KOPEL: At 'Westword,' the sh-- must go on
Substance too often makes way for scurrility
By Dave Kopel, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 17, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story the name of Westword writer Adam Cayton-Holland was misspelled. The error was corrected.
Did your grade-school English teachers ever tell you that people who overuse foul language do so because they don't have much to say? Your teacher was right. Consider two recent columns on the same topic: the recent losing ways of Denver's professional basketball, hockey and baseball teams, the Nuggets, Avalanche and Rockies.
In May 8 issue of Westword, Adam Cayton-Holland told readers a lot about himself (e.g., "I could give a sh-- about hockey"), but many of his observations were shallow (e.g., the Rockies' "bullpen is sh--").
He piled it on near the end: "The fetid compost icing on the all-you-can-eat dogsh-- cake that has been this past week in Colorado sports." A turn of the phrase which would thrill a vulgar 11-year-old, but which did little to advance the story.
Rocky Mountain News sports columnist Bernie Lincicome (April 28) took on some of the same events, and wove them into a theme that offered an insight: fans are more frustrated right now because each of the teams has, in different ways, offered fans "a false sense of success, an idea that things are getting better." For example, "When the Nuggets were just clearly awful, entirely hopeless, there was no agony in their failures, merely indifference." But then came "the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, the installation of George Karl, the inclusion of Allen Iverson," and so "Each addition amplified the expectations, no matter the recurring evidence of mediocrity."
Cayton-Holland's article exemplifies a broader problem with Westword. Although the weekly's long feature articles are often outstanding, many of the shorter pieces are mostly snark. H.L. Mencken proved that mean-spirited cynicism can make for great columns. However, when Mencken was at his best, his vicious style was used to offer original insights. Just as faith without works is dead, style without substance is pointless.
Some great verbal artists - such as comedians Margaret Cho and Chris Rock - have the skills to use gutter language in very funny ways. But they are the exceptions; Westword writers too often use four-letter words and cynical malice as a substitute for, rather than a supplement to, interesting ideas.
"Housing crisis imperils pets," announced a headline in the May 9 Rocky. The lead anecdote for the article was about three dogs who were left behind in the yard after the occupant abandoned the house. The article said the house was in "north Denver," but the picture caption placed the home in Adams County. Wherever the house really is, the three-dog plight was a poor choice to illustrate the article's thesis that the so-called "housing crisis" has "forced" homeowners to abandon their pets.
Even if a person can't make the mortgage payments on a house, and has to move to someplace where pets aren't allowed, there is no good reason why the pet owner can't give the pets to a local animal shelter. The callously irresponsible act of leaving the pets abandoned in a backyard perhaps suggests that the former homeowner was not the victim of a housing crisis, but an irresponsible lout who walks away from all his obligations, financial and otherwise.
The Rocky reported on May 2 that Denver government and business officials are starting a public relations campaign to try to get some airline to launch nonstop service from Denver to Tokyo. The article was fine in its reporting of current events, but would have been improved by some long-term perspective.
For example, it should have been noted a similar effort was attempted (and failed) 20 years ago, under the aegis of then-Mayor Federico Pena.
Even better would have been a reminder that Denver voters were sold on the expensive project of abandoning Stapleton, and building a new Denver "International" Airport, with claims that the new airport's long runways would attract nonstop service from Tokyo.
After the election, the local media remained overly credulous about the Tokyo promises. For example, the Nov. 1, 1990, Denver Business Journal announced: "The region and world's business leaders say the airport will create a 'new world geometry' because it will provide a perfect geographic triangle linking Denver, Tokyo and Munich. That triangle, they believe, will form a new international pattern of trade routes." Thus, "Traffic forecasts project demand for three flights weekly to Tokyo . . . "
That "new world geometry" turned out to be old-fashioned hokum.
Kudos to the Denver Newspaper Agency for Legacy.com, its online obituary site. The Web site provides a published obituary for more people than could be included in the printed papers, and for each decedent, the site offers the family online guestbook for people to write messages (or to contribute audio condolences), a space for a digital photo album, and links to memorial charities.
Dave Kopel is research director at the Independence Institute, an attorney and author of 10 books. He can be reached at kopeld@RockyMountainNews.com.
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May 17, 2008
8:37 a.m.
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Jim writes:
Biden calls Bush comments 'bullshit'
Joe Biden called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bullshit” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense.
Cheney to Leahy: 'Go F**k Yourself'
Friday June 25, 2004
Vice President Dick Cheney blurted out an obscenity at Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy during a testy exchange on the Senate floor. The incident occurred after Leahy harangued Cheney about profiteering by Halliburton and President Bush's judicial nominees. According to the Washington Post, the exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice: "Go f**k yourself." The Washington Times put it this way: "Cheney...responded with a barnyard epithet, urging Mr. Leahy to perform an anatomical sexual impossibility."
Kopel, start with the leaders.
May 17, 2008
10:48 a.m.
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jconder45 writes:
Dave Kopel is right; in its language WW reflects the worst of our society. However, some of its reporting is invaluable; it will touch stories the major dailies will not.
May 17, 2008
4:54 p.m.
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claythescribe writes:
You might want to tell your editors that in an attempt to slam Adam CAYTON-Holland -- and shamelessly plug your own newspaper (woopdie friggin do) -- you misspelled his name CLAYTON-Holland throughout your article. Bravo.
May 17, 2008
7:48 p.m.
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andybosselman writes:
As a volunteer with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, I've sicced angry lesbians from the New York office on Mr. Cayton-Holland more than once. However, in all but the most... how shall I say this... f---ed up cases, I sit back, read his occasional problematic gay references, and I let them slide right by. If his stuff is funny, I chortle, giggle, or laugh out loud, too.
Mr. Cayton-Holland is a comic who writes. He lazily reaches for the race and sexuality buttons more than I'd like; they're easy crutches for a comedian. But his columns offer humorous insights to life in Denver. They may not be substantial – but they certainly don't lack substance.
As for his "foul language," Cayton-Holland uses it to season some of the best writing found in any Denver publication. I've never once read his column and thought he was over-salting his locutions. His use of naughty words, in my opinion, achieves an apt balance that is hard to pull off. But Cayton-Holland doesn't do it just for effect. He does pull it off because this is exactly how some of us talk in everyday conversation with our peers.
Without a doubt there is plenty of bad writing in Westword. And lots of juvenile story ideas, too. I would prefer it if Mr. Kopel blasted the paper for those issues. But I don't like that Kopel ripped Westword's best columnist just because he doesn't understand Cayton-Holland's style.
Mr. Kopel, I thought you were progressive. So get back on the train. Pull up a stool at Sputnik, sweep away those curmudgeonly cobwebs, and start to appreciate the dick in dictionary.
Andy Bosselman
http://www.andybosselman.blogspot.com/
May 17, 2008
9:22 p.m.
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Sweetpickle writes:
What on earth gave you the idea that Kopel might be "progressive"?
He's a Local Limbaugh.
May 17, 2008
10:27 p.m.
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gwats writes:
Kopel,
Kudos on the horse-hockey of wasting time to try and get the Airlines to fly non-stop from Denver to Tokyo. If that route ws a proven money-maker, they wouldn't need some cow town politicos
telling them how to run an Airline. We were sold a bill of goods on DIA when Pena had the Fed's blessing to expand Stapleton and save Billions of taxpayer Dollars. Now we have an Airport that causes Nation- wide delays everytime we get more than 4 inches of snow with a Blue Devil horse Statue that looks like it's been smoking crack all night in a paint store.
May 17, 2008
11:26 p.m.
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peterpi writes:
I don't care if it's GLAAD, Mr. Kopel, or the New York Times Review of Books: Anyone who parses Adam Cayton-Holland's column has way too much time on their hands. Regarding his lesbian stereotyping, Cayton-Holland would stereotype Norwegians or Nova Scotians if he thought it was funny.
May 18, 2008
9:49 a.m.
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Salchak_Toka writes:
Ah, God bless the corporate media, always looking for every trivial excuse to beat up on the indies.
May 18, 2008
2:57 p.m.
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andybosselman writes:
Yeah, I confused Kopel for Salzman. My bad.
May 19, 2008
7:19 a.m.
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sheepherder writes:
Westword is about as credible as the National Enquirer...maybe less so.
May 19, 2008
10:51 a.m.
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primafacie writes:
Westword, that's that little freebie with long-wided, self-indulgent writing, along with ads for performers no one ever heard of and hookers, right?
Whatever....
May 27, 2008
8:33 a.m.
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Douglas_McDaniel writes:
Ah, scolding the younger set by drawing from some dead guy in a bow tie like Mencken for guidance. How Pleasantville can you get? Viciousness is OK then, is it, if dressed up in the King's English? Pedantic stuff like this is why people turn to alternative rags to begin with: dread dry boring puff, divorced from daily life, written by scribes from their glassy, ivory towers. I get the hockey reference. It's a lift from the Tragically Hip, I'll bet. Yeah, the empire that is now Village Voice Media is "snarky," and may have in fact invented the term, but where such license is permitted, which is pretty much the rest of the culture but here, then why would the word police seek to take anything out of their arsenal? The jealousy of the ineffectual, I suspect ...