Mitch's Column is Really, Really Bad Today

Are you fucking kidding me? More role-playing? In Mitch's latest perverse shit-storm, he engages in more kinky-retarded make believe, this time playing doctor to Rip Hamilton. I still don't know where he gets off regularly using his column to chastise the Pistons in such childish form, but all I know is that he clearly gets off on it.

Seriously, what a fucking lame concept:

"Doc, you gotta help me."

"What's the problem, Rip?"

"It's kind of embarrassing. I need something removed."

"What is it? A polyp? A mole?"

"This."

"Oh, my. That's an entire person."

"I know. They call it Bruce Bowen. It won't come off."

"Have you tried the normal methods?"

"Oh, yeah. I tried shaking it off. Tried juking it off. Tried scraping it off against Rasheed Wallace's hip, against Ben Wallace's backside."

"Won't budge?"

"Nah. It's nasty."

Congratulations, you fucking idiot, you can use quotation marks. Just because you put such punctuation around short, informal conversational sentences does not mean that you write impressive dialogue. It's certainly not funny or insightful, and it absolutely does not make for a good sports column. How the hell this passes for journalism, let alone award-winning sports commentary, I do not understand--it is a deep, dark motherfuck.

Save that kind of shit for your Oprah book-of-the-month series. Asshole.

It's time to perpetuate some of the better comments we've had.

From Jackie:

Even if one agrees with his overall point, it's just a really bad column, like all his stuff. He just can't present a sound argument. Week after week, Albom seems to come up with these positions off the cuff, then scribbles out whatever's in his head at that moment.

He never seems to understand the bigger context of a given topic -- i.e., he's shallow and doesn't have critical-thinking skills. He never seems to have a grasp on any of the standard arguments that have come before -- i.e., he's not very well-read. And he never seems to have a sense for anticipating (and thus preempting) potential rebuttals of his points -- i.e., he's a poor debater and doesn't belong on the op-ed pages of a major metro daily.

In other words, Mitch Albom seems to suck.

Agreed.

From Anonymous (most likely Mitch Albom or his intern who writes at least as well as him, if not better):

On this site ppl seem to think its cool to think Albom isn't a good writer, but he is. He is. If he wasn't he wouldn't have a job or a fanbase. That's a free market at work. Yes there are beter writers, Jackie but Mitch is still a good one. And btw no, no hate mail from me, I think we all know when we're being baited, Morrie.

I'll let another anonymous respond in the form of a bitch-slapping:

The free market certainly determines who and what are successful. So you're correct on that count, obviously.

But you've made a logical jump by asserting that the high quality of Albom's writing is the particular reason that he has a job and fanbase. That's not necessarily so. His success and employment status could stem from any number of other factors.

Your logic is akin to the following:

1. Britney Spears is a singer.
2. Britney Spears operates within a free market.
3. Britney Spears is popular.
4. Therefore, Britney Spears is a good singer.

My own take on the matter is that Albom's writing is the reason for his success. But it's not because he writes well. It's because he writes in a certain way -- specifically, by pandering to the lowest common denominator. His rhetoric could be ripped to shreds by the typical high-school debate team member.

It's one thing if he's writing about sports, which doesn't demand some grand logical consistency or sharp critical-thinking faculties. It's another thing when he's given the space to present commentary about social and cultural issues.

There's nothing wrong with such pandering, in and of itself. But the fact that such pandering has earned popularity for Albom doesn't mean it's automatically "good writing," unless you're using a different definition of the word "good."

Albom's column on Sunday was a perfect example of his non-sports work. As noted above, it makes a rudimentary argument for a really shaky proposition. There are so many better thinkers out there, and many of them are much, much better than Albom at expressing their thoughts. So it is worth saying again... Albom does not deserve to have that space on Sunday. The stuff is insulting to anybody with half a brain. It should be utterly embarrassing to the Detroit Free Press.

Well said.

I'm hungry.