By now you’ve read the press release about my Monday column, the one that was to be a workaday review of Kelly Pavlik’s comeback match with Darryl Cunningham, written for a transcendent website that gets more daily hits than every boxing site combined. After that would come a masterwork that announced my comeback as a serious voice.
I cancelled all that, Wednesday. After Pavlik cancelled his fight and offered a telling interview to Alec Kohut on Tuesday, I had a contentious phone call with the editor of the site for which I’d intended to write my next two columns. A transcript follows.
Me (cutting in): Listen, hey, wait, I’m tired of spending hours each week fretting over what strangers will opine of my subject. I need to start thinking about me, and riffing on art museums and favorite novelists. And I’m getting that tattoo of 15rounds.com on my lower back changed to a dolphin, just so you know – with the 5 becoming a dorsal fin.
Editor: Do what you want with your body. But remember our deal.
Me: I remember it and planned to honor it. A throwaway review of a mediocre fight, something to reintroduce me to readers as a writer who can fashion a passable report without experimenting, followed by a sprawling epic about Marvin Gaye’s use of boxing to overcome drug addiction, written to the chord changes of “Inner City Blues” and featuring interviews with much of Detroit.
Editor: That was the plan.
Me: Right, and then I realized you’re using me. You’re going to use my Marvin Gaye opus to drum up a hundred more clicks then tell me to scram.
Editor: Depends on how the second column goes over. You have to prove –
Me: I’m a famous writer. If I end a sentence with a preposition or use a hyphen in lieu of a semicolon, everybody talks about it. I coauthored a book with Thomas Hauser, for goodness’ sake! People know Bart Barry.
Column: And that’s why we offered to pay you what we thought was reasonable.
Me: “Reasonable”? I know you offered David Greisman $10,000 per column. Now maybe on the East Cost or the West Coast or the Midwest, Greisman’s name means more than mine, but in South Texas, in San Antonio, the Centertown portion – Houston Street? – my name is bigger than his. He gets $10,000 per column, and I get $50. C’mon!
Editor: What are you talking about? That $10,000 number is preposterous.
Me: I know what I know. At least offer me, like, $59, or fly me to Los Angeles, where boxing occasionally happens. I’d do my column for $50 in L.A. But you’re asking me to write about a deceased Motown talent, in South Texas, for $50. It’s outrageous, pardon my French.
Editor: Your what?
Me: It’s despicable – and I don’t mean to cuss. About my invoice . . .
Editor: We have a standard way of reimbursing our writers, one you are familiar with and –
Me: I don’t do this for the money, OK? I’m not one of these knucklehead boxing writers who acquires contemporary art or manages an expensive designer-eyeglass collection. Believe me, I’m fine. And if I’m fine, and I don’t write for money, obviously I’m not going to write unless I get paid what I think I’m worth! I don’t mean to swear, but it’s illogical.
Editor: You seem worked up. Are you back on the caffeine?
Me: Really, this again? Find me one writer who so much as tweets without a mug of coffee in his fist. I’ve been honest about those few times I had too much at Starbucks and it made me incoherent. Do you have any idea how hard it is to generate words out of thin air and have others question your talent and craft?
Editor: That’s what you are paid to do. Do you how many boxing fans would love to get paid for their opinions?
Me: You know what, I’m like any other guy. When some Wal-Mart greeter goes to a job where he makes less in a day than I make in an hour, does he do it for me? No. I write for the money – money I do not need. Frankly, I don’t even care if anyone reads my Marvin Gaye masterpiece.
Editor: For which we would pay you $50.
Me: How is a writer going to make $35 for a column comparing Marco Antonio Barrera to Jane Austen, a column maybe 20 people finished, and fewer than 10 enjoyed, and then take short money for a story on Marvin Gaye?
Editor: This was supposed to be a redemptive effort for you. After your issues with editors.
Me: Every writer fights with editors. One time, one time, Frauenheim and I get in a conversation and miss the early shuttle to Cowboys Stadium, and Abrams calls, and I tell him what happened, and he says it’s not a big deal, and I say it is. The only reason people talk about that is because Bart Barry is a famous name.
Editor: This is an impasse.
Me: Look, there are knowledgeable people out there. One guy, we call him “Spandex” – he knew a guy whose grandfather met Henry Miller in Paris – and he told me I need to not just write about art museums but really bore into them, controversial stuff about minimalism.
Editor: And when readers say it’s nonsensical?
Me: Maybe if they’d get off their asses and pay a subscription fee or send an eloquent email, instead of worrying about what Bart Barry is writing, maybe then . . .
(End Transcript)
As you can see from what’s above, my side of the story, I walked away from that other gig for good reasons. We can all agree this was the best thing for my boxing-writing career. Don’t miss my next column.
Bart Barry can still be reached at [email protected], where he’s still happily writing, having never once fought with his editor.
