Writing Boots

One of the finer points of communication seems to be lost on millions of bloggers.

Take Phil Ponce.

He's the host of Chicago Tonight, a nightly public TV news show.

A former corporate communicator for the local telephone company, Ponce has been hosting Chicago Tonight for long enough that he's become a kind of bland institution, like the iceberg lettuce or the Ford Focus.

Some time ago—probably at the exact moment his superiors asked him—he started writing a blog, on WTTW's website.

"unPHILtered," it is called.

(Oh, Phil.)

He's a decent writer (even though he belies his boyish good looks by old-fartishly inserting two spaces after periods).

And his posts are always brief and generally to the point. He seems to enjoy writing them, and he posts often.

But if he thinks they are doing the job they ought to do—in fact, if he thinks they are not letting down whatever Chicagoans bother to read it, which doesn't appear to be many—he is as sadly deluded as bloggers with much lesser platforms.

It's not what he writes that's the trouble. It's what he doesn't write.

Here are the last dozen "unPHILtered" blog topics:

• Mayonaise vs. Miracle Whip

• A summer poem

• The fun of shopping at garden centers

• The beauty of the prickly pear cactus in bloom

• A technique for removing the Chicago city sticker from one's windshield

• The value of a long vacation

• The prevalence of tattoos on young people these days (thanks for noticing!)

• Why we should feel sorry for Rod Blagojevich ("His critics say he is narcissistic and self-delusional. But even a self-deluding narcissist isn’t immune to fear and anxiety.")

• The "segue music" between segments on Chicago Tonight

• The importance of getting the most out of summer weekends

It's possible that Phil doesn't consider himself a journalist. But his viewers do. Or at least they wished they honestly could, despite his milquetoast interviews. But then they see a blog like this, and they have to know for sure: This guy doesn't have a courageous bone in his pants.

This is who we want running our only substantive local TV news show? A mealy-mouthed poet, a smarmy seaside-vacationer, an amateur gardener, a mild-mannered summer weekender?

We'd forgive him all those obnoxious habits and we'd put up with his pansy-ass posts, if only once a week, once a month, once a year he dared to utter one disagreeable or interesting or candid insight he must certainly have picked up during the course of his nightly run-ins with Chicago politicians, business kingpins and other local players.

We take so much from what people refuse to say (and not all bad; how often do you hear someone complemented, "you'll never hear her say a bad word about anybody?").

What do you refuse to say? If the answer is anything controversial, anything useful or anything surprising, you can be assured that your audience is on the way out the door, if they haven't left already.

"PAGUE, Walter age 95 of Middletown [Ohio], died Friday, July 1, 2011. Arrangements are incomplete. Breitenbach Funeral Home." 

That's all I can find about my "Uncle Gish," who was neither my actual uncle nor was named Gish. Actually, I don't know where the nickname came from. There's a lot I don't know about Uncle Gish.

What I do know is that he was a corporate pilot for Armco Steel when the corporate plane was a DC-3.

And he was a golfer. And I mean a golfer.

The news of his death may mean the end of the plaid industry.

About ten years ago Gish and I started playing matches every year, at his country club, Brown's Run. We didn't call them matches, because Gish's ethic was more gracious than that. Two men didn't have to acknowledge they wanted to beat one another's brains in. It was understood.

Once I arrived an hour early to warm up before our noon tee time. The clubhouse manager informed me, "Mr. Pague has been here practicing his bunker shots since nine."

And he never lost the ability to shoot his age. The last time I played him, he was actually 10-under—at 92, he shot an 82, and beat me by six strokes. It would have been worse, but his putting was off.

"One of these years, Uncle Gish," I told him every time we shook hands on the 18th green.

It didn't happen. Somewhere he's ordering a highball, and smiling graciously.

Great match, Gish.

And I don't mean the green plaid blazer and the yellow pants.