Good-bye and Mea Culpa, or as they say in jail when they’re 15,

My Fault (though a lot of them do say, often,  ”Don’t say sorry, it makes you sound weak).   But I’m not 15, not in jail,  not caring terribly about image of weak or strong, and didn’t mind when the Dixie Chicks talked.

However, I should and will just shut up and write (Dixie Chicks Shut Up and Sing reference…)  It’s 4:34 pm in NY, my computer says 10:34 (Albanian time) —  I will change that and shut up and write the damn/darn/fug-n story:  The end and the beginning of Albanian Transnational Crime.

Was, is a litte hard to concentrate, get motivated, but today I just Googled something (yeah, I just Googled something, I Googled my fu–) and found this reporter editor Mike Dang had me on a site, I think Bundle.com and/or LongReads and/or a Tumblr site called Dang and he said about a story I wrote (Chinese Take Out Story), “This was a terrific read” and there were 44 Notes/retweets/likes.

Yo, I’m so easy, that’s all it takes.  Means so much.  I worked hard on that story and it was appreicated — so here goes, back into isolation, let me write this Albanian story, bust my ass and go into my own world and act like this is the most important thing in the world, type until my finegers get clawed out and my calves get swollen (too much information) and my back hurts (every writer’s back hurts) — but hey, as Kershis told me in 5th grade about fighting or about smashing your closed fist into n a tree when you’re prone, on your stomach, zipping down a hill on an old school sled with the navigation handle up front controlled by your hands and you have to go between those two trees (of course we had to go between those two closely positioned trees and of course I hit my almost frozen fist on that tree one time) — he said the pain goes away, it alway goes away.  He was right.

So, good-bye, the next time you hear from me will be when I publish (knock on wood) this article on Capital New York. Hopefully it will be alright and I’ll do a good job.  So bye, back into lonely writer, drinking coffee and zero sugar Monster energy drinks world.

I don’t mind.  It’s a privilege really.  Shoot, I’ve worked in boring factories and done jobs that were atrociously boring — sand papered newly hung and taped sheet rock for hours and hours — practiced writing pieces of prose on the sheet rock to take a mind break, prose that I sand papered over and away, so I shouldn’t be complaining — it is a privilege to be able to write and to be listened to, have to remember where I came from, where so many others are — so here goes, bye for a while, wish me luck.

Best,

Kevin Heldman (reporter with literary aspirations/believer in hard work/heart on sleeve wearer/damaged but not broken by roughish life guy)

kevinjayheldman@yahoo.com

20 Year Anniversary — A Reporter’s Life. Motel Gypsy on the Road (motel beds and different local tv shows in different cities and brought in nearby convenience store food feels like so at home) Hermit-ing on the Story at your Garreted out Desk (writing it over and over again in isolation, trying to mold gibberish into verbal gold) — Ah, Bartleby, this little bit of a monk-like reporter’s life is so for me

Coffee mugs, filled up and rag-tagged reporting pads, criminal case files, maps, accordion files filled with contact info, notebooks filled with trial notes, red pens used for slashing through all those read aloud gibberish drafts attempting to turn stream of consciousness dumps into balanced sentence gold; the English to Albanian dictionary, the printed out guilty pleas and allocutions; in the field in and out of internet cafes, airport CPUs, random offices in other countries with thumb drives, lugging around  e-mails from anon sources with their names ripped off to protect identities;  folders with lists of alleged criminals; letters from prisoners and passwords and scores of resource info scotch taped to the wall above your desk.

Revising and shaping raw drafts of notebook dumps on a Saturday — I love this reporter’s life. I love it. Playing the computer keyboard, typing like it’s a damn Stevie Wonder piano.

Writing and publishing to make it realer, not real —  have to learn that and keep that idea protected and sure and hold that tight — the idea that it’s real already, the experience,  it doesn’t have to be a published article to make it real.

I got this Fred Friendly (RIP).  I got this James Agee (RIP).  I got this Pro Publica.  I got this AAN, Association of Alternative Newspapers (RIP).  I got this Dean Isaacs and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. I got this Long Reads and Long Form and David Isay and all you submitting to Granta, the Beliver,  Ploughshares, this that and the other Review and small journal.  I got this old Village Voice.  I got this Hitchens (RIP, damn goddamn that’s a waste, all that intellect just taken away) and Orwell and Rian Milan and Izzy Stone.   I got this all you all who spent so much time in the field and accumulated  all those boxes of tapes and were going through hell transcribing with that foot pedal.  I got this Random Family and all you struggling with those 60 page, rewritten 20 times, rejected 11 times, book proposals.

So and And:  Long live independent, long form, in-depth  journalism.  It’s not always about money, advertising,  getting paid.  Those guys and gals of IRE — not to be precious or high falutin because they’d hate that — are artists.  Even the guy much ridiculed for typing in pajamas and mom’s basement — I’m with him — it’s art and the First Amendment is not just a joke, lip service, welcome to the real world, yeah right free press dream on, get out of here you can’t come in here, you can’t see that — I believe  in it.  We stand at Cardinal games during the National Anthem and it’s not corny.   So I’m standing, taking my hats off and respecting and believing in our the First Amendment.

Home From Albania, Finally Home — A Long Long Journey from a side street (Siri Kodra) in Tirana to a fourth floor walk-up in Manhattan, New York

I don’t know how the hell I really did it, just wanting to do it badly enough and showing up again and again, but I did do it — alone, but with the enormous, very very generous help of so many — a random Turkish man I met on an Air Train out of JFK Airport late at night, a random Albanian worker (who is now a friend, true friend for life, Drita) who looked out of windshields through tough, crazy Albanian city and highway traffic and near collisions; to hugging Ana (a mother and father sick, alone in a small office helping people who are angry about lost and found bags); to that working kid who said “that’s nice” in NY about peace and cupcakes and saying thanks to a fellow worker; to that present I got from the grandmother and the sick, but going to do well Mom in Selvia, Thimi’s folks (thank you for cooking for me and allowing me to talk too sentimental  about things that are serious and private, health, life and death)…

To do all this with no real big budget, no real organizational backing, no team, no big structure —  yeah, let’s be transparent, no family, no grandfather giving you blue chip stock, no mom worrying over your eyes,  your job, your worries, no Uncle to hook you up with a job after school — no complaints, I’m free — but still — from lugging your gear down to the street to jumping into vehicles on another continent — pure muscle and will and luck — thank you guys who helped.

Somebody told me don’t go overseas like a lamb, wandering around.  But why not, if you do it with confidence and courageously and decently, why not.  If you look them, if you look people in the eye and tell them what you want, if you make it that personal, I’m fine with that and most people are — they are, you just have to go and do it.  Haters, what did I call them before hip hop gave me that tired  tv language — they’ve always been around, I remember them since elementary school, but also people who looked out, were nice and I was nice back, they were always around,; there’s a lot of us out there.

Glad I get to do this, call myself a journalist.  If you believe it and you’re straight and you keep yourself humble and able, I think it’s all possible, no matter who you are, how difficult or unlikely — I’m just gonna keep on trying like all you try, hang and be nice to regular people, because I’m regular people, no matter what I’m doing, what sucesss failure means (Lek, plata, dinero, genama, cash — it’s possible to do it without all that, harder, but possible) — what good is a free press if journalism is a hobby like fly-fishing, just to do on the side and only a few privleged get to do it good and in -depth.

I can’t sing, dance, play ball or earn money hanging cabinets or show up every day to do something I don’t like or care about and nobody’s recruiting journalists who have a poet’s eye or heart like crazy, nobody’s recruiting anybody for money any more it seems.  But I only get 75, 90 years — why not try and be special and useful, see who comes to my funeral or who reads my articles.  Thank you guys, good looking. Really thanks.  Good night; I’m glad to be home in one piece, finally.

Driving the roads, walking the streets in Albania November 2011

Yes, I am here and yes I will write, write the hell out of this place, this article. I’m 46, been to Nicaragua, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, England, Afghanistan, Korea, Brazil, Vietnam, maybe some others that I’m forgetting — I’ve seriously been to these places — reported there, went there on mission like energy, experienced these places deeply and intimately, not just touristy type thing — always being an American has been a serious liability. They’ve hated me, that I was American. Okay, I always thought — hate me, do your thing. I’m as an American as Donald Trump, Sumiko Obata, Jonas Salk and Christopher Hitchens — meaning what the hell does that mean that I’m American. I’m Kevin Heldman, as dissimilar and similar to those folks as can be. But yet they hated me. Here, and I knock the wood of the internet cafe cubicle as I say this — this is the first place where being an American has been something positive, people have liked me for being an American.

You don’t know how many times I’ve touched my heart and they’ve touched their heart back, how many thumbs up and how many times my back, my shoulder has been held and led gently. Damn guys, damn girls — thank you. I don’t deserve it, expect it, wasn’t anticipating it but it is so nice. Good looking, Albania.

Ketjol Manoku, Albanian locked up in prison. Krasnici brothers currently on trial. Mother of the Albanian defendant devestated after a guilty verdict in the New York courtroom… That Albanian shopkeeper, kind, older and really decent who I wrote about in my first article — I see where, if I can generalize, you all come from. Albania deserves a damn good strong, single, fist clasping shoulder type hug. You all got this. Your country– libertarian, free, a little wild– it’s good here. But come on, just let me in your prisons alright. I’m a crime reporter and I go to these places, but even so and still, didn’t they say you can judge a society by how they treat their locked down.

So on I go reporting and getting to know Albania and this story for Capital New York. Funded by The Fund for Investigative Journalism. I won’t let any one down — it’s been quite quite hard and I’ve roughed it, been in situations where it’s been rough, but that is my choice and my job, supposed to get in deep and sometimes that means getting dirty. I don’t have to swagger and be tough because I’m not a gangster and have nothing to prove, nobody to impress and I don’t have to run especially and directly toward fires or crimes or trouble like a cop or firefighter with that obligation but still I am a journalist and I am that kind of journalist — I’m supposed to go deep, investigate, be as particiaptory as possible, so I will. Me and my Albanian English dictionary and my rent a car and beat up body, doing pushups in the room at night to stay fit. And the kindness of this and the other Shqiptar helping, worrying over me in this difficult to manage infrastructure. Thank you, you know who you are.

Chinese Takeout Story — actually and really behind the bulletproof glass and out on deliveries — who the people are, what their lives are like

This is a snapshot of what life is like for one — and representative of many — Chinese takeout restaurants in New York City.  This is in an area where crime is high — Mott Haven, Bronx — and people in the restaurant, and people outside of the restaurant, may not have the opportunities to get out, move, make choices.

Takeout Story

Heldman, uh me, on foreign TV; many are surprised; a few say it’s nothing

A TV station in Europe, yeah I’m going to to have to say Albania, says my name, says my name, says my- during the course of her broadcast and seems to make quite a big deal about a series of articles I wrote on a sort of organized crime. Kind of interesting to have happen to you – let’s hope she’s not slamming me and everything I stand for. She’s probably just doing her job,  Please watch it and act accordingly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Vg22Ym9eU

Response to hurricane article; on that special type of doubt that nags the aid worker and the journalist

There was a response to an article I wrote recently – - I spent three days working in NYC hurricane evacuation centers and shelters as an emergency responder and as a journalist during Hurricane Irene. Article is here

A blog, Aftershock Action Alliance, linked to the piece,”NYC’s Response to Irene Not Picture Perfect” quoted it and praised it, saying “Without these on the ground observations there is little chance the city will be better prepared next time when we might really need it.”

I thanked them, and I commented that with some of these things, when you’re involved in work like that (and I have been a lot), you’re never entirely sure whether you’re playing save-the-day hero and writing the equivalent of diary entries or you gave real useful emergency aid and did real useful journalism.

Enough validation comes your way and you can stop showing off to yourself and you can concentrate on properly serving the cause, the material. The latter part of that thought is a paraphrase of, I swear to you, George Clooney talking to Charlie Rose about acting. Now if I was a real hustler and go getter I would put Clooney and Rose in my tags to get this post read more widely, but, G-d help me, I barely understand what the hell a tag is and, honestly, I don’t know if all of three of my Facebook friends are reading what I write here or if it’s reaching the favelas of Brazil, the living rooms of Short Hills, New Jersey, the advisory board of The Dart Center. Them I’ll tag.