gonzo journalists have more fun

I'd hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
                                                                                           — Hunter S. Thompson

I never told you why I became a journalist, did I?

I started out in zoology. I don't know why. I never really had a clear idea of what zoologists do. I'd heard they were involved with animals, and I wanted to be involved with animals. I loved animals as a kid. You can thank Walt Disney for that. Bambi was probably where it began. I can still remember, to this day, where I was and what I was doing when I heard that Bambi's mother had been shot.

So I said, "I'll be a zoologist, and work with animals." I signed up for the zoology program at North Dakota State University in the fall of 2004. I looked around. There were six incoming freshmen in the zoology program at North Dakota State University in the fall of 2004. The department was in the basement of the biological science building. The head doctor had a black-and-white photograph taped to his office door, depicting a bunch of people with their heads stuck down holes in the middle of a grassy plain. The caption read "PRAIRIE DOG WATCHING."

Those were my first clues. I should've realized that I didn't have the slightest idea what I was in for.

Two semesters into the program, I was floundering. I'd scraped through math, wiggled under statistics, survived biology lab and was blowing holes in my English classes. But chemistry was kicking my arse—a C the first semester, and what was shaping up to be a D+ the next.

I was having my doubts about zoology. The magic had been steadily going out of it. I was coming to realize how limited my options were: I could either teach, or become a veterinarian. One would require several extra years of school, and the other would require a cast-iron constitution. And, probably, my firstborn child. Neither of these avenues was appealing.

The final straw came during my preliminary scan of the course catalog in the spring of 2008. I saw that I would be moving up from basic chemistry into organic chemistry in the ensuing fall. I had heard nothing but evil stories about O-chem from everyone I had spoken to. Unwilling to rely on hearsay alone, however, I peeked at a textbook in the university library. The figures made me nauseous and the diagrams made me dizzy. I knew then and there that advanced science wasn't in the cards. I was right-brained. I didn't stand a bacterium's chance in a paramecium dish of coming out alive.

So I said, "F@#& it, I'll be a journalist."

I switched my major to mass communication, figuring I could go anywhere with it: magazines, radio, television, whatever. As luck would have  it, two semesters later (at the beginning of my junior year) North Dakota State opened five new majors in the communication curriculum. One of these was Journalism, Broadcasting and Mass Communication Technology, and I jumped at it. Eighteen months later (and a grand total of 3.5 years in college) I graduated with a Bachelor of Science.

My reasoning was simple. If I wasn't willing to study animals, I could at least write about them—and any other subject that took my fancy. Geology, botany, meteorology, astronomy, politics, geography, travel...

Hey! I could be a travel journalist!

So I did it. I got my degree. And I traveled. And I wrote. And I'm still doing both to this day. I've published three articles so far—one in a free e-zine and two to paying publications. That's right, I've actually made money on what I write. This is such a racket! 

I have many more junkets (and subsequent scribbling) planned. I'm making plans to be off to Korea again sometime next month. After that I think I'll take the long way home: the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia. Miss H and I will kick about in Europe for a few weeks and then return. And that's not the end: I still intend to work in Japan and live in Australia, not to mention fly (for money) in Africa. All of that is prime writing fodder. And it will be written up, don't you believe it.

For that reason, I call myself a gonzo journalist. Gonzo journalists do what they write about. I may not be in the same league as Hunter S. Thompson, but I'm giving it a go. I may not have the same attachment to drugs and alcohol and mayhem that he did, but I've found myself a niche and I'm exploiting it. I wrote an article about living in South Korea. And I lived in South Korea in order to write it. Gonzo. See?

I didn't want to live in some stuffy classroom and stare at slack-jawed students all day. Nor did I want to exist in the fluorescent world of labs and exam rooms and anal-retentive pet parents, either. So I thought I'd pick a career that (a) I could do, and (b) was fun. And I think I've done that, even if the field is as competitive as they come. And for kicks, I can write novels and short stories and crap like that on the side, and get all of my narcissistic jollies out in one fell swoop.

There are worse career plans, right?

Miss H and I took a trip to Las Vegas in July. I wasn't thinking about writing an article about it, because scads of articles have been written about experiencing Vegas from every conceivable angle, and that stuff's old hat. But if I had gone there intending to write about it—even just a journal entry—I'd have struck solid gold. Miss H and I were unexpectedly upgraded from the basic Pyramid Room in the Luxor Hotel to the TOWER LUXURY SUITE. Four rooms. Wet bar. Living room. Spacious bathroom. Bathtub with jets. Floor-to-ceiling windows. One-thousand and eighty square feet. For a whole glorious weekend.

And I learned how to play craps and roulette, and got some inside tips on the science of blackjack.

I really do have too much fun. Someone ought to intervene.