It is five days into NSNTCA and my beard is leaving much to be desired. It is still a worthy effort that only the brave will continue.
There comes a time, when a campus icon must address his adoring fan base. For me, that time is now. In reference to my column, Join the Revolution, an adoring fan said, “Your column is stupid. You had a good topic and you ruined it by putting in stupid, retarded jokes and suggestions and have convinced me to not listen to you. Thanks idiot.”
Let us first ignore this loyal fan’s run on sentences and insensitivity towards the mentally handicapped. It is more important to extract the heart of his comment. He said I had a good topic, and I couldn’t help but agree.
If someone forced me to address his accusation that “stupid, retarded jokes” ruin my good ideas, I would thank him for the compliment. Then, I would suggest that my stupid jokes are an attempt to make light of a situation. In my opinion, people take themselves far too seriously, a feat that I could not achieve. The sort of people who say, “oh, I don’t use contacts,” immediately after their eyes shift from vibrant green back to a dull blue or, “I only drink light beer,” with a condescending emphasis on the word light. If I was forced to “pop my collar,” and kill the humor in life, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
As an English major, I started working for “The Houstonian” as Viewpoints Editor and found myself a fish out of water. The lifeblood in “The Houstonian” office turns out to be journalism majors and Mac computers. As an English major, I found both to be as foreign as the Spanish language. My coworkers used words like: inverted pyramids, lead-ins and journalistic integrity. All of which have no meaning to me, whatsoever.
In order to survive in this environment, I had to toughen my skin and make light of the job. The job is not intrinsically difficult, but because the Viewpoints page often falls under scrutiny from students at Sam.
It takes the mental wattage of a Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives fan to sit back and complain about the status quo. So, when I hear how the Viewpoints page is nothing shy of a web blog, I laugh. That person is intelligent enough to make an observation, but not enough to make a change. If you find this page so degrading to your character, send your own concise and meaningful columns to viewpointshoustonian@yahoo.com. I’d love for everyone to articulate their hate for this page in favor of hearing the grumbling of degenerates.
At the end of the day, life can be incredibly tragic. I’ve always found it important to inject some humor into the world, be it stupid or not. Otherwise, if your only function in this world is to point out the tragedies and faults that exist, then do everyone a favor and make an effort to stop them. And really, isn’t that why we’re making an effort to raise testicular cancer awareness by not shaving? In order to solve a problem, rather than complain about it.