Look, I'm going to be honest with you people, I think we know each other well enough at this point to get down to real talk. A lot of times I post 'wacky' stuff on here that I only find moderately amusing at best. It's really pretty hard to get me to genuinely laugh at anything, but that's mostly because my father was murdered by a guy who was incapable of ever laughing at things who's own father was murdered by a clown. That clown was me. (Revenge killing. Think about it).
But this, this piece of journalism in the Sioux City Journal, which I'll get to in a minute, is stabbing me like a metal robot dildo directly in the g-spot of my Ha Ha Hole, which isn't just the best place to find me 'workshopping' 'bits' at open mic nights on Mondays, but also an actual part of the science brain.
Remember when the robots took over the world in the Matrix and they were experimenting on brothers, seeing what made us work, rooting around in our brains to find the laugh button? I'm like my man above every time I try to go back and read another sentence of this story.
But wait a minute, isn't this sort of story exactly the type I thing I might write in my day job as a lifestyle journalist? :/ Maybe I'm more like the guy in the picture above? Is this what I sound like you guys? It's ok you can be honest. (Don't be honest.)
So here goes, here's you're early contender for this year's Pulitzer Prize. Didn't think we'd see another food writer get it so soon after Jonathan Gold from the LA Weekly, but prognosticating is a fool's game. Also worth noting that Stephen Bloom's controversial and epic troll job in The Atlantic about Iowa being a suckhole of negative-culture may have been spot on, at least if we're judging by the enthusiasm these folks seem to have for a casual themed family style restaurant coming to their local shopping complex. Bloom was literally run out of town, by the way, as Gawker wrote: "University of Iowa professor and pretentious troll-journalist Stephen Bloom recently wrote an article in The Atlantic mocking Iowa as a backward, hick-filled state full of people smoking meth out of corncobs (paraphrasing).
Just Iowa being Ioawan. Io-wanny? Back to the story in question though. It's hard just to pick one or two of my favorite parts of the Sioux City exclusive, but I'm going to start with the headline: Olive Garden arrives, to the purity of which I can add nothing. It does what it sets out to do, and for that I can find no fault with it. I wish it got better from there.
A martini is not a martini without an olive.
That, at least, is the thinking of a true connoisseur.
And to Siouxland residents, many of whom consider themselves connoisseurs of fine food, [O RLY?] a city is not a city without an Olive Garden [Just what I've always said about Paris]. So as of Monday, Sioux City becomes a real city.
What for years has been a local obsession -- the OG's manicotti formaggio, [I used to bump that dude's mixtape] chicken vino bianco and zuppa toscana driving Siouxlanders to Omaha and Sioux Falls -- has become a reality.
Olive Garden officially opens its newest restaurant at 4 p.m. Monday at 4930 Sergeant Road in Lakeport Commons.
brought to you by
17 comments:
Now I feel kind of sad. I suppose that's my reaction after everything I do in the world so whatever.
And you thought making fun of Nickleback was low-hanging fruit! :P
I would never have written a piece about Olive Garden being "authentic" in the first place, but this actually reported story in an actual city's newspaper forced my hand.
fair enough. I just want permission for my cultural snobbery.
Clearly this is not about mocking Olive Garden, but recognizing the subtlety, the keen ironic wit, with which this reporter eviscerates it. You have to admire the slyness of the technique, of cutting giants swaths from the OG corporate brochure and letting them just lie there on the page. Brilliant! I'll bet that a good proportion of the citizens of Sioux City (say that ten times fast) won't even get the joke, which makes it ever so much more droll. Bravo, John Quinlan -- bravo!
"One reason for his excitement is the ample parking available, more than at any other Olive Garden where he has worked, he said."
-wowie zowie
yeah low hanging fruit or whatever, but this is honestly a pretty insane article. the martini analogy in the beginning, the whole thing really..
Ha. You guys are both my guys.
Hey, where'd that comment that shared this amazing video go?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8QPR3vHoDvE
Love all of this, right from the martini/olive/connoisseur jewel. But especially the bonus muffin action.
This is my favorite lede in a long time:
http://www.americanwaymag.com/new-york-city-transit-connect-taxi-nissan-nv200
"Bright lights, towering skyscrapers and an assortment of fashion designers, musicians and/or bankers on every street corner are the quaint comforts of life in America’s biggest metropolis."
that's gold.
As someone who would probably have to write this if there were an Olive Garden open up in my town I definitely feel bad for dude.
But the lede makes no sense and I don't really understand why readers need to know (or care?) that an OG mgr. is single.
Finally, HOLY SHIT that was long! If I were given that assignment it would have been 12-14 inches, about 600 words. Must've been a slow news day in Sioux City.
I'm also grateful I didn't have to cover the opening of our new Golden Corrall. Phew!
Yeah, I feel for the dude. No way this piece needed to be 1200 words. That is the root of the problem, and was probably out of his hands, leading to all the shitty other stuff. I blame the editor.
Oh, THAT's right blame the EDITOR !!!!
That's what I always say! ;)
This story was totally pointless and inane. I read it and still don't know what you're rambling about.
Do you really expect people to believe you're a trained journalist? The only thing that could be more sad is the possibility that you might actually be.
Pointless and inane journalism is exactly what my training is in, so I guess I did it right after all.
The writer has to be trolling. Has to be.
Post a Comment