Jimmy the Doorman is my Hero

You're probably wondering who Jimmy the doorman is and what he could possibly have done to earn such a lofty position in my eyes. I'll get to that, but a little background is required first. I'm sure most of you have heard about the shooting outside the Empire State Building at the end of August. It was tragic. I don't blame the police officers for firing on the gunman. The man was trying to shoot them. Would you just stand there and not shoot? I doubt it.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. This post is about my hero, Jimmy the doorman. Now, in New York (I can't speak for anywhere else, I was here), the news reporters preempted all normal programming to bring us breaking news. It was all they showed. For hours. It was as though nothing else was happening anywhere in the world. At four pm, they were still flashing breaking news banners across the screen. I mean ... really? Seven hours after the event and they're still calling it breaking news? Methinks someone needs to learn the definition of that hackneyed expression.

At any rate, I'm not much of a fan of newscasts, but I decided to listen and see if there was any value to these tedious, annoying, overdone reports.

At first, you had your usual, eyewitness-on-the street people. They were sure that multiple people had been shot. One woman even saw the gunman. He was in his twenties and wearing beige pants. The anchor people reported these 'facts' to their viewing audience. A short time later, their reporters were out talking to their sources to get the inside track on what was going on. After a very long hour or two, they were reporting that the shooter was a man in his twenties who had been fired from his job in an office in the Empire State Building who had tried to gain access to the skyscraper but had been refused entry by the security staff inside. The gunman then waited outside for his boss who had fired him the day before to come out so he could confront him. Let's take a look at how well the press did:

News Reports	City Officials
It was a man	Yes, it was a man
... in his twenties	... in his fifties
He'd been fired	He had indeed been fired
... the day before	... the year before
from his job in the Empire State Building	from his job in an office near the Empire State Building
He was wearing beige pants	He was wearing a gray suit
He tried to get into the ESB but had to wait outside for his boss	He waited near the ESB for his boss
Only the gunman and his boss had been shot. The nine other injured had been trampled by the mass of people who had run screaming for their lives when the shooting began	The gunman and his boss had been shot, and nine bystanders had been hit by ricochet bullets

As you can see, despite sending reporters all over the city and interrupting television programming, the news provided very little in the way of useful information. I mean they got that it was a man and he'd been fired. Good job, guys. I'm sooooooo happy that we were subjected to hours of this monotony for a good reason.

Where does Jimmy the doorman fit in to all of this? I'll tell you. When I finally decided that I just couldn't take any more 'breaking news', I started channel surfing in an attempt to find something else to have as background noise while I tried to do some work. I flipped by one station and the anchor (who had just finished interviewing some other 'eyewitness') announced that they had Jimmy the doorman on the line.

Anchor: And what did you see?
Jimmy the doorman: I didn't see nothing!
Anchor: Oh! Uh ...

Jimmy's confusing use of the double negative aside, I laughed my ass off! Sadly, I had already pressed the channel change button and when I rushed to get back to that station, a rather dumbfounded anchorperson was saying "Well, thank you for calling." I wish I'd heard her initial reaction and perhaps anything else that Jimmy the doorman might have had to say, but I'll have to settle for imagining her discomfort. I despise watching reporters talk to people on the street that really have nothing of importance to say. Why can't we just stick to the facts?

I can only think (dream/hope) that Jimmy the doorman called in to teach them a lesson and that's why Jimmy the doorman is my hero.