I take influence from a lot of writers. They’re not all cats on the page. I’ve learned as much from musicians and comedians as I have from authors. In the end, we’re all trying to make points as clearly as we can. With that in mind, here are a bunch of folks that do things that I admire.
James Baldwin – Plainness. The most amazing thing to me about Baldwin’s non-fiction is how few tricks he uses. He makes his points without dancing, but he still hits you hard as hell. Reading Baldwin is like what it must be like to block a bull rusher–you know he’s coming straight at you, and you still manage to get floored.
Ice Cube – Brevity. No wasted words here. Cube takes the shortest distance to his points, and he makes it work almost every time. Even on the wack shit he did during the late ’90s.
Chris Rock – Building. The way he writes contrasts is always good. He drills you with the factual, and then he comes with the counterfactual brilliantly. He usually builds with three factuals before making the joke, which can be a little predictable. But no matter what, he wins with the counter.
Bill Simmons – Excitement. One of the first suggestions Simmons made to me was to get in and show how much I love what I write about. I’m still pretty dreadful at that–all those years of econ aren’t great for making an exciting writer–but he’s the master. And where Simmons is underrated–there’s always a logical underpinning. The other thing Bill does well is finding the perfect reference to make his point.
Ralph Wiley – Indifference. Basically, Ralph didn’t really care if you got it or not. He said what he had to say then rolled from there, and he did so with no concern to whether you were ready for his jazz-influenced style (he once compared himself to Monk because of how he used well-timed silences). The thing, though, is that you have to be as good as they come to pull that off. And he was.
Peter Gammons – Ease. When you read Gammons, you almost wonder if he’s really reporting. The information is always there, but it flows so smoothly. He doesn’t go out of his way to tell you he’s about to make a killer point. He just does. It’s after you read it that it really hits you.
Harry Allen – Density. I try to put in as much information as possible in every piece I write. I really worked toward that after I did an interview with Harry where he talked about how proud he was of the density of a piece he wrote. As a writer, I’ve only got so many words to use to make the reader think. Harry showed me, in many ways, how it’s done.
John Lennon – Wit. Lennon always had that smirk. I wish I had that smirk. Still working on it, though.
Bob Dylan – The run-on. In the Jim Brown/Tiger piece, I sent a sentence to Fred to get his take. His criticism was an accurate one–the sentence ran on. The problem wasn’t that it ran on, though. It was that i didn’t execute it properly. It’s okay to use a run-on sentence if you want to convey a rambling tone. think about it–when you talk, sometimes rambling is the most engaging and entertaining thing you can do. As a writer, it’s tricky pulling that art. I don’t do it much–even though I’m partial to compound sentences–but I wanna drill it when I do.
Ray Ratto – The right lead. In boxing, a right lead is a straight right hand. As Norman Mailer points out in “When We Were Kings,” boxers don’t use it because it takes too long. It’s easily blocked and easily countered. Ratto, who writes for the SF Chronicle and CBS Sportsline, writes in these frenetic flurries…then he drops a quick point in that floors the reader. It’s not a jab because it’s too powerful. It’s a right because it can put you on your ass, and it only works because it’s imperceptible among all the other punches he throws.
Gary Smith – detail. I tend not to like reading magazine stuff by guys that do fiction because they care too much about little details that don’t matter much to the thesis. Smith, however, is the king of detail. The pictures he paint are vivid, but rarely does he offer something that’s not needed to get what he’s doing. Tricky balance.
Jason Whitlock – technical entertainment. I contend that Whitlock, one of my friends, is the best football columnist in the country. Why? Because he can hit you with technical details about football–which he knows from his time as a player–but still make it fun. Like him or not, Whitlock’s an entertaining, informative read.
Mack Jones – parsimony. As most of you know, that’s my daddy. He told me long ago to “never say with two words what can be said with one.” That’s the one thing I consider on every draft, the one thing I make sure to edit as I go along.
The Onion – the straight face. The Onion, though not as good as it once was, is still the best written site out there. Why? Because they propose such absurd scenarios, but they manage to do so in the most realistic way possible. They know the best humor comes when people aren’t trying to be funny. We know they’re trying, but they can make it look like they’re not. Great shit.
Jimi Hendrix – Voice. The thing with Hendrix is that his songs really only work well for him. It’s hard to cover Hendrix because, aside from the daunting task of replicating his solos, no one sells his lines better than him. That’s something Dylan can’t claim. But Dylan gets points because he writes songs that offer lots of interpretations.
I’m only stopping here because I have a million things to get done. But that kinda gives an indication of endless quest toward self-improvement. Long of the short–there’s lots to learn and lots of places to do the learning.
September 15, 2006
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