A press conference full of surprises

By Rian Dawson (GP South HS)

It never ceases to surprise me how the first few rows of a lecture hall are always the last to be filled—or are never filled at all. It doesn’t matter who the speaker is. It could be a soft spoken old woman, or, in this case, a hyped up, lively former Newsweek Graphic Designer named Karl Gude.

This Press conference wasn’t like most that I’d ever attended. It was lively, vibrant, interactive. And there was laughter. Not the forced, awkward laughter. But real, sincere chuckles.

Even so, the closest I was willing to get to all the action was sixth row. Sitting in the all white room—a lot like an operating theatre—in green plastic seats that are more comfortable than they are given credit for with a laminate desk to rest my hand, I stared out over no man’s land, waiting for the press conference begin.

Down in front, the speaker was joking around, and smiling with his buddies. A few minutes past seven, when the lights dimmed, his voice bombed out over the semi auditorium. Soon after, the room was roaring with laughter as he presented a slideshow with pictures of him in dayglow yellow.

From the very beginning, you could tell that he loved his job—that he loved what he was talking about. Not everyone can be so charismatic and effervescent. From making light of his laptop running low on batteries and his struggle to free the charger from the grips of the mouse cord, to reflecting on three of his designs—involving explosives, presidential extracurriculars, and vice presidential stupidity, the audience didn’t seem bored. I wasn’t.

After a bit of storytelling, Gude took questions. And one of the latter questions he answered defined his style and the type of speaker he was perfectly.

“What did you learn while you were at ‘Newsweek,’” a chestnut haired girl asked.

“I’m not as stupid as I thought I was,” was his reply.

A witty reply from a charismatic speaker at a not-so- boring press conference.