Chris Jones on "Animals," his Zanesville Zoo massacre story

Having already taken on "people trying to save a man who's declared he will kill himself," Piotr Rasputin aims his laser-like wit at that dreaded "young, eager, passionate writer who's trying his best to figure out writing and life" demographic.

Seriously, Pill. Time for a moment of self-reflection, if you can bear it.

 

Lost in this is that GQ suffers no real harm even if Jones gets every person in Zanesville to go all Chief Broom on GQ. These are not news magazines; they make unpredictable and sometimes inexplicable decisions about what to run each month. The randomness is the only reason I read a monthly. If GQ had no Zanesville story at all and Esquire does, I would not wonder why. That Esquire is better than GQ almost every month is no surprise to me, but it has zero impact on my decision to read both every month. It is a competition for the participants but not necessarily for the customer.

Confronted with the bizarre coincidence of a GQ writer being in Zanesville at the exact same time, Jones perhaps overreacted to the whole mano-a-mano fantasy, but I can't say I blame him. To expect otherwise would be like telling my housecat, "just kill the goddamn mouse already; don't make it suffer." She doesn't see wild game often, she's gonna go at it for all it's worth when she does. Instinct.

 

I was lauding the kid for taking after you.

Most of us take a few years before we can't handle any kind of disagreement.

Anyway, glad you enjoy my posts. At least one of us is reading what the other has to say.

 

Laser-like indeed.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(comics)

 

Oh, he read and understood what you said.

He just also sees through your recent attempts at passive-aggressive posting.

Unfortunately, self-reflection has not proven to be your strong point.

 

PR, my buddy, my friend.

You do realize the folly of quoting someone's post and replying to it with a comment about how you don't read what he writes, yes?

 

When a post is a direct response to me and mentions me by name . . . well, you understand message boards.

OK, anyone else want to hop in?

Let me know. I've got a long day ahead.

 

Yup, those ketchup bottles don't fill themselves, folks.

 

If you're getting together, let me know - I'd like to pop down for that.

 

Sure you would. Fanboi.

 

Nah ... he just wants the free beers.