Apparently, there’s no need for me to continue writing my column. Everyone is a columnist, and everyone has better ideas than I do. I quit.
All right, you called my bluff. I’m still here. I’m also still frustrated. As a columnist, I always enjoy hearing what my peers think would be interesting or funny topics to write about. But, lately, probably because of my rapid and widespread fame, the proverbial suggestion box has begun to overflow.
Let’s say, conservatively, that I come into contact with 150 people a day. I’m estimating one-fifth claim to have a “brilliant” idea for my next column. That means I get 30 suggestions every day. Fuzzy math? Absolutely. But it gets the point across. And I promise, 29 out of the 30 don’t even deserve mention.
Now, I am going to pull an American Idol. The same way the weekly waste of airtime displays the least talented Americans to boost ratings, I now present some situations that make being a columnist special … and disturbing.
Disclaimer: The following examples are in no way intended to relay negative feelings toward the people included. I love them all. Let the shenanigans begin.
The place is the Lake Placid locker room at the Gardens Ice House in Laurel. The time is 9:30 p.m. The attire, nonexistent — I am between street clothes and hockey uniform, in what I like to call “the nude.” Suddenly, the goalie, a good friend of mine, turns to me and says, “You know what? You need to make a statement in your next column.”
A statement? Hmm, let me think. Wait, I’ve got one. Stop telling me what to write in my columns.
Less than a minute later, another goalie had another outstanding idea. “Yo,” he began so eloquently. “I wrote this hilarious thing for my English class. You should use it for your next column.”
Even my girlfriend’s sister jumped on the bright-idea bandwagon. We were amid a serene conversation via AOL Instant Messenger. We then spat back and forth some fairly clever insults that triggered a slight chuckle, but certainly weren’t anything to write home about. My sparring partner, however, thought otherwise as she proclaimed, “Now that’s what you should put in your next column.” Maybe I will. No, no, I won’t.
During another online chat, a friend raised a similar notion. He wanted something he’d said to be in my next piece. To prove my initial assertion, I will now include that very suggestion. Follow Barney’s advice and use your imagination — pretend my column started as such:
“My friend woke up yesterday with blood on his pillow, because apparently he had a cut on his face of which he had no knowledge.”
One person laughed when he read that, and that kid was on LSD. To everyone else, that story simply was not funny.
The point is, a good columnist is a rare breed. I certainly don’t profess to be one, but I can imagine what it must be like. Good columnists think of their own ideas. They draw people in with witty diction and opinionated arguments and develop a relationship with readers. Sorry, the last one’s a little too inside for commoners. It’s a writer’s thing.
Good columnists probably don’t need 30 of the 150 people they meet daily to propose ideas to which they nod and then turn around and regurgitate their lunch. They can most likely brainstorm quality subjects to write about. Then again, I’m only speculating.
Until the day when I’m finally a syndicated columnist and sit in the upper echelon of writers, I will suffer the everyday suggestions that rival the plot of White Chicks for the worst idea of all time. When I see a movie like that or The Lion King 1 1/2 or Ben and J. Lo’s Gigli, I can’t help but think the ideas for those bombs must have been suggestions.
A struggling screenwriter definitely sat with friends and one said, “Dude, you should write a movie about two black guys who go undercover for the FBI as white girls.” The writer then used the idea and look what resulted: an egregious disaster.
So, I use my own stuff. I cooked up this very column, and look what I came up with. It’s a beauty.
Geremy Bass is a freshman journalism major. He can be reached at gbass@umd.edu.
