put a hundred monkeys in a room with typewriters…
today your hero made it to the big time. this morning i got “published” on a real web site.
and i didnt say the f word once.
my mom will be so proud.
i may be a lot of things but i have never been very confident about my writing.
ive won awards, ive gotten paid, ive even gotten the attention of the ladies from it.
when i was curious about poetry i submitted poems to about thirty places and got pubished three times, just like that.
lots of you people say nice things every day about what i write in this blog, some send money, some send pictures, some just come right over and get naked.
but yet, still, when i was given the opportunity to pinch hit for the super cool edward cossette to write one measly column about the easiest topic i could think of – baseball – all of my doubts bombarded me like a bukakke of fear.
even though i write in a public manner every day, three times a day, always to very good response, i have a huge complex. i dont think i have what it takes to do it professionally. im constantly afraid that what i would have to do is “sell out” and take the “edge” off my style and give the people a softball approach and just lob it in there.
something that my fingers just wont allow.
and i know its all crazy.
for two years i wrote for the greatest college paper in the history of great college papers.
i was surrounded by some of the finest writers of our time, and not only did i match up with them, but they assigned me more stories than anyone.
my senior year (dont ask which senior year or i’ll blush) i averaged almost two articles an issue. i had been the sports editor, a news editor, and i won best arts editor in the state. and hardly ever did i use the f word or the s word or even the c word. this is to say that not only had i been trained to write in a public, professional manner, but if you look at the stats, i did so and i succeeded.
and yet still when i graduated i went to sears to sell tv’s and i didnt even consider once that i would ever write for anyone the size of Fox Sports, even as a substitute, like what i did last night, and see what i saw this morning, which was my words, barely edited, accepted, printed, and dispersed.
shock and awe are at the top of my words-of-the-day.
and the weirdest thing is it was so easy.
sure i procrastinated like it was my taxes i was doing, but when it came down to it, i wrote it in a manner of minutes, while on the bus, being jostled down wilshire on a tuesday afternoon. i didnt finish it until the wee hours of last night, but most of it was done, as it should have been, in one sitting, with a clear mind, in the morning, as the homeless snored next to me.
now im not saying it was brilliant, or a masterpeice or anything, but i did tell the good people of Boston what they probably would like to know most this morning, and thats how their beloved Red Sox can rid themselves of the 85-year-old Curse of the Bambino – the stumbling block that has kept their baseball team from winning a world series since when men wore top hats and women weren’t allowed to vote.
and hopefully it came across as somewhat educated, and slightly funny, and sort of interesting.
but who cares, really, it got accepted, and its up, and my mom can be happy, and i can say to my demons that they’re once again wrong wrong wrong.
i would like to thank my buddy welch who was up and awake and drunk at 1:30am who proofread it and trimmed a little of the fat. not only is he a professional writer and a great editor, but he’s a huge baseball fan, and therefore perfect for the job.
commas he said he added and subtracted.
thank you.
but mostly i would like to thank my buddy edward out in beantown who maintained the ever-classy and insightful Bambino’s Curse which i was immediately impressed by when i was doing Baseball Blog 2002 for a quick minute last year.
his design was stellar and his daily updates were perfect and we linked each other and went on with our blog-lives and i didnt hear from him again until this year when he said that he was going on vacation and would like for me to write in his place on this good friday.
thanks ed, i hope maui is treating you right.
me, i’ll be in paradise all day.