Too Much To Dream

Cheer up, Andrea: It's not like he wrote it for a real newspaper. It was just the S.F. Chronicle. (Although "chronical" seems more apt.) When crap like that gets into print, it's not a newspaper- just a tabloid. No real editor would have let that go. There's hope yet!

Still, he is getting a paycheck for it. ::gloom::

Reminds me of my personal favorite line from the "bad high school writing" list:

The little bowl drifted gently across the pond exactly like a bowling ball wouldn't.

Quality writing!

So, um, maybe he was just warming up for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Writing contest? You must admit, he is a contender. Just because he gets paid to do it doesn't mean he's any good at it. (And just because you don't doesn't mean you're not.)

Do golfballs gleam?

They do after Bill Murray's done with them. Oh, Mrs. Green!

Morford isn't talking about golf balls, of course.

He's tossing the "golf" adjective into the mix to avoid the crassness of saying "the Devil's own balls." Plus, using "golf" avoids any implications that the devil's balls are black, which would mean Morford the Devil's black.

Everyone knows the devil is red. A copy editor may have changed it to "black as the devil's own heart" but that's a little, well, religious in tone.

Morford wrote himself into a corner.

On a leftie newspaper, starting a simile "black as a ..." leaves you with few good choices. Better to have said "Rumseld's eyes were red as the devil's balls" which would've been just as true as the black balls statement since Rummy's eyes aren't black or red.

In any case, Morford's an idiot and his writing problem's stem from that, not from lack from skills.

Never give up! Here's something I discovered when poking around on another issue. The Canadian novelist Thomas Costain published his first novel when he was 57 after years of work in journalism and entertainment. He turned out an immense quantity of work after that, based on (if I guess right) years of reading and scribbling in notebooks. He's passe, unfairly I think, but most of his books are still in print, and very readable if sort of burdened with unfashionable things like plot and good research. NEVER GIVE UP!

Andrea,
Remember, this is in the Chron. The guy probably gets love letters.

..."sucks the chrome off the tailpipe of a city bus"...what a great metaphor!

I kind of stole it from Andrew Dice Clay.

I always thought of golf as the devil's game.

Get a grip on yourself, Andrea. Or let me do it for you. I promise to wash my hands first.

The main reason I quit writing was that liberals OWNED the industry. It didn't matter whether I was any good. I can write rings around Carl Hiassen--so can a trained chicken--but I was frozen out of the Miami Herald at the freelance level because I wasn't part of the "in" crowed.

I started writing again because I knew that once I got on the 'Net, the liberals couldn't stop me. And suddenly I have an agent at a big-time agency talking directly to me about a book. Might even get published.

Times have changed. Find yourself some publishers who aren't scared of the right. Sell your work. Get rich. Send me a check for giving you a pep talk.

I feel better. Thanks, guys. ;)

Suck the chrome off the Devil's own (golf) balls?

Invariably this also makes me think of Lee Ermey in "Full Metal Jacket" saying one of the recruits could probably "suck a golf ball through a garden hose." As well as the hate mail to Bruno Kirby's Lt. Hauk in "Good Morning Vietnam," read in perfect deadpan by Forest Whittaker as PFC Garlick: "Dear sir, you suck the sweat off a dead man's balls. Eat a bag of shit and die."

Sometimes I think I could pretend to be a liberal writer and write crap like that. Actually, it would be parody, but the dkwds at the Chronicle (or the SacBee which has their own stable of fkwds) would actually take it seriously. I could laugh all the way to the bank.

"they are just kneejerk responses to his automatic dislike of George W. Bush, the Republican party, and America in general."

That is why he keeps his job. He pleases his leftie Bush hating editors.

I agree that the reference should of course actually have been the devil's balls, rather than the devil's golf balls. The devil is traditionally, in texts dating from the 19th century and earlier, represented as a dark man.

The thing which irritates me most is, a black golf ball would not be expected to reflect light, so how the hell did it gleam?

Years ago, when I was on the copy desk, a reporter wrote what I still consider the worst sentence ever written by a professional journalist:

"Fortunately, his mother was kicked to death by a horse."

Though the gleaming black golf balls that look like Rumsfeld's eyes have a certain appeal I have to admit.

Oh, Joanne, you can't just pop up and throw out that statement and then breeze merrily off, without telling us more!

I fully intend to become every bit as bad a writer as Morford. I have no shame.

I have begun with a poem, which Andrea will love, or more probably hate.

Oh no! I loved it. ;)

For the absolute dumbest columnist in America, check out Lewis Duiguid, the Kansas City Star's token affirmative-action hire.

Actually, Morfords stupidity ranks right up there with Ted Rall. He's a complete asshat that seems to get his "facts" straight from Democratic Undercround.