Category: default || By jt3y

Cluttered items from an empty mind:

. . .

What the hell: I paid $3.09 a gallon for 87 octane gas on Tuesday night. Jumpin' Jimmy Carters, this is worse than odd-and-even days. And the next wise-arse who says, "Well, they pay a lot more in Europe, I think we should be paying more," should be forced to ride from Rhode Island to Seattle in a 1970s school bus.

Of course, you could use public transportation, unless you ride the 50B Glassport, the Clairton, White Oak or Jefferson flyers, or any of the McKeesport local routes that are down to five or six trips a day. And about the service cuts: I suppose it's slightly better than the original plan to eliminate all local McKeesport routes --- we die from a thousand little cuts instead of a guillotine.

The Mon-Fayette Expressway looks like a better and better idea. Yep, let's build new highways, spread people further out, and make 'em use their cars more!

As for public transportation, I know the state can't fund it adequately, but at least work is underway on that new arena for the hockey team. Let's go Pens!

. . .

Speaking of Mr. Peanut: Way to show some backbone, Jimmy. You folded like a cheap card table. Now I remember why we look back on the Carter administration with such fondness. Says Mark Evanier, "You get the idea that the man's just plain giddy that he's no longer regarded as our worst recent president?"

. . .

Nobody Cares, But: I rarely write about writing, because no one but other writers care. On the off chance that someone does give a rat's patoot, however, I thought I'd give a little insight into the "creative" process as it's practiced around Tube City Omnimedia's World Headquarters overlooking Our Fair City.

Sometimes aspiring writers ask me for advice. After I tell them, "Don't become a writer," I tell them to "revise, revise, revise."

I did a lot of weird things during my failed career as a newspaper writer (sitting around in my stocking feet, for instance), but one that I'm not ashamed of was my habit of printing out my stories and editing them over a cup of coffee. My editor at the Observer-Reporter used to tease me whenever she saw me walking around the newsroom reading from a sheaf of copy paper: "Well, you must be almost done, because you're rewriting."

At right is a page from the long-promised G.C. Murphy book, which is going to be finished someday --- in fact, it's due to the publisher next Wednesday. (Next Wednesday? Holy crow, why am I writing this drivel?)

Depending on how I count, this is either the third or fourth draft, and you can see how much I'm still marking up, trimming and rewriting. Never let your first draft be your final draft --- edit your work and when you're done, edit some more.

You also have to learn how to cut passages of which you've really become fond. Former cow-orker Dave Copeland, who's apparently written a few things here and there, talked about this a few weeks ago. Writing teachers call it "killing your children," and I've had to kill a whole chapter of the Murphy book --- it had some funny stuff, but it just wasn't working.

Sure, you can --- as my art teacher, Sister Dorothy Ransil used to say --- "futz too much." At some point, you have to back off and say, "OK, it's good enough." (Another old O-R mentor, chief photographer Stan Diamond, used to tell me, "They can't all be Pulitzers.")

But if you want to be a writer, learn to edit your work ruthlessly. Few people have ever looked at an article, book or blog posting and said, "Gee, I'd like to read that, but it's too darn short."

Oh, and how to live on ramen noodles and peanut butter.

. . .

Get a Grip: Dan Rooney is wringing his hands with anguish over the fact that one of his coaches accidentally sent a dirty video out via email to half the known world. The usual suspects in the media are cluck-clucking their tongues.

The guy screwed up, but it's not necessary for the Steelers to cover him with ashes and flog him. It's the National Football League, not a ballet school for pre-teen girls. I don't seriously think many football players and coaches would be offended. I'll bet the air in the locker room at Heinz Field is plenty blue on game days.

And any fans that are offended are hypocrites: If you don't mind the cheerleaders and the endless bikini-clad bimbos hawking beer on TV during time outs, then cry me no tears about emailed porn.