Mr. and Mrs. Edwards / Lincoln Aftermath / IC & Me / Et Cetera
It’s terrible news about Elizabeth Edwards and her latest battle against cancer.
Wishing Mrs. Edwards the best (which, of course, I do) doesn’t mean we cannot – and should not – firmly yet politely say that John Edwards is not much of a man for remaining in the race for President.
Never mind how Mrs. Edwards feels now. She is facing chemotherapy for the remainder of her life, as well as medications that will weaken her to some unknown degree; as a father of young children, Candidate Edwards’ first obligation is to his family, and I find it a special vulgarity that Edwards thinks more of continuing a political race he cannot win than performing his rightful duties as a husband and father. And that’s all.
* * *
Spent this week ridding myself of all Lincoln related research material. Working under the “out of sight = out of mind” paradigm, the Lincoln’s Tomb page at BrianWise.com was removed Monday morning, and every piece of research gathered in the previous 14 months was either deleted, copied to a CD-RW, or moved to the study at the back of the house, in a box at the bottom of the archive. Out of sight, out of mind.
What began as a begrudging acceptance of the project’s end flowered into a full-blown depression by Tuesday – wish I could tell you I’ve rebounded. A few people wrote or called to express their low-grade condolences; Jeff Curran, former co-host of the TGO Radio, left a message but I’ve yet to call him back. (Now he knows what it’s like. If only he would start a radio show and ask me to co-host so that I could walk off the thing, twice, with no warning …)
Leonard Steinhorn, of American University, who hasn’t spoken to me for months (for reasons I cannot quite identify), answered my email with what amounted to a nice “atta boy.” It was Steinhorn who thought enough of my idea to help me write a very early short treatment, and then forward it to his literary agent, which is as extraordinary an act as I’ve known throughout my writing career. His agent basically dismissed it (“Tell your friend we’ll get hold of him” or the like; a classic kissoff), and even though he’s not speaking to me, I’ll never forget that gesture.
Shane St. Hollister – editor of The Greatest Trust and The 5 Minutes of Silence, and proofreader of The Unabrian Manifesto – answered the announcement by hoping the death of Lincoln’s Tomb “doesn’t deter you from writing, even if you take a sabbatical before you resume.” He knows me well enough to know my first reaction to large setbacks is to retreat, and this time around has been no exception. The only difference this time is that my slate is finally clear; now there is absolutely nothing holding me to hopes of a career that just will not materialize.
Just Wednesday it occurred to me that for someone who’s such a failure, I’m very stable. Most aspects of life with my son and his mother are rolling along nicely (the one bump being his grades, which showed signs of improvement with the last progress report). I’ve worked in the same office for nearly eight years and lived in the same home for five; I owe no large debt to any one person or institution; my car is paid for; my utilities are covered; my love life – when it interests me enough to pursue one – goes along smoothly. Hell, even my cats are healthy and well fed. I’m broke as hell, but in the areas that matter, I’m unbelievably stable.
But my life is half over. The realization that I have abandoned important things and spent so many years in pursuit of a career that will, it seems clear now, never materialize has hit me very, very hard. Being this unsure of what will come next feels a lot like standing in a field in the middle of nowhere – there’s just nothing, for as far as the eye can see. The lack of purpose sits in my chest.
Never mind whether I have the talent to continue. Talent isn’t a concern. When I’m “on,” I honestly believe there isn’t a better non-syndicated columnist anywhere. The concern is that I will teeter into my forties struggling to hold onto a dream that really doesn’t interest me all that much anymore, and that cannot exist, but that I feel compelled to continue pursuing because all I’ve ever been able to do is write.
* * *
My initial “distribution deal” with the website IntellectualConservative.com (to post all eight of the new columns so that I could better judge public reaction to them) fell apart almost immediately. When I first called Rachel Alexander – she owns IC and I’ve known her personally for many years now – my aim was simply to ask her advice: If eight new “In Dissent” columns were written, where would she suggest I put them to best gauge reaction? She readily volunteered IC, an offer I found generous and accepted.
Within three days of my submitting the first column, 14 February’s “Anna Nicole Smith: Still Dead (And Other Observations),” I received an email from Rachel stating there were two objections to the column. These were not her protests, but instead those of her two brothers, to whom she inexplicably entrusted IC’s day-to-day operations some time ago. “I know you would probably be upset if I changed those two lines,” she wrote, “so I'm asking you if it's ok.” She was right, bless her heart.
Here are the lines in question, and the stated objections:
First Line: “Whilst swinging around a pole, she [Smith] managed to restore some long lost feeling to the groin of a dilapidated old billionaire, and the next thing you know she’s in line for an inheritance.”
Objection: The word “groin.”
Reaction: Nearing the end of my original run as lead columnist at IC, I wrote a column in which I said that terrorists understand only two things: Being blown to bits and dogs snarling at their crotches (e.g., in the Abu Ghraib photos). IC refused to publish the column after I refused to change the word “crotch.” That was an editorial decision Rachel made herself. In a conversation between the two of us in the aftermath, she suggested I would have done better to use “groin.”
Now here was an instance where “groin” was the better fit – having to do with the flow and tone of the work; i.e., more playful than severe – and it was found objectionable. I argued forcefully, then and now, that if IC feels so compelled to edit its writers (a practice I find objectionable for a wide variety of reasons), it must adopt and maintain an editing standard, and not make it up on the fly.
Second Line: “Yeah, well, if I were married to [Zsa Zsa] Gabor, I’d be looking for young mistresses, too.”
Objection: Editors said that line “will haunt us later as a sexist remark about women.”
Reaction: In the same column, I referred to Bobby Trendy as a “poofy, spectacularly gay (and unintentionally hilarious) interior decorator,” with no nail biting on IC’s part about offending gays in the future.
In the same piece I wrote that media reacted to Smith’s death as though “a former president was found hanged in a bathhouse,” again with no concern.
Furthermore, “Never underestimate the sheer will of a stuffy older child unwilling to allow his old man the luxury of fondling a much younger wife in his final years” passed muster without a sniff.
You get the point. It’s difficult to sufficiently explain in a small space what has gone wrong at Intellectual Conservative since I left in August 2004. I can tell you it was starting to go bad, very bad, when I left; I can tell you that hyper-sensitive over-editing is why I resigned the best gig of my life; and I can tell you the site has spiraled out of control since she surrendered control to her brothers, neither of whom could write or edit their ways out of a bag of wet hair. Beyond that, I’m at a loss.
In an email dated 17 February, Rachel complained about the changes her brothers have made – “Trust me, this is not out of the ordinary these days, my brother edits all of our writers considerably. He's pretty much taken over the site btw, if you'll notice, he got rid of all my goofy pictures on the sides (even took away my blogs [sic] posts on the articles pages)” – but appears disinterested in correcting the mistakes she’s made and salvaging what was once a fine website.
At first I wrote in reply only, “Do not post that column.”
Later that night (17 February), I responded at greater length (only part of which is posted here, because even though I make a point of conducting my “writing career” as transparently as possible, a lot of the email addresses her personally, and none of that stuff is any of your fucking business):
“When logic dictated I sacrifice my career and leave IC, it broke my heart. Literally. It felt like I was turning my back on my sister. But you had turned to a drastic, overly moralistic over-editing, the kind that reached too far beyond common sense, the kind that refused to let a spade be called a spade when it came to thinking about and dealing with the dirt worshipers, and in the end it seemed better to put the gun to my writing career's head [and I sure as fuck did that] than to allow it to be overseen by the rough intellectual equivalent of the PMRC. I thought, ‘Rachel has clearly turned her back on what's best for the website’…. I care for you. But I cannot let you break my heart again. When you fell like taking your website back, let me know. Until then I must stand … with my back turned to you.”
So that’s what happened with distribution. If I had the money, I would buy that website and give it the dignified end it deserves, as opposed to letting two ignoramuses run the thing into the ground. A Viking funeral would be better than seeing it mismanaged to death.
I miss Rachel. Maybe I should call her and tell her so. But she doesn’t care, and other than the two emails I’ve sent her in the last five weeks, which she hasn’t answered, I consider her a loss. Which is terrible, because I genuinely care for her a great deal.
* * *
The question is, Have we now finally arrived at The End of Things? Meaning, is it finally time to start concerning myself with adult things and leave the rest behind? No one else I know has attained my age and continued to hold on to the now shattered notions of their (very) early twenties. When I announced last May that I was “leaving public life,” what I meant was that retirement from writing (excepting the Lincoln book, an idea too good to shelve) seemed the best, most logical course.
Then I pounded out that Ann Coulter essay last June, and the next thing you know, Bernard Goldberg sends an email to say I’d written a “smart piece,” and a few weeks later he’s complimenting The Unabrian Manifesto, even going so far as to write a blurb for it (which is plastered all over BrianWise.com). Add to that the fact Lincoln’s Tomb, even in the research phase, was getting just a little buzz behind it, and things looked all right.
Thomas Craughwell’s wonderful book Stealing Lincoln’s Body rendered my book unnecessary, and IC’s rejecting the “In Dissent” column brings me to a point where literally nothing substantive is happening. A natural break.
Wishing Mrs. Edwards the best (which, of course, I do) doesn’t mean we cannot – and should not – firmly yet politely say that John Edwards is not much of a man for remaining in the race for President.
Never mind how Mrs. Edwards feels now. She is facing chemotherapy for the remainder of her life, as well as medications that will weaken her to some unknown degree; as a father of young children, Candidate Edwards’ first obligation is to his family, and I find it a special vulgarity that Edwards thinks more of continuing a political race he cannot win than performing his rightful duties as a husband and father. And that’s all.
* * *
Spent this week ridding myself of all Lincoln related research material. Working under the “out of sight = out of mind” paradigm, the Lincoln’s Tomb page at BrianWise.com was removed Monday morning, and every piece of research gathered in the previous 14 months was either deleted, copied to a CD-RW, or moved to the study at the back of the house, in a box at the bottom of the archive. Out of sight, out of mind.
What began as a begrudging acceptance of the project’s end flowered into a full-blown depression by Tuesday – wish I could tell you I’ve rebounded. A few people wrote or called to express their low-grade condolences; Jeff Curran, former co-host of the TGO Radio, left a message but I’ve yet to call him back. (Now he knows what it’s like. If only he would start a radio show and ask me to co-host so that I could walk off the thing, twice, with no warning …)
Leonard Steinhorn, of American University, who hasn’t spoken to me for months (for reasons I cannot quite identify), answered my email with what amounted to a nice “atta boy.” It was Steinhorn who thought enough of my idea to help me write a very early short treatment, and then forward it to his literary agent, which is as extraordinary an act as I’ve known throughout my writing career. His agent basically dismissed it (“Tell your friend we’ll get hold of him” or the like; a classic kissoff), and even though he’s not speaking to me, I’ll never forget that gesture.
Shane St. Hollister – editor of The Greatest Trust and The 5 Minutes of Silence, and proofreader of The Unabrian Manifesto – answered the announcement by hoping the death of Lincoln’s Tomb “doesn’t deter you from writing, even if you take a sabbatical before you resume.” He knows me well enough to know my first reaction to large setbacks is to retreat, and this time around has been no exception. The only difference this time is that my slate is finally clear; now there is absolutely nothing holding me to hopes of a career that just will not materialize.
Just Wednesday it occurred to me that for someone who’s such a failure, I’m very stable. Most aspects of life with my son and his mother are rolling along nicely (the one bump being his grades, which showed signs of improvement with the last progress report). I’ve worked in the same office for nearly eight years and lived in the same home for five; I owe no large debt to any one person or institution; my car is paid for; my utilities are covered; my love life – when it interests me enough to pursue one – goes along smoothly. Hell, even my cats are healthy and well fed. I’m broke as hell, but in the areas that matter, I’m unbelievably stable.
But my life is half over. The realization that I have abandoned important things and spent so many years in pursuit of a career that will, it seems clear now, never materialize has hit me very, very hard. Being this unsure of what will come next feels a lot like standing in a field in the middle of nowhere – there’s just nothing, for as far as the eye can see. The lack of purpose sits in my chest.
Never mind whether I have the talent to continue. Talent isn’t a concern. When I’m “on,” I honestly believe there isn’t a better non-syndicated columnist anywhere. The concern is that I will teeter into my forties struggling to hold onto a dream that really doesn’t interest me all that much anymore, and that cannot exist, but that I feel compelled to continue pursuing because all I’ve ever been able to do is write.
* * *
My initial “distribution deal” with the website IntellectualConservative.com (to post all eight of the new columns so that I could better judge public reaction to them) fell apart almost immediately. When I first called Rachel Alexander – she owns IC and I’ve known her personally for many years now – my aim was simply to ask her advice: If eight new “In Dissent” columns were written, where would she suggest I put them to best gauge reaction? She readily volunteered IC, an offer I found generous and accepted.
Within three days of my submitting the first column, 14 February’s “Anna Nicole Smith: Still Dead (And Other Observations),” I received an email from Rachel stating there were two objections to the column. These were not her protests, but instead those of her two brothers, to whom she inexplicably entrusted IC’s day-to-day operations some time ago. “I know you would probably be upset if I changed those two lines,” she wrote, “so I'm asking you if it's ok.” She was right, bless her heart.
Here are the lines in question, and the stated objections:
First Line: “Whilst swinging around a pole, she [Smith] managed to restore some long lost feeling to the groin of a dilapidated old billionaire, and the next thing you know she’s in line for an inheritance.”
Objection: The word “groin.”
Reaction: Nearing the end of my original run as lead columnist at IC, I wrote a column in which I said that terrorists understand only two things: Being blown to bits and dogs snarling at their crotches (e.g., in the Abu Ghraib photos). IC refused to publish the column after I refused to change the word “crotch.” That was an editorial decision Rachel made herself. In a conversation between the two of us in the aftermath, she suggested I would have done better to use “groin.”
Now here was an instance where “groin” was the better fit – having to do with the flow and tone of the work; i.e., more playful than severe – and it was found objectionable. I argued forcefully, then and now, that if IC feels so compelled to edit its writers (a practice I find objectionable for a wide variety of reasons), it must adopt and maintain an editing standard, and not make it up on the fly.
Second Line: “Yeah, well, if I were married to [Zsa Zsa] Gabor, I’d be looking for young mistresses, too.”
Objection: Editors said that line “will haunt us later as a sexist remark about women.”
Reaction: In the same column, I referred to Bobby Trendy as a “poofy, spectacularly gay (and unintentionally hilarious) interior decorator,” with no nail biting on IC’s part about offending gays in the future.
In the same piece I wrote that media reacted to Smith’s death as though “a former president was found hanged in a bathhouse,” again with no concern.
Furthermore, “Never underestimate the sheer will of a stuffy older child unwilling to allow his old man the luxury of fondling a much younger wife in his final years” passed muster without a sniff.
You get the point. It’s difficult to sufficiently explain in a small space what has gone wrong at Intellectual Conservative since I left in August 2004. I can tell you it was starting to go bad, very bad, when I left; I can tell you that hyper-sensitive over-editing is why I resigned the best gig of my life; and I can tell you the site has spiraled out of control since she surrendered control to her brothers, neither of whom could write or edit their ways out of a bag of wet hair. Beyond that, I’m at a loss.
In an email dated 17 February, Rachel complained about the changes her brothers have made – “Trust me, this is not out of the ordinary these days, my brother edits all of our writers considerably. He's pretty much taken over the site btw, if you'll notice, he got rid of all my goofy pictures on the sides (even took away my blogs [sic] posts on the articles pages)” – but appears disinterested in correcting the mistakes she’s made and salvaging what was once a fine website.
At first I wrote in reply only, “Do not post that column.”
Later that night (17 February), I responded at greater length (only part of which is posted here, because even though I make a point of conducting my “writing career” as transparently as possible, a lot of the email addresses her personally, and none of that stuff is any of your fucking business):
“When logic dictated I sacrifice my career and leave IC, it broke my heart. Literally. It felt like I was turning my back on my sister. But you had turned to a drastic, overly moralistic over-editing, the kind that reached too far beyond common sense, the kind that refused to let a spade be called a spade when it came to thinking about and dealing with the dirt worshipers, and in the end it seemed better to put the gun to my writing career's head [and I sure as fuck did that] than to allow it to be overseen by the rough intellectual equivalent of the PMRC. I thought, ‘Rachel has clearly turned her back on what's best for the website’…. I care for you. But I cannot let you break my heart again. When you fell like taking your website back, let me know. Until then I must stand … with my back turned to you.”
So that’s what happened with distribution. If I had the money, I would buy that website and give it the dignified end it deserves, as opposed to letting two ignoramuses run the thing into the ground. A Viking funeral would be better than seeing it mismanaged to death.
I miss Rachel. Maybe I should call her and tell her so. But she doesn’t care, and other than the two emails I’ve sent her in the last five weeks, which she hasn’t answered, I consider her a loss. Which is terrible, because I genuinely care for her a great deal.
* * *
The question is, Have we now finally arrived at The End of Things? Meaning, is it finally time to start concerning myself with adult things and leave the rest behind? No one else I know has attained my age and continued to hold on to the now shattered notions of their (very) early twenties. When I announced last May that I was “leaving public life,” what I meant was that retirement from writing (excepting the Lincoln book, an idea too good to shelve) seemed the best, most logical course.
Then I pounded out that Ann Coulter essay last June, and the next thing you know, Bernard Goldberg sends an email to say I’d written a “smart piece,” and a few weeks later he’s complimenting The Unabrian Manifesto, even going so far as to write a blurb for it (which is plastered all over BrianWise.com). Add to that the fact Lincoln’s Tomb, even in the research phase, was getting just a little buzz behind it, and things looked all right.
Thomas Craughwell’s wonderful book Stealing Lincoln’s Body rendered my book unnecessary, and IC’s rejecting the “In Dissent” column brings me to a point where literally nothing substantive is happening. A natural break.
posted by Brian S. Wise | 3:32 PM
