Hack Attack

Les Enfants Terrible

The Oregon Commentator and the ODE Perspectives page share a long, sordid history of bitterness and contempt. It's about to get a lot more sordid.

Was Vince Medeiros hired on a dare?

Indeed, with every other passing week, the quality of Vinicius Schneider Medeiros' column continues to sink lower and lower and lower, often into the speculative realm of: "He showed this to people?"

Vince Medeiros is the ultimate hack, in the same "Are they serious?" vein as Robert "Vanilla Ice" Van Winkle. The joke with Vanilla is easy for anyone to grasp; Medeiros is a bit more confounding. The whole thing would be a raucous sure-fire non-stop laugh riot were there not several gripping realities to contend with. For example: he was hired in the first place. Over who? Apparently he turned in a portfolio or a similar writing sample, which ostensibly won him the confidence of the higher-ups.

One must speculate however, whether Medeiros' portfolio consisted of another writer's work. His columns are unjustifiable, self-centered rants that add up to a flagrant waste of time and effort-at least for the reader. Aussie Medeiros seems to revel in his self-proclaimed debauchery. That Medeiros is allowed to continue his de facto argument vs. the English language on alternating Fridays is beyond rational belief.

A typical Medeiros rant is made up of seven components that collectively account for 90% (+/- 5%) of his journalistic transgressions. They are:

1) A rambling, incoherent narrative description, sometimes tangentially related to the main subject and other times not at all.

Example: "Coming from a hazy room upstairs, a smoking device can barely be heard above the deafening din. And on the porch, about 10 people hang out, cracking jokes, drinking and smoking and laughing at the incongruities and ironies of life in Eugene."

2) A carefully worded anecdote wherein Medeiros tries to casually draw self-glorifying attention to his drug use/alcohol consumption/attempted sexual conquests.

Example: "Just the other day, after a few pitcher rounds with my friends and after fun with the opposite sex had to me been continuously denied..."

3) A friend (e.g. Wally, Kirk and Chuck-whether these friends are real or imaginary is unclear) to ridicule and degrade. Medeiros' "friends" and acquaintances should live in mortal fear of being drafted into one of his sadistic fantasies.

Example: "...I still quiver when picturing the vivid image of Wally engaged in some undescribably [sic] bizarre copulating act a mere bedside away..."

4) No discernable opinion on any subject relevant to anyone's actual experience, as reflected by his inscrutable choice of editorial topics.

Example: "And that's what we, citizens of this country, have to do. Sometimes we've just got to make our voices heard and shout out loud: Enough! Enough! Enough!"

5) An overwrought, awkwardly phrased, Roget's Thesaurus-augmented run-on sentence. Medeiros' grasp on the English language is debatable; cogent grammar is beyond him.

Example: "A couple of feet from the exhilarating dance deck, toward the back of the merry, little [sic] hovel, a handful of boys hangs out, [sic] smoking cigarettes and sucking down the golden fluid that profusely oozes from the three kegs in the backyard right next to the corroding barbecue."

6) An absurd, oftentimes earnest, always highly questionable concluding paragraph or resolution, frequently unreadable.

Example: "But if only we opened our eyes to the fact that things are not perfect and that we can, really, if we want, think independently and critically and act to democratize knowledge and promote improvements. If we could do that, I'd be stoked."

7) And some things too cryptically stupid for words.

Example: "So let the kids party, sirs. Please, let the kids party."

And so on and so forth. It grows steadily more unhealthy as you delve into the back issues and read his pieces for the second time. They are unsettling here and there, but mostly the work of an unflinching moron. He's amassed a literal paper trail of liabilities, both deliberate and careless.

In his columns, Medeiros patently writes like a smug Commentator wannabe. The nihilistic, drunken "point of view," one that he stubbornly refuses to deviate from, is in all likelihood the only thing he was able to come up with at the keyboard. It's a well-established fact that Emerald staffers are closer followers of the Oregon Commentator than most, and Medeiros is just that type of poor writer who reeks of his influences. Even Hunter S. Thompson, a journalist not infrequently referenced in the Commentator's pages, was invoked in the illustration that accompanies Medeiros' most recent foray into commentary, "Short and Sweet" (ODE, Apr. 2, 99). Giovanni Salimena's Raoul Duke is a damn sight better than last year's Hutchinson-dominated horrorfest; still, he is undeniably complicit in Medeiros' "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" caricature. The article itself, is an unfortunate distillation of Commentator AP columnist Michael Atkinson's ongoing "The Bottle and the Damage Done."

Vince Medeiros also likes to write about the "recreational pill of alien origin" that "kept [him] up for a week and still gives [him] nightmares from time to time." Is he trying to fool the reader into believing that he's the consummate party animal? Medeiros doesn't pull off the "cool partygoer" image with much finesse; he seems too eager to be liked by the "cool kids," and shows neither responsibility nor "coolness."

It all just makes you wonder why the "His views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper" byline is not printed in 24-point boldface above the title. Any editorial board should have the sense to distance itself from Medeiros' editorials. But enough about the Australian one for the moment.

Amy Goldhammer is in this case, the lesser of two evils. Perhaps evil isn't the word-naive may be more accurate. Unlike Medeiros, Goldhammer didn't cut her teeth on ODE Perspectives. As early as the 1998 summer term, Goldhammer was pounding out substandard-to-average feature stories on such benign topics as vegetarians, coffee vendors, and the Promise Keepers. As the Emerald was no doubt hurting for editorial cartoons, Goldhammer's pitiful line-drawings even ran in several issues.

It wasn't until the start of the '98-'99 school year that Goldhammer made waves. On October 14th of 1998, Amy "King of the Jews" Goldhammer (as she later became known) signaled her arrival with the infamous "Liquor, beer no longer in the clear." The title is funny because it rhymes, but the story is funny because more than tripping over her own words, Goldhammer swam as far up an editorial shit creek as she could manage in 600 words. The editorial, which included the quote "It is easier for me to get crack than it is to get beer," alleged that simply because no drug dealer, or (as Goldhammer obviously borrowed from USA's "Silk Stalkings") the "candy man"-will ask for I.D.

Goldhammer, responsible for coining the unforgettable "Incredi-team," draws attention week in and week out to her skewed reasoning, awkward wording, and unfamiliarity with everyday student life.

For the self-righteous, moralistic piece, Goldhammer was dubbed on the Commentator Spew page "King of the Jews," an allusion to His Jesusness. The nickname, which stuck, eventually prompted a hysterical Goldhammer to storm the Commentator offices, waking Publisher Jonathan Collegio, and shouting: "I'm not a king, I'm a queen!" Crazy, right? This actually happened.

Since then, Goldhammer has settled into a pattern of obvious and banal op-ed pieces. While Medeiros does writes editorials about objects of no interest to anyone but himself, Goldhammer at least recognizes her opportunity to shape public opinion. In contemplating "The importance of the football fan" (ODE, Oct. 28, 98), her follow-up, Goldhammer chose to ponder the ontological implications of sports fans, and asks us all to consider that it's just "a bunch of grown men in tight, shiny pants running around after a weird shaped ball."

Goldhammer not only chose to write on about which she is entirely ignorant (a recurring theme in her editorials), but all the while cruelly painted an ex-boyfriend into the picture as an example of such a "hollering and yammering" sports fan. Referring to him only as "boy" (e.g. "Countless times, curled up next to boy, [sic] I was really trying to be into the football game on the tube..."), Goldhammer treated him like a sociological curiosity. Unlike Medeiros' late "friend Chuck," "boy" is indeed an actual person at the school.

Glaring journalistic incompetence has been the status quo at ODE Perspectives for so long that it is easy to overlook just how godawful the situation really is.

Consider the following experiment: Cut and paste the text of Medeiros' and Goldhammer's columns to a Word or text file, and print it out. Once the words are divorced from their natural, pulp-based environment, it's possible to look at them in a new light. The effect just isn't the same in a newspaper context. A professional layout and an elaborate graphic might draw some attention away from the atrocious columns of the Emerald, but even that still goes only so far.

Similarly, imagine what would happen if a student handed in a paper of a comparable quality of writing for an English or journalism assignment. What kind of grade might that student earn? Medeiros and Goldhammer should feel lucky that they've been able to slide by on so little.

Surprisingly, these two are not the only ones up there in the Emerald offices contributing to Perspectives. In fact, their output is a mere fraction of what is printed in total. A few interesting things have actually happened with the rest of the section this year, including notably the Emerald's official stance on the OSPIRG/Special Elections uber-fiasco that ruled the editorial page for most of Spring term.

For once, while, the Editorial Board made a sound decision, pulled its head out of the sand, and opted for a route that was not parallel to the path of least resistance. Commendable, maybe. But it isn't fair to say this decision blazed any trails on the campus; anti-OSPIRG sentiment is directly proportional to the prevalence of the obstinate PIRG itself. In this case, the editorial page fails entirely as a publication. Instead of shaping the atmosphere of thought, it merely follows, and always at a couple of paces back. Perspectives, taken as a whole, exerts influence over only those whose other regular source of guidance is the daily horoscope. If you start backing up arguments with opinions from the ODE Perspectives, you need to do some thinking about yourself.

In recap:

Vince Medeiros: There is really not enough bad that can be said about his editorials in this piece. Were this article a comprehensive analysis of the wrongs perpetrated by Medeiros, it would be 30,000 words. This overreaction would be a mistake-he is, one must admit, unintentionally funny.

Amy Goldhammer: Just remember that her editorials are dumb, usually forgettable, and reassuringly harmless. When the Editorial Board keeps her in line, the drivel she expels from her typewriter is no worse than the drivel produced in the rest of the office. Maybe she can return to successfully writing about Starbucks.

Aaron Artman and Ashley Bach: Notice those words are consecutive in the dictionary. Ashley Bach is inoffensive to the sensibilities, inasmuch as he keeps agitating the majority of letter writing angry-people. Artman, the only individual columnist willing to tackle national issues, is as forgettable as he is well-meaning.

Giovanni Salimena and Bryan Dixon: Illustrators, and largely exempt from the blame. All things considered, their work has more redeeming qualities than any other aspect of the page.

Stefanie Knowlton and Kameron Cole: The Editorial Board opinion columns could be a lot worse (as Mike Schmierbach proudly demonstrated last year), but your weekly columnists, as the bulk of this article seeks to remind them-are bad. Very bad.

That the Emerald actually runs the work of Medeiros and Goldhammer with regularity, and seemingly untouched, is something which should give the reader pause. They do have the power of the media, however limited, but in no way should this imply that their opinion is superior to anyone else's. Based on the wealth of evidence, perhaps theirs should be considered as several notches below the norm. Any one denizen of 13th Avenue could be dropped into their roles today and do at least as well-if not far better--than the terrible two.

At legitimate newspapers (the Register-Guard and Oregonian don't count), editorial and opinion columnists are almost always voices of reason and solid writers both. They've paid their dues, earned credible reputations, and steadily worked their way to the top. At the Emerald, however, this standard works inversely. Vince Medeiros and Amy Goldhammer are more characteristic of rejected characters from the Onion than of real people with actual views. Except when you come down to it, it's not all that funny. Whoever hired them made a serious mistake, and the ODE will be paying for it, hand over fist, until June at the very least.

William Beutler, a sophomore majoring in English and Journalism, desperately wishes he was an Emeraldcolumnist