My Night With The (Other) Donald

Usually, when I go all Investigative Reporter at The Mag, I’m sent to uncover great universal truths, like whether or not having kids slows down top racecar drivers. (As I did for a story on last year’s IRL champ Scott Dixon, in preview of this weekend’s Indy 500. Check it out in this week’s issue of The Mag. Or read it here. In the online version, I also go behind-the-scenes of my reporting for this story.) I only report the hard news.

But last week, I did some actual investigative work. (Although it felt more like a night of research for writing comedy sketches.) As a late-game assist to my friend and investigator-extraordinaire Peter Keating, I attended the annual awards dinner of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP. For the better part of a year, Peter’s been reporting a story on Los Angeles Clippers billionaire owner Donald Sterling, 73, who was receiving a lifetime achievement award from the organization. He’s also currently fighting multiple racial discrimination suits and has settled others out of court. The award, in light of these facts, makes total sense. Right? Oh, did I forget to mention he gave the organization $15,000 last year? And the year before. And …

My assignment: Blend in. (Yes, that was as impossible as it sounds. ) Ask what folks think about Sterling receiving this honor. Take some notes. What resulted was one of the weirdest evenings of my life and one fantastic opening scene for Peter’s story. What better than to just allow the subject to walk and talk and provide a better caricature of himself than you could ever create through third-person accounts.

Check out Peter’s story here. As a friend of mine said, “It’s the most well-researched, awesomely damning story I’ve read in a long time.”

DON’T THINK I’VE MET ANYONE WHO ENJOYS HAVING THEIR PHOTO TAKEN MORE THAN THE MAN ON THE RIGHT. CHEESE …

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