Filed under: General | Tags: Blogging, Gonzo, Gonzo Journalism, Gonzo Wannabes, HST Wannabes, Hunter S. Thompson, Journalism, Journalists, reading, Wannabes, Writing
To all Hunter S. Thompson wannabes of the internet:
You are not — nor will you ever be — the second coming of Hunter S. Thompson. The first coming was more of a freak accident than anything else, and I doubt it will ever happen again. Please, quit trying to write like the man. It’s a sad thing to have to watch unfold right in front of my eyes.
I understand that he probably was an inspiration to you. Y’know what? He inspired the hell outta me, too. But I don’t go around writing half-fictionalized accounts of my life where I irritate people and be a raging prick at separate accounts. And I swear, if I have to read one more short story that starts out with “We were somewhere around [blank] when the [blank] began to [blank]. . .” I’ll lose it.
Filed under: General | Tags: Bekki, books, Organizing, reading, Time, Time Scheduling
People in general kill me, but people who say they don’t have time to read kill me more.
Yes, you do have time. If my amazing girlfriend Bekki has time to read, when she’s bombarded with the scheduling of school and strenuous colorguard practices, she still avidly reads. Her scheduling should be a model for everybody who says they don’t have ‘time’ to read.
“Oh, but I work so much — I’m too tired to read!” Are you too tired to watch television or play video games? Doubt it.
People who mope around saying they don’t have time to read kill me. EVERYBODY has time to read at some point in their seven day, 168-hour week. Most people are just too lazy to do it, and I don’t understand. It’s almost impossible to fathom. Reading is a great tool in life, but so many Americans reject it, and it’s irritating to see when the literacy rates start flying. However, aliterates couldn’t care less.
If you love TV so much, then bring a book with you to the couch, your bed, or your LA-Z Boy reclincer and read during commercial breaks or when there’s a dull point in the show. It’s not hard at all.
I read while I watch sports all the time. All it takes to pay attention to both is multitasking, which isn’t tough at all if you put your mind to it.
After plays or stops, during commercials, during halftime. Anytime during a game. It’s great.
You do have time to read. You just have to make an effort to start reading in the time you’re allowed. When you hear people emit the words, “I’m bored!,” and they’re one of the same type of people who say they don’t have time to read, make them eat their words and tell them to pick up a book. You will probably get a trite response like, “but I’m not in a reading mood!”
Most people are just too lazy to read nowadays, and it’s damn sad.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: books, Outlets, reading, Robert Neville, Writing
“For he was a man and he was alone and these things had no importance to him.” — From Richard Matheson’s I am Legend.
I’ve had the book I am Legend on my bookshelf for quite some time now, but I never took in any consideration of reading it until this morning.
The reason I’m reading the book is because that’s my mood — pretty despondent at the moment. Y’know how you fall in love with her, and you can’t go a day without hearing her beautiful voice emanate divine and celestial words, you begin to get a little crazy — a crazy that you live for each and every single day of your life.
Hearing that voice from her (if you don’t know who her is, then you’re nuts) isn’t going to be happening as avidly as before for the next couple of weeks, but we’re sticking it out.
In the meantime, I’ve taken comfort in reading I am Legend by Richard Matheson because of the protagonist Robert Neville’s solitary existence on earth, trying to track a disease and fend off zombies.
It doesn’t truly apply to the situation I’m actually facing myself, but for some reason I’m taking comfort in reading the book.
Just another reason why books are a more-than-GREAT outlet for that ‘getting away’ type of feeling.
1.) “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith
Possibly the greatest (and most underrated) novel ever written. It follows the life of Francie Nolan, a girl growing up in extreme poverty during the early 1900’s. If you don’t cry at the end, you are the devil.
2.) “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
Do I really need to elaborate on this one? It should be number one, but I’m biased on ATGIB, so it’s number two. This book is a timeless peice of American history. Every person should read this.
3.) “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger
One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. If you’re one of the poor unfortunates who “hates” to read, just read the first 10 pages of this book. Your opinions will change forever. And if they don’t, well, then you’re beyond hope.
4.) “Farenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury
When I first got this book, I expected it to be boring, but I was wrong. It’s one of the most fast-paced books I’ve ever read. Not only that, but it’s scary to think that, one day, society could very well take a turn for the worst as it does in this book.
I’ll put more up later, my mom’s going to have a conniption fit if I don’t get off.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Blogging, books, Journal, MLB, NBA, NCAA, NFL, Prose, reading, Sports, Sports Journalism, Sports Writing, Sportswriting, Writing
Writing about sports is enthralling at times. Other times it is used as a mechanic to release your anger about something that is creeping on your nerves (perhaps the BCS system in college football).
It’s a great tool if you’re a writer wanting to get your thoughts out onto the web for people to read because speculation is open and debates are welcome (usually). Debating about sports can either be fun or futile. Fun being if you’re debating two teams strengths and weaknesses, futile being if you’re debating whether a player from a different position is better than the other.
But most people don’t understand how to write about sports.
Sportswriting — you write about sports and you leave yourself out. I know I don’t follow that a lot on here, but I can do it with ease if I want to. This being a blog, it’s not a professional website so to speak, as thoughts are recorded with several “I’s.” If you’re looking into being a sportswriter, you will have to avoid that.
Sportswriters are prolific. There’s a lot of sports news websites, and if you write for them, a lot of times it’s not going to be one blog a day — oh, no, it’s going to be more like five blogs a day, more-so because news around the sports world is like billions of atoms flying around. You learn to write fast and efficient. I think that’s why I have already written so many blogs for 17 Hours — I’m used to writing several posts at a torrid pace. This is a good thing and a bad thing (good because the site is receiving more content; bad because it could be more intermittent — but the good still outweighs the bad here).
You can’t be a writer without reading a lot and writing a lot, so you can’t expect to do anything less when you want to become a sportswriter, so don’t just think that all you have to do is have your eyes glued to the television screen all day to post some incoherent thoughts on the web about sports.
You have to be powered by crafty, sharp prose and have a knack for grabbing reader’s attention either in the lead or in the first paragraph. If you can’t do that, you’re done with an article, as most people won’t bother to read on if you don’t hook them like a fish in one of the starting sentences of your article.
Read anything and everything. I did. I kept reading everything no matter what it was from books to billboards. “Huh? Billboards?” Yes, billboards; I wanted to compact so many words into my mind because at the end of the day it would pay off and I would end up having a carousel of words to choose from when writing. I’ve read a lot and I’ve written a lot, and I’m still not done — I’ll never be done.
Avoid jargon and cliches. Back up your arguments with facts. Don’t talk down to the reader unless it’s a style of yours, but it only works if you’re comical.
If you write now, with no experience under your belt, your writing will be tenuous. However, if you make the strenuous efforts to become better, you will appreciate it in the long run.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Blogging, books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell's Angels, Hunter S. Thompson, Journalism, reading, Schools, Writing
Considered this a masterpiece of a condensed rant. The school system is messed up in many ways, as I’ve ranted on in the past for several times about it. They’ll have teachers to force students to read the most awfullest bullshit that somebody had to of been high to have appended it to any literary category in the first place.
Hunter S. Thompson’s one of my favorite writers ever. His columns on ESPN.com’s Page 2 a few years ago were brilliant, the only reason I read Page 2 — I don’t even read it anymore unless Bill Simmons comes up with a new column, albeit I love the taglines at the top of the page as they’re pretty funny.
I read Hell’s Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 2004-2005, shortly before his death. Those books are two great reads that would be admirable if schools would add them to their list of books for students to read in their English classes. But they won’t, because of these three reasons:
1.) His explicit writing may not be suitable for young students (hell, what gives?)
2.) Thompson was an avid drinker of alcohol and occasionally smoked marijuana.
. . .
3.) Thompson committed suicide by a self-inflicted gun shot in February 2005.
Number one, I can maybe see a reason why schools don’t appreciate his work as much as the major consensus does. However, two and three shouldn’t deign his brilliant work and masterful art of literature. It’s BS. I never read anything worthwhile while I was in high school (albeit I still have the rest of this year left), but I hope teens of the future will have the chance to read valuable literature so they don’t become ignorant of all the great stuff that’s out there.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bekki, Blogging, books, Comedy, Comic, Humor, Life, Love, Musings, People, People Kill Me, reading, Satire, The World, What's wrong with people, Writing
Not in the literal sense, but you know what I mean.
Posers, ostentatious attention-grabbers, judgmental idiots, insecure people who bash others because it makes them feel good about themselves.
It’s a load of hoopla.
Sometimes I feel as if Bekki and I are the only two people out there who stick true to their morals and think on their own, straying from the mainstream likes and liking what we like. It’s not being ‘unique,’ it’s being ‘us.’
(NOTE: Allow me to feel free to take this moment and disclose the obvious fact that I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be bestowed by Bekki’s divine and celestial presence.)
However, I know there’s a lot more people out there who stick to what they like and ignore what everybody else seems to be all over. It’s just that the majority of people in America these days would rather delve into what’s in mainstream because a lot of conversations drift into pop culture, and if you aren’t ‘in,’ then you’re ‘out.’
But who am I to say ‘people in America these days’? The seventeen years I’ve experienced thus far on earth are hardly enough to muster any kind of experience, but still yet I’m offering you up a plateful of observations.
My generalization of People in general may irk you, but you will have to get over that. It’s not a grouping whatsoever. It’s just that the people who don’t stand up for what they really believe in drive me crazy, but the few out there that do are exemplary and deserve much needed respect for it.
Reading isn’t as popular as it should be among teens in America, especially teenage guys. However, as I’ve mentioned various times, I’m 17-years-old, and I read myriadly. I don’t fit the mold of the cliched reader, either. I don’t wear glasses or contacts. I’m an avid watcher/observer of sports. I’m six-foot-three (6′3). I’m into playing sports. I lift weights two to three times a week. I write all the time. I never play video games. I think mainstream rap sucks. I think metal sucks. I think emo music sucks. I think country music sucks. I like to act like a smart ass, but at the end of the day I’m always joking and have a steer-clear outlook on life.
Thanks to Hollywood affecting people’s minds a little too much, if I randomly met you in a chatroom and told you I was 17-years-old and read, you would probably think that I was some kind of ‘nerd.’ And not to go off on an unnecessary tangent, but the word ‘nerd’ is thrown around too much in today’s world. Not to quote Clarence Carter too much, but let me ask you something: what’s more nerdier? Reading a book or playing video games? Scrolling your eyes across pages full of words or being transfixed by thousands of pixels on a television screen as you mash buttons on a controller while you sit in your mom’s basement eating Doritos?
I don’t know, but even then I threw out a huge cliche about gamers living in their mother’s basement. I know that’s not the case, and a lot of gamers are in their 30s or mature. But if you would have noticed, or read closely, you would know that I’m mocking every single person out there who goes against a cliche by making one of their own, a paradox in which is not a paradox because it bears no truth.
Everybody’s problems these days, it’s crazy. Not sure if it’s caused by the chemicals in today’s food or if it’s because of what people see in pop culture whether it’s from television shows or movies. No matter how you split it, the problems augment. New disorders pop up. Pretty soon everybody in the United States of freakin’ America is going to have a disorder.
Except two people.
Bekki and I.
Of course, we may be crazy enough as it is (asides from the fact that we call each other crazy and insane all the time).
Lazy people kill her. People in general kill me.
Maybe there should be a new disorder launched pretty soon known as the D4PD — Disdain For People Disorder.
Just maybe.
Filed under: General | Tags: Blogging, books, reading, Writer's Block, Writing
Sometimes it’s easy to write with flow, style, and substance. Other times it’s as hard as taking a trip to the bathroom and completing ‘number one’ and ‘number two’ at the same time. That’s why the question in the title of this blog persists on so many web pages on the internet that serve as tips to help writers overcome this stymieng cerebral weapon.
So how do you properly defeat writer’s block? Well, I say this is what you do: You get a pair of brass knucks while the referee is scratching his ass, nail Writer’s Block right in the jaw, roll out of the ring (by rolling under the ropes), grab a steel chair (trip the ref. on the process), and bash Writer’s Block with the said chair. There’s only one way up, and it’s to the top. If you aren’t familiar with those terms, well, think of it this way: beat the hell out of writer’s block with every weapon you have, whether it be by reading a book, walking around, eating, talking to your family and/or friends, or by simply sleeping. They’re all weapons to use against Writer’s Block — you just have to figure out which one is suitable for you to fight it.
Defeating writer’s block can be a challenge. There’s no simple solution (stand on one foot, recite the alphabet backwards, etc.), but there is plenty of sage advice on how to get back on track.
Why not try this?
1.) “Trust your hands.” In other words, shut off your brain, and just let your hands write. Don’t over think it.
2.) Establish a routine where you write in the morning. If you plan to write in the afternoon or evening, you delay it. Not to mention, in the morning your mind is usually fresh.
3.) Read. That’s right. Just read. When I’m completely upended by my mind, I read. Everybody learns how to be a quality writer by reading, so I read to get back into the groove of words. By the time I’m done reading something thats lengthy with quality, I’m usually able to write with panache.
4. Watch your language. Get rid of defeatist words like “writer’s block” and “procrastination.” “Turn your little quirks into something productive.” Call them “rehearsal” or “preparation” instead.
To sum it up, write early, write often, believe in yourself, and don’t be afraid to allow your hands to do the thinking instead of your mind, because hey, maybe that will kick up and start the damn thing so you can get the thinking process you intended for working.
Filed under: General, Satire | Tags: Blogging, Comedy, Funny, Humor, Ignorance, Life, People, reading, Satire, Video Games, Writing
I wrote this back in April (but I edited it a little bit.)
Y’know what drives the thousands of hair pegs off my arms? People who say they dislike reading. It’s like listening to a bunch of cats scream at night — it’s annoying, harmonious and monotonous. It’s the same thing all the time with no revelations to add to the same excuse. “Oh, I don’t like reading because it doesn’t interest me.” What about it does not interest you? You read every single day. Whether it’s from an advertisement, stupid horse excrement-esque things you read on the bottom of television screens, or obviously from what you read on the computer. If you still believe that reading isn’t for you, then you must be incredibly illiterate or incredibly stupid.
But don’t worry, bucko, it’s not indelible!
Y’know what may surprise you about me? I’m not an advocate of video games. Sure, I play every now and then (once every three to four months maybe). I have an Xbox 360. I have an Xbox Live account. I only play when one of my friends asks me too — and that’s not often, though it’s the time that I play that hinges my decision over what game and what mood I’m in. Video games bore me to death; they’re predictable. The same thing in almost every genre in that said genre’s category that you’d predict from it. I never got anything out of video games. Maybe quick fingers to use on keyboards to type (but still yet I don’t even type correctly — I only use three fingers on both hands each; my thumb, index and middle finger — and I’m an avid user of that middle finger, buddy), but who cares, y’know? I never got anything instilled in my mind from it. Maybe the intermittent excitement, but what else? Senile enjoyment, probably.
Man, I probably sound like Hitler and video games are Jews (OK, that was a comment that could turn me into a polarizing figure around here, so take it with a grain of salt and not of anything insulting).
Call me a nerd, but I’m a 6′3, 198 lb. muscular dude. Even then, I’m not a huge athlete even though I’m a big time sports fanatic. My Mom is 5′6 and my Dad was 5′7 but somehow I managed to pull off a height of 6′3. Magic, y’know? What kind of 6′3, 198 lb. muscular dude enjoys reading books vicariously over video gaming? ME, BABY! It’s me, it’s me, it’s the un-nerdy 6′3, 198 lb. muscular dude in your face, ya see. (Idiotic rhyme, re-read it again and you’ll understand it. . . hopefully).
So, y’know, there’s something for everyone to read. It just takes a little effort — you’re not too allergic to effort are you, self-proclaimed ‘reading haters’? Let’s hope not. Step aside from the norm and be a little more productive in your own life why don’t ya?
Be more like Bekki and I, read a lot and augment your lexicon with every opportunity. It’s not hard. It’s actually very entertaining.
