AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.

THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.

9/20/17

Dear (_____)

Dear Anyone Writing A News Piece,

If the physical act of slamming someone or something has not taken place, you need to stop using the word.  The are so many ways to describe a difference of opinion or disagreement with nuance and hues.  There's a veritable rainbow of colorations of conflict in the English language.  Use it.  Nuance and shades of disagreements, imagine that.

'The term has been over used to color so many things that it has lost all reasonable semblance of tone regardless of context.  "Local man slams post office for bad service" as the title reads the same as "local man hopes sinkhole opens underneath local post office and entire staff burns in hell while demons eat their flesh"; meanwhile the actual content of the article is more along the lines of "local man doesn't much care for post office service and files gently worded complaint."  

Another headache inducing favorite: "coach slams players."  Just no, okay?  One hundred times no.  Not only was no one physically slammed, but all the coach said was that an appropriate amount of effort wasn't evident on the field or court or whatever and he wants to see more intensity in the next game or match or whatever.  He did not say his players were dog poo, he did not say he couldn't stand them.  I mean, have you ever slammed something?  The point in slamming something is to use enough power to potentially break it and create a powerful clap of noise.  

If we're going to go this route can we go all the way with it?  Can we see headlines like "Mom breaks parent teach association over her knee and sends school board to the hospital with 3rd degree burns" or "politician X works the groin of tax bill with brass knuckles" or "player skins coach alive and proceeds to wear bloody pelt in several later tweets over sexist equal pay remarks." 

I miss when slamming something used to mean something.  Don't you?  Find something else to suck the life out of.  

Thanks,

Fiction
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