An open letter to Mr. Morford, columnist at SF Gate, "journalist," hack supreme:
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Mark,
I've been trying to hold this back for some time, but after reading your installment about Hunter S. Thompson I just can't anymore.
Please. I beg you. In the name of all that's grammatically holy, please stop writing. Take up a nice lucrative career as a pastry chef, or perhaps go command a nuclear submarine somewhere. Run for the White House in '08, where they pay talented people to write for you. I'd happily vote for you if you just please, please, please stop writing. You are to SF Gate what Tucker Carlson is to TV. In fact, on more than one occasion I've involuntarily attached his grating voice and mannerisms to your insufferable chicken-scratching, resulting in my wanting to poke out my eardrums with an ice pick.
Alternatively, at least please take a remedial English class, or a crash course in punctuation and sentence structure. Yes, your "style" is obvious. But you're not half as clever, funny, witty, or urbane as you think you are. You're self-indulgent in the extreme, shamelessly derivative, pecking away only to draw attention to your hackneyed "style" without a shred of regard for your poor suffering readers. Worst, your angry-freshman-at-the-college-paper tapeworm-like sentences are, to paraphrase John Stewart, hurting us all.
Do the right thing. Please stop. Please, please stop. HST would thank you.
Very regrettably,
Eric Friedmann
Solana Records, San Francisco
solanarecords.com
ericfriedmann.com
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Let's see if he answers...
Posted by eric at February 24, 2005 06:23 AM