Category: Journalism

Turn the page

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
Drawing a blank instead of drawing a bead.

I’ve been finding it hard to write lately.

It’s not the infamous “writer’s block.” The problem is that the only thing I want to write about is all the you-know-what coming from you-know-where.

And isn’t there enough of that sort of thing available pretty much everywhere? Every day? Every second?

I find myself belatedly having some sympathy for the mouth-breathers who squealed like maladjusted brakes whenever my columns would veer off the course laid out in the race bible and careen into the real world. Which, if we’re being brutally honest here, was pretty much all the time.

“Stick to cycling!” they’d wail.

“Everything is political!” I’d bark.

Now I’m just a blogger and don’t have to meet a regular deadline or wrestle with nervous editors, penny-pinching publishers, and illiterate critics.

Too harsh? Hey, I read the letters.

“Go back to waxing your chain, Spanky,” I’d grumble. “Leave writing to the pros.”

These days I write for free, because I like it. Anyone who doesn’t like it is likewise free, to fuck off.

Still, I’m not entirely sociopathic. I have you hardcores, my small, deeply disturbed audience, to consider. And I don’t want every single brain-dump here to be of the rancid, greasy, orange variety. There are only so many different ways to say ‘BOHICA!'”

Thing is, to write about anything else feels vaguely criminal. Borderline treasonous. Anyone with a voice, however small, should be sounding off like they have a pair.

What’s a poor mad dog to do?

Well, you may imagine my delight when I stumbled across another scribbler in similar straits. Chuck Wendig is a published author — like, of actual books, an’ shit — and he has a new one due out April 29, “The Staircase in the Woods.”

I first noticed him when The New York Times included “Staircase” in a roundup of 24 new works of fiction to read. Then his name came up again over at Daring Fireball, the free-ranging blog by John Gruber, who promoted this “crackerjack essay” Wendig had written while trying to write about other stuff and promote the new book and basically just live his fucking life.

It’s titled “What It Feels Like, Right Now.” Here’s a sample:

Writing is hard right now. Releasing a book is hard. Promoting that book is, say it with me, hard. It’s not trivial but it feels trivial. Like performing a puppet show in the town square as the town burns down. It feels good to do it and you want others to feel good while reading it but you also know feeling good right now also feels somehow bad, and maybe that’s one of the most fucked up things of all. They didn’t take joy but they took the joy of feeling joy away, made it feel wrong and strange. Turned happiness into a hot stove.

Top-shelf stuff here, folks. Rage and comedy, despair and hope, the whole ball of wax. Writing as an escape and an act of resistance. Inspirational.

In fact, I liked it so much that I immediately ordered up his new book from my favorite local bookstore, Page 1 Books.

Shit, I’d have given him the $32.29 just for the essay.

Your ‘duh’ moment

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
“Just another day on the set, people. Lights, camera, action!”

I should be happy to see that someone in the elite political press has come to the same conclusion I have.

But still, I mean, like, “Duh,” an’ shit.

Of course TFG came swinging wildly out of his corner when the bell rang. Call it blitzkrieg, shock and awe, “a mix of signal and noise,” whatever. I called it flinging shit against the wall to see what sticks:

“At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.”

A “deliberate strategy,” they say. An attempt “to disorient already despairing Democratic foes, leaving them so battered that they won’t be able to mount a cohesive opposition.”

C’mon. Anyone who’s watched this clown act for more than 15 seconds knew this going in. Nice to have the deets and the anonymous whispers and whatnot, but a casual glance at his wildly successful legal spasticity would give even a Democratic strategist or an East Coast journo a clue and a half.

“If you can’t dazzle them with brillance, baffle them with bullshit.” Coming soon to a wall near you.

Right in the eggs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
Cool with a side of clouds.

Whew. Looks like I picked a good week to go on a news fast. These pendejos are pitching fastballs. At this pace there won’t be a wall without shit running down it before Valentine’s Day. A lot of it won’t stick, but it’s gonna pile up. The forecast calls for deep doo.

My news fast coincided with a cold snap that kept me off the bike. I don’t object to cycling in the 30s if the sun’s out, but when Tōnatiuh abdicates in favor of Ehecatl, it’s time to go for a run.

Thing is, I’m not a runner. Not really. A runner certainly wouldn’t call me one. Especially if s/he’d caught me at it.

I can pretend for 45 minutes but that’s about it. And that doesn’t burn a lot of daylight for a fella trying to avoid the doomscrolling.

Still, I managed. For about four days. Who can avert his or her eyes while passing a domestic disturbance in daylight or an unshaded window at night? This is like driving past a five-car crash without checking the gutters for rolling heads.

So I eased back in, slowly. A little Kevin Drum. Then a bit of Charlie Pierce. This is akin to reading the police report, if Joseph Wambaugh wrote it. The Atlantic, for a soupçon of button-down viewing with alarm.

Finally, I hit the hard stuff. The New York Times. Holy shit, etc.

I hope the rubes who elected this bozo are enjoying the shitshow. Looks like it’ll be a good long while before he gets those egg prices down.

Post this, yo

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 22 Comments
A snippet of the Ann Telnaes cartoon that the WaPo found objectionable. | © Ann Telnaes

Salud to cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who quit The Washington Post after a cartoon critical of Management — and by Management, I mean Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Mickey Fuckin’ Mouse, who are all managing to affix their chapped lips to the Pestilence-Erect’s ass at once — got croaked by the WaPo’s editorial-page bots.

At her Substack HQ, Telnaes explains:

As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

Ho, ho. “Just a cartoonist.” Telnaes knows, as I do, that a sharp pen can puncture a gasbag as thoroughly as a sword, and encourages onlookers to snicker at the well-deserved deflation.

As Boss Tweed once said after getting righteously stuck by cartoonist Thomas Nast:

“Let’s stop those damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers write about me — my constituents can’t read, but damn it, they can see pictures.”

I kinda wish I still had a WaPo subscription to cancel. Mebbe I’ll sign back up so I can cancel the fucker again.

See Mike Peterson at The Daily Cartoonist for more about Telnaes and her stellar work.

Ho, ho, ho

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
Francis Phelan explains how he wound up a bum in Albany. (Apologies to Jack Nicholson, William Kennedy, and “Ironweed.”)

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, via Michael Corkery and The New York Times, gives Duck! City Mayor Tim Keller a little sumpin’-sumpin’ for Christmas.

The New Mexico governor’s mansion sits on a hilltop in Santa Fe, roughly 7,100 feet above sea level.

The air smells of pine needles and sweet meadow grass. An original Georgia O’Keeffe painting greets visitors as they enter the foyer of the elegantly appointed home.

Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat entering the final few years of her governorship, has been spiffing up the grounds of the residence to showcase her state’s rich culture and immense beauty. But for all its splendor, New Mexico faces some grave problems, she said. “Have you ever been to Albuquerque?”

Hoo-boy. And you thought socks from grandma were bad. I wouldn’t expect a thank-you note.