What Did We Learn Today?

That it’s true: Men are dogs

I’d never understood why some women are fond of saying that men are dogs. Until today. Because in today’s local paper is an article about a guy who broke in to his ex-wife’s house and did everything but poop in the kitchen. It probably shouldn’t have made the top of the front page, but he’s a former state champion wrestler, and in my area the only people above successful high school wrestlers are successful high school wrestlers who go on to coach wrestling at their alma mater. And Larry Holmes.
The written description of this guy’s destruction is great: “[T]he well-known wrestling champion came to the new home [the ex-wife] was renting and emptied the refrigerator, throwing yogurt and butter all over the ceiling and walls.
“He emptied the juice, soda, and milk on the floor. He ripped up mail and cards, she said. He also threw garbage across the backyard, she said.”
You showed her, guy! I hope when the cops picked him up they hit him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, shouting, “No!”

In My Humble Opinion

I was browsing a bookstore tonight when I came across their selection of “school reading”, and among the books was J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”. Which happens to be a book I hate. About a year back I read an essay about why “Catcher” shouldn’t be taught in high school anymore. The writer’s argument was that the curriculum should be updated, whereas my argument would have been that the book is awful. But I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority in that opinion.
I read “Catcher” when I was in college, because I wasn’t forced to read it in high school. And after being lent a copy by a friend and listening to people practically faint in ecstasy over how great the book is, I read it. Well, not in its entirety. I stopped three or four pages from the end. I was falling asleep and couldn’t finish it, and then never picked it up again. It wasn’t until almost a year later that my friend, Becca, told me what happened at the end of the book. And I didn’t care.
If I were asked, “What’s the worst book you ever read?” I’d most likely respond that it’s “Catcher”. But now that I think about it, the worst book I ever read was “Fight the Power”, by Chuck D. Honestly, I don’t know how anything that poorly written could ever be published. And what’s worse is that he wrote it with someone else. So way to go guy who was hired to help Chuck D. write a compelling story and failed miserably. I’m sure when that book came out your friends said to you, “Seriously, you put your name on this crap?”
I’ve read some pretty bad books in my time, and I’m sure many were worse than what many consider to be Salinger’s best work. It’s just that the other books don’t stick in my memory. Not when a book that I hate is considered by many to be such a seminal work of fiction. Becca tried to get me to read Salinger’s “Nine Stories”’; I got through three and then gave the book back to her. It was boring. If Salinger happens to read this, just know this: it’s not that I think “The Catcher in the Rye” is a horrible book, it’s that I think you’re a terrible writer. There. I said it.