Like a small child putting on his father's shoes and tie and pretending to go to work, it can be rather endearing when The Stranger tries to dress itself up as a real newspaper. So I couldn't help but chuckle warmly when I learned that, in honor of the Democratic National Convention, ELI SANDERS, ANNIE WAGNER, and CHARLES MUDEDE spent all last week in a rent-by-the-hour motel room somewhere on the outskirts of Denver, fighting over who would get to wear the Woodward and Bernstein Underoos.
In order to keep my faith in our country's exceptional greatness intact, I am telling myself that surely the convention's stringent vetting process and tight security detail ensured that none of these mental midgets were actually allowed to rub elbows with true journalists like Katie Couric and Tucker Carlson. No doubt our pwecious widdle jouwnowists instead wandered around the outside of the Pepsi Center and Mile High Stadium, asking the homeless and disinterested passers-by what they thought of all the commotion. So instead of setting ourselves up for interaction with an unpleasant reality by actually reading Mr. Sanders and Ms. Wagner's breathless and by-definition factually inaccurate accounts of last week's now hopelessly outdated news, let us just pat them on the heads and leave them to their broken crayons and 10-piece jigsaw puzzles. In this case, placation is the best medicine.
In other news, I have been informed that Ms. Wagner has joined the stampede of rats fleeing the sinking ship that is The Stranger. I hear she has somehow attained employment at a Tully's, making her the most successful Stranger graduate of all time.
However, the news darkens. LINDY WEST, who has never met a—forgive me, Mother—"fart joke" with which she did not fall desperately in love, has replaced Wagner as The Stranger's new film editor. She celebrates her new job this week by getting drunk and scribbling about it in her column.
But there is more to this paper than fabricating personal accounts of national importance and hiring a film editor who believes Buñuel is a genital rash. Eight pencil jockeys gather together to fawn over a record by a rhythm and blues band named Building to a Spill. It's not surprising to see TAO LIN's name here—I have been informed that Mr. Lin has been selling his own body parts online for money—but talented authors like REBECCA BROWN and DAVID SHIELDS should be ashamed for contributing to a far-leftist homosexual propaganda organ. There must be incriminating photos somewhere.
Elsewhere, JEN GRAVES and BRENDAN KILEY argue about some sort of performance art troupe (didn't read due to lack of interest), PAUL CONSTANT blathers about Mormons and transsexuals (tried to read, but halted by my own gag reflex), and BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT attends a bar for people who dress up like vampires (partially read before falling asleep). Yet again, our merry band of misanthropes has put together a paper more notable for its absorbency than for its content; my pet cockatiel has editorialized on this week's edition of The Stranger with more accuracy than I will ever manage.
