Lee Barats: No. I want the next 350 words of my life back.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I should just thank The Daily for the opportunity to express myself weekly to everyone at Cal Poly and bow out of the spotlight like a decent person. You’re thinking I’m an ungrateful dick for saying writing for The Daily this year wasn’t all that great. I don’t disagree with you at all, but let me just try to explain why I’m such an ungrateful dick.
Like any great artist whose works are ahead of their time, “Tit for Tat” has been censored like f*** this year. The Mustang Daily editors have a habit of correcting my punctuation, spelling and grammar to serve their own interests. That’s crap. If I want to use “your” instead of “you’re,” let me make my own mistakes and grow. If I want to spell chaos “cayos,” it’s my prerogative. If I want to put a semicolon in the middle of a word, it’s my right as an artist to put one in there. You know who else had crazy punctuation? Emily Dickinson. If she were censored, she’d have just been an unappreciated old maid living up in the attic waiting to die.
On numerous occasions, the editors have deemed our material too mind-blowing and enlightening for the general public. “Tit for Tat” wrote an article in January titled, “Farts: Do they make Jesus cry?” Guess what? It was deemed too lewd and offensive to print. It’s a shame, that article would have opened so many minds to the moral issues of farting. But apparently, The Daily (the man) doesn’t want you to think. Another article blocked by the editors was called, “Was Hitler really such a bad guy?” That’s really too bad. That article was hilarious.
Listen up, sheep. Censorship is an affront to our civil rights of freedom of speech and expression. The ones who censor are doing a disservice to the public by withholding knowledge that may make the people think. God forbid that people get minds of their own and hold opinions that aren’t perfectly crafted by The Daily’s political columnists. Let The Daily knows how you feel about this watered down “information” they’ve fed you your whole college life.
Oh, by the way, Hitler was indeed a huge asshole and farts totally make Jesus cry.
Sean Michetti: Yes. Hollywood called for me. Peace Out Lee.
My goodness, I can’t even begin to tell you how difficult it was to write this article. Not that it’s hard for me to formulate an idea and write a humorous, convincing argument. C’mon, I literally have FUNNY flowing though my veins. Whenever I donate blood, they use my pint to cure dull people.
The reason it was hard to write this column is that I couldn’t find the time to do it. Currently I have a packed schedule writing two romantic novels, a Broadway musical, and the new “High School Musical 4” script for Disney.
How did these opportunities come my way? By writing for The Daily, of course. Many readers may not realize the reach and distribution of The Daily. Its Web site lists a readership base of 800 million per day.
Plus they invented the term, The Daily. Were you aware, for instance, that Clark Kent’s employer, The Daily Planet, was named after The Daily? More recently, “The Daily Show with John Stewart” pays The Daily an annual royalty for the name. I’ve taken advantage of The Daily’s notoriety to sign lucrative Hollywood and Broadway writing deals. And while my positive experience has netted me millions of dollars, Lee’s negativity toward The Daily has guaranteed he will only find work managing the rubber band factory he inherited from great-grandpa Barats.
The benefits of writing for The Daily are felt, daily. This year, I haven’t paid for a single thing. Not at clothing stores, not at coffee shops, not even on dates. Local business owners know “Tit for Tat” has the power to end them with just one bad review. So all of the plush items in life are simply handed to me. Trust me, you have never felt comfortable pants until you slip into a pair of rare dolphin-skin slacks.
But nice pants, exotic women and sinful amounts of money are not what motivate me to wake up every Wednesday and frantically try to write something, ANYTHING, by the noon deadline. For me, it’s all about making the average Joe and Jane reader smile. The same Joe and Jane reader that will comp my restaurant bill, brew me free coffee, and carry me to my classes. I put the effort in for them, so they will put the effort in under me. Have a wonderful summer, Cal Poly, and thank you for the opportunity to better your lives.
Lee Barats is a mechanical engineering senior and Sean Michetti is a journalism senior. Barats and Michetti are Mustang Daily humor columnists and can be contacted at TitsforTats@gmail.com.