The Buch Stops Here

Art Buchwald once said that the hardest job was the New York Times obituary editor because he had to decide what 4 people were important enough to make the obits that day. Pretty sure it wasn’t a tough call on Jan. 18 as the comical columnist succumbed to kidney failure at the age of 81. Buchwald spent 50 years holding up the mirror to the rich and powerful and capturing the condensation of their absurdity. Lampooning the detailed daily briefings by President Eisenhower’s press secretary, Buchwald wrote about a faux press conference in which a reporter asked, “And at what time did the president begin eating his morning grapefruit.” Dismissed as unadulterated rot by the press secretary, Buchwald insisted he had never written anything more than adulterated rot. He chased goats in Yugoslavia, searched fruitlessly for a Turkish bath in Turkey and toured Eastern Europe in a chauffeured limo to show what a bloated plutocrat looked like. He told readers that he was not invited to the Grace Kelly-Prince Rainier wedding because of a family feud: “The Buchwalds and the Grimaldis have not spoken since Jan. 9, 1297.” He created the Louvre race in which a tourist saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo in four minutes under perfect conditions: a smooth floor, good lighting and no wind. He bragged about never having picked up a phone to write a column: "I never talk to anybody. Facts just get in my way," relying instead on watching interviews and a pocket full of newspaper clippings for material. He established a scholarship for “the most irreverent student” in journalism at U.S.C., the school he attended on the G.I. Bill and that allowed him to continue classes even after it learned he had no high school diploma and was ineligible for a degree. One of the most widely read writers of all time, appearing in as many as 500 newspapers Buchwald won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Last year, he refused dialysis and was given a few weeks to live. His kidneys began functioning again, allowing him a year-long victory lap.

Monty, Joe and I were prepared for the beginning of the unadulterated rot and score 6.6666667 points each, with my The Family Plot Thickens and Monty’s D.C. Dead taking 5th and Joe’s Drop Dead, Gorgeous moving into 12th.

The completely redrawn leaderboard:
1st Monty - The U.N. Dead 2 hits, 30 points
2nd Greg - Team Quincy 2 hits, 21.53846154 points
3rd Shawn - Team One – Oldest 2 hits, 11.53846154 points
(tie) Dawn - Go for the light, it's right there damn it 2 hits, 11.53846154 points
5th Me - The Family Plot Thickens 2 hits, 8.20512821 points
(tie) Monty - The D.C. Dead 2 hits, 8.20512821 points

With 10 hits in less than the first 2 months, we’re on pace for more than 60 hits, and we are 6 weeks ahead of the previous earliest date for achieving double digits, topping last year, on Feb 24. Also of note, with 10 hits in 6 weeks, 3 days we have already topped the output for the entire first year.