I was a graduate student in the early 90’s. I attended a university that was built on top of a picturesque hill that was, surreally enough, filled with salt. There were salt mines in the region. On my walks up the surreal, salt-filled hill to the university each morning, I listened to cassette tapes of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. (Both Leonard and Tom were new to me at the time.) I was absurdly young. I was stupid and self-involved back then. I was afraid back then. (*I’m still afraid, but of different things now. Being afraid is a normal part of life.) Yet I knew that I’d never get anywhere in my life unless I flung myself headlong into the future. So I climbed the hill, to the place of enlightenment, walking by the rows of sorority houses, listening to Leonard and Tom.

I also had a meaningless part-time job at the local newspaper.

The newspaper had hired me for a humdrum task that should have been an insult to me: I had to put together the city’s weekly live-music listings. I accomplished this by calling every bar/tavern/club in the city. Does Shep’s Bar & Grill on Erie Boulevard have live music this weekend? Using one of the office phones, I called Shep’s to find out. A woman answered. “We’ve got the Cigar Box Banjo Band on Friday,” she said in a hoarse voice. What about Saturday? Cigar Box Banjo again? “Yes, Cigar Box on Saturday, too. Start time is 8 p.m. both nights. No cover charge.” The woman hung up without saying goodbye. I wrote down the words Cigar Box Banjo Fri./Sat. 8 PM n/c. Then I dialed the next place. It usually took around two, three hours to call all the venues in the city.

I was paid $100 for doing this. I did not feel insulted by the “humdrum-ness” of the task. Also: one hundred dollars was a substantial amount of money for a graduate student back in the 90’s. More importantly, this humdrum role gave me a chance to make an impression on Sven, the newspaper’s entertainment editor.

Sven was a youthful Scandinavian man who wore a pair of wire-framed eyeglasses. His plump face was punctuated with a white-blond goatee. Sven and I got along well. One day Sven decided to throw me a bone: he gave me a real story to write.

The actor Gregory Peck was touring the US at the time. G. Peck would take the stage for an hour in regional theatres. He’d sit in a parlour chair at the centre of the bare stage under a spotlight. He’d entertain audiences with tales from his storied Hollywood career. He alluded to old friends like Audrey Hepburn as “Audrey,” and the directory William Wyler as “Willie.” He’d take a handful of generic questions from the audience. Then he’d call it a night.

G. Peck’s tour was coming to our town. The company promoting G. Peck’s tour offered an interview with Peck. To my astonishment, Sven assigned me to do the interview.

I had no journalism training whatsoever. (I was in the Creative Writing department at the university.) I’d never interviewed anyone before in my life. I have no formal training when it comes to conducting proper interviews. I don’t know what “news” is, or how to report it. But writing is writing—that’s what I’ve always told myself. I can write, for sure. I know what a story is, for sure. And I told myself that I could do this interview with Gregory Peck, for sure.

Also published on Medium.