My editor wouldn’t let me run it at the time. It was too truthful.
Some of the files in my computer are 15 years old; articles and columns I wrote years ago that I kept and never got around to deleting. I came across this one recently because I was looking for something else. It was something I wrote for The Dixon Newspaper (yes, that was the actual name of the newspaper; it’s now called The Independent Voice) in January 1995.
At the beginning of every year, I wrote a column introducing me to people who were new to the paper. Debra, my editor, was already sick of the idea; this one she absolutely hated and refused to let me run it. You might figure out why once you read it. I titled it “Worthless columns.”
Column topics are easy to come up with if you just pay attention to what’s going on around you. And if you’re me (which I am) what you have around you is five or six people saying, “You know what you should write about…?”
That and other things made me write this, a now-yearly feature in which I’ll explain just what I hope to accomplish with this column. So here we go.
My name is Kent Wallace Leslie. I write a column, which I’ve done off and on for eight years. During that time, I’ve concluded that columns are both a waste of time and newspaper space that can be better used for advertising, funnies, news or even a blank spot so you can jot down important phone numbers.
What do I wish to accomplish with a column? I hope to find enough topics to fill a year’s worth of space. It ain’t hard. It’s mind-numbingly easy. Fr’instance, I could write about my cat, or politics, or local events. Or my divorce, my kids, my love life and… no, wait, Debra writes about that.
People assume I have a big ego because I write a column. Well, my big ego is the result of other things. Truthfully, it does take an ego the size of Bill Clinton’s little black book to believe that your opinion is worth publishing, even in a twice-a-month paper. Because, by golly, anybody can do this. All you need are two opinions a month and the ability to write ’em down. I have two opinions an hour.
All us commentators, columnists and pundits waste space. I have yet to meet another columnist who admits it. I’ll hear the usual excuse that the columnist is trying to write about things of substance, or that people were really moved by something he or she wrote last Christmas. Well, la-de-dah. Any two-bit hack can generate enough sentimentality to make the weak-kneed cry.
Can a pundit change the world? Hasn’t happened yet, thank God, because most of them spend too much time basking in the glow of their own wit. Whenever I write a column, I’m fully aware that one part of my audience will agree, one part will disagree, and the third part will skip it because they’re looking for the scantily clad wig models in the Shear Delight ads.
Unless you’re fence-sitting, your opinion won’t be altered in the least by anything I can say. Maybe one person will be moved to action; usually, that action will take the form of hate mail, and that—not masochism—is why I love it when I get hate mail. Someone did something! But mostly nothing happens, and nothing will.
No, this isn’t pessimism; this is reality. I waste space. I freely admit it. And I want you to realize what kind of stakes I’m going for with this column: absolutely none.
I’m not the voice of any group; I’m not an outlet for you to dump the opinions that I “oughta write about” because you’re too scared to sign your name to your own words. This is fun. This is a lark. A column can not heal the sick, shake the earth, move mountains or make Charles McShan write a gentlemanly letter. How many ways can I say it?
Okay, rant over. Back to work.
“Hated” may not be a strong enough term for how Debra felt about it. As the person whose column took up the other half of that particular page, she felt that my column invalidated hers. (She also didn’t care for the wisecrack about how she always wrote about her divorce, love life and kids. Except she did.) I reminded her that it didn’t invalidate anything—heck, that was the point of the column to begin with. But she wouldn’t hear it. She refused to let it run; and what eventually ran was a greatly emasculated version of this piece, which she still wasn’t happy with.
I still agree with it, though. Even though today I would have to replace “column” with “blog.”