by Thomas Hart

G21 Muckraker

AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEJAS - Let me end the trail of dish and dirt by giving you the inside skinny on this here Web magazine. Rod, our Esteemed Editor, has no problem crackin' the danged whip. (You wouldn't expect that of a Black man, would you?) If you don't send him new copy after a month or two, he sends you a threatening e-mail sayin' you are takin' up too much space on the Writers page and that maybe you should just be considered a danged member of the alumni crew.

That happened to me back in April, I still couldn't squeeze a word out of my fingers any easier than a drunk can squeeze his next cocktail out of an armadillo's ass.

By the time June rolled around I was in a panic.

I mean, there was plenty enough manure from the lives of the celebrity buzzmakers and politicians to spread around, but I had nothin' to say about it. I would sit down here in my double-wide, knocking back longneck after longneck -- either Shiner or Lone Star -- and not be able to face a blank page without breakin' into a cold sweat. I would just get up from my computer and run out of the room as fast as my legs would carry me.

"You had a good run, Tom, but it's over, Pard'," the back of my mind was saying to me. That's death for a columnist.

What killed me about this is that, back when G21 was comin' out weekly, I felt it was not often enough! I used to wish I had been around this thang when it was daily, ferchrissakes! Now, when the publication schedule was being cut back to twice a month so's our editor could focus on his danged book, I was runnin' dry. IT MADE NO DANGED SENSE!

I beat myself up a lot over this but now I have to admit that Mrs. Hart's fair-haired boy has come to the end of a trail. I cain't do this anymore. And Rod was right when he asked me, this time without the whip, if maybe it was time for me to go.

THANGS I'VE LEARNED (Kickin' & Screamin')

Being writing here at this magazine for four or five years, I've learned a lot from my fellow writers and from our Esteemed Editor. In leaving, I'd like to share some of that with the new writers that have joined the "G-Crew" and y'all readers.

1. EDITORS ARE A GOOD THANG. Only after I have e-mailed in my copy, after that initial rush o f thinking how danged brilliant I am, have I gone back and seen that I made a lot of typos and errors not part of the affected slang that is part of my usual "charm" in this space. My editor never wrote me back about these lapses of mine while I was writing here. (And he probably won't if I do it now.) He just corrected my mistakes without makin' me feel bad or makin' himself noticed. I'm grateful.
   
   
2. ON THE WEB, NO ONE HEARS YOU SCREAM. Most readers don't let you know that what you wrote moved them, made them laugh or that they even read it. Web readers, from what I've seen over these years, just click on you and move on. (Well, maybe they'll send the URL of your page to a friend if you can really make them laugh or say, "Uh-huh". But even that's rare.)

   If you really get them p.o.'ed or laugh until they bust a gut, then maybe they'll write in. But don't expect a lot of props. That's where the statistical programs come in and your publisher let's you know on some back-channel that you are actually bein' read. Otherwise, you'd give up in disgust.
   
   

3. YEAH, I'M A GREAT WRITER, BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE. I was like most of the other people who write for G21 -- the first couple years I was here -- and only checked to see that our Esteemed Editor made my column look good and then clicked aw ay. I did n't read the other writers here. Why should l? What would they have to say that would interest me?

So, for about two danged years, I had NO IDEA what the magazine I was writing for was really about. I missed a lot. I missed a lot of lessons about what good writing is all about, too.

Then I started reading some of the letters that you, the readers, wrote in about the articles here and actually went and read some of the stories that you loved or hated. It was an eye-opener.

I learned that you followed some columnists the way people follow their favorite TV shows. I learned that there is a way to build the loyalty of your readers.

That was the point my own writing style changed here. That was also the point where I got A CLUE about Rod's editorial style. He actually was working, in his quiet and danged velvet glove way, to foster the writers who understood the concept of reader loyalty.

I started looking at the way Raheem's column had worked for seven danged years, how Bob Powers had been around for five plus, how the "Glass House" was a precursor to what we now call Blogs. I watched the people he kept and encouraged like Aamera Jiwaji, H. Scott Prosterman, Bily Jackson, Gaynor Paynter and Mputhumi Ntabeni. All those folks, old and new, were the kind of people you felt you wanted to hear more from. You forgave them their bad weeks and came back for their good ones.

That was a big lesson for me, y'all. One I won't forget for the rest of my writing career.

The reason, I figured out, that this Web magazine has survived so long is because of reader loyalty. Our "hands off" (so-called) editor was making sure that the writers who had a following kept the customers coming back. He begged, pleaded, prodded and cajoled us when we were hot. He left us alone when we were not. He was looking at the Big Picture every week, knowing that we would -- usually -- be competing with what we thought was our last best article.

My advice to some of y'all newbies: write from your heart. It will all work out. The Web has a very short memory.

Say, "Good-bye, Tom"

Consider me gone, as the line from the song by Sting goes.

What would you say at the end of your day?

Well, I guess I'm obliged to say that I was surprised and pleased when the people at the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (the WELL) -- that Internet community that SALON is all behind -- gave me that Satire Award back when I first started here for my SNL spoof. And I was happier than a danged armadillo who didn't end up as road-kill when I got my first e-mail from my fellow G21 writer, Bob Powers, who has worked in this industry for years, saying I was making a positive contribution here. That letter from that woman in South Africa, of all places, sayin' that she read my column religiously because I wasn't as serious and depressing as most of the other writers here helped one heck of a lot, Pardners.

I gottah say, as soon as I was dubbed the "gossip" columnist, the guy focusin' on the dirt, I knew I would always suck hind tit. I didn't care. I just wanted to talk about what REAL PEOPLE, work-a-day men and women, people proud to have they double-wide, talked about.

But then I froze up.

I started lookin' at what Rod's real prima donas were doin' and saw that I wasn't in their class and maybe I didn't fit here.

LAST TRAILER PARK PREDICTION: "Charlie the Tuna" is next. His schtick don't fit here anymore, either. He is not in keeping with what I see The World's Magazine becoming as I read it since Rod started doing his book. Like Rod said in his latest Glass House, a few weeks back, rants have gone out of fashion. So have Web columnists like me and Charlie.

In the final analysis, I have to admit that it was a good ride. I have the sense now that our E steemed Editor ALWAYS had something in mind for what your World's Magazine (as he says) would become. But he just nurtured and explored and worked his insidious little formula on us without us even knowing it.

He succeeded.

I don't doubt he'll invite me back -- as he has every single alumnus -- when he wants me. But I also see how the velvet glove works now.

There's nothing as powerful in this medium (or any other) as an editor with a vision. That is the most important thing I have learned by being part of GENERATOR 21.

Vaya con Dios!

BUT REMEMBER: It will take more than a few tornados -- or even Level 4 hurricanes -- to blow away all the trailer trash!

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