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New York, 5:36 PM
Fri Dec 18
45 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of raincoaster raincoaster
    07/28/09

    In reply to You Cannot Out-Meta Cary Tennis
    What an ass. It was SEVEN pelicans.
     Reply
    raincoaster was starred raincoaster was unstarred
    Image of skahammer 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?
     Reply
    skahammer was starred skahammer was unstarred
    Image of MissNormaDesmond 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.
     Reply
    MissNormaDesmond was starred MissNormaDesmond was unstarred
    Image of skahammer 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.
     Reply
    skahammer was starred skahammer was unstarred
    Image of Niko Bellic 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.
     Reply
    Edited by Niko Bellic at 07/27/09 7:06 PM Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred
    Image of Niko Bellic Niko Bellic
    07/27/09

    @skahammer: Sex Pistols at least have that music thing going for them.
     Reply
    Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred
    Image of MissNormaDesmond 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.
     Reply
    MissNormaDesmond was starred MissNormaDesmond was unstarred
    Image of Hydroceph 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.
     Reply
    Hydroceph was starred Hydroceph was unstarred
    Image of Niko Bellic 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?".
     Reply
    Edited by Niko Bellic at 07/27/09 4:50 PM Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred
    Image of MissNormaDesmond 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".
     Reply
    MissNormaDesmond was starred MissNormaDesmond was unstarred
    Image of Blue Plate Special 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?
     Reply
    MissNormaDesmond promoted this comment Edited by Blue Plate Special at 07/27/09 4:43 PM Blue Plate Special was starred Blue Plate Special was unstarred
    Image of Foster Kamer 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.
     Reply
    Foster Kamer was starred Foster Kamer was unstarred
    Image of miss_msry 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.
     Reply
    miss_msry was starred miss_msry was unstarred
    Image of miss_msry 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.
     Reply
    miss_msry was starred miss_msry was unstarred
    Image of Niko Bellic 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.

     Reply
    Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred
    Image of Niko Bellic Niko Bellic
    06/29/09

    @Niko Bellic: This reminds me: can we please bring back The Unethicist?
     Reply
    Niko Bellic was starred Niko Bellic was unstarred
    Image of Foster Kamer Foster Kamer
    06/29/09

    In reply to Recent J-School Grad Cries to Cary Tennis
    College dropouts, holler.
     Reply
    Foster Kamer was starred Foster Kamer was unstarred
    Image of howdybeep (runs with monkey wrenches) 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.
     Reply
    howdybeep (runs with monkey wrenches) was starred howdybeep (runs with monkey wrenches) was unstarred
    Image of lawyergay 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.
     Reply
    lawyergay was starred lawyergay was unstarred
    Image of The Cajun Boy The Cajun Boy
    06/29/09

    @lawyergay: That one was pure gold.
     Reply
    The Cajun Boy was starred The Cajun Boy was unstarred
    Image of TheMac 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.

     Reply
    TheMac was starred TheMac was unstarred
    Image of odinnite 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:::
     Reply
    odinnite was starred odinnite was unstarred
    Image of skahammer 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.

     Reply
    skahammer was starred skahammer was unstarred
    Image of ChickyOnly 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.
     Reply
    ChickyOnly was starred ChickyOnly was unstarred
    Image of anibundel 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"?
     Reply
    anibundel was starred anibundel was unstarred
    Image of FormerEnglishMajor FormerEnglishMajor
    06/29/09

    @anibundel: That was my reaction. That, and "are you using this letter as part of your clip package?"
     Reply
    FormerEnglishMajor was starred FormerEnglishMajor was unstarred
    Image of NewsBunny 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.

     Reply
    NewsBunny was starred NewsBunny was unstarred
    Image of The Cajun Boy The Cajun Boy
    06/29/09

    @NewsBunny: Amen.
     Reply
    The Cajun Boy was starred The Cajun Boy was unstarred
    Image of NewsBunny 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.

     Reply
    NewsBunny was starred NewsBunny was unstarred
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