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You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Sad Young Literary Man Seeks Advice From Cary Tennis
'My Favorite Part is Where he Says he's Mildly Attracted to his Cousin.'
In This Economy, Is It Wrong to Spend Money?
A Present, For Us?
'It Would Certainly Inflict Pain'
Looking For Advice in All the Wrong Places
Facebook Friends: 'A Monumental Decision'
"Should I tell my boyfriend's wife about our affair?"

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raincoaster
07/28/09

In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
What an ass. It was SEVEN pelicans.
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skahammer
07/27/09

In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
Just doing rounds in my duly appointed position as Secretary-Treasurer of the Gawker Pro-Cary Tennis Brigade.

For today, I'm going with an old one: There are plenty of forces in the editorial workplace that seek to turn one's writing into a homogeneous work product. There's nothing inherently wrong with that: I've often appreciated the uniformity of style and voice in a publication like Time. But I submit that it's still valuable when someone resists those forces and inserts a recognizable amount of personality into one's writing.

Also consider that the advice column, as a genre, is probably one of the simplest for any periodical to initiate: Your readers give you half the content, for crying out loud. As a result, there are probably far more advice columns out there than can actually do good work, and I submit to you that most of these low-effort columns subside into a cookie-cutter style cribbed from Dears Ann and Abby. (Sorry, Emily Yoffe, whom I nevertheless esteem highly for other reasons.)

I further suggest that Cary Tennis' columns illustrate something that's both useful and (deservedly) rare: How hard it is to try to inhabit another person's problems, as a means of analyzing them. That's got to be worth something, even if the advice fails. (In fact, maybe all advice should fail. Any takers on that one?)

I also always liked John Leonard's book reviews. So can't we just classify our disagreements here as arguments over taste and leave it at that?
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MissNormaDesmond
07/27/09

@skahammer: Not when I've seen the guy say stupid, quite possibly harmful things to people with serious problems. And no, I can't give you a concrete example now, because it's been years since I stopped reading him in disgust. I sometimes feel the same way about other advice columnists as well (it's a genre I used to read a lot, don't ask me why, except maybe that it was soothing to recognize how perplexed we all are sometimes), but they have the saving grace of not being absurdly pompous, at least most of them. I did like him at first, for much the same reasons that you do, but went off him after one too many omphaloskeptic expeditions.
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skahammer
07/27/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Not when I've seen the guy say stupid, quite possibly harmful things to people with serious problems.

Not a Sex Pistols fan, I take it.
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Niko Bellic
07/27/09

@skahammer: In fact, maybe all advice should fail. Any takers on that one?

I don't want to see you anywhere near a suicide hotline. Or, for that matter, near anything of any practical use or meaning.
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Edited by Niko Bellic at 07/27/09 7:06 PM Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred

Niko Bellic
07/27/09

@skahammer: Sex Pistols at least have that music thing going for them.
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MissNormaDesmond
07/27/09

@skahammer: Obviously not enough of one, since I don't get the reference. But then, I kind of think if you're using Sid Vicious as a guide for living, you may be doing it wrong.
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Hydroceph
07/27/09

In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
Please, God, i don't ask for much. But just this one, please listen. Get that horrible bag of slop off of Salon, please. There must be others out there who could run the freak show without all that vaporing on.
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Niko Bellic
07/27/09

In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
That pretty much sums up the answer to the question "should I look for quality content on the internet?".
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Edited by Niko Bellic at 07/27/09 4:50 PM Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred

MissNormaDesmond
07/27/09

In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
OMG THANK YOU! Cary Tennis is a big part of why I stopped reading Salon. He's an incredible idiot, and a poster boy for a lot of what goes on at that publication, which seems, to me at least, to be variations on "My Navel Lint: An Appreciation".
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Blue Plate Special
07/27/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Ditto. Although the Gawker bits involving Tennis are pretty worthwhile. Maybe Richard can recap his columns along with NYC Prep and Real Housewives?
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MissNormaDesmond promoted this comment Edited by Blue Plate Special at 07/27/09 4:43 PM Blue Plate Special was starred

Foster Kamer
07/27/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Some days I ask myself if I want to blog and the answer is three rabbits staring intently at a watermelon patch.
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miss_msry
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Yeah, and J-school was way over when I went 35 years ago.
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miss_msry
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
The ice cream thing worked out well for Ben & Jerry. Borrow some money from your folks and open an ice cream cart.
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Niko Bellic
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Cary Tennis tries very hard to sound insane. Sometimes, he pulls it off.

I am sure that in person, he is a great, normal guy who wouldn't dare giving you bullshit advice to your face. However, having to satisfy the market that's "looking for something different", he has no choice but to write the most twisted crap that he can think of.

Take me for example. I hate his fucking column. Yet, it's the only advice column I read, because I need obnoxious crap that I can criticize more than I need any actual advice on anything.
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Niko Bellic
06/29/09

@Niko Bellic: This reminds me: can we please bring back The Unethicist?
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Foster Kamer
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
College dropouts, holler.
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howdybeep (runs with monkey wrenches)
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Seriously, in ten years this same snowflake will decide to throw over what pseudo j-job she landed (permalancer, floating copy editor, police blotter round-up for the Carlsbad News-Argus) so she can open up a gourmet ice cream parlor on Etsy.
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lawyergay
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
My favorite Cary Tennis remains the one where he told a woman in a miserable marriage to go down to the beach and stare at the horizon.
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The Cajun Boy
06/29/09

@lawyergay: That one was pure gold.
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TheMac
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Heh. There is literally nothing self-trained writers love to do more than mock educated/trained writers about the money and time they spent (or had the luxury of spending) on that education and training...

Also, yeah kid, welcome to the real world. It sucks, you'll love it.
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odinnite
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Thank you so much Cajun Boy, I thought I was alone in my seething hatred of Cary Tennis. Finding this post, and your archive of previous posts on Tennis's "work" was like coming home :::tear:::
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skahammer
06/29/09

@odinnite: If your primary reaction to an advice columnist is "seething hatred," then I suspect you're not as far removed from needing Cary's advice as you might think.

Just doing my rounds here as part of the C'mon, Cary Tennis Is All Right brigade. I maintain that more cookie-cutter Ann Landers types is not what the advice biz needs. (Sorry, Margo Howard and Emily Yoffe.) Reading just Tennis and Dan Savage, I think one maximizes one's chances of being exposed to a truly original thought on a familiar topic. And originality counts for a lot these days.
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ChickyOnly
06/29/09

@skahammer: I like the brigade. Carolyn Hax is usually decent too, though often harsh. As someone who has spoken with Cary before on a non-advice matter, he's a genuinely thoughtful guy who just happens to get rather florid in his responses.
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anibundel
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Does it mean I'm officially over 30 that my reaction to this letter was "suck it up and get a job like the rest of us"?
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FormerEnglishMajor
06/29/09

@anibundel: That was my reaction. That, and "are you using this letter as part of your clip package?"
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NewsBunny
06/29/09

In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
Boo-hoo. When I started as a journalist, in the early 90s, I worked part-time mornings at one place, and overnights at a White Hen Pantry. And my parents didn't pay for school, let alone for any bill. I had a black and white television. My bed was a mattress on the floor. I was eligible for food stamps, which I didn't take.

I don't mean sound all uphill both ways snow all year round, but welcome to the world of news, kid.
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The Cajun Boy
06/29/09

@NewsBunny: Amen.
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NewsBunny
06/29/09

@The Cajun Boy: That WHP gave out free coffee to cops, so I DID make some fabulous police contacts.

And I never paid for a speeding ticket.
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