Shameless plug for the day

Do you know who Matt Taibbi is? If not you should go find out.

I just realized i painted myself into a corner here, shit! Usually when i do a shameless promotion like that i like to leave it hanging and not say anything more about the person/subject/book/etc and just let a persons natural curiosity drive them to do some exploring. Added bonus of his method is if the person is to lazy to look it/them up, i probably don't want to be talking to that particular individual about that particular subject. Unfortunately that would leave me with no segue into the meat of this blog.

Matt Taibbi is a writer and contributing editor for rolling stone magazine and the author of three books. He is freaking brilliant. I tend to describe him as somewhere between Jon Stewart and Hunter S. He talks scathingly about serious issues, but is still able to laugh at the shear absurdity of the whole thing. This is perfect for me, as i read more and more Hunter S. i do occasionaly feel he needs to lighten up, and same with Jon Stewart, he is so smart and aware (watch his apearance on crossfire) but he so gimiky most of the time. So Taibbi is Amazeing, go buy the book, shameless plug of the day.

The reason i want to talk about journalism, or more particularily Taibbi's brand of journalism (which i feel fairly comfortable calling gonzo) is two fold. First it embodies everything i have learned in my studies and also if i we're to have to do anything else...it would be that. There is a very specific reason i'm NOT doing that, but i'll come to that later. As for gonzo journalism and why it embodies what i believe, i said yesturday that i haven't realy learned anything new, just new ways to say it, here's my proof. Everything i am currently writing and/or researching can be boiled down to these two concepts. Nobody is 100% right and people need to grow a pair of balls.

If you knew me in high school and you haven't seen me since then, or if your memory is in slightly better repair then mine and you can remember what i was like back then, you'll know that i've felt these two things in various incantations for a long time. It's not playing devils advocate and anarchy anymore it's deconstruction and parresia. New words same theme.

Anyways i think the best real world examples of these ideals are in people like Matt Taibbi. People like this know that something isn't right, so they go out on a limb and say what needs to be said. (This is one of my more involved ideas, so you'll just have to go with me for now) i think one of the most couragous things you can do in this world, is laugh. There are some terrible and scary realities out there and my hat is off to those people who can stare into the abyss and just laugh. And it is a rare bread within these people who can laugh who can manage not to lose sight of the important issues.

So if journalism is so important to me and i hold it in such high regard why am i digging in for a long hall in the halls of academia? First off i'm not that good of a writer, i don't think i would be all that succesfull in profesional writing. But more so because of an experence i had in high school. In grade 11 all the students had a "go to work with your parents day"...now, both my parents are teachers so there was no way in hell i was going to school on my day off from school. So i called up my uncle Ian who works as a writer and editor at the only local paper.

A lot of things happened that day, it was very enjoyable, very educating, and i am so thankful to this day for it, but it was NOT what i had expected to say the least. Ian spent a very large portion of the day trying to scare me away from the journalism.

The stress and the repitition and the lack of credit and the long hours and the deadlines and the lack of respect and the creative restraints and the drugs and the alchool and the low pay and the people you have to deal with, the things you have to know and not say, the things you have to say but not believe and on and on like this.

I supose that this lecture had the desired affect, i am not currently a journalist, but students are not that much better off.

That was only one of many things i learned that day and the more relevant affect was not that it scared me away from that proffesion but that it deepened my admiration and respect for the people who do do that work. The people who are dragged through the mud and the slime and spit on and picked on and put down and still somehow find the strength of will to keep going. To know what these people go through an a day to day, year to year, basis blows my mind and to think that there are still some of them who can laugh at it all. I think everyone of us need to be a little bit more like them.

So to Ian and Matt and countless unknown others and anybody in other feilds who shares those traits, thank you thank you thank you, i am jealous and respectful and in awe. I might try to make a go of it one day, it is one of the few other things i could ever see myself doing, but until then i will leave it to you guys.

and one last time...thank you.