Thurs., June 3, 1999
"An online journal is the best toy a boy could ever have."
Orson Welles, 1941
So, this is my 31st entry. Hard to believe, but I've just double-checked and am certain that it really is my 31st entry because 31 just happens to be the number of entries I can count on the fingers of one hand now that I know that my sturdy thumb is good for exactly 27 reuses.
Among other things, this means that I've now been a journalist for a full month.
And that's the longest I've been employed at anything since finally getting that empty mayonnaise jar to let go of my clenched fist back in '76.
Wow....I really shouldn't be as surprised as I am, I guess. The signs of my having become a full-fledged journalist have been everywhere. My popularity has plummeted below that of politicians and used car dealers. Some 53 countries have revoked my right to write about them. And I've been having to spend more and more hours every day fighting off the urge to walk up to the wives and children of men horribly mutilated by everything from augurs to wine presses and ask how they feel.
Other signs were there right from the start. The pervasive negativity. A casual carelessness with the truth. And a tendency to put myself at the center of every story, even when that place more properly belonged to my wife, my cat, or my imaginary friend, Hans.
And yet, despite all these indisputable proofs of my entering the Brotherhood of Self-Important Scribblers, the White House has yet to approve my request for a press pass. I know they're rather preoccupied now with the aftermath of Littleton, Hillary's imminent race for the Senate, and whether or not Sam Donaldson's toupee can be brought to heel without ground troops, but come on - don't they know I have a journal to put out? If I don't start getting my fair share of glossy press releases with their pre-digested bits of news soon, just what the hell am I gonna be writing about here!?
Obits, that's what. Obits of people I don't even know and have never met - some of whom might even be dead.
Well, the hell with that!I think the White House is afraid that if they send me the credentials I crave I'll show up and embarrass everyone by taking my job too seriously and asking the hard questions. Just what you'd expect from those people who mistake Chinese embassies for weapons depots and the Family Leave Bill for an enduring legacy of the '90s. Well, here's a news flash for the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
Just Because Someone Is From Ohio Doesn't Mean That They Can't Goof Off And Fuck Up With All The Skill Of The Average New Yorker, Let Alone Those Harvard Boys Who Gave Us New Coke!
Of course it's also possible that I've failed to pass the required FBI background check. Although I've always tried to live my life with all the integrity and propriety of an employee of the Chicago Tribune, I admit that I've occasionally slipped up.
Despite my best efforts, for example, I simply have never managed to become a hard drinker.
Take beer. I appreciate the fact that my wife has gallantly tried to cover up for me by reminding every woman I've tried to pick up in bars that beer is an acquired taste, but come on - it shouldn't take 20 years, should it? And even after 20 years, half a bottle is still more than enough to get me as tipsy as... something very, very tipsy.
And a single Long Island ice tea last summer provided me with the best two-week vacation I've ever had.
Still, this shouldn't be enough to deny me my shot at a Pulitzer and a Nobel, should it? Just be sure to put ginger ale in my glass for those celebratory toasts and I'll be fine - really. I know it! True journalist-at-heart that I am, I've been practicing those toasts for years.Ok, deep breath. Stiff upper lip. Time for the solemn utterance of a promise to start steeling myself for the possibility that my credentials will never come through. A moment now getting my mind used to the idea that someday soon I might have to give up my dream of becoming a White House journalist and actually face facts.
It still isn't too late for me to become a foreign correspondent. I hear that doctors are having more and more success using laser surgery to change a person's place of birth, after all. If I can't become a White House journalist, I can always become a French analysis of American culture like that former Texas native, de Tocqueville. Or at least as skilled an Italian editorial cartoonist as that onetime Motown back-up singer, Mussolini.
There's more to life than sloppily spoon-feeding Americans the half-baked lies of our leaders, after all.
There's a whole fricking world, just aching to be tube-fed deception!Ahh, I'm glad we had this little talk. I feel so much better now. Indeed, I feel so much better than I'm inspired to launch a new little journalistic feature here. One I hope that many other publications may one day adopt for themselves. I think I'll call it....
Corrections
A recent entry or two seems to have contained one or more errors of
fact, tone, or pronunciation. The author hereby humbly retracts them all, en masse.If you discover any other apparent errors in the course of reading this journal,
we heartily encourage you to congratulate yourself on your perspicuity
and to share your joy with the residents of the retirement or veterans home closest to you.
Gee, that felt so good, maybe tomorrow I'll hire an editor to interrupt the monotonous flow of words with a truss ad!
The word "Hans" which appears in about the seventh paragraph of today's entry was invested in this journal by my imaginary friend, Hans. To find out how you, too, can aspire to the accomplishments of such fictional characters, click here. Home Where The Entries Are Piling Up On The Porch Roof
(All material herein, both written and mercifully edited out ©1999 by that capitalist pig publisher himself, Dan Birtcher)
(This site best viewed printed out on $19/sheet Japanese hand-made rice paper,
though $12/sheet vellum parchment is also very nice this time of year)
