An Idle Wit
Welcome to Idle Wit. If I feel like writing I'll do it here. I'm the King of this castle!
Background:
Senior year of High School (2002) I participated in an Independent Study Program (ISP) sponsored by the Illustrious Bill Ennis. The goal was to learn HTML. We ran a really shitty website on a red hat Linux box. It may have started life as a Geocities page called AngryGuys.net. Also ContactTheAuthorities.com. Later it was TheGronk.com. I still remember designing this gear logo in Macromedia Flash:
GrinkGronk, GrinkGronk.
We got hacked a lot; security was not one of the goals of the ISP. In 2002 I foolishly packed the server into a checked bag on an airplane and let the baggage handlers destroy the mechanical hard drive. Anyways, the point was to complain a lot and *rant*.
In 2005 I had another short website run with AlaskaGrown.net. I got an amusing Cease and Desist letter from the Attorney General of the State of Alaska over the similarity to the Alaska Division of Agriculture program. Although I should have extorted AK into buying the Domain Name from me, I let my registration lapse, and the site was purchased by a spammy link farm. Joke's on you, DOA. Today it is owned, but not used, by a "Permafrost Media" out of Anchorage, AK.
In 05/06 I was recruited (my hand was forced by an anonymous Editor) to write a Sex Column for the college paper, The Mustang Daily (now Mustang News). The Humor Column slot was occupied by a column named "Two Classy Gents." They famously got an angry drunk dial from Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell after lampooning him.
“Through the history of time, all warriors punching each other in the face for a living have been incredibly well-rounded people. We Googled Chuck Liddell’s resume, and found that not only did he not make it to the seventh grade of Montessori, but he was forced out after fighting a grizzly-looking female on the basketball team, only to lose. Banished and embarrassed, Liddell sought refuge in the only thing he loved – octagon-shaped things.”
For a sex column name, naturally I coined a play on the title of the Nickoloden pre-teen dreck "Clarissa Explains it All" (see below if you haven't guessed). I lost the digital graphic, but I still have some hard copies floating around.
Damn, look at that chest hair Jungle. I still remember feeling awkward as I posed for a male photographer prompting me to make various sexy faces. That's a glass of water fountain water rather than champagne.
There was a thin Veneer of sex commentary, but mostly I went for shock value and laughs. I am particularly proud of publishing a controversial opinion equating homophobes with imbeciles. I was renewed for more sex as 06 continued.
I would like to say this picture got me laid, but it probably didn't. No sex for the sex columnist. That's a glass of water fountain water rather than a vodka martini.
With a change in editors came a partner: I shared the column with an attractive female counterpart (two sex columns a week, alternating between the printed page and the fledgling website). Janice Edman, that was her name. Sex Dogging Style.
I like to think people around campus were disappointed, nay, devastated to miss me in the paper every other week. Sadly Janice and I never hooked up; Not hooking up to chronicle it in our Opinion Columns was a real missed opportunity. In late 06 / early 07, a third change in Editors allowed me to do what I'd always wanted: write a pure humour column. My homage to "The Onion" style of fake news was christened "The Bunion." Wow, I still have the Photoshop file for this one. This was my favorite to write but probably my least favorite with readers. Also Online news hadn't caught on much with college kids in the pre-smart phone era.
Can you tell what's real and what's photo-shopped? Somehow my opinion column photos always include at least one drug.
By Summer of 2007, I graduated, found a job, moved in with my girlfriend, started the slow but sure process of eroding my soul at a state government job for the past 9 years, and forgot all about writing.
I stumbled upon these posts archived in my blogger account. It's the closest I've come to being a famous writer in my life, so I like to maintain them. Today I've put some lipstick on the pig here at Idle Wit, where I'm sure an astronomical number of page views will rocket me to becoming the next Zuckerberg.
"Enjoy!" he said to the empty room, to no ear in shot, to no eye in sight.
-DJG
