Me and Mister Brown.

Old and recent faces of Jerry Brown, and one of a bad journalist

I have always loved Jerry Brown.  I was a kid when he ran for governor in 1972, and he seemed like a kid back then too. He first grabbed the national spotlight when he refused to live in the opulent Governor’s Mansion, but instead took a spare apartment adjacent to the capitol in Sacramento.  Everybody laughed at “Governor Moonbeam” as he created an Office of Appropriate Technology and started talking about green jobs and “thinking small.”

He made a quixotic run for President In 1976, and I was all for it.  I was a cub reporter at a radio station in Los Angeles by then, and I had just enough seniority to get the assignment to cover Brown’s primary victory party in June.  As predicted by pollsters, he won the California primary and gave his candidacy a huge push. There I was at the post-election celebration, looking Jerry Brown in the eye and holding a live microphone.

I knew what I wanted to ask: “If you become president, are you going to live in the White House?”

His icy expression made clear what he thought of that question.  He looked at me as if to say,“Trap door! Activate under this woman immediately!” and wordlessly turned to face another reporter and a more serious topic.

I still think it was a funny damn question.  Maybe this is why I never became a famous journalist.

I followed Brown’s bid for the White House and marveled at his ability to shoehorn his issues and his face into the news cycle, even as he became increasingly irrelevant in the 1976 presidential race.  I did a lengthy radio editorial about Jerry Brown’s uncanny ability to manipulate the media, which I used later as part of an audition package to try to find a real news job at a radio station somewhere, anywhere on the west coast.

The job I finally landed was as the very first News Director for KAST in Astoria, Oregon.  One of the DJs at the station told me that, prior to my arrival, the boss had assembled the whole staff and played my Jerry Brown editorial for them.  I couldn’t believe it!  These dudes (all dudes) had sat in a room and listened to my disembodied voice talking about Jerry Brown.

The DJ telling me this then kinda paused, raised an eyebrow and remarked, “You don’t like Jerry Brown much, do you?”

Wow!  Talk about a double whammy!  It never occurred to me that my piece could have been perceived as critical.  I blurted out, “No, I love him! I think he’s great!”

The guy sitting in the radio control room was very surprised to hear that.

Since that conversation, I have wondered if the station manager originally hired me because he thought I was politically conservative and would hammer the liberals on his airwaves. (It certainly would explain a few things.) If that’s the case, he was bitterly disappointed. But I did not dupe him on purpose, I swear. I guess a lot of things we experience are in the mind of the beholder.

I admire Brown still, maybe now more than ever. He was ready and willing to step in and try to clean up the big, steaming mess Gov. Sperminator left behind.  He just can not stop himself from committing public service, one way or another, to the best of his ability. In his salad days he almost became a priest, but I believe public service became his true religion. It was evident from the day he eschewed the Governor’s Mansion and slept on a mattress on the floor.

Jerry Brown for President? It seems even less likely than it did back then. He has his hands full right now, that’s for sure. But, my fellow Americans, we could do a lot worse; in fact, that’s about all we have done in most of the time since he ran in 1976 … and 1980…  He’s an innovative thinker, at a time when we desperately need some good ol’ American ingenuity. You just never know what the hell Jerry Brown is going to do.

Jerry, are you listening? I still think it wasn’t such a bad question.