Endorsements

Stop the Presses column by Chris Graham

It has come down to that time – the time when we announce our endorsements.

Ahem – here goes.

I endorse – peanut butter.

The sweet kind – like you find in those Reese’s Easter eggs.

(I don’t have much use for the kind that you can get in a jar. Way too strong for my liking.)

You want more? I’ve got more.

I endorse … baseball.

A few weeks back, I was so fed up with the game that I vowed never to take in what had been until recently my favorite sports pastime ever again in person.

Now I’m plotting a trip to D.C. to see the Nationals play at some point this summer.

It helps that Barry Bonds, the reason for my winter of baseball discontent, is struggling mightily at the plate.

I’m not done yet.

I endorse, um, let’s see. I endorse Jay Leno.

For years, I was a strong supporter of David Letterman – but something has changed in me the past few months.

OK, so I’m getting to be an old fogey. I concede as much.

Whatever is going on, I have to watch Leno every night before I go to bed – which of course makes it tough to get shut-eye on weekends.

More in the way of endorsements … I endorse higher taxes.

Yep, I’m sneaking some politics in here on you.

I’m kidding, too. I’m as much against taxes as the next guy.

Not that I mind driving on tax-funded roads and being able to call tax-funded law enforcement when necessary.

Or that I was able to attend tax-funded schools to get the kind of education that it takes to write for a living.

(Or that I get to make that living because of a tax-funded military that makes sure that the bad guys from overseas don’t get too close to unsecuring our borders.)

That all said, I was just trying to get your attention.

And now that I have it, I’m going to finally get to the point of this missive.

Namely, that I endorse … me.

Yep, that’s what this was all about.

Not to get you to think any more highly of me than you already do.

(As if you do. I’m reaching here, I know.)

My thought on endorsements is that their only value is in the eye of the beholder.

And the ultimate beholder is … who again?

That’s right.

Given our druthers, we’d all endorse ourselves in a contest of The Best Person Who Ever Lived.

Come on – you can admit it.

Just wanted to let you know why I’m not into the more serious kind of endorsements.

It’s mainly because my feeling is that they’re not even worth the paper that they’re printed on.

And given that I write pretty much exclusively on the Web these days, well …

 

 

Chris Graham’s Stop the Presses column appears on this blog on Tuesdays and Fridays. For more on Chris Graham’s humor columns and other fiction writing, visit www.authorchrisgraham.com.