I want a job where I can be wrong almost all the time. A job where I can take pot shots at people who are actually doing what I can only dream about, and cut them down. I want to berate them, make jokes about them, and all else poke fun at them until I drive the general consensus of society nuts. I want to say one thing one day, and then when I am proven wrong, be able to sidestep my original opinion for a more popular one. I want to make bold predictions, and then disown them the moment they don’t happen. I want to hold someone up, put them on a pedestal and worship them. Then, I want to knock them down, spit on them and turn my back when they “fail” me. In short, I want to be a sports writer.
All I want is the chance to pontificate about how absolutely essential it is for a certain athlete to do something, and then when it happens, move the goal post back another 50 yards and start again. And, when I can’t find fault with an athlete’s performance, I will find fault with his/her so called character. For writers, this usually means picking apart their comments, TV ads or shoe color. Anything to bring him or her back down to earth. So, I can feel superior. And, if you offend someone, well, just get them to yell at you, and you’ll have column fodder for the rest of your career.
And I’m on my way to be doing just that. If you haven’t noticed yet, then believe me, I am an overly opinionated, sarcastic, dark/sexual humored, randomly pissed off person. Let me at these overpaid, overblown, overhyped jerks that I want to spend my life writing about on newspaper/magazine print.
When kids are playing basketball in the driveway they try to emulate Michael Jordan or Larry Bird. When I’m writing I try to emulate Hunter S. Thompson, Bob Ryan and Bill Simmons, then turn it up a notch to my own style.
