I use a TextEdit file on my computer to jot down ideas for Boots posts. If an idea is going to become a post, it’s probably going to happen within a week of the jotting. But I hate to throw away anything that ever occurred to me as a good idea, so the old ones pool in the hold, and start to stink. Here are some ideas I pumped out over my company’s “spring recess” last week. —DM
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“Marriage is war.”
I read a piece in The New York Times about cringey wedding toasts and thought I’d tell about the time I realized, with a cancerous and metastasizing tequila hangover, that a speech that Writer Boy had been asked to give at my sister-in-law’s wedding would not do. Inspired by some hard times I was having my own marriage, my prepared remarks began, “[Bride] and [groom], a lot of people will tell you that marriage is a lot of work. No, marriage is not work. Marriage is war.” The groom, rushing around in his own poison haze, asked me what I was doing. I said, “Just touching up my speech.” With Xs across all three pages and desperate fresh scrawl on the backs.
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“Changing motivations for workers, 1992-2025.” Good grief, aren’t you glad I didn’t write that one?
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“TERKEL PIECE FROM TALKING TO MYSELF: ‘A DISCRETE FART'” Another winner.
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A quoted passage from a CNBC article, in February:
“Imagine that this agent will eventually be capable of doing most things a software engineer at a top company with a few years of experience could do,” wrote [OpenAI CEO Sam] Altman. “It will not have the biggest new ideas, it will require lots of human supervision and direction, and it will be great at some things but surprisingly bad at others.”
My comment: Like any shitty young writer.
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“PAUL WRAY THING.”
All-caps enthusiasm then, no clue now. Who the fuck is Paul Wray?
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“Jerky hand jesture [sic].” Business consultants use this to make mega-mergers, wholesale reorganizations or software implementations seem like a piece of cake. I call it …
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Golf announcers, instead of saying a putt “just missed,” think they sound more clinical by saying, it missed “by just a fraction.” A fraction of what, Golfo, your IQ?
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“CRUMB BUM FRANK RIZZO.” Oh, this is always a good idea.
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