Something to Drink to

Senor BellavEr, welcome back to Page Two. I appreciate yourthoughts and your rapist wit, but it’s time to re-cap yourpen, shut your computer back down and throw away that floppy diskyou recently purchased.

I acknowledge that I carelessly misspelled your name, Guy. Andfor that, I express my deepest apologies for the trivialmisplacement of a vowel. Good sir, I extend my gratitude to you forshedding light on the matter.

To the public, in issue 18 of The Daily Campus, I mistakenlywrote Guy Bellavar when the correct spelling is Guy Bellaver.Frankly, I’m embarrassed. But the gloves are off now, Mr.Bellaver. You tried taking a supposed novice to school and tooksome serious shots below the belt. But now it’s my turn andI’m up for a healthy literary battle. It’s up to me torestore my credibility, and I’m not about to lose my faithfulfan base. So, Mr. Bellaver, here are some helpful tips from yourUncle Macky.

Rule No. 1 — Don’t ramble to fill up columnspace. Or as taken from Barta’s 15 points of good opinionwriting: “Have a clear point. Most editorials/columns let thereader know fairly quickly what that point is. Focus yourthoughts…”

Mr. Bellaver, in your recent article, you didn’t do this.It took you approximately 559 words to make it clear to the readerthat I misspelled your name. Instead of watching Dr. Phil, manyMustangs were forced to sift through obscure references to an‘80s teeny-bopper.

As you and I know, Sr. Bellaver, Page Two columns should be 800to 1000 words. So what are you telling the reader when you dedicate559 words to a lengthy clearing of your throat before you proveyour point — which I might add was nicely, but indirectly,spelled out by “penis” and “poop?”

It implies, sir, that you don’t have much content to workwith. This inevitably proves that you were overwhelmed by mymastery of the English language and that the only mistake at whichyou could point your Roly Poly finger was a diminutive spellingmistake.

Tisk, tisk.

Also, even though my mistake was careless, I could point outnumerous mistakes in your article, such as the missing commas,comma splices, dangling modifiers and run-on sentences. Hell, thatcould take up, say, 14 paragraphs and nearly 600 words, saving mesome creative thought. But I’d rather be assaulted by a packof midgets dressed like Teletubbies than correct a collegegraduate’s grammatical and syntax mistakes.

Rule No. 2 — Don’t insult your readers. Yousaid, “While many Mustangs may be attractive to the eye,numerous Ponies fall short in other mental capacitydepartments.”

Hell yea, SMU’s got some lookers, but don’t assumethat just because a girl is hot, she can’t recite hermultiplication tables or sing the Fraggle Rock theme song. Most areprobably a lot smarter than you gave them credit for. Plus,it’s hurtful and could empty your extensive dating schedule.Please refer to my Rule No. 1: “Don’t ramble to fill upcolumn space.”

You broke this cardinal rule again, my elderly predecessor, whenyou molded your Rule No. 2 paragraph as a transition paragraph. Iwould have wiped my butt with that “toilet liner” ifthe piece hadn’t been solely directed to yours truly.

Rule No. 3 — I understand that your third rulewasn’t referring to me, because I never used the word”chicks.” I take it you did, and caught some flack.Hope you still have all limbs intact after the savage beating youwithstood from your so-called “femi-Nazis.” Otherwise,I thank you for a helpful hint.

Time to get serious.

Rule No. 4 — Do not charge someone with plagiarism— or even “Play [that] end[s] with Agerism”— without being able to back yourself up. This pissed me offand it makes you look like a mud-slinging slanderer.

Mr. Bellaver, with all due respect, I stole nothing from you— and that’s a fact. It’s an absurd accusationand shame on you for putting that idea into anyone’shead.

You literally said, “you stole my stuff and made it yourown.”

Imagine if I said BULL, then said S-H-I-I-T-A-K-E and left outthe I, A, K and E, then put the words together. “See howdrastic the outcome could be?”

Mr. Bellaver, if I were a seated public official I could legallysue you for defamation of character or maybe even actualmalice.

You asked me if I ever read your column. Sure, I occasionallyread it and most of the time it was quite clever and humorous. Butthe last piece of yours I remember had something to do withcolor-coded parking, and I certainly don’t remember anyhamsters having trouble parking.

You think I stole your hamster bit. Well, you should’vee-mailed me first and asked me about it before allowing me topublicly denounce your allegation. I’m easy to get in touchwith. My e-mail address was located directly below my column.

Contact is the first step in such a matter, and you didn’ttake it.

There’s a mistake.

If you’ve ever watched Monty Python and the HolyGrail, you might recognize my source of inspiration for thehamster.

“Well, Uncle Macky,” you may say. “Whydidn’t you quote the movie then?”

There was no need, because my quote in my article was not adirect quote from the movie. Here’s the excerpt from MontyPython and the Holy Grail, which I own.

“I fart in your general direction. Your mother was ahamster.”

This, Mr. Bellaver, was where I got my hamster bit.Where’d you get yours?

Now, you also claim that rashes are off limits. First,don’t try to tell someone what not to write about becausethat’s not cool.

Secondly, I hope this is in no way a reference to my “thisMayo character is an itchy mosquito bite on the butt of life”comment.

For clarification’s sake, a mosquito bite isn’t arash. According to an SMU health center nurse, “a mosquitobite could bulge up with puss. But it isn’t arash.”

However, if you weren’t referring to my mosquito bite lineand were generally re-living your days “in a poorly litroom” with your coach, well that’s your business and Idon’t want to know about it.

See, Mr. Bellaver, this is a lesson in taking things out ofcontext. I took your quote out of its original context, and now youlook rather homosexual — although, I do understand yourcomment was in the context of a joke.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, we can still befriends. And that’s why this week’s cheer goes to you,Mr. Bellaver.

Thanks for gracing us once again with your generous humor anddoing the journalistic thing by trying to keep other writers incheck — no matter how out of whack some of your commentswere. I wish you the best with all your travels, Gulliver, justwatch out for those damned Lilliputians.

Dear Mr. Bellaver, you just got served.

Mack Mayo is a junior English major. He can be reached [email protected].