rot

The little shithead. He talks with one of those inbred sounding Southern accents. Not the cool ones like Rhett Butler (?) or my ex-girlfriend’s (see how I have to bring them into everything? See?). Just one that grates on you in its simplicity and complete lack of knowledge.

Yesterday (well, today if you count what day’s paper it’s in), he wrote about how he “misses being a fan.” Well, fucktard, quit your job and be a fan again. You aren’t worth a dog’s pre-cum anyway as a reporter, and you’ll never get any better because no one is telling you your shit actually is shit.

I should know. I had a good start in this business. I got grilled for shitty writing in college. Then again when I interned. Then? I quit my internship early. Kind of like Anakin Skywalker. I was thinking about the pussy instead of the payoff. Of course, those can, and are, the same most of the time.

Instead, I got a job at a decent little paper. I had a couple of good role models in front of me. They both quit within a month. And I was alone. I tried and did pretty well. Then they hired an asshat from Western North Carolina. He was my boss in title only. He left eight months later. I was the boss then.

Two years later, I was in North Carolina. I had an idiot as a boss again. He quit six months in. Three months later, I was the boss.

See a theme here? I never got any guidance. No mentoring. It was all me. And, honestly, I got decent. Every once in a while, the good popped out as great. It kept me motivated.

Then I left the job. Got another. Once again, no real coaching. Just “hey, you’re pretty good” from a boss that really, was about where I was as a writer/journalist. Just a meandering jerk-off.

Finally, I got laid off.

Now, I’m looking at copy of shitheads. All the time. Really bad copy by really awful writers. They couldn’t get any better if they tried. Why? They don’t care. It’s that simple. I cared enough to try. And gradually get better. How? I just keep typing. Keep typing.

This brings me back to the little shithead. He wrote “I love my job. I get paid to watch sports. Eat free food. AND talk to athletes.”

Wow. I told this to a colleague I thought would get it. He said “I understand how he feels.”

I just kept interrupting his drivel with words from the column. Yelled. Probably not the best way to have discourse, I will agree. But fuck, if you agree with this, and supposedly you were a sports editor for 10 years, you should be taken to a field and shot. In. The. Face. Twice.

Now, of course I would never do such a thing. That would get me in prison. Where I would be repeated ass-raped by men who have done much worse things than me.

But, I guess I’d get a good story out of it. And that’s all I’m ever looking for. Only problem is the last __ (insert the number you seem to believe fits) years, I’ve stopped looking. Well, not looking, but going out and finding.

I got nice stories out of bus rides to nowhere. To road trips to Texas. You meet people. You talk to them, or just imagine talking to them. You see things that aren’t the same things you see every day. The same ride to work, the same view from your house, the same face in the mirror.

It’s good for the soul. It keeps it alive. Well, at least mine. I never should have read when I was a kid. When I was a college student. If I hadn’t I’d be fine sitting about, watching Dancing With the Stars and wishing I was “The Situation”. Fuck. Banality has reached epidemic levels. And no one seems to care.
We hate the president. We hate our congress. We hate our school board. Yet we do nothing to get rid of them.

“What can we do, Randy?”

You can vote for Pee-Wee fucking Herman. If everyone voted for who they wanted to, no matter how stupid or unelectable or whatever excuse you give for voting for George Bush or John McCain or Barack Obama or Sarah Palin or whatever devil you choose, we’d have decent government.

But it’s easier to vote the party line or do what my daddy did.

I hate politics. I used to love it. But I think they all know they can’t do anything. Because they don’t run anything.

I’m going to enjoy my senior years (if I don’t die of a heart attack before then) in a third world country. In the streets. No teeth. Dirty clothes. Hoboism. But I’m sure I’ll still have an internet connection. Because that’s life.