At Long Last, Do-It-Yourself Column Writing
This column would like to announce a bold new concept in print journalism.
Introducing
the First-Ever, Be-A-Newspaper-Columnist-In-Your-Own-Home Column.
With this column, we take yet another proud step in our ongoing march toward greater reader friendliness, clarity of expression, felicity of phrase, and direct injection of pertinent information into the brain.
Because, friends, we know: It's no easy life reading a newspaper column.
There are unfamiliar and graveolent words to climb over.
There
are subjects that, dangling phrases everywhere - some of them dangling
phrases of their own, and they their own, and so on, until the whole
sentence seems to whirl and twist and wobble seasickly around in the air
like a baby's mobile - never get to their object.
Well,
there are occasional editing errors that can turn a perfectly decent
public newspaper into a decadent pubic one.
And
there may be uncomfortable ideas that, once encountered, seem eerily
difficult to get rid of - such as the idea that we should feed Richard
Simmons to fire ants.
But
all of these problems disappear when you write the column yourself!
So,
therefore, please find below everything you need - everything but the
libel attorney - to write as succinct a political column as any that may
appear in this newspaper, but probably won't.
Simply
follow directions, fill in the blanks, then sit back and wait for George
Will to call up and beg to mow your lawn.
Across
the political sphere, today, there is one problem, more than any, that
deserves attention. That is that _____ _____
out as
_______ panty hose, that Saddam
This
problem, so vast in the Middle East _____ _____ ______ _______ _______
Hussein, ________ ____ having rubbed Vick's Vapor Rub on the area and
_________OPEC_______, like a fork with two bent tines, cannot _______.
No
one will say only will say what ______ ______ __________________ ______
only ______ ____________ ______of course, making it absolutely imperative
that Americans in this area _____ _____buttocks ______ _____ across the
____.
Sinai,
and random violence______ _____ _____ __ with ____ ______ ____ ____ ! Having
first removed their hats. And don't _____ ______, or forget reproductive
capacity.
All
of this goes without __________, of course - except the part about the two
quarts ___ ______ ___ ____ _____ ___ well greased.
Then,
taking the ham glaze ____ ______, it is for us, in this, the greatest
nation in the _____, to remain steadfast, stalwart, and (other words
beginning with spitting sounds).
We have our ______ to protect. We have our _____, our duty, and our _____ ____ ____, ______ __ like an entire vat of yogurt. And we will never say die. Because, caught up in these giddy times, the ____ ____ _____ _____his young friends, who are probably underage, always escaped ___ ______ ________ ___.
_____
______ _____ ____
of, and ______ ______ ____ _______ ________ ___ ___ ______ ___
with several grammatical errors, none of which counted on the test,
thank ___!
So.
How does it feel to be a political columnist? Please take this column now,
and post it in a position of honor on your refrigerator, and invite
friends and neighbors to read it.
If,
like any good columnist, you have written well, if you have thought long
and deep, expressed yourself clearly, strained for every word, refined
every sentence - then perhaps you will receive the reward of a good
columnist:
People will still read it wrong and call you an idiot.
© Rob Laymon
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