Newsletter

INDIGNITY VOL. 3, NO 55: Thinking inside the box.

COLUMN DEP'T.

JOE MACLEOD

Apr 13, 2023 — 6 min read

THE EDITOR OF Indignity is away, but they didn’t say to not file a Mr. Wrong column this week! Sorry! First, some correspondence.

CORRESPONDENCE DEP'T.

In response to Indignity Vol. 3, No. 53, REVIEW DEP’T.: First-level franchise:

Just saw an ad for AIR. Thanks for the review. I won't be going to see it.
—Donna

Dear Donna,
Please don’t not-see the new Nike commercial just because we said we don’t like the idea. We’re probably going to see it so we can confirm our suspicions, and who knows, it might be good! After all, the director won an Oscar for that bullshit Argo movie!

We value and encourage communications from you, the Gentle Reader! Write us all the time, and send to indignity@indignity.net.

This is one of the many graphics Home Box Office has used over the years, and if you read far enough down, I’ll get to it!

COLUMN DEP’T.

MR. WRONG: For Whom the Box Homes

ARE YOU A grownup? Before then, when you were un-grown, what did you want to be when you grew up? Whatever the fuck you ever wanted to be, there’s no way you wanted to be a Columnist. I’m not saying it’s bad to be a Columnist, because I am one, but myself included, I don’t know anybody who ever wanted to be a Columnist. The Mr. Wrong Column started because I worked at a weekly newspaper and I kept submitting stuff for a column where they wanted people to complain about stuff, in writing, and finally the editor just gave me the space every week because I flooded the submissions on account of while I am an Enthusiast of things, I am also a person who has many complaints. I am an Enthusiast of Complaints! So I got a column in a newspaper, which eventually became a weekly column. It wasn’t like I had a thought about how someday, if I worked hard, I could be a Newspaper Columnist, har! Who the fuck wants to be that?

Nowadays there’s hardly any “newspapers” but damn, some of the ones that are still extant got a gang of Columnists, like at the New York Times, they got hella Columnists!

19 Columnists! 19 Opinions, at least once a week, depending on each Columnist’s deal! Did any of these mofos go to college to become a Columnist? Look at some of these recent Topics:

Tucker Carlson and Rupert Murdoch Were Right

Why People Are Fleeing Blue Cities for Red States

Springsteen, Seinfeld and What This Country’s Been Missing

Those are some clickable Topics, eh? For me they are, because all three of ‘em made me roll my eyeballs. I clicked on the first one about the Mothertucker and Murdoch, because I wanted to find the point of the column, or at least what I think is the point of the column, so I can then render my Opinion. Columnist!

Here it is in the second paragraph:

In this much, however, Fox’s fabulists were right: If they didn’t hawk Trump’s hooey, many of their viewers would just move on to a circus that did.

That’s it, those two shitbirds are worried about ratings and ad dollars, quelle suprise! Frank Bruni, who I am pretty sure used to work hard and write about restaurants and food until they tucked into a cozy Opinion gig, got about 600 words outta that topic, and leaned on an article by another writer, the way I leaned on the New York Times’ list of Columnists to pad out my column. Game recognize Game. Respect!

It’s a pretty cush deal, being a Columnist, all you need is one idea, or not even a whole idea, just a shard of a thought for an Idea, and then you surround it with hundreds of words, it’s fun! I complain about everything, it is my Brand, but I don’t complain about being a Columnist. Column-wise, I only complain about:

How much I get paid (I want more dough).
Not having my column run every week, to which I refer you back to to number 1.

OK, so my shard of a fragment of a splinter of a thought for an Idea this week is that the bigshots who own what used to be called Home Box Office (HBO) and Cinemax (MAX) and some other cable teevee stuff called Discovery+ (yow, what a lineup over there) have decided to combinate the whole schmear and call it “max,” with lowercase letters. I’m gonna go Chris Stein here one letter further and say yeah, how fucking stupid?

They got a new “max” logo and everything. Can you imagine the Design meetings for that new logo?

Umm, yes, yes, so the circle inside the “a” in “max” celebrates and continues the decades-spanning legacy of the Home Box Office brand by having the little circle-thingy in there, but no, it will not be pronounced ‘mox,’ it will still be ‘max.’ Also, nobody will give a shit about the little circle except us, but we had to do something because there’s a whole Hurt Feelings Club going on over at BOX, I mean, HBO.

Check this out, though. If you already subscribe to Discovery+, they’re gonna let it run as a standalone service.

So if you also subscribe to the Home Box Max, you might get double billed unless you cancel. That’s Service Journalism, try and get that from those New York Times opinion-havers!

Anyway, I hope maxbox keeps running weird old HBO opening credits things.

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com

THE WEATHER REVIEWS and INDIGNITY MORNING PODCAST are still on vacation, where the skies are still really incredible.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of select sandwiches from Brewster Book of Recipes, by the Woman’s Association of Brewster Congregational Church and their friends, published in 1921, found in the public domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

PIMENTO SANDWICHES.

One lb. cheese, 6 large pickles, 6 hard boiled eggs, 1 small can pimentoes; drain. Grind all in meat chopper; add salt to taste and enough mayonnaise dressing to spread.
—Mrs. W. E. Reeves, Wichita, Kan.
Another method—Drain can of pimentoes well; chop and add mayonnaise.

SARDINE SANDWICHES.

Toast 2 slices of bread; on one place thin slices of cheese, dash of paprika; put under blaze to melt. On the other spread a thick layer of sardines. Put together and serve with slice of tomato on top.
—Margaret Ball.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, kindly send a picture to us at indignity@indignity.net.