We often proclaim — or did once — that something is saving journalism. This time, it’s a someone. His name is Josh Fernandez. He’s half Mexican, and he’s also a bad-ass interviewer, reporter and poet whose work has appeared in Spin, Sacramento News & Review and the Hartford Advocate.
We know, there are lots of weird things about that paragraph. The first is that a half-Mexican could do something good (we made that joke on Josh’s — and Lou Dobbs’ — behalf because we think he secretly likes racist jokes). The second weird thing is that any one person could save journalism. We offer Fernandez’s Morrissey obit as evidence that one person has that kind of power:
Ah shit. I have a feeling that Morrisey is going to die.
At his October 24 show in Swindon Morrisey, 50, dropped like a bucket of brooding and sensitive bricks while performing “This Charming Man.”
He was taken to the Great Western Hospital (which sounds pretty legit) and is at home in “stable condition.” Which means he’s going to die.
And that’s not even the obit part! Now, the naysayers out there will likely think that a fake Morrissey obit isn’t journalism. These same people probably call Fox News a “legitimate news source.” So you know, it’s in the eye of the beholder and shit.
In an interview with Bob Saget that will come out later this week in the Sacramento News & Review, Fernandez somehow makes Bob Saget sound funny, interesting and his I’m-playing-it-for-laughs homophobia inoffensive. Oriana Fallaci couldn’t have pulled off that feat. Check it:
Fernandez: How’s it going?
Saget: I’ve been doing yoga. You ever done that?
Fernandez: I’ve wanted to, but I can’t seem to get myself on the floor.
Saget: One of the things I luxuriate myself on—that’s not even a word—is one-on-one yoga. And it’s kind of cool because—well, no matter how you look at it—it’s fruity.
Fernandez: Yeah, it is.
And Fernandez isn’t afraid to get in there and mix it up. Here he interviews Pastor Thomas Robb, national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas and called one of the most dangerous white supremacists alive. So he’s kind of like any character from American History X, but real.
Fernandez: [A]s a half-Mexican, can I join the white nationalist movement?
Robb: No. You could not. Now, when you say Mexican … Mexican is a nationality. There are Mexicans who are white. There are Mexicans who are not white. There are Americans that are white. There are Americans that are not white. There’s people being born in Scotland that call themselves Scottish who are from Africa, but they’re not Scottish, they’re African and—
Fernandez: That’s confusing. So my Mexican-ness trumps my whiteness?
Robb: (Laughs.) Well, again, you say you’re half-Mexican; I can’t tell, I—I don’t know if you’re Zapatismo or if you’re—
Fernandez: I kind of look Italian.
Robb: Yeah. Well, that I don’t know. I’m not sitting here passing racial judgments on anyone—
Fernandez: Really?!
This is a guy who isn’t afraid of public introspection.
On any given day five years ago, I would probably have still been up at 5 in the morning, except that I wouldn’t have been running. I would have been buzzing around the city of Sacramento, high on methamphetamine or wandering the streets trying to find a bottle of whiskey. I had pretty much cut my family off at that point, talking to my parents every so often but rarely visiting. I called them when I needed something. It was a different life, maybe even the opposite life. It was unhealthy, and I was sicker than I realized.
He isn’t afraid to write a story about photographing his own nuts after a band blows off his requests for an interview.
In hindsight, it wasn’t a flawless plan. After all, Mr. Tea was a white, Christian male in his 80s, so a camera full of teenage dicks, balls and assholes had probably been on his wish list since he turned 35. But the point is, we took action against Mr. Tea. He was The Man, and we socked it to him as best as we could. Punk, huh?
And he’s not afraid to try to hurt Lars Ulrich.
The point is: he’s fearless when many journos are, say, fearful. Fernandez won’t blanch at your attempts to undermine him. He won’t dodge an interview with a group of knife-wielding psychos in deference to his personal safety (supposition). He will make fun of a local band while also owning up to a factual error about said band. Why isn’t everyone else this good?
i don’t know how good he is, but at least he’s hot. half the battle.
re: Using the term “half-Mexican” in a derogatory sense actually isn’t racist per se. I know that the “in-crowd” may find that offensive since, well, that’s what they do, but “half-Mexican” would at best be, well, just anti-Mexican; sort of like anti-American or anti-Singaporean. If you wanted to add a racist tinge, you’d have to call him something like a “dirty latino wet back” or maybe “smelly spic”. Now, that would definitely get the crowd going. As it were, I consider myself to be roughly one third chilango at this point, having endured Mexico City for way too long and having a deep appreciation for & connection to the Latino experience. One last thought, when you hear someone call Latinos ‘hispanics’, there’s a subtle racist foundation to the hispanic term because it refers to ‘of Spanish descent’. Latin America of course is about as diverse as the US in terms of migration patterns over the last 500 years. It would be like calling someone from the US a ‘Britain-American’. Now, I bet THAT would get the Big O off center and away from dithering in the rose garden…..
Congratulations, Jamie. You’ve taken a lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, if heartfelt, tribute to a good journalist and turned it into a cheap political platform.
Bleh.
[...] happenings, along with stuff about Scientology, racism and my favorite topic: drugz!) said all this really nice stuff, which means I have to keep stressing out about what I’m going to fill this space [...]