I once worked in a television newsroom where the assistant news director was a huge Italian guy named Benny; a stereotype that should only exist in mob films and bad sitcoms. He was the kind of guy who celebrated even the most meaningless success by shouting “Bada-bing Bada-boom!” followed by a string of sexual metaphors describing the various ways we'd humiliated the competition.
So I was surprised to see him walk into my office uncharacteristically subdued one day. He shook his massive head and said, “Doesn't anyone around here have a sense of humor?”
“Whoever gave you that necktie does,” I said. I've never been good at comforting people.
“I was just kidding with Jake – told him I'd can him if he told another Italian joke. Before I could say, badda bing badda boom, he was on the phone and had the shop steward headed down to file a grievance. It was just a joke for God's sake!”
“Ya know,” I said, “It would have been funny if you threatened to fire me because you can't fire me. But it's not funny when you make a threat you can carry out.”
He looked puzzled.
“It's like that old saying,” I said. “Boys throw stones at frogs in sport, but the frogs die not in sport, but in earnest.”*
Benny pondered that for a moment. “So you're saying Jake's the frog and I'm one of the boys?”
“No, Ernest was the frog, you're a rock.”
“So who's Jake?” he asked.
“Jake's the guy who's filing the grievance.”
I'd love to think that conversation had a long-term effect, but everyone and everything in the world of television news has a short life span. Today's screaming headlines don't even whimper tomorrow; people who were intellectuals last week are caricatures this week, and frogs die in earnest at the top and bottom of each hour.
But the lesson wasn't totally lost. Ever since that day Benny has called himself “Rocky.”
* Attributed to Bion of Borysthenes – 325 B.C.-250 B.C. It appears that the relationship between frogs and boys has changed little over the past 2200 years.
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