Writing Boots

If you want to hear an entertaining conversation about the evolving philosophy and practice of public relations—these do not come along every day—then listen to this interview from last week. New media mavens Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson interview ink-stained PR publisher Jack O'Dwyer on their podcast, For Immediate Release.

By turns, O'Dwyer plays the role he's played throughout his 40 years covering the PR industry: communication dinosaur, sage critic, industry gadfly and borderline maniac.

During the interview, O'Dwyer rips corporate PR people for being terrified of reporters, he characterizes PR agency people as lazy dullards who don't know how to hustle, he blames the PR industry in part for the global recession, he accuses PRSA of not having the "cajones" to employ PR people in its headquarters.

Meanwhile, Holtz and Hobson try to hide their astonishment at his views and their intensity, and at times there are long pauses the podcasters struggle to understand what (in God's name) O'Dwyer is talking about and Hobson especially seems to wonder whether he's actually serious. (He is.)

And O'Dwyer, in turn, misunderstands the intentions of his interviewers' comments and questions, at one point taking pains to answer Holtz's rhetorical remark, "What is the ROI of a round of golf?"

What's to be said of an industry where two consecutive generations of practitioners are so far apart philosophically they struggle to understand even what it is the other is saying?

We all know Woody Guthrie's song, "This Land is Your Land."

No, we only think we do.

In reviewing some materials for a Studs Terkel memorial, I was reminded of the second-to-last stanza, from the original.

And then the last stanza, which I never knew about:

Maybe it's time to bring those last stanzas back, whaddyathink?

"The door is open to anybody who wants to attempt this," says Linda Bache, general manager for the Chicago Force, one of 49 teams in the Independent Women's Football League. "You have to be 18 and female, that's really the only stipulation."

So of course, I showed up at the tryout in my workout gear.

I'm joining the women's tackle football team as quarterback for training camp, for a story for ESPN the Magazine, and what I hope will be some Plimpton-esque pieces on the Huffington Post. And between now and the public scrimmage in which I'm actually going to play in April, I'm sure there'll be some foolishness to share here at Writing Boots, too.

I've attended the tryout and a rookie camp and so far my feelings range from shy to sheepish. (My discomfort is painfully evident as I flee from Walter Payton's smokin' hot daughter to get out of a camera shot.) These, not coincidentally, are the same feelings that prevented me from fulfilling my my fond football dreams and joining the junior high boys team when I was 12.

As they say, courage doesn't mean not having fear, it means overcoming your fear, 27 years later.

A month ago when my dad caught wind of this scheme, he yelled at me: "Christ, you'll be killed!" I dismissed him as a worrywart. But in my notes from the tryout it reads—I don't remember writing it—"WHAT AM I DOING?"

Well, at the moment I'm watching game film ….