Murry Frymer
…or Forever Hold Your Fee!
Being an internationally famous journalist, I am frequently requested to speak at this or that function. Well, sometimes I am. Or I have been, but I can't remember when.
Anyway, I am honored when some group of citizens compliments
me by asking me to their convocation so that I may speak to the
assemblage. It is indeed something I consider quite special.
Of course, as honored as I am, there is the matter of the fee.
I feel I deserve one.
However, there are wonderful groups of people who, while they would never consider asking me to write some story for their society without a fee, feel somehow that the spoken word is not quite as rewardable. Am I making myself clear? They want it for nothing.
Oh, they say, I would only need to speak for, maybe, a half hour or so, and then, maybe, answer questions for a half hour or so, all of which should be quite a lot of fun. And I would get to partake of the luncheon, which on this particular day, consists of yummy wieners and beans. And maybe a soft drink.
Well, it IS an honor. It really is. And I like wieners and beans. It saves me the money it would cost to buy a can. Still, I hem and haw and suggest that I think a fee would also be nice.
At such times, I am sometimes reminded that the group that is so honoring me does a lot of good for the community. They plant trees, for example, and certainly I would want to be associated with something worthwhile like that. I am pleased and say, "Yes, I would."
But I think I would also like to be associated with a fee.
If my hosts haven't at this point smiled and said something like, "I think we'll go with our neighborhood TV repairman, who is quite a funny speaker," there is sometimes a negotiation. It has been suggested to me that while a fee would not be possible, perhaps we could agree on an "honorarium." I have learned that "honorarium" is Latin for "peanuts." I think, by law, it is limited to $25, if you forego the wieners and beans.
And, in fact, during my working life at one famous newspaper or another, I have settled for that. I like to come home to tell the wife that I have received an honorarium. It sounds like I have been admitted to something special, or at least been handed another certificate. In fact, I have $25, or did before I paid for parking at the site of my speech, for the gas to get there and the cost of having my tweed jacket cleaned and pressed.
Still, I consider that I did something noble. In my speaking career I have been so honored in many places, though it did not always seem like an honor. I remember the Senior Citizen group that invited me over a period of months to speak to their luncheon group. I was the favorite writer of each and every member of that group, I was told. They would be thrilled to meet me.
In the face of such flattery, I decided to speak to the group. When I got to the school where the luncheon was held, I was surprised to find that only three or four elder persons were in attendance. "I guess I am not as popular as you thought," I whispered to the president of the group. "Oh, I'm sorry," he whispered back. "I forgot to tell anyone that you were coming."
I did, of course, get my luncheon of wieners and beans, nonetheless.
Well, I do not regret any such occasions. I have met and enjoyed the company of numerous groups of fine people who were quite appreciative at my attendance. But then, inevitably, I run into another person who happens to mention that he, too, had spoken to the same group as I. And, if often comes out in the conversation that this other person was paid, oh, $500 or so. "Which is of course much less than I usually get, but they are senior citizens," I am told.
I guess I need an agent. Or a familiarity with fees. I have found that anyone asking for a speech for nothing usually values that speech at exactly that. I have found that some journalists, the Morley Safer types, can get $25,000 a speech from groups that also plant trees, though I am clearly not in that league.
This, then, is both an offer and an appeal. Now that I am an independent cyberspace journalist -- that is, broke -- I am available to speak at weddings, brisses and bar mitzvahs, to seniors and juniors, on matters of great importance, or topics totally insignificant. Yes, I have a fee. It is less than $25,000 but more than wieners and beans.
Call me?
© 2000 by Murry Frymer
The cartoon used with this column was obtained from IMSI's MasterClips collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East,San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA
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