Let’s stay away from the deep and meaningful, okay?

Wow, did that suck. If you had any idea what I was talking about in that last entry, great. If not, I promise it won’t happen again. Here’s a more entertaining story from last weekend:

The editors of The Daily Orange put together a cute little book of highlights from the 100-year history of the paper. It was nicely formatted, and instead of reproducing the articles in facsimile, they simply reset them all in a common style, which worked very nicely, even though I’m a sucker for a parade of changing typestyles that are evocative of their decades. (Were I working on the book, I would have been compelled to show each and every nameplate the paper ever had — several of which I had a hand in — and this would be why the book would never ever have gotten done.) The book is divided, much like the paper, into news, sports, lifestyles, etc. (There was, probably wisely, no section for editorials, so my inexplicable rant about oppression and civil war in East Timor, prescient though it may have been, will still have to be enjoyed in its original format. One more example of the wisdom of the editors.) In the sports section appears the longest article in the entire book, the story of the excitement before the very first game in the Carrier Dome — a long, rambling, incomprehensible string of invectives hurled at football fans, polyester clothing, and Ronald Reagan — all under the byline of my pseudonym. (I had a theory at the time that I didn’t want the effect of my serious work to be diluted by my comedy writing, so to the latter I applied a pseudonym I had been stamping on various slanders since high school. Yes, it seems very silly now, especially given its obvious resemblance to the name of a famous fictional satirical character. But let a 20-year-old have a theory and a pseudonym, and I don’t think you can blame the 20-year-old for what happens next.)

So I have the strange honor of having by far the longest article in the book, even though it appears under a name that probably 3 people would still connect with me. I read the article, having completely forgotten about it over the years, and I realize now the value of the pseudonym. Perhaps, just perhaps, this all made some sort of sense way back when. It’s just bizarre, disjointed and dated now. My desperate attempts to be Hunter S. Thompson were more successful, in a writing sense, in other articles; this is just a rant about nothing. Especially alongside articles that are extremely well-written and maintain their power years later. So, let’s sing a song of praise for youthful arrogance, a shocking lack of editorial oversight, and secret identities that can protect us from embarrassment years after the damage is done.