertheless, it was a big hit in the. In the press room. And they put it up on the. On the wall. We didn't have a screen, but we had a white wall. And this. Oh, God. All right, the. Okay, that was. That was. But this is how one corrupted the. The officials and developed information in the. You know, from the judges and the cops and so on. And the vice squad that provided this on every once a month, the vice captain also provided a woman who he was having an affair with, who was an infomaniac, who was married to another very prominent citizen of Oakland. And she would present herself on Doogoury's couch every Friday afternoon to. I mean, once a month to again, the favored officials. I was not eligible for this. I was too young. Also, I wasn't sufficiently sophisticated because although very beautiful, the woman only had one leg, which was. I hadn't. I wasn't up to that at the 22. Finally, this is every. You know, this is once a month on Fridays. And then one terrible day, the word comes in from the courts that the vice squad captain has been named as correspondent in a divorce proceeding brought by the husband of the one legged woman who is now accusing the vice captain of destroying their marriage. And he is. He is the nominee. There were many others that could have played the part, but it was the vice captain whose name was in the court document. And the document came into the press room. And this is when I was inducted into the last and greatest mysteries of the American newspaper business. Because for the first and only time, I saw Doogaray, Crowley and Swann actually get off their couch and shuffle toward their typewriters to write the editorial that would appear in the next day's paper examiner and the Chronicle and the Coal Bulletin. And their words were as heavy as stones. The moral fabric of Oakland has been torn to shreds. Women are not safe in the streets. How can such things be on? The magnificence of their hypocrisy was a lesson that I have never forgotten. I mean, a few days later I was reassigned to San Francisco, but I had an insight into the American news media that has stayed with me lo these many years. Thank you.