Exhibit A is a guy I've known for a couple years now in the walking world and, up until recently, liked very much. We've stayed up 'til the wee hours gambling in Vegas together, swapped Christmas cards, and now, because I went to Tennessee, it's apparently OK for him to level personal attacks at me for being Out To Get USC, in places where a whole lot of my editors and bossbros can see, and have seen. Never mind that I work primarily for a site whose mission statement is to tear a strip off whatever team's above the fold for whatever reason on any given day; never mind my track record of bearing down with particular scorn on my own team: When I explained to this gent that I'm just doing my job and that I'm in an awkward position with regards to covering USC the way I'd cover any other school, he point-blank suggested I recuse myself. This was a couple weeks ago and I'm only now realizing he misunderstood my salient point: That I'm ducking USC assignments as much as I can and half-assing the spite in them when I can't, out of some misguided sense of obligation to ... what, my dear friends back in the 213? How fucked up is that, when I sit down to holiday dinners every year with Buckeyes and Bammers who have the grace to understand that this is how our beat works. I'm a worse writer, right now, because of what's going on, and I can't just stop reading up on SC thanks to the new gig at the SBN regional, where I am very happy to be on board and quite determined to do well. So, OK. I have a thicker skin everywhere else. It's the stretchy kind. I still believe everything I wrote in the car. And if this twatwaffle can't display the forbearance of a goddamn Tuscaloosa native, well, that's on him.
Exhibit B is Jonathan Tu, whose finesse with the simplest and most intricate words makes me despair in the sweetest way of ever being anything of consequence at this. There are good guys in this, still. And the funny thing is: They can, for the most part, spell better than the other kind.