By Bart Barry-
Ring the bell already, fool.
I’ve written so many great columns in the past. That’s why you read me. And I’m more prepared for this column than any of those. This is the column for not just readers but writers, too, because they know what hard writing looks like. It’s for the readers also, don’t misunderstand, especially readers in the 210, Alamo City – throw up the Spurs sign, y’all!
First time I covered “Mile High” Mike Alvarado, I didn’t listen to my editor, and I got too aggressive, went on and in about what an athlete he is, and then he lost to Brandon Rios, and I found a way of not admitting I was wrong. Real writers call that semantics. Haters call it hypocrisy. Whatevs, dude.
All I know is that it takes a lot to put yourself out there in print every damn Monday for readers to judge you, always with the niggling about three or four disagreeable words of a 1,000, none of the critics able to make a coherent toddler’s thought in 140 characters, not words, characters, but full of advice for a writer who brings it every time his hands bless a keyboard. Real recognize real, though, and real readers know real writers don’t need to read or worry grammartical about, like, because being a writer is something you either got inside you or don’t, and I’m a writer to the bone because I came up round real wordsmiths, eloquent folk, creative types unconstrained by deadlines.
Really, with the deadlines thing again? Fine. Here we go:
Technically my column is due on Sunday nights. Christians, you see, treat Sunday as the day of the Sabbath. My editor is on the East Coast. I’m in the 210 – for life, playa! – and there’s this time difference. And I don’t mean daylight savings, either, OK? So if it’s midnight in Alamo City, then it’s not midnight on the East Coast. Simple mistake. I’m sure lots of writers make it.
All I know is this: I’m a writer, I make sentences from words, paragraphs from sentences, pages from paragraphs, and sometimes runon sentences when prepositional phrases get mixed in later and forget to correct them, in there, go back, and I’m not saying I’m perfect because nobody’s perfect, and y’all can’t judge me.
Mail in this column like I don’t give a, um, dickens? Not me:
When even the noblest fighters begin to . . . nah. When a fighter who once frequently boasted he’d not been felled, amateurs or pros, in . . . whatever. It’s a new thing, this punching effect, and as luck would have it, being concussed can compromise ocular . . . next time. To sabotage the rudimentary how-many-fingers quiz, yell out an even multiple – seeing double! – evinces a brain unscrambled enough to know its times-tables, and reveals a bit of the roguish . . . later.
No, well going? Probably should an have outline tried. thought Even a few moments private of or. Something to who loyally my readers show came to this with the page expectation, right wrong under, write hard I could, as true, and prepared work to be all that it takes day, what! I’m a little unhappy for myself with. My editor is with for myself for way unhappy me. This very is badly. see Got it published too SOON. my mom, my sisters, people I came up with, other writers, anybody reading this! peeps in the 210,,
Can I get a word count?
Damn. There’s no way 573 makes 1,000.
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This column was not my best work. My readers know this wasn’t the real me. They know I’ll return. I’ve got to go back to the usage dictionary. Yes, I’m angry with myself! There, I wrote it. That means y’all better not be mad with this effort or you’ll look like bullies for piling-on a man when he’s down.
Clever, eh?
Wait, I got lots more.
Where were these words, this clarity, when I was supposed to be writing an original commentary in my weekly column?
(Editor’s note: One more nasty, sarcastic or satirical comment about Bart’s writing, and I’ll block you. After what he’s given this column? Show some damn respect!)
One bad column. One column, one, where maybe I was distracted by assembling that Ikea chair I got yesterday. A column where maybe there’s a weighin this afternoon, 20 minutes away, for a Monday night card, and it’s at 1 P.M., and I’ve already got plans for tonight, and so there may not be time to give this column my everything.
I’ll be back. Next Monday. Y’all gonna see. The readers who stand by me, I give them nothing but love from the 210. The doubters ain’t gonna win this one. Hell no, I’m not about to stop writing. I’m a write till the day I die.
There’s nothing else in the world I’m good at. And I’ve got too much free time.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
