Cub Reporter Looking Forward To Life Of Poverty And Despair
Monday, March 9, 2009 at 07:00PM 
(New York, NY) Julian Simon has one dream and one dream only, to be a big time reporter at a big time newspaper. There's one problem. Because so many big time newspapers are losing readership and advertising dollars, right now might be the worst time ever to work at a big time newspaper. Simon, however, is undeterred.
“I’m not stupid. I know I'll be working for a pittance, that I'll be poor and desperate,” said Simon. "But for the sake of the story, I am looking forward to a life of poverty and despair.”
In fact, Simon has already started his poor and desperate life. For the past four months, he has been interning for free at the New York Time, living in a studio apartment underneath a methadone clinic and eating only peanut butter sandwiches made from recalled peanut butter and stale bread.
Also Simon just started drinking and resenting his friend Rick, who has a paying job. “It’s okay, because while Rick enjoys his life, I, my big hat and PRESS card, will be holding the government accountable,” said Simon. “I will be serving the people and most likely becoming addicted to heroin. It's the natural progression.”
Simon thinks (hopes) that the heroin will lead him into an abusive marriage with an immigrant woman, to trouble with the mob and to the Pulitzer Prize for a story about the mob using immigrant women to hook reporters on heroin.
"But I know my future self," said Simon. "I'm going to sell that Pulitzer for more heroin and die alone in a refrigerator box underneath my buddy Rick's brownstone....It’s going to be such a great story. I just wish I could be there to tell it.”
Reader Comments (2)
The first half was an accurate depiction of my first reporting job. I think I was making 250 Canadian dollars a week, not enough to live on but I was so determined to break into a real daily paper, I took the job. Luckily I couldn't afford heroin. :-)
Yes, I made less than 250 Canadian dollars a week in my first radio job. I used to steal the free food certificates that winners didn't pick up so I could eat. Luckily, I could still afford pot.