Vick column

I wrote this a few days ago. Having no great legal nor cultural angle, I decided to just make it personal. Feedback is welcome.

http://mikemullensblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/horror-at-1915-moonlight-road.html

Thanks.

 

If a column falls in the forest...

 

Try to post it in an actual message on here. It just looks like you are trying to strum up looks at your blog.

 

Hi Verbal,

Thanks for posting with us again. Sorry if the piece hung for a few days, but I like to give other folks a crack at things before I weigh in. It's also our slow season here, and a lot of the regulars are out on their Jet-Skis, harassing the manatees.

I read the piece twice, and think it's very good - with a fine balance of reporting from the Vick indictments and some nice writing along the lines of a personal essay.

That said, it needs some tightening. And since you're posting these pieces on your own, you need to become a more ruthless editor of your own work. And though I don't have time to give you a line edit on the piece, I'd make a few quick suggestions:

- Be careful of swapping "like" with "as." The line should correctly begin "As always..." Having said that, I'd warn you away from the phrase entirely, as it's generic and largely empty of meaning.

- I'd drop the graf beginning "You'll excuse my mistake..." entirely. Too discursive too early and adds very little.

- Seems to me they're either "whispers" or not. Also, you're getting tangled up in a mixed metaphor in the last two sentences - Echo? Damp? Legs? By the time the first whispers came out that Michael Vick was tied to a dogfighting ring, they were no longer whispers. There are no small stories today, because everything echoes off a thousand outlets big and small. We'll wring the news out of anything that's damp, but this story had legs and would be made to walk.

- Next sentence is problematic, too. Stones in a river imply water flowing around fixed objects. From late April to early July, the story was like stones in a river: pieces hit and rippled, hit and rippled. Clearly what you mean is stones flung into still water, pebbles thrown into a pond, etc., with the widening rings we associate with same.

- Same with the next graf, where we're going from water to landslide back to water. Try to keep your images consistent, or at least move from one to the next as logically as you can.

- Ask yourself - as your own most ruthless editor - what this graf adds to the piece. As soon as all of this started, I basically got the hell away from Vick, having been burned by Jason Kidd. I was not going to defend an athlete out loud or in my own mind simply because I like what he does on the field. I don't know Michael Vick. I never did.

- Not sure I buy this - at least not as written: I finished reading and leaned back in my chair. My mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to think of something to think or feel. I just felt numb.

- And he's not just a benefactor in this document. Wrong word?

- This graf isn't as clear as you need it to be. Do I think that this kind of thing happens often in some parts of the South? Yes. But there was another thing that was pretty popular in the South about 40 or 50 years ago. And that thing was called widespread and violent racism. Some people let it happen, others embraced it. History has not remembered them well.

- This section isn't helping you make your case against Vick for dogfighting. In fact, it undermines it, because it looks like gratuitous piling-on. I'd cut it. And I'm sorry I have to make this point. But earlier this year, Vick teamed up with the United Way to donate $10,000 to Virginia Tech, which had been Vick's college. (Although I'm tempted to call it his "college team.") I probably shouldn't doubt anyone giving to charity.

But just so we're clear here, this was $10,000 from a guy who signed a contract in 2005 that came with more than $30 million in bonuses. Bonuses means it's upfront. As in thanks for signing, here's your check with EIGHT zeros. This of course excludes his endorsements. And he's "teaming up" with the United Way for 10 grand? (Ten thousand dollars, by the way, is slightly less than the amount that was allegedly wagered on a single dogfight in March of 2003.)At the moment I also can't find any evidence that Vick ever actually visited the campus of Virginia Tech after the shootings.

- Check and recheck your spellings before you post. You've got at least one Micheal Vick in the piece. And it's "meek", not meak.

- Cut these last two sentences for a sharper ending. It's been hot here in Minneapolis, and if it's hot for me it's worse for Charlie. I got him some water, and I poured him way, way too much food.

Again, I think this is a really good start. And a solid strategy for writing about a subject that's already been overworked. But to be as sharp and hard as it needs to be, you could cut it by a third or so. I'm also not entirely sold on the rotting fish as the central image in the piece - it seems at once too obvious, and yet insufficiently descriptive.

As suggested reading, I'm going to point you toward E.B. White, the American master of the personal essay. In particular, find and read a piece titled "Death of a Pig."

Thanks again for posting with us, Verbal, hope this helps a little.

 

First, to Mayfly: guilty as charged. Shameless, I know. And I'll start posting full versions, or at least excerpts. I guess I'd run the risk of seeming like a shill on the off chance that someone goes to the site and navigates back through the miles of crap I wrote in March and April, when I hadn't told anyone about the site yet. But again, I'll post full columns from now on.

jgmacg - Thanks for the edits. I think part of my problem is on blogger you write in a little text box (like on a message board) and it's hard for me to edit in there. I'll start pasting into a word doc, where I'm a better reader, for whatever reason.

Anyway, just a couple of things in your edits I wanted to respond to.

- Not sure I buy this - at least not as written: I finished reading and leaned back in my chair. My mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to think of something to think or feel. I just felt numb.
- It may have been a coincidence, but my mouth was indeed dry. (Probably just didn't realize it because I was reading the indictment.) And - because I knew I wanted to write about it - I actually was thinking, "What do I think about this? What's my reaction?" I was disappointed when I couldn't think of anything poignant or dramatic.

- And he's not just a benefactor in this document. Wrong word?
- I think it's what I was going for: he wasn't just giving money to his buddies and looking away. He was there at fights, and he was executing dogs himself.

- This section isn't helping you make your case against Vick for dogfighting. In fact, it undermines it, because it looks like gratuitous piling-on. I'd cut it. And I'm sorry I have to make this point...
- I guess I included it because I'm probably not going to write about Vick again. In trying to write a singular sketch of a person's character and recent history, I thought it was relevant.

I don't think I'd have the stones to question someone's charity shortly after a tragedy, but now, in hindsight, his "generosity" looks shabby. Also I thought it belonged because the worst allegations in the indictment - where Vick and co. killed eight dogs in a single day - happened in the same month as the shootings.

The rest of your edits are right on.

I don't want this to come off the wrong way. I'm not looking to be argumenative. Just wanted to get out my side.

I'll find the White story.

Thanks again.