Internal software tells me this is my 400th blog post, and since I like round numbers, I think it will be my last. As I wrote in “Happy Warrior” in the print edition this week, after five wonderful years, I am moving on from NR.
I asked whiz kid/head archivist/overworked submissions editor Jack Butler what my first piece was for NR (long before I joined this pirate radio station in 2017, I contributed as a freelancer). It turns out it was about . . . Paul McCartney. On-brand, no? And it was almost exactly 15 years ago. I remember literally sweating out that piece, wanting it to be great, and not then understanding that the editing process here is light. Funny: I used to work at People magazine, where it was not uncommon to see 15 or 30 or 55 versions of a piece pile up in the software, and then after weeks of work see the whole thing rewritten from top to bottom in 90 minutes by a guy with a title like Assistant Managing Editor. Bet you didn’t know that People is heavily edited but NR is more like, “If that’s what you want to say, okay . . .”
Anyway, 15 years is enough. I quit! I’ve had enough of your bullying, Williamson!
Seriously, though, I leave with great sadness, and offer my thanks to Rich, Ramesh, Phil, Lindsay, and Charlie for hiring me and everyone else for being such great colleagues. I would have been happy to work here for another 20 years — 30! 40! — but the Wall Street Journal is taking me on as their film critic. The Journal is located roughly across Sixth Avenue from NR, so I’m not going far, in a geographic sense, but NR has certainly been an ideal home for me for the past five years. This has been the first and only time in my life when I was on the same page with everyone around me, all of us completely focused on the same mission. (You might be surprised to learn that the New York Post, where I worked for many years, employs only a handful of conservatives. It may be the most conservative-friendly paper in New York, but that’s saying very little. I think at one point I looked around the Features department and decided that we were outnumbered by a count of 17 to two. And the other guy didn’t advertise.)
Anyway, I wrote more than 950 pieces for NR, not all of which are accessible via the website. I won’t be able to write for NR at my new job, so that will have to do. Here are some I thought were pretty good. (You may disagree, but then, why are you reading this post?)
Politics:
Hunter Biden’s Crack-Fueled Misadventures
Jill Biden’s Doctorate Is Garbage Because Her Dissertation Is Garbage
Relax, Conservatives, John Roberts Will Never Let You Down
Bernie Sanders, the Green-Mountain Red
Al Franken, Un-Funny Man of the Senate
Movies:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Breakfast Club vs. St. Elmo’s Fire
Theater:
Music:
Excellence, Existence, Tyranny, Death and Rock
The All-American Glory of Yacht Rock
Bob Dylan Refused to Be the Voice of a Generation
The Beautiful Torture of Eric Clapton
The Meaning of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’
‘I Made It All Up’: Bruce Springsteen vs. the Cult of Authenticity
Books:
The Impossible Elegance of George Will
Media:
How the Media Destroyed the Reputation of a Great President
Amy Chozick Exposes Hillary’s Groveling Press Corps
No Mea Culpa from Jussie Smollett’s Media Enablers
Etc.:
The Pathetic Journey of ‘Mattress Girl’ Emma Sulkowicz
The Four Childhoods of Modern Man.
There Is No Such Thing as Price Gouging