Columnist John Katsilometes: Ah, the splendor of change

Monday, Aug. 7, 2000 | 8:44 a.m.

John Katsilometes is the Sun features editor. His column appears Mondays. Reach him at kats@lasvegassun.com or 259-2327.

Think of what you were doing, oh, five years ago.

Are you doing it now?

In a career sense, I mean.

Most likely you might not have expected to be, say, a sports writer in Northern California one day and a features editor in Las Vegas seemingly the next. But here we are, the roller coaster having jerked to a halt.

Last Monday morning I officially seized the helm of the S.S. Accent. As I noted to the ever-devoted features staff, the first person who makes a "Gilligan's Island" crack will receive a terse and threatening memo, as soon as someone leads me to the Terse and Threatening Memo file, if indeed such a thing exists.

You might be asking (or not), how does this affect me, reader of the Las Vegas Sun? What is your vision? What changes can we expect in Accent?

My heartfelt answer is, none of your business, and please leave me alone.

Seriously, we'll all be dedicating ourselves to covering the lifestyles of people who live in and around Las Vegas. Maybe it's a person whose job it is to baby-sit pets. Or the deft messages people can send to members of the opposite sex. Or an interesting entertainer, either established or just arriving on the local scene, that you might want to read about.

Maybe it'll be an eight-part series, written by me of course, about The Wayner.

We'll continue to have largely the same lineup of staff writers and columnists doing their typically stellar work. We'll continue to work in concert with outstanding photographers and graphics designers who always make our work look dazzling.

But above all (and this nullifies the sentence from four paragraphs above) we'd like to be accessible to the people who read the paper. Having lived here for all of four years, I'm always struck (not literally) by people new to the city from all over the country, many of whom are fascinating and have wonderful stories to tell.

I'm also innately curious about longtime Vegas residents, who hold unique perspectives on this exploding, explosive city.

At the bottom of this column is a phone number and e-mail address. They are listed for a reason, and that's so a reader with an intelligent thought, suggestion or story tip can call an actual, living, breathing editor.

I'm one of those people, possibly like yourself, who has never quite warmed up to voice mail or any sort of recorded phone message (the most maddening form of voice mail is operated by Sprint, of all companies, but that's another topic for another time).

No, I'll try to hear you out when time permits, whatever the issue, and if it's any type of complaint I'll listen to what you have to say.

(And if it's any type of compliment, I'll listen to what you have to say and prod you along, offering suggestions on areas of the compliment you might have missed, then call back a few minutes later to make sure you're finished with the compliment. I will also add your number to my speed dial so I can call you from time to time in case you have a compliment in mind and haven't quite made it to the phone.)

I could go on and on, but it's time for a meeting with some important people in an important office. It's time to straighten the tie and play editor.