My arch-nemesis Danny Lim messaged me the other day.
Danny Lim: Dude, you wanna write for the World Cu thingy? (He's the editor for the small website)
I was like, fuck you, man. In my head. This fucker Danny Lim, right, he WAS a friend. And then he just like, upped and left and went to London without saying goodbye.
I was like, "Hope you choke on fish and chips, motherfucker! And then get run over by a black cab AND a double decker bus with the Spice Girls pictures on the side, driven by one of those guards with the tall furry hat. And you die, while wearing UK undies."
I actually knew of the project, though, and found it interesting. It's about using the World Cup as an excuse to wank. I'm all for wanking. So I said yes, even though I loathed Danny Lim to the core of my being.
FIRST RULE OF JOURNALISM: You must always, always hate your editor. YOU do all the work, and the fucker just cuts it, right? Well, goddamnit, you must give shit that will NOT be altered in any way. Then, you win. As the editor has acknowledged the size of your bulbous intellect and lay prostate (while checking his prostates) before the greatness of your prose.
So anyway, the project is interesting, but I see that he has amassed an army of intellectuals and intelligentsia for the project. People like Kubhaer T Jethwani - one of the great intellectuals of our time. I'm no fucking intellectual. Ayn Rand who?
I will NOT be drawn into their Kafka-esque, Objectivist, Gonzo bullshit. Imma be my own man! So I will NOT read anything from the site to avoid my sacred prose from being influenced.
So I was reading Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw and was just blown away by the man's work. This chef can write! His style is that he starts with a title or a theme, a topic, right, and then he talks about anything but the topic, rambles on and on and on. And on. And just talks about it in another part of the book.
So I did a stream of consciousness shit which was like, oh-so-cool.
Danny Lim contacted me and said it's too football-y or some shit.
I was like, fuck.
So I gave him another piece which had no football at all. It was an article about new media vs old media, in relation to underdog tag and the cyclic nature of things rather than black and white. It was intellectual.
And he said no.
What now?
So I chatted with him for about half an hour. Mostly bullshit, about why he left and why he's so lansi and shit. Blablabla, until he commented about something I said.
"Maybe you should write something like that."
Well, okay.
I said to give me half an hour. He was like, "Oh, I don't want to impose on you or some shit"
SO I knocked off a wanking piece in 20 minutes, under the influence of benadryl, and sent it to him. It was similar to my blog style circa 2005. Always thought it was garbage.
Well, he liked it. Or rather, he didn't hate it like the other two pieces. And so he published it.
Click Here for the article.
He was like, dunno what, dunno what, blablabla.
I said, "Dude, you're the editor in this one. My job is to get you something you can use."
Which is true. Flavour, angle, context, is all the editor's fault. Danny, for all his flaws and general intellectualness which I find repulsive, did the right thing when he pushed for the stuff he wanted, not settling for the extremely well-crafted crap I sent him earlier. My other shit would have belonged elsewhere, but not for his project.
It was a good experience, and I managed to shock and awe some new readers that I decided to request to do another piece for World Cup. Which is this next game I am watching.
"Aren't you glad I asked you to change the story?" asked Danny.
I hope you choke on your black pudding and kidney pie! And don't forget the Ploughman's!
But yes, Danny is a good editor.
