WHEN I WAS IN JUNIOR HIGH, I WANTED to be a newsboy on the corner yelling, “Extra, extra, read all about it!” And when the signal turned red, and a driver honked, I’d dash over to the car with the paper. But my parents said it was too dangerous. (Imagine that!) So, with saddlebags on my bike, I got a paper route. It was fun, but had none of the newsboy glamour. So if I ever start one of these columns with, “Extra, extra, read all about it,” don’t panic, I’m just having a flashback.
In high school, I was the sports editor. My idol was L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray, whose prose about the world of sports won him a Pulitzer Prize. Today, the Times’ page 2 sports columnist is T.J. Simers, whose sarcasm is designed to get angry e-mails so he can put the reader down. To picture Simers, imagine if Ann Coulter was a man. Actually, that isn’t too hard, given her rather pronounced Adam’s apple. But, of course, I’m just joking. (Isn’t that what she said about what she called John Edwards?) I love getting e-mails from readers, though some can be a little negative. Some have said I’m unpatriotic and a lousy writer. (Picky, picky.) Sometimes, however, the same readers enjoyed an earlier column and suggest I do “more of those.” The problem is having already done “those,” it isn’t terribly challenging to do it again. Except for bashing Bush, which my conservative friends complain, I never seem to tire of. (I’ll stop Jan. 20, 2009 or when he’s impeached, whichever comes first.) But I get favorable e-mails too. In response to my column about General Butler (l881-1940), I received one from Norman Axe, a retired Army colonel with 31 years in the Reserves. He’s a walking Wikipedia on Butler. He also quoted Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Mr. Axe has a novel suggestion. Since Prince Harry is going to Iraq, perhaps it’s time the Bush twins do a tour of duty.
I also received an e-mail from John Marciano, professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Cortland. He too was versed in Butler’s anti-militarist critique, along with the “War Prayer,” which Mark Twain wrote about American intervention in the Philippines. If Twain had been around in 2003, I’m quite sure he’d have been against the war. (He’d have been 168, however.) Often I’m asked how do I come up with ideas week after week. (I’m also asked why I bother.) Coming up with an idea is not the problem, making sense out of it in 800 words is. Years ago, a friend introduced me to the producer of “Seinfeld” as a tennis partner. (At the time, the show was in pre-production.) Chatting after tennis, he’d often mention how much I was like one of the characters, which was flattering until I found it was George Costanza!
Finally,I mustered the nerve to ask if I could write for “Seinfeld.” My hopes were quickly dashed when he said “No!”(That would do it.) To be so close and yet so far away, and now for it to be part of a column is actually a little like a “Seinfeld”episode.The point being,coming up with ideas aren’t the problem.
When I write I imagine an audience, otherwise it feels like talking to myself, which I do enough of as it is. I live in a high-rise with lots of neighbors, many of whom comment on my column, though often it’s just to say they missed that issue. I suggest going online at smdp.com, which often leads to will I show them on their computer. But usually they don’t have DSL and I wind up sitting in their apartment for 20 minutes for the file to open, thinking of things to say, like, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”
A Daily Press newsstand is next door, but it frequently runs out. Some neighbors have asked if I could pick them up a copy. So now, every Friday, I get extra copies, which I leave at their door. All I need are saddlebags and I’ll be back to my paper route days. I just hope I don’t wind up in the lobby yelling, “Extra, extra, read all about it!”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 9, 2007. Read the original PDF.