June 04, 2004
The Crack Young Staff Retreat
The Crack Young Staff Retreat
For those of you without a firm grasp on the year’s seasons, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” want to inform you that it is summertime. And, as the clement weather arrives, we are heading off to Akron (OH), Buffalo (NY), Syracuse (NY), Rochester (NY), and other exotic ports of call. A few of our staff members—let’s just call them “Chip”—are unlucky enough to be passing their time in the comparatively dowdy city of Rome (IT).As a result, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” want to let you know that our postings will prove more erratic and desultory than the five-day-a-week routine you have come to love and admire. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for you), our financial backers allowed us a criminally lengthy summer vacation of seven full weeks. (Eat your hearts out, you non-academic types.)
Accordingly, you, dear reader, will be compelled to suffer through a period of fewer rib-tickling animadversions than you have grown accustomed. To be sure, we shall—even on vacation—attempt to report to you as often as possible. But, frankly, given the difficulty of schlepping our Tandy TRS-80 laptop to the beach, we probably won’t be able to muster more than a few posts a week.
We know, we know: You are horridly upset. Not since the defection of Jim Jeffords from the Republican Party have you seen such disgraceful disloyalty. The fact that we shall be pressing ahead at full steam in seven weeks must mean very little in today’s fast-paced world.
We don’t want to point the finger of blame at anyone (as that is not a particularly gentlemanly or gentlewomanly thing to do), but we hold you directly responsible. After all, months ago we announced our prestigious “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” Summer Internship Program, and we received nary a response from our massive readership.
Actually, we got one response; but the potential intern in question demanded $2.50 a day for her services, and we collectively took a moral stand and informed her that she ought to bleed some other fancy periodical dry.
Naturally, dear reader, our upcoming vacation does not mean that we shall entirely forsake you. In fact, we shall do our best to make certain that we present you with as many luminous postings as possible. As such, you certainly will want to keep abreast of our “weblog,” in order to be the first kid on the block to soak up the latest installment of the Official Summer Series of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.”
Still, our less frequent publication will surely mean that many of you will find yourselves with literally hours more time to kill during the day. What, you are probably wondering to yourselves, are we going to do without our full fill of the crack young staff?
Well, may we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly suggest that you peruse our archives for some of the greatest wit and whimsy the “web” has ever seen? Such “Hatemonger’s Quarterly” classics as our takes on Gillette, B. Dalton Bookstore, Busch-League blurbs, public intellectuals, so-called big media, so-called scholar-athletes, and Edward Said are only a few mouse-clicks away. In addition, you can revel in the results of our “First Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition,” or delight in our academic superstars calendar, our excoriation of “Newsweek” magazine, and the heralding of our new Official Advice Column. And who would want to miss out on our disquisition on the eyesore we labeled posterior penmanship? Or our famous patriotism quiz?
For those of you who want to check out what the crack young staff was up to in the ancient days of our “weblog” (early April, 2004), you can find out why we call our publication “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly.” Indeed, our archives serve as a veritable cornucopia of comic genius—if we must say so ourselves.
Still, dear reader, many of you will have some time left over in your days. Don’t fret: We have the perfect way to spend your copious free time. On the right-hand side of your screen, our Official Technology Department has established links to numerous high-quality “weblogs.” If you aren’t reading each and every one of them daily, let us be the first to inform you that you are missing out on some great material.
It goes without saying, then, that anyone who isn’t paying attention to the esteemed “weblogs” to which we have linked is making a grave error. May we especially recommend a few sites of particular impressiveness? For those relentless aesthetes among you, we exhort you to peruse The Charlock’s Shade. For those of you who enjoy the musings of a man of great discrimination, we urge you to check out Stephen Baldwin’s charming site. Anyone not routinely taking in The New Criterion’s marvelous “weblog” is surely off his rocker. And for those of you who enjoy political musings and some great gags, we humbly suggest those delicately named Llama Butchers.
As for us, we shall post as often as we can in the next seven weeks. Although it will prove tough to drag ourselves away from the luscious beaches of Akron (OH), we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” shall do our best to post as often as possible. Vacation or not, we feel a great kinship with our colossal readership, and will do the best to please it. What can we say? We’re people persons.
