With wit and engaging stories, Esquire writer offers challenge: Jump into writing life

By Ty Hampton
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Tim Kupsick

Chris Jones, writer for Esquire, stands against the wall waiting for professor Carol Van Valkenburg to introduce him to the audience.

Hunting for the elusive NFL running back Ricky Williams in Australia’s Outback, coming to near fisticuffs with actor Colin Ferrell and bleeding on George Clooney's couch during an interview were three of Chris Jones' gut-busting true stories of life on the road as the writer-at-large for Esquire magazine.

Jones gave his speech titled, "I left my gallbladder in L.A. (and other true stories of life on the road),” as the 2006 Marjorie Nichols Memorial Lecturer for the journalism school on Nov. 14.

For over an hour, the 32-year-old Canadian entertained the audience with his witty take on his life and adventures leading up to becoming a writer for Esquire. Jones said he was a sports reporter in Toronto for the National Post until one day he decided he didn't want to spend his career "in a locker room waiting for a naked athlete to explain how he hit a change-up."

While Jones was covering a Blue Jays-Mets baseball game in New York City, he stopped into the Esquire office.

"I brought them two big boxes of Krispy Kremes, showed the sports editor my clips, talked to the guy for about 45 minutes and then was asked to kindly leave," Jones said.

Soon after, Jones left the Post, and was completely broke living with his wife in their car in Flagstaff, Ariz. It was then that Jones got his miracle e-mail from Esquire, entering him in a contest for a job. His task was to write a feature about Oakland A's pitcher Barry Zito. The story got Jones the job.

"The most interesting thing Barry said was about his approach to pitching," Jones said. "He said that he let his work come through him, and I've applied that to how I approach my writing."

Jones told the story of his reporting for the cover story on George Clooney for the current issue of Esquire. On the day he was supposed to meet with the actor, he got very ill after eating a “roadside burrito.” At the hospital, a doctor would tell Jones his gallbladder had to be removed. Disoriented and in lots of pain, Jones said, "I have to talk to George Clooney!"

The doctor replied, "He doesn't work here. Dr. Ross from ER is not here."

Jones insisted again that he had to talk to Clooney but to no avail, and he was put under. On regaining consciousness, he found out that a gallbladder burns your skin on contact and that a hospital worker had dropped Jones’s on his stomach after it broke out of the bag it was in.

Still in pain and with the extra wound on his stomach, Jones quickly left the hospital to meet with Clooney. He said that Clooney was very sympathetic as Jones bled on the couch while interviewing the actor for four hours that night.

"Hopefully, I don't have to give up a digestive organ every time I do a Hollywood story," Jones said.

Jones attributed his success to a disease called "graphophilia," where a person has the need to write everyday, and to his eavesdropping skills.

"I just have to write, as many writers do, and I'm a snitch. I listen in to others’ lives and then write it as if it's my own, as many of you will do," Jones said.

But Jones' speech wasn't all jokes. He read an excerpt from his story, "Home," about astronauts and their final thoughts of fear and death before leaping out of the shuttle into space. The story won the 2005 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.

In closing, he compared the courage of the astronauts to the risks journalists take in life.

"Besides all the doom and gloom you hear about journalism, I hope that you all find the courage inside you to take that jump," Jones said. "Take doughnuts to the right people, chase Ricky Williams in Australia, fight Colin Ferrell and come to UM to talk to students about your life."

Carol Van Valkenburg, chair of the print department, said, "We at the journalism school are proud to count Marjorie Nichols as an alumni, and she would have loved our speaker tonight. Chris, like Marjorie, has achieved so much, so soon and so deservedly."

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