The Foibles of Traveling with Gum Stuck to the Bottom of Your Shoes [CSUF B.A. Journalism Feature Article]

CSUF B.A. Journalism – COMM334: Feature Article Writing – Spring 1988

This article was written for an assignment for COMM334 Feature Article Writing, part of my CSUF journalism degree program. The story is based on a trip I took to a journalism conference held in Tucson AZ. Besides turning it in for the class, I later submitted a version of the story to the LA Times Magazine. Not too surprisingly, they rejected the submission. Enjoy?

Topic Statements It is my unqualified opinion that when one is selecting a travel companion for a voyage extending beyond the length of a single afternoon, one should restrict the candidate list to ones lover or an individual one hopes to be enemies with for life. Failing at that, travel in large groups. It’ll make it more difficult for the police to trace the bullet back to you.

target audiences local Society of Professional Journalists publication.

SPJ Regional Conference With Gum Stuck to My Shoes

by
Joe Bustillos

April 17, 1:35 a.m.

The empty Lobby of the Tucson Doubletree Hotel. The night manager tells the young desk clerk that she has to like herself and not expect a man to pull her life together for her.

“I don’t need a man to be complete, ” She says.

“But Jesus Christ says . . . ,” he begins while I adjust the volume on my Sony Walkman and scratch out notes on my yellow writing tablet.

I planted myself on the couch in this pale-pink art-deco foyer because I needed to escape my suite-mate’s constant chatter. He said that I didn’t need to go to the lobby to write because he was planning to be asleep in a few moments. But after the experience of the past three days I didn’t want to risk the possibility that the man might talk in his sleep.

Todd Jarrett, copy editor for the Daily Titan and all around nice guy, is Just the kind of guy to watch a ball game with. But living with him the last three days was like stepping on a piece of chewing gum in a hot asphalt parking lot. No matter how hard I scrapped and scuffed I knew he’d still be stuck to the bottom of my shoe for the rest of my life.

In view of this observation it is my unqualified opinion that when one is selecting a travel companion for a voyage extending beyond the length of a single afternoon, one should restrict the candidate list to ones lover or an individual one hopes to be enemies with for life. Failing at that, travel in large groups. It’ll make it more difficult for the police to trace the bullet back to you.
Several years ago a friend of mine, Louise, went to Europe on a post-college vacation. Because of scheduling and financial difficulties none of the original travel party could go except a male friend of a friend. I knew the guy and he seemed like a nice enough fellow to me. But she told me that that vacation was the worse time of her life. Within three days they were constantly bickering. She was reduced to tears several times a day.

She ended up calling her ex-boyfriend here in the States just to ask him, “I’m really an okay person, right?” When I heard this story I thought, well, Louise is a pretty sensitive person (her being a psychology major and all). She just wasn’t ready for the rigors of travel.

I mean, traveling with someone is just an accelerated case of being thrown together by the circumstances of life. It’s a kind of cosmic orange juice squeezer. What may take years to experience back at home tends to happen in the first 24 hours when on the road.

For example, on the road to the SPJ regional conference with Jarrett there were several signs that should have warned me about how quickly the cosmic orange juice squeezer was going to be working.

Like, while we were taxiing down the runway at LAX, the pilot came on the P.A. system and said:

“Well, today must be your day. We were second in line to take off when the on-board computer flagged us. We have an unbalanced load in the baggage compartment and we’re going to have to go back to the gate to have it adjusted. We’ll be leaving just as soon as the problem is fixed.”

An hour later we finally punched through the clouds hanging over L.A.

Then when we arrived in Tucson it was raining. And the SPJ conference title was “A Place in the Sun.” Later it only seemed fitting that the sun never showed the whole four days.

But the unexpected realities of traveling are just the kinds of things that bring people together. They are the kinds of things that provide for an opportunity to get to know ones true self and traveling companion better.

Jarrett and I had two uninterrupted days to work on this self revelation. Due to some screw up (working with insufficient information) we had flown in on Thursday morning and the first SPJ seminar wasn’t until Friday night.

Jarrett asked, “So, what do you want to do now?”

Having lived alone the past 18 months I wasn’t quite prepared for the task of being anyones social director. It was raining outside. I was stuck in a strange town without a car. I was rooming with a complete stranger who was into science fiction and comic books, a guy who responded to my sarcastic barbs by saying, “Oh, wise guy . . . ” (a la Curly of the Three Stooges).

In view of these options the choice seemed obvious. I decided to take a nap.

But naps can only last so long, so I tried to read my book. Then I tried to watch some TV. Eventually I brought out the laptop computer that I’d brought along to do some programming. But each of these ventures failed because, like background radio

static, Jarrett showered me with endless banter about his comics conventions, the Lone Wolf and Cub society. Star Trek and a detailed appraisal of the girls at the Titan news room.

I know that he was just trying to be a pal but I had more privacy when I was married. At least my ex-wife knew better than to try to carry on a conversation with me when I was trying to read a book.

The thing about Jarrett was that he always talked in headlines, with arms outstretch at the end of every phrase. The omnipresent gesture was his way of saying, “How can you find fault with that?” Talking in headlines, I guess, is permitted. I mean, he is a copy editor. But did the headlines have to run every 30 seconds?

By Friday evening the endless banter and lack of sleep began to take its toll. When I got up to go to the bathroom he’d ask me where I was going. And if that wasn’t enough he’d ask why? I was getting real tired of this.

Consequently what I remember from the SPJ seminars themselves that followed seemed like a surrealistic dream: SPJ national president, Jim Plante’s eyes getting heavy during Saturday morning’s ethics panel; an egocentric blond commandeering the radio writing workshop with questions about TV markets; Arizona Daily Star editorial cartoonist, David Fitzsimmons’ animated Robin Williams routine; KGGM executive producer. Jack Hubbard doing Andy Rooney (“and you know what really hate ?”); and me nearly falling asleep during Plante’s state of the society address at the awards dinner.

By Saturday night the surrealistic dream became something of a nightmare.

Jarrett and I had retired to the Javelina Cantina, a nightclub that was on the Doubletree Hotel grounds. After careful consideration I told Jarrett that I saw someone who looked sufficiently bored and ready to dance.

I weaved my way through the crowd and asked the cute brunette if she wanted to dance. She made a little face and said, “No.” Okay, exit, stage left.

I turned to make my hasty retreat and ran straight into Jarrett who had evidently followed me across the bar. Being turned down for a dance is disappointing enough, doing it with an unsolicited entourage gave it just the Keystone Cop feel that it had been missing. It was like getting caught going the wrong way on a one way street.

I decided about then that before there was any blood shed that it would be best for me to get away from the orange juice squeezer and just hold my breath until this trip was over.

So I sat alone in the lobby of the Doubletree listening to Phil Collins on my Walkman, thinking about the surprised look on Jarrett’s face when I ran into him (did he follow me across the bar ’cause he wanted to see the man in action? “This is definitely not how to ask a woman to dance,” the note would have said).

Jarrett said that he was definitely going to the national conference in November. If 1 go I’ll try to make sure that I travel in a large group