Word came down last week that Wallace McRae is dead.

He was among the handful of cowboy poets behind the rebirth of our art and craft in the mid-1980s, and his passing is a loss from which we will never recover.

The word “curmudgeon” was as firmly affixed to McRae as his bushy mustache, and it was a description I believe he carried with pride. To many, he came across as gruff. But underlying that gruffness were two simple facts: he had a low tolerance for bullshit, and he did not suffer fools gladly.

McRae was a poet. More than a mere rhymer, jokester, versifier, or entertainer, he wrangled words to create well-crafted poetry that spoke of the West in layers that plumbed the depths, asking questions and demanding thought. You will not find among his work the cheap emotion, the manufactured pride, the manipulative humor so often found in cowboy poetry.

I did not know McRae well. We were well enough acquainted to speak, but it’s not like we were drinking buddies. Back in 2016, he agreed to be interviewed for a magazine article I was working on, and we had a good, long talk at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I got what I needed for the story, and I got a lot more than I expected.

We talked about his early exposure to poetry, including his first public recitation at age four at a community Christmas celebration. And his exposure at an early age to one of the greatest cowboy poets of all time: “We got a livestock publication, my dad did, I don’t know what the title of it was, but it had a monthly Bruce Kiskaddon illustrated poem in it. . . . I knew Kiskaddon before I could read.”

I asked his opinion on what Kiskaddon and other early masters—Badger Clark, S. Omar Barker, and others—might think of today’s cowboy poetry. “My guess is, I think they would for the most part feel that we’re trying hard. But maybe not measuring up. Because so few people are trained now in writing. They haven’t read the classics. We haven’t studied the art enough. . . . I don’t think there’s enough of us that study poetry.”

McRae’s honors are too many to mention. But his legacy is one we should treasure—and we could all benefit from reading and rereading and studying his poetry. He was one of the best of us. And now he is gone.

Catching up.

Not long ago, I dusted off a favorite LP record album from the past and gave it a listen. It’s still good. The record, by legendary country singer and songwriter Roger Miller (no relation), is titled, “Dear Folks Sorry I Haven’t Written Lately.” Well, folks, I haven’t written lately here either, although I doubt I have been missed.

The last few months on the writing front have been tied up with a lot of busy work. Here’s a rundown.

And the River Ran Red, my historical novel about the Massacre at Bear River, is now available in paperback and eBook from publisher Speaking Volumes at all the online booksellers. Find it in paperback at Amazon US  and Barnes & Noble; and in eBook at Amazon US, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Kobo Books.

Also just released is an anthology of Western short stories that, so far as anyone can determine, is the first crowd-funded Western ever. It’s the result of a lot of hard work by editor Jeff Mariotte and Kickstarter. It’s now available online everywhere in paperback and eBook. My story, “The Incident Above Mentioned” is the lead story in Silverado Press Presents Western Stories by Today’s Top Writers.

Another collection of short stories is due in large print from Thorndike Publishing in late July. This one is a collaboration with friend and fellow author Michael Norman. Shiny Spurs and Gold Medallions features our award-winning Western stories (Western Writers of America Spur Awards, Will Rogers Medallion Awards, and elsewhere), along with some new offerings.

Then there’s Buckoffs and Broken Barriers: Rodeo Poems, a new collection of poetry in the works at publisher Speaking Volumes. The book, as the title suggests, is all about rodeo, and includes poems both serious and silly. Some have appeared in magazines long ago, some in other collections and anthologies, and many are published here for the first time.

Speaking Volumes also has the manuscript for a new novel featuring Rawhide Robinson,  ordinary cowboy and extraordinary spinner of tall tales. This adventure, titled Rawhide Robinson Rides with Old Blue, has our raconteur in the employ of Charlie Goodnight, trailing cattle northward led by Goodnight’s legendary lead steer, Old Blue. But Old Blue keeps walking even after reaching Ogallala, and Rawhide Robinson follows the big steer into the great white north to fetch him back to Texas.

And, amidst all that, I have been writing short articles from Western history for the online publication Cowboy State Daily. Of late they have published my pieces about Charlie Siringo; the 1896 Montpelier, Idaho bank robbery; the Parcel Post Bank in Vernal, Utah; and Wild Bill Hickok’s gunfight in Springdale, Missouri.

Also on the horizon is a new novel from Speaking Volumes that will see the light of day later this year. Where the Long Trail Ends is set on a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail. The title is a line from a poem by George Rhoades, an old college professor of mine, who is also an award-winning poet. Then there’s a new novel about the Pony Express, The Mail Must Get Through, as well as paperback and eBook editions of my previous hardcover books This Thy Brother and Black Joe and Other Selected Stories.

After all that, who knows what else the future holds?

Sorry to fill your day with so much chin music, but I wanted to make up for lost time.

Time.

This is a leap year. Leap years come around every four years to keep our calendar more or less harnessed to the sun in its travels. February, being the shortest month on the calendar, gets the advantage of leap year with the addition of an extra day. Tomorrow is that day—February 29.

I often hear people say they don’t have time. That there aren’t enough hours in a day or days in a week or weeks in a month…and so on, to do something they want to do.

Well, if you’re one of those people, you’re in luck.

Tomorrow is an extra day. A day added to your calendar to give you 24 free hours to do whatever it is you haven’t had time for. A whole day. An entire day tailor made for reading that book. Or writing that story. Or that poem. Or whatever has been nagging at you, but which somehow always falls victim to the lack of time.

The time is now. Get ready to get up in the morning and get it done. 

At least get it started, and don’t worry if you don’t get it done. There’s another tomorrow, another 24 hours, waiting. The truth is, you’ve got all the time there is. And you won’t be getting any more of it—at least until the next leap year, in 2028. Don’t wait.

Good Books.

Read any good books lately? Along with numerous other writers, I was asked by the Shepherd.com web site to list the three best books I read in the past year. Not necessarily books that were new in the past year, but books read during that period. 

For almost 40 years (don’t ask me why) I have kept a list of the books I read. So, finding my three favorites for the year took nothing more than paging back 12 months and going through the list to see which titles jumped out at me. Some surprised me, to be honest. Others almost topped the ones I chose, but not quite. Still, it was not an easy decision. Maybe, on a different day, my choices would be different.

You can see my list here: https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/rod-miller. 

And don’t hesitate to wander around the Shepherd.com web site for other lists by other writers on other subjects. (Somewhere on there is my list of five Western novels about cowboys who really are cowboys, rather than the usual fare of outlaws, lawmen, gamblers, and the like.)

Really stupid words, Chapter 21.

Sometimes, perfectly good words get overused and abused and stretched to the point that they become stupid. One such word that has been stirring my curmudgeonly coals of late is “journey.”

At its core it is a fine word, describing “travel or passage from one place to another,” the key word being place. While it can be suggestive of other things, place generally indicates a physical location. That notion is forgotten more often than not nowadays when it comes to journeys.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu voiced what must be the most famous saying about “journey” when he said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” The implication of moving from one physical location to another is surely implicit, if not explicit. Still, the saying and the source have contributed to the dilution of the meaning of journey. More to blame, perhaps, is a bumper sticker phrase of uncertain origin and many iterations: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Notice how the idea of going from one actual, physical place to another is missing, watering down the meaning of “journey” to the point where it can be applied to anything, everything, and nothing.

The New Age (which elevated Lao Tzu and his sayings) and all its psychobabble latched onto the word back in the 1970s and there has been no turning back. Healing and transformation became a journey, along with your health and wellness journey, your recovery journey, your emotional growth journey, and your soul journey. And, of course, our spiritual and religious journeys.

Now, even unfortunate situations like fighting cancer have become journeys. So have trivial situations, like my hair loss journey. Grief became a journey. Education is a journey. So is weight loss. Business has latched onto the idea with a passion, tracking customer journeys, service journeys, training and development journeys, leadership journeys, workday journeys….

Writers are not immune to the infection. Seldom have I attended a conference where the “hero’s journey” wasn’t held up as the essence of most any and every piece of literature. (I confess ignorance of its finer points.) And, of course, we are each on our personal writing journey.

That’s all for now. While the “journey” journey may be an endless journey, we’ve come far enough on our journey for one day.

Eastern hospitality.

Writers conferences are making a comeback now that the scourge of covid is somewhat under control. You may recall my recent report on the Southern hospitality I enjoyed while speaking at the White County CreativeWriters Conference in Arkansas. Since then, I was treated to some Out West “Eastern” hospitality while speaking at the Eastern Idaho Writers League Conference in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

A few years ago, the statewide Idaho Writers League disbanded, and with it went the regional conferences around the state. But writers in Eastern Idaho weren’t content with inactivity, so they formed a new organization and this year sponsored their first conference. I was fortunate to be invited as a presenter. I renewed acquaintances with writers I had met at earlier conferences as well as met others for the first—and I hope not the last—time.

Having spent five years or so living in the Idaho Falls area, we also visited some old haunts from our time there as well as visiting family and friends still in the neighborhood.

All in all, as Jim Stafford would sing under different circumstances, it was “A Real Good Time.”

Gone south.

As has been the case most every fall over the past decade (except last year, when the world was on pause) I spent a weekend about as far south as you can go and still be in Utah. The occasion, as usual, was the Kanab Writers Conference.

 It is not the biggest writers conference I have had the pleasure of presenting at, but it may well be the best. For one thing, the world’s “Little Hollywood” offers scenery the likes of which belongs on movie and TV screens, where it often is and has been. Even if you do no more than stand on the street in the center of town and turn a circle, you will be awestruck.

And, of course, there’s the conference. The staff keeps everything on an even keel. A diverse group of presenters holds forth on a variety of subjects of interest to writers. Readers, too, can browse the bookstore and meet authors and attend presentations that engage the community.

Next year, if plans hold true, the Kanab Writers Conference will move from the fall to late July. Summer puts a whole new face on the red rock country, and the change will add green leaves to the color scheme. If you’re a writer, or want to be, add a link to the conference web site, and watch for information on the 2022 event. Just being to town will make a fine vacation.

Dateline: My House

 

SANDY, UTAH: Work proceeds apace at writer Rod Miller’s desk. The author recently shipped With a Kiss I Die off to Five Star Publishing. The novel follows the star-crossed love story of a young emigrant girl from Arkansas and a Mormon boy from Utah Territory, and events leading up to the historic Mountain Meadows Massacre. Given publishing schedules, the book is not expected to see the light until 2023.

In other news, Five Star Publishing recently completed the cover design for the writer’s forthcoming release, And the River Ran Red. This novel is also based on Western history and tells the story of the Massacre at Bear River, the deadliest slaughter of American Indians by the US Army in the history of the West.

But not all the writing news is related to tragic historic massacres. Miller just finished proofing page galleys for the paperback and ebook release of the hilarious Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award-winning and Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist novel, Rawhide Robinson Rides the Tabby Trail: The True Tale of a Wild West CATastrophe, soon to be released by Speaking Volumes. That publisher also revealed the cover design for Rawhide Robinson Rides a Dromedary: The True Tale of a Wild West Camel Caballero, a finalist for the WWA Spur and Western Fictioneers Peacemaker awards. Both comic novels should hit the shelves, physical and digital, any day now.

On schedule for release in early 2022 from Five Star is a novel by Miller that has already been labeled a “frontier classic,” All My Sins Remembered. Finally—for now—This Thy Brother, a sequel to his 2018 Peacemaker finalist, Father unto Many Sons, is expected for release by Five Star in the fall of 2022.

Read all about writer Rod Miller’s fiction, history, poetry, and magazine work at www.writerRodMiller.com and www.RawhideRobinson.com.

Poetry Month bonus.

 
    April is National Poetry Month here in the good ol’ USA. Here we are at the short end of it. We’ve had thirty days of poetry readings, poetry recitals, poetry postings, and poetry podcasts.
    By now, you may have had your fill of poetry—if such a thing is even possible.
    But hold on. You’re not free of it yet.
    There’s a popular podcast called “Cowboy Up” that originates from the White Stallion Ranch in New Mexico, hosted—usually—by Alan Day and Russell True, and produced by Stan Hustad.
    To close out National Poetry Month, “Cowboy Up” is offering a bonus program. Log on and you can hear Stan interview me and read a few of my poems as we talk about poetry and cowboys.
    You’re invited, welcome, and encouraged to listen in. Click here and you’ll be there: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cowboy-up-podcast/id1521902050

 

Really stupid words, Chapter 15

Whereas the beginning of a New Year is the traditional time for Americans to elect to pursue goals and objectives in order to improve their lives and the lives of others; and

Whereas speakers of American English routinely abuse, misuse, overuse, and exhaust words by excessively employing trendy usages and clichés in misguided attempts to sound fashionable and knowledgeable; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that in the New Year of 2021 and forever after, speakers of American English will eliminate these tired, hackneyed, banal, threadbare, and altogether stupid word usages from their vocabularies:

·   source, when used as a verb (rather than its proper function as a noun) to indicate the location and acquisition of products or services or ingredients.

·   pivot, unless specifically referring to rotation around a fixed point (and not in reference to any and every change or adjustment).

·   curate, when used outside its common meaning pertaining to museums and exhibits (more precise but less trendy words such as choose or select are preferable for other uses).

·   unpack, when referring to discussion or explanation of a complicated subject (rather than when removing items from a crate, suitcase, or other container).

·   surge, to describe any increase of any size (rather than the intended meaning to indicate a rise or movement of remarkable strength or speed or force).

 

The Big Rodeo.

 

    For ten nights in a row recently, we sat in front of the TV watching the National Finals Rodeo. We were especially impressed with how well the cowboys from Utah did, bringing home several world championships.
    For years now, the saddle bronc riding at every level in rodeo has been dominated by the Wright family of Milford, a small, small town way off the beaten path in southern Utah. Before this year, six Wright brothers had won among them five world championships and more other accomplishments than you can imagine. The oldest of the brothers, Cody, won two of those world titles.
    Now, it’s his sons who are in the limelight.
    Back in 2018, I wrote a magazine article about that next generation of Wrights. I spent an afternoon and evening with two of the boys at the Utah State High School Rodeo Finals. The picture above is from that day—that’s father Cody in the middle offering advice and encouragement to his sons Ryder, on the left, and Rusty on the right. Too young for high school rodeo at the time was another son, Stetson.
    All three are now full-time professional rodeo cowboys, and proved themselves the best of the bunch at the recent NFR.
    Rusty, the oldest at 25, tied for first (with his brother) in a go-round of the saddle bronc riding, placed in seven of ten go-rounds and fifth in the average, and came away ranked fourth in the world standings.
    Ryder, at 22, placed in nine and won or tied for first place in five saddle bronc riding go-rounds and won the average, and walked away wearing the World Champion belt buckle (for the second time).
    Stetson, at the ripe old age of 21, won one saddle bronc riding go-round and tied for first in another and ended up seventh in the world standings. Stetson also rides bulls and won four go-rounds at the NFR and was crowned world champion. He entered the National Finals Rodeo second in overall winnings for the year in the All-Around Cowboy race, but passed the leader and left him more than $158,000 in the dust, bringing home his second All-Around Championship.
    The Wrights are a wonderful family, making history in more ways than one, both in and outside the rodeo arena. It has been a pleasure to know them over the years, and we’ll be hearing more of them in the future.
    It also bears mentioning that Kaycee Feild—son of the late Lewis Feild, five-time world bareback riding champion—matched his father’s accomplishment by winning his fifth world championship in my favorite rodeo event.  

Really stupid words, Chapter 13.

 

Long, long ago, back in the 1970s, there was a popular television show titled The Six Million Dollar Man. The idea was that a test pilot crashed and wrecked his body, but surgeons and scientists fixed him up by adding a lot of wires and circuits and stuff to make him half-man, half-robot with extraordinary mental and physical powers. Every week, during the show’s introduction, as we’d watch a montage of doctors at work and futuristic computer renderings and such, a weighty voice would say, among other things, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.”
    It’s only a guess on my part, but I think today the voice would say, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technologies.”
    I don’t know why. Technology is a collective of sorts, and works perfectly well in the singular form for any purpose. But nowadays, you hear it with an “ies” stuck on the end more often than not.
    One of my dictionaries defines technology as “The branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means,” and “a scientific or industrial process, invention, method, or the like.” I added all those italics to emphasize the singular nature of the idea.
   Wikipedia says, “The suffix ology is commonly used in the English language to denote a field of study.” As a field (not fields), technology does not require a plural. Technologies is as useless as biologies, meteorologies, sociologies, geologies, physiologies, and other such unheard-of things.
    Don’t ask me why I cringe when I hear “technologies.” Perhaps a therapist would blame it on my deranged psychologies.

 

Sad passing.

Twenty years ago and then some, CowboyPoetry.com showed up online. Established under a veil of mystery, the site started out sort of campy. But the brains behind it soon learned that cowboy poetry, even the funny kind, is a serious art.

The brains behind it turned out to belong to the remarkable Margo Metegrano, who rode herd on the site, driving it to grow and develop into an institution. It became the world’s largest archive of cowboy poetry, both contemporary and classic. It promoted and reported on cowboy poetry events across the country. It featured relevant essays and commentary. And it spun off a blog and a Facebook page.

It established Cowboy Poetry Week, and saw it ratified in the US Congress and by the governors of several states. It formed the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, which, among other things, produced a series of annual CDs featuring thematic collections of poems recited by folks from across the country, and distributed them to libraries everywhere.

It was all a labor of love for Margo, who worked tirelessly to promote an art she had grown to love, becoming, perhaps, the most important and influential person in the cowboy poetry community—all the while content to stay in the shadows, all but invisible, save to the poets who came to know, love, appreciate, and respect her.

Tireless finally turned to just plain tired, and Margo recently decided to hang it up. No one can, should, or does blame her. She deserves the rest. She earned it.

But that doesn’t mean the cowboy poetry community isn’t mourning the passing. And its unlikely we will soon recover, for there will never, ever again, be anything quite like CowboyPoetry.com.

Anticipation.

Having something to look forward to makes life more interesting. At least I have always thought so. It can be something big or small, important or trivial, consequential or just for fun. But having something, anything, on the horizon helps spur us on in the direction of life.

At this writing, I have three new books on the shelf next to my bed that I cannot wait to get to. As soon as I finish the book I am enjoying now, I will open one of them—and I cannot decide which will come first. The books bear little resemblance to one another, but each is written by a writer I admire.

There’s The King of Taos by Max Evans. If it’s anywhere near as good as his Hi-Lo Country or The Rounders, it will be well worth the wait. I once had the privilege of having lunch with Ol’ Max Evans and a few other writers. He said something I will never forget; in fact, I used the line as the basis for a poem. He was telling us a story—something, he said, that happened a long time ago. He paused, then said, “Hell, when you get to be my age, everything was a long time ago.”

My friend Marc Cameron has a new novel, Stone Cross, featuring Arliss Cutter, a Deputy US Marshal stationed in Alaska—an assignment Marc knows all about, and his Arliss Cutter novels demonstrate that. Marc also knows about writing, and his political espionage thrillers featuring Jericho Quinn can keep you up nights.

Finally (for now), I have a new collection of short stories by Wendell Berry, Stand By Me. I have read many, probably most, of the stories elsewhere, but Berry is such a remarkable writer I can’t wait to read them again.

But I will have to wait.

I will wait shivering with anticipation.

Change the subject?

When I speak or present workshops at writers’ conferences, I always explore what other writers—both those attending the conference and other presenters—write about. With few exceptions these days, it’s fairies, or wizards, or vampires, or zombies, or witches, or elves, or dragons, or dwarfs, or demons, or space aliens, or other such make-believe things that do not exist in the real world. Even the “worlds” are mostly made up.

I wonder why.

What is the attraction of these non-existent, unrealistic, fantastical characters and the make-believe worlds they live in? What draws so many to write about them? What attracts so many to read about them? I have read a few such novels over the years, and most escape me in their appeal. Others are well written, enjoyable, escapist reads.

But a little bit goes a long way. I soon find myself craving realistic landscapes, realistic characters, realistic conflicts, realistic lives, realistic rights and wrongs, and the ambiguity of the real world.

Perhaps I would find more success as a writer if I invented pretend worlds and populated them with fantastical characters. But, for my money, fairies and dragons just can’t compare to cowboys and horses and cows and the American West.

So, I guess I’ll stick to the subject.

One sitting each.

A “short story” has been defined as one that can be read in one sitting. That being the case, Hobnail and Other Frontier Stories, a new anthology from Five Star, is good for seventeen sittings.

Some of my favorite Western writers, including Loren D. Estleman, Johnny D. Boggs, and John D. Nesbitt are featured here. And there is a story by yours truly.

“The Times of a Sign” is about mules and jacks and horses and thievery, as it tells of a young man who takes part in a horse-stealing expedition to California, which leads to establishing a mule- and oxen-breeding operation in Missouri. As he explains to a questioner the absurdity of the sign advertising his enterprise, he relates the adventure of establishing the business.

The sign reads:

for sale

mules and oxen

breeding stock

     

What could possibly upset him so? One sitting with Hobnail and Other Frontier Stories will answer that question.

Ding Dong.

It’s the end of the year. Time to ring out 2019 and ring in 2020. Time to look back and time to look ahead. Time to take stock of our lives—or, in my case here, the writing life.

 No new books with my name on the spine were released in 2019, save the large-print edition of my November 2018 novel Father unto Many Sons.

I am tempted to defend myself by saying I haven’t spent the year just sitting on my butt. Then it occurred to me that sitting on their butts is exactly what writers do. A lot.

During all that sitting on my butt in 2019, I worked with Five Star Publishing to get Pinebox Collins ready for April 2020 release, and working on getting a second novel, A Thousand Dead Horses, ready for November release.  

A third novel, And the River Ran Red, is awaiting publication, most likely in 2021. A fourth novel, All My Sins Remembered, is also in Five Star’s hands.

Late in 2019, Five Star released an anthology, Hobnail and Other Frontier Stories, which includes my short story, “The Times of a Sign.” And I worked with editors Nancy Plain and Rachelle “Rocky” Gibbons on a chapter for Go West: Seldom-Told Stories from History, a nonfiction anthology for young readers that Two Dot will publish in 2021. My piece is titled “Earl Bascom and His Bronc-Bustin’ Brothers: Fathers of Modern Rodeo.”

I also managed to write a magazine article for Cowboys & Indians; another for Range magazine; a feature article, a column, and a poem for Saddlebag Dispatches; and a book review for True West magazine. And, Grits McMorrow reprinted several of my essays on writing poetry in his Minnekahta eMessenger.

If I weren’t so lazy, I would get more done. Maybe in 2020….

But for now, back to sitting on my butt.

Lies they tell writers, Part 52: No more lies.

Ever since I started posting things here, I have, with some regularity, posted “lies” writers tell other writers—and themselves—about writing. The point being that writers have to find their own way. Advice, counsel, instruction, guidelines, decrees—all those things can be helpful. But, in the end, there are no commandments from on high, no hard-and-fast, dyed-in-the-wool rules about how to become a writer.

Had I posted these thoughts weekly, this entry would finish out a year’s worth. That ought to be enough. I suspect I have covered the subject as well as I know how, and then some.

So, while I will continue to write about any and all aspects of the West, literature, poetry, art, and anything else that strikes my fancy, there will be no more “Lies they tell writers.”

Enough is enough. And that’s the truth.

Giving thanks.

Today is the day set aside to do something we should do every day—give thanks for all the blessings we enjoy just for being alive. Things that are ours through no effort of our own. Things that should remind us that while the world may not owe us a living, it provides one anyway.

I am grateful today, as always, for the alphabet.

The twenty-six letters, symbols, scribbles, given to us who use American English have provided me a long life of education, employment, and entertainment. Numbers and I do not get along. But the alphabet, and all that comes from it, is an ever-present friend and companion. Just think of a world without the ability to share thoughts, feelings, ideas, knowledge, and more through a written language. It is beyond contemplation.

Despite the occasional quirks and complications inherent in using our alphabet, and despite the hatred, lies, and cruelty some fashion from it, I am thankful today for the wonder of the alphabet and the many miracles it lavishes on my life.

I hope I remember that tomorrow.

Really Stupid Words, Chapter 9.

With the Major League Soccer season wrapping up, Major League Baseball wound up, the NBA ramping up, and the NFL in full swing, sports broadcasting is everywhere. Outside of soccer and rodeo, I am not that big a sports fan. But you can’t escape the stuff.

Sports are, and always have been, a hotbed of buzz words, clichés, and meaningless commentary. So, in a sense, picking on them for that sort of thing isn’t fair.

Then again, stupid words are stupid words, and deserve to be made sport of.

There are two particular stupid words (one of them is actually two words, but some of the people enamored with them are writing them as one word now) that are particularly annoying.

First of all, when was the last time you heard a sports organization referred to as a team? Not lately, would be my guess. Now, it’s a “franchise.” Not that sports teams bear any resemblance to the actual meaning of “franchise.” But, “franchise” has two syllables, whereas team has but one. Plus, it sounds highfalutin and important to the people who say it. They probably pat themselves on the back for their facility with language every time it comes out of their mouths (or keyboards).

Then, there are fans. No team has fans anymore. Now, always, it is a “fan base.” Again, it is meaningless as used. True, a team may have a base of loyal, through thick-and thin, season-ticket-holding fans. But, now, everyone with even a casual interest is part of a “fan base” it seems.

Stupid.