5X5 Interview: Warren St. John, 'NYT' Styles Reporter
When Warren St. John isn't busy immersing himself in foreign cultures like Alabama, he's a contributor to Styles section over at the Old Gray Lady. A man of polar opposites, indeed. His book, naughtily titled Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, is on the shelves in time for the start of the college football season. Warren lets his inner-redneck do the talking and also reveals a reluctant confession: weblogs are no different than print media. Really? Shit.
1. You just wrote a book about following Alabama football for a season. No offense, but you look like the type of guy the 'Bama RV crowd would spit-roast over an open flame. What's your cred? Ever driven or slept in an RV?
Big time. The plan originally was that I'd report the book by getting invited aboard the RV's of various rabid Tide fans. Before the season, I posted a notice on a fan bulletin board asking for rides and received exactly one positive response —from a South Carolina couple named Chris and Paula Bice, who figure prominently in RJYH. I managed to eke out one other invite, from a local show-chicken breeder, who offered to let me ride along with him provided I found my own place to sleep once we got to the stadium. But after that, I was on my own; I quickly bought a very used 1978 Allegro motor home for $5500, which was christened "the Hawg" by a gas station attendant when he learned that the thing got four miles to the gallon. $5500 by the way is roughly the cost of a new set of lug nuts for the $1.3 million RVs you see in stadium lots. The Hawg broke down, leaked and on the way to Oxford, MS for the Ole Miss game, started shedding its siding at highway speed. I pulled into a Wal-Mart near Tupelo, bought a roll of duct tape and spent an hour taping my RV back together. How's that for cred?
2. Is it true that your inspiration to leave the Bama bumpkin life for the big city came from your cousin Kate Jackson, one of the original Charlie s Angels?
When I watched Charlie's Angels as a kid I was never quite clear about what was Sabrina's life and what was Cousin Kate's. But both seemed more interesting than life on Williamsburg Circle, where there were no fraught conferences in front of speaker phones, no Charlie and certainly no Farah Fawcett. My decision to make the big city home was actually inspired not by 70s TV, but by a specific miserable day in San Francisco in 1991. I'd gone there after graduating from Columbia to see what California was all about. Newspapers weren't hiring, so I decided I'd wait tables, but it turned out restaurants weren't hiring either. After a particularly harsh rejection from the manager of a place in North Beach, I wandered down the hill towards Fisherman's Wharf, feeling sorry for myself, when I noticed a crowd of tourists lined up across the street, as though waiting for a bus. Several of them were peering at me through cameras, which struck me as odd. Then I noticed a large bush growing into the sidewalk up ahead of me. When I walked past the bush, it leapt into the air, screaming and making a face like an attacking Maori warrior. I collapsed to my knees in shock, and the bush ran across the street with a coffee can to collect tips for his "show," which had the tourists snapping pictures and laughing uncontrollably. Scaring pedestrians to death was apparently this guy's day job.
I figured life in New York couldn't possibly be any tougher or more humiliating, so I moved back a few weeks later and I've never left. I'm still edgy around shrubbery.
3. The funniest sports story of the year has to be the firing of Alabama's football coach for his "public behavior" which included such alleged sex acts as banging two women in a hotel room while they yelled "Roll Tide!" and he responded "It's rolling, baby, it's rolling." Bear Bryant is probably still rolling in his grave over that one. What was your take on the whole episode?
The episode simply confirms what I say in the book, that for Bama fans, the phrase "Roll Tide" is appropriate for almost any occasion.
4. You manage to get into the New York Times even when you're not writing an article. Congratulations. So now that you're married, do you still get to go tailgating?
No!!!!!! [My wife wrote that. Little does she know, my book tour, which she's on board for, will be one very extended tailgate party. I expect to have her converted by the time we cross the Mason-Dixon line heading north.]
5. In addition to the book and articles you contribute to the NYT s Style Desk, you write the occasional technology story. How much do you depend on Slashdot.org and blogs in general for ideas?
Not so much. If I read about something in a blog, it's the same to me as reading it in print — I feel like it's been done, so I'll probably move on. I'm sorry to say that I've been scooped by a blog. I'd finished a reporting a piece the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program's "big game," Pac Manhattan, and as I waited for the gears to turn at the paper, Gothamist wrote about it. [Ed Note: Cough, Gawker May 3, Gothamist May 3.] Based on that alone, I felt compelled to broaden my piece, which ultimately became about the global phenomenon of "big games," like Uncle Roy, etc. That for me was an emblematic blog moment, because getting scooped by a blog felt every bit as frustrating as getting scooped in print.
Warren St. John s Top Five culinary offerings from RVers and football fans encountered while writing Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, along with directions on how best to enjoy:
5. Tater tots and ketchup. Directions: microwave Tater Tots. Add ketchup. Serve on a paper plate.
4. Larry "the Hot Food Man's'" homemade five-alarm spicy pickled tomatoes. Directions: pluck tomato directly from the jar with fingers. Eat. Place lips around the nozzle of dry-chemical fire extinguisher. Activate. (Warning: drinking beer after eating one of Larry's spicy tomatoes may cause permanent damage to throat and sinus tissues.)
3. Pink Panty Pulldowns. Directions: mix pink lemonade add equal parts pure grain alcohol. Serve over ice in a plastic Solo Cup. If going to football game, pour in collapsible plastic bladder and hide under clothes. Try to avoid frisking by campus policemen. Special note to those with political ambitions: Avoid video cameras for next 6 to 8 hours.
2. Grilled baloney log. Directions: purchase Duraflame-log-sized baloney item (sometimes referred to euphemistically as a "baloney stick") at local superstore. Butterfly with a pocket knife. Throw on grill and cook until log hisses and squirms like a rattlesnake. Slice. Serve au jus.
1. Bama Bombs. Directions: purchase gallon jar of maraschino cherries. Pour half the jar's contents of red liquid down the drain, being careful to retain cherries. Fill jar with pure grain alcohol. Allow to soak for one off-season. Serve individually before kickoff. As Bama Bombs are proven good-luck charms, sit back and watch the Tide roll.
