The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me

For those with a morbid interest in the pre-good writing of myself and others, I reccomend a visit to TheSpaceMonkey.com, which includes tear sheets and audio archives from a decade ago, when yours truly was an editorial page writer for Washington State University's daily newspaper, the Evergreen.

The site is maintained by John Cain, a college-era crony of Brian Gunn and myself, and a gifted, though recently dormant, writer in his own right. Gunn recently tracked Cain down. To John's credit, he took the hint, and has stopped running from his past, and now embraces it.

While a lot of the stuff I wrote "back in the day" makes me cringe, I don't mind seeing it posted. Like most colledge editorial writers, I took myself way too seriously, and wrote far too many essays on the great events of my times, including North Korea's nuclear potential or Bill Clinton's sleaziness (prescient little fucker, wasn't I?). Naturally, I was at my best when obsessing over Barney the dinosaur, talking smack about people I didn't like, or just engaging in general impishness.

I'm pretty sure while I wrote for it, the Evergreen was unique, and will likely remain unique, as an example of Lampoon-style smart-assery, done subversively in a college paper. Not just because of me, of course. It was edited by David Drake, currently an instructor ar WSU, with whom I had collaborated on a literary magazine which had been shut down by the school before we put out an issue. Long story, maybe to be told later.

I'll occasionally pick up the UW Daily, and while it seems like they'll have the occasional whacky columnist, there's nothing compared to Drake's two semesters of insanity. Even the stuff I didn't like, was notable as being something you wouldn't find in a college newspaper. Not even if they have a special section devoted to that.

Reading the whole semester I was in, it's pretty clear that the serious columns on welfare reform and nuclear disarmament were the odd men out. I wonder if when the literary magazine was shut down, Drake and I shouldn't have warned the administration we would instead take over the Evergreen, and molding itno our own twisted image and likeness. The Evergreen Opinions section probably ended up being more interesting than the lit mag could have been, since a magazine would have most likely channeled our full pretentions, whereas with the Green, we were free to punk out the establishment. I don't have time for more right now, but maybe a full memoir is called for.

A couple years ago, I was riding the bus, and this guy recognised me and asked if I had written for the Evergreen. I confirmed, and he said we were a bunch of idiots. I smiled cheerfully and said, "Yeah." That was it. I just smiled vacantly, and he kept avoiding my gaze. I have a feeling the rest of the bus ride was more awkward for him than me.