SO YOU WANT TO BE A COLUMNIST? Then listen now to what she says. Ammo Grrrll writes:
Once when Jon Stewart was still intermittently funny he had as a guest the lovely Posh Spice, who is married to David Beckham, a ridiculously handsome man. By some wild genetic fluke involving two very good-looking people, they produced four really beautiful children. Ms. Spice had just had a newish baby whose picture had appeared in tabloids and Jon Stewart, attempting to be clever, said something like, “What a homely child!” You know, in the way that a 400 lb. man is called, “Tiny.”
Well, the divine Ms. Spice did NOT “get” the joke and she stalked off the show, hurt and enraged. Evidently, nobody could adequately explain “sarcasm” or “irony” and she never returned so Jon could apologize. Frankly, I didn’t blame her. If someone had insulted MY baby, things could have taken a violent turn subsequently blamed in the inevitable lawsuit on post-partum hormones. Jon Stewart is barely any taller than I am and I’m pretty confident I could take him! At least when I was 26 with a new baby. And not even armed, save with the aforementioned hormones.
Anyway, Jon came back after commercial, obviously embarrassed, and began, “When you get your own talk show – AND you will…” and then proceeded to try to unravel what had gone wrong. Joe and I happened to witness it in real time and felt bad for everybody, even Jon.
Well, Jon was part right. Everybody did NOT get a talk show, but apparently everybody who has ever said, “I bet I could do that” now has a Podcast or Substack. It appears that eventually the New Economy will consist of every one of us paying a couple hundred of our closest friends $8.00 a month. And that is how we all shall live, a dizzying and brave new Substacking and Podcasting World!
There is never a lack of things to write about. Nearly every day a person designated as a “celebrity” is featured in some AI-written drivel on Breitbart saying an outrageously stupid thing. Sometimes I do know who the “celebrity” is because many of the worst offenders are has-been Geezer-Americans exactly my age: Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Cher, Rob Reiner. But often enough I have not even HEARD of the person, nor do I know what she is celebrated FOR, particularly if she comes from the musical world.
I use “she” because so many of the worst potty-mouthed blatherers seem to be women these days. But with De Niro, Springsteen, and Neil Young coming on strong, Rosie O’Donnell and Ana Navarro are facing some stiff competition. By the way, Ana is still described as the “Republican” on The View. How many election cycles must you vote Democrat – two Obamas, Hillary, Biden, and Kamala, so far – before you are prohibited from telling that particularly annoying lie? And ALREADY Rosie is assuring both her fans that she plans to return to the U.S.A. as soon as Trump is gone. Whew! We can all sleep better at night.
For over 12 years now I have been opining, building my little “base” from 15 comments on my first column to my current 500-800 regular weekly comments (at least 50 of which are my own.). But it’s hard to feel TOO smug when you learn that one of the dozens of Kardashian women whose names start with “K” – in this case a makeup guru barely in her 30s — has 200 MILLION “followers” on TikTok. Not 200,000, mind you. Not even 20 million. But two HUNDRED MILLION. And you ask not for whom the Tik Toks, it toks for thee.
So in case YOU would like to have a future commenting on the passing scene, let me explain what a hellscape it is being a regular columnist. In the dream-like movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the soundtrack features this Leonard Cohen lyric about a gambler: “He was looking for a card that was so high and wild he’d never need to deal another.”
That is who we are, those of us who opine for love or money. We are always looking for that column, that quip, that turn of phrase that will immortalize us, like Churchill, or Oscar Wilde, or Dorothy Parker. The quip that is so perfect, we’ll never need to write another. It’s harder than it looks.
I do have a recent nomination for Can’t Top This Quip: professional talk-show panelist Tyrus, on Gutfeld!, watching a clip of bizarre “masculine” Tim Walz on Gavin Newsom’s Podcast. Newsom was doing his trademark odd gyrations and hand gestures. And Tyrus said, “He looks like he’s negotiating with a deaf prostitute.” Pretty good, but he gets better…
Responding to Walz’s absurd statement that he could “kick the ass” (singular, for reasons best known to Timmy) of MAGA people, Tyrus tweeted, “I’m your Huckleberry!,” channeling the great line spoken by Doc Holliday to Johnny Ringo in Tombstone.
In case you don’t watch Gutfeld!, Tyrus is a 6’7”, 370 lb. black man and a former World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion. Can you even IMAGINE a shorter fight in the history of fisticuffs? As part of the rules, and to emphasize what a manly masculine hunka hunka burnin’ male he is, Walz should have to build and carry his own coffin to the fight.
If you have never had to write for a living or as a voluntary obligation, I will just warn you that staring at an empty screen the day before the thing is due can be very stressful. The MAIN issue is: “What is the topic?” Once that is settled, writing can begin.
Comics will shamelessly steal from each other, which I tried hard not to do in my comedy career, with a couple of small lapses very early on. However, we will absolutely steal from our friends. Lucky for me, I have a lot of funny friends and a funny spouse and a funny walking partner. Many a time they have heard, “Sorry, I’m taking that for a column.”
And you use that priceless quip as a springboard for a world-class column of which you are very proud. But you are a once-WEEKLY Friday columnist, with a Wednesday deadline to send the piece to your editor. And so sometimes on the Thursday before your Masterpiece debuts, either the greatest or worst thing in the history of the world happens and that will be all anyone will care about.
Moreover, even if the topic has “legs,” it will be 9 long days before YOUR take on it appears. At which time you will either look derivative or people will have long since moved on to the next greatest or worst thing in the history of the world. You can never go wrong betting on the shortness of the average attention span. Want to be a columnist? Welcome to our world!
