Hard Work is for Suckers

And now the excerpts from my new book which is actually 20 months old continue. In this installment, I'll tell you how I learned at a very young age that hard work will never benefit anyone.

When I was 14 I landed a job with my hometown newspaper, the Michigan City News‑Dispatch, as a video game critic. I joke about what I loser I am that my greatest writing achievement is getting a job at a small town newspaper whose reputation for journalistic excellence has earned it the nickname "The News‑Disgrace" from just about every sentient person in Michigan City (and even a few News‑Dispatch employees).

Being self‑deprecating is charming and all, but I actually am pretty proud of getting the job. Michigan City isn't exactly a bustling metropolis, but the last census put its population at around 33,000. It's not the fucking Washington Post, but that's still a decent audience to reach. 33,000 people is still 33,000 people. It's also cool that I started when I was 14. Most aspiring writers that age are struggling to get printed in their school newspaper. Also let's not forget that it rules to get paid to write about video games at any age. Who hasn't wanted to tell their parents to screw off when they're nagged about looking for a job or doing homework instead of playing video games?

2,200 of the 33,000 people counted as Michigan City residents are inmates in the Indiana State Prison. My writing has been read by more rapists than yours.

Looking back on the way I landed this job, I learned a valuable (and horrible) life lesson. You see, from the age of 12 to 13, I had a hobby of writing video game reviews for epinions.com and GameFAQs.com. Although both sites have the occasional well‑written, thoughtful, quality review, they are for the most part the places where well‑informed, coherent analysis goes to get raped and stabbed in an alley and left for dead. Looking back I would like to think that my work was a cut above the other trash found on those sites. I'm pretty sure my grammar and punctuation were impeccable, my jokes hilarious, and my analysis thought provoking and brilliant. Then I found all of my old reviews on an internet archive and discovered I was no better. Not only did I rape and stab coherent analysis, I smashed its head against the concrete, robbed it, poured sugar in its gas tank, and then I farted in its face. Here are some of excerpts to show you what I great writer I was in junior high. All of the original grammatical and typographical errors have been left in place.

Excerpt from my review of the Sega Dreamcast

"This thing is powerful. Wile people have been fooling themselves into being wowed by the PS2's graphics, they don't seem to have realized that DC's graphics are just as good. Take a look at Jet Grind Radio or better yet, Soul Calibur if you don't believe me. "

Yes, my love of the Dreamcast actually did render me completely blind. Thanks for asking!

This image is from a Dreamcast game. Clearly it created the most aesthetically pleasing graphics in gaming history.

Excerpt from my review of Crash Bandicoot: Warped

"Crash looks better then ever, animation rarely slips below the 40 fps line, and is most of the time much higher."

When I was 12 I wasn't going to let the fact that I didn't even know what a frame rate was keep me from completely pulling graphics-related stats out of my ass. Things have changed since then. For example, I can tell from looking at this screenshot that Crash Bandicoot: Warped was rendered at a rate of 64% polygonicality.

Excerpt from my review of Ape Escape

" Ape Escape centers around Spike and his quest to catch misbehaving mondeys that put on brain‑enhancing helmets. These mondeys were enhanced by means of a once good monkey turned evil by putting on a brain‑enhancing helmet that made him a genius. As part of Specter's plan, (If you couldn't already draw an inference, Specter is the monkey) he has put brain‑enhancing helmets on all of his monkey minions also, although the normal monkey's helmets aren't as powerful.(It puts them at about Keanu Reeve's brain level) Specter sent the monkeys back in time to screw everything up, and guess who has to catch them, Spike!"

Tell me your brain didn't fucking explode from reading that.

When I was in junior high I referred to this man as "Keanu Reeve" and insulted his intelligence by saying he's as smart as a "mondey." Pot, meet kettle.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I thought I was a damn good video game critic, and it was time to fulfill my boyhood dream of being one of those professional video game reviewers who look like they have so much fun. I contacted the News‑Dispatch entertainment editor by e‑mail. He's a very nice man who escaped the clutches of Judaism and converted to Christianity. I don't give a motherfucking fuckity fuck about religion, but the fact that he's put a lot of thought into his religion shows he takes his spirituality seriously, and I guess I respect that on some level. He also has a great wife and kid, he didn't shitcan me over those first couple years like he definitely should have, and I still use him as a job reference today.

In the e‑mail I completely kissed his ass, telling him that I love the News‑Dispatch, I love his section, and I love everything he writes. I finished the e‑mail with a sample of my writing, copied and pasted right into the fucking body of the e‑mail because I didn't understand what attachments are. I pasted my epically long review of Crazy Taxi, which is pretty thorough and is probably the least retarded of my early stuff.

The editor hit me back saying that the e‑mail I wrote was very nice he would love for me to write columns about video games because I had won the county spelling bee and competed in the National Spelling Bee the year before, so the regular readers of the paper knew my name and he felt they would like to read what I have to write. In other words, the reason why I landed this job was completely irrelevant to the quality of my writing.

Pictured: Journalistic credentials

I scored a paying gig writing about video games. Not only that, the newspaper reimbursed me for Hollywood Video rentals I made researching for my reviews. I got this by kissing the boss's ass and having name recognition in Michigan City. My early articles were eye‑bleedingly terrible. One of the first ones I wrote was a treatise calling for the abolition of all violence in video games because I was shellshocked by 9/11. I also continued to write reviews for Dreamcast games well into the winter of 2002, a good long while after Sega officially announced its death. I believe I was allowed to continue to stink up the pages of the entertainment section just because readers still knew me from the fucking spelling bee. I eventually improved and enjoyed close to six years with the paper before I left partly due to contract disputes and partly because being a full‑time college student working a part-time job on the side and getting drunk with my frat brothers five nights a week just no longer left me enough time to write an article with any regularity.

Hey, check out this hot new game I found!

Today I am a college graduate with a double major from Ball State University with nearly six years worth of published newspaper articles to hand out as samples. Not only that, the last two years worth of writing were actually pretty good. I've applied to various newspapers, magazines, and other publications looking for work as a video game writer and have been soundly ignored by all. I haven’t heard back on any of the applications I’ve sent out for more traditional writing work either. So with a decent education from a good university with the better part of a decade of real writing experience, I can't land a job writing about games, or any writing job at all, something that I easily did as a 14‑year old with no experience and a sub‑retarded level of writing skill. And it's there that I learned a horrible, backwards life lesson: kissing ass and name recognition always trumps integrity and hard work.

To those of you reading this looking for advice on how to make something of yourself, I have this to say: Why the fuck are you looking for life advice in a collection of ranting essays from a video game addicted 23‑year old who waited tables his first two years out of college? I also have this to say: tell the boss he has a really nice tie. Tell him you're a huge fan of his work. Don't be that moron who refuses to join the ass‑kissing parade thinking the boss will recognize and appreciate your integrity! Start screwing the boss's daughter and have her threaten to join the Peace Corps if he doesn't make you VP of marketing. Throw a bag of kittens into a lake. Then call the local news station and rescue the kittens so the footage of your heroism ends up on the 6 o'clock news. What CEO wouldn't want a kitten rescuer in upper management? If I was a more attractive hire as a nut‑fuck high school freshman and admittedly adorable former spelling bee champion than I am as a moderately intelligent college graduate, imagine what a dozen safe, adorable kittens will do for your career. But whatever you do, for the love of god, don't waste your time with hard work.

One of these things is worth 60 credit hours.