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McGinn
McGinn: Celebrating the wackiness known as Speak Up
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By Andrew McGinn,
Staff Writer
Updated 2:28 PM Friday, May 22, 2009
I’m guilty.
I’ve never read Hemingway, Joyce or Faulkner, but I read Marvel Comics’ “Thor” every month.
I like a couple of Kelly Clarkson songs.
I don’t dare pass up “Rambo: First Blood Part II” whenever it’s on TV.
And I never miss Speak Up.
There. I fessed up.
Your turn.
You might’ve actually made it through “Ulysses,” only listen to avant-garde chamber music and prefer foreign documentaries, but Speak Up sucks you in like the Death Star’s tractor beam. (That’s a reference to a popular action-adventure movie called “Star Wars.”)
If you claim not to know what Speak Up is, it’s that part of the Opinion section where we let just about anybody say just about whatever they want.
And the beauty of it — as if to ensure that the whole thing will be delightfully wacky — is that it’s all anonymous.
So a perfectly respectable guy like, say, Mayor Copeland could, in secret, be the source of that call (or calls) about there being too many squirrels running around Springfield.
Nobody would ever know.
From its inception, Speak Up has proven itself to be freakishly popular.
In fact, if we only published Speak Up, the police blotter and maybe threw in “Hagar the Horrible,” most people probably wouldn’t notice that everything else is missing.
For me, though, there’s no real enjoyment in reading the police blotter.
“So-and-so assaulted so-and-so with a Mountain Dew bottle while having sex on a bicycle with the mother of his children in front of the children. In addition, marijuana residue was found on the handlebars.”
It’s all just too depressing.
I’d rather read “Hagar the Horrible,” but not by much.
So that leaves Speak Up — or as I call it, the pulse of the people.
Of course, I’ve been the target of a few Speak Ups, and seeing my name in Speak Up is always a thrill — like seeing your name in lights.
What can I say, I’m easily entertained.
“I will not read any articles from Andrew McGinn,” is one we received just this week.
That’s all it said. No further details were provided.
To whomever called or e-mailed it in, thanks. But I’ll miss you.
I also sense some recurring themes in Speak Up.
Such as:
• Please make the crossword puzzle easier. I really don’t care about preventing Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t like to think.
• I’m an evil super-genius and the crossword puzzle is easy enough.
• I was in World War II and I think it’s un-American to be running a Sudoku puzzle in the paper.
• The comics section hasn’t been the same since you took away “Redeye.”
• To whomever left those ocelot kittens along the side of the road near Snyder Park, how could you?
• Springfield is not, has never been and will never be a town that likes to ice skate. Why can’t the park district understand this?
• To the young man who helped me reshoe my horse along U.S. 68, God bless you.
• This goes out to all the cannibals: If you’re going to consume human flesh in public, please have the common courtesy to take off your ball cap.
• After I pay for my cable, I’m on a fixed income. No means no on the school levies.
• I just got back from vacationing at Guantanamo Bay. It’s actually a very nice place, but you won’t read that in the liberal News-Sun.
• Obama is going to have us standing in line for bread before long.
• Obama is going to have us goose-stepping before long.
But the really fun Speak Ups are the totally random ones.
Like:
• There are too many sparrows around here.
• What Springfield really needs is a place to host mud volleyball tournaments.
• Why can’t we have a Renaissance festival here?
• Springfield isn’t kind to Civil War re-enactors. Shame on you all.
• Springfield needs a place where they can safely administer heroin to people.
• Why can’t the Upper Valley Mall have a store that sells swords?
• I just killed a drifter. Can you guess where I buried him?
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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