Sweet Jesus, do I ever hate research. I mean I really hate it. I like to do research about as much as the idiots setting United States foreign policy right now, meaning not at all – or occasionally allowing fantastically unqualified, arrogant f*ckwits to do it for me.
It’s just so spirit sapping and boring. More importantly, time spent researching is time that I can’t spend writing hilarious, rumor-based criticism of various countries that rhyme with ‘Pitaly’ and ‘Pomania’.
But I do the research anyway. Why? Because I’m all-man, that’s why. I suck it up, eat two valium and do my duty for the sake of my art. However, this week pre-research has unexpectedly backfired on me, sparking a career-defining moral dilemma.
I’m leaving on Thursday for two weeks on the Micronesian islands of Guam and Saipan. Like the dedicated, vigilant professional that I am, I started researching a few days ago and inadvertently stumbled upon the web site Saipan Sucks, which is an apparently fact-based smear job on Saipan’s people, government and visitors. The vivid and epic pictures painted of greed, ineptitude, corruption, depravity and xenophobia haven’t done any favors for my pre-trip optimism.
I long for the days (last week) when, told of my upcoming trip, people would ask “So what’s Saipan like?” and I could honestly say “I have no f*cking clue”. Now I have to say, “Well, it appears to be a gorgeous, sandy, blue-watered backdrop to greed, ineptitude, corruption, depravity and xenophobia. Good times, eh?”
Fortunately for everyone, I am a clear-headed, open-minded, crack journalist who recognizes that just because someone wrote something on a web site, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true (unless I wrote it). Still, it’s difficult to be totally impartial in the face of so much bad island juju, where I’ll be trapped like a plump and savory dog for six nights if any of it turns out to be true.
So, having learned this difficult lesson, I wonder if it isn’t in fact my duty to not research destinations before going? Just letting my personal experiences (and the local tourism bureau) guide my writing, without any chance of me being swayed by pesky political and social injustice? Wouldn’t I effectively be ruining my article if I researched anything? Should I never research again and just make stuff up and/or thinly paraphrase marketing copy in order to keep my objective journalistic integrity?
You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. But being damned if you don’t take less effort, so the choice seems clear.
[NOTE TO MY EDITORS: I’m totally kidding. I research stuff when the occasion truly calls for it. Like that ever happens…]
i’d say go without researching at all. it might not produce the best article, but it’s what hunter s. thompson would have done.
btw nice photo with the gelato
Research is all well and good, but try to go without too many preconceived notions. When you do, you get wrapped up in the whole self-fulfilling prophecy stuff.
To me, it’s one of those balance things – seek the middle ground somewhere, however you do that. ;-)
I checked the saipan sucks website and have two considerations to make. in some parts,let’s say the political part sounds exactly like Pitaly and i don’t remember your research outraged by it(or uncovering it for that matter) and second ,the quote of thomas paine ,makes me wonder ,why God why were all the fabulous ,smart guys around only at the end of the 1700s?why did men start the process of devolution to coincide with my lifetime?and why didn’t darwin catch on to the fact?
anyway Mark is right,take it with a grain of salt.I know a nitwit who wrote “don’t go to Naples!” and he didn’t have a clue on what he missed…
I was in Saipan last fall. Mostly caters to Japanese tourists. A HUGE sex industry in the middle of Garapan. You wont miss it (or should I say, it wont miss you.) Saipan supposedly has the highest percentage of women to men in the world, because of all the Chinese garment workers who came over.
Research what the destination’s weather will be. You’ll satisfy editorial demands for research without compromising your journalistic integrity. Then surf for dates on Craig’s List.
Lucas – Actually Hunter was a researching maniac. That man tapped info that even the government couldn’t find. Even without the coke, you’d have thought he was living in a world with 35 hour days. I still can’t believe he lived as long as he did.
Mark – That elusive middle-ground is still eluding me. The few times that I’ve gone in cold for whatever reason, I usually get home and find a devastating hole, like the time I was in Lisbon without a guidebook and walked two blocks from the country’s national monument, never knowing it was there – despite it being on every postcard. Anyway, that day still haunts me, so I stalk books and the web like a good writer. Sobbing the entire time from the tedium, but nevertheless…
Elfin – Et tu? So I guess you’re spending a lot of time in Naples these days? Taking leisurely walks, smelling the flowers, enjoying the fresh air… And I assume you saw the post about “The Olindo and the Rosa of Alitalia and Malpensa” over on Beppe’s blog? Man, I get worked up over that stuff and I’m not even in Italy anymore, not to mention paying those taxes…
Gary – Thanks for the insight. I’m not sure whether to be excited or frightened. It’s been a while since I could say “Hi, I’m David Beckham’s brother” and have people actually believe me.
Joseph – Does Craigslist do Guam? I was kinda wondering how I was gonna do all these dinner shows and nightlife tours all by myself. It’s going to be Tuscany all over again.
I’m of an older generation where a fact was supposedly a fact, especially if it came from a government official. But in today’s world of “Truthiness” and encyclopedia “facts” in Wikipedia that are the truth, at least according to the last moke who made a modification, and made up stories pervade venerable newspapers and alleged non-fiction books make the national TV circuit, who’s to say, “That’s a fact, Jack!”?