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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Left, Online and Outgrabe

Great article in the Washington Post this weekend on blogging and The Left!  A truly illuminating look at what makes the left blogosphere so smart and cool, as opposed, say, to some of the people WaPo.com has been hiring lately.

In the witty life of Andrew Northrup, the fun begins as soon as he opens his eyes and realizes that his president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and his kittens are asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, Northrup, 32, is out of bed and heading toward his computer.

“Who am I?” he asks plaintively.  “What am I doing here? Who are you people? What day is it? Where’s my Scotch?

“Oh, it’s coming back to me, now. That mysterious bar. A pint glass of Jagermeister that, no matter how much I drank, I could never empty. And that mysterious sideburn man—or was it two? or four? or was it a kitten?—urging me on, until he—they?—proposed that horrible bet. . . .  Well, the details don’t matter, and I’m not in the mood to relive them for you.”

Northrup shakes off the fearsome hangover and takes his seat.  Out there, awaiting his latest missive from “The Editors”: the Witty Left, where Northrup’s reputation is as one of the wittiest of all. “One long, sustained wank” is how he describes the writing he does for his “Web” “log,” as he wonders what he should wank about this day.

He drinks an absinthe and soda. Should it be about Instapundit, whom he calls “Professor Lloyd Christmas”?  He drinks another absinthe and soda.  Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom he thinks of as “a poker cheat,” or about Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly, “the gifts that keep on giving”?  He drinks still another absinthe and soda.  Should it be about the Gannon-Abramoff-Allen-Domenech phenomenon, about which he says, “whenever someone goes fishing for shadiness, deceit, and fraudulence in their background, they always land a whale,” or should he compose the next thrilling sequence of Battle-Action Bush and the Keyboard Kommandos?

The Wanker-Wingnut Continuum, he finally decides. He will write about the Wanker-Wingnut Continuum. The shame of it. The culpability of all Americans, including himself, for doing nothing. He will write something so filled with wit that it will accomplish the one thing above all he wants from his writing: to make readers spew hot coffee all over their laptops.

“The Wanker-Wingnut Continuum is not hopeless,” he begins typing, and pauses.

“Ugh,” he says.

“You are not helpless,” he continues typing, and pauses again.

“Weak.”

He deletes everything and starts over.

“A reader asks:  Darling, Every week you give out a ‘Weekly Wanker’ award for the biggest wanker of the week. But the trophy for the Weekly Wanker is the ‘Golden Winger,’ which implies that it’s really an award for wingnuttery. So I’m confused. Is it an award for wanking, or wingnuttery?  Still Craving Your Body, Julia Stiles.”

And this time, instead of pausing, he keeps going, typing harder and harder on a keyboard that is surrounded by bottles of wormwood, Grooming Tips for Porn Stars, a dirty litter box, instruments of Science, golden statues of Kip Winger, and a taped-up note—staring at him—on which he has scrawled “Who am I?  What am I doing here? Who are you people? What day is it? Where’s my Scotch?”

Fascinating, fascinating stuff.  I never knew you could mix absinthe and soda!  Well, as they say on “web” “logs,” read the whole thing.

Posted by Michael on 04/18 at 07:43 AM
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