On P.J. O'Rourke and the most important idea of my career

Related: You need to read Parliament of Whores.

Long post about the story idea that changed my career. I will care not at all if you don’t read this. But it’s about ideas, swinging big, and what happens if you hit.

P.J. O’Rourke died yesterday. He was one of my favorite writers. His book Parliament of Whores is the best combination of funny, insight and reportage I’ve ever read. His essay on the farm bill in Parliament of Whores should be bronzed and put in a museum. I’ve read that piece more times than I’ve read any other article, ever. HE’S SUCH A GENIUS THAT HE WROTE AN ESSAY ABOUT THE FARM BILL AND I READ IT OVER AND OVER.

His death stirred a memory from early in my career when I worked at The Sporting News.

It was 2002. I had been with the magazine two years. I was going nowhere, slowly (or so I thought, at least). I was an associate editor, and it was not fun. I wanted to be a writer and instead I was editing team notes all day every day. (Imagine watching paint dry and being bad at it. Trust me when I say that was horribly boring.)

I had an idea to steal an idea from P.J. O’Rourke called The Enemies List (the title of one of his books). I thought it would be fun to do a big package reporting who every city/team hated the most.

It was a VERY Sporting News idea. But I didn’t know how to turn that idea into a ​pitch, so it mostly stuck in my head, unconsummated. Truth be told, I was afraid, too, of being told to stay in my lane, of having the idea dismissed, whatever.

Then I went to a St. Louis Blues game, sat in The Sporting News seats, and someone behind me went off on a rant about how much they hated Steve Yzerman, who played for the Detroit Red Wings, my hometown team. All Blues fans hate him, apparently. At the time he was probably the most beloved Detroit sports figure, and in my mind, as unhateable an athlete as there is.

That rekindled the idea of The Enemies List—at the very least it gave me a lead for the pitch. The next day (I think) I “stayed late” trying to write a perfect pitch to the right editor. I gave up on that and settled for writing the best pitch I could. I was still new enough to be more than a little scared of the whole process (which, 20 years later, seems funny because most of the men involved were wonderful men, I just didn’t know it yet.)

I hit send, and I remember thinking I had swung big, that even if he said no, I had tried after months of not knowing how to/being afraid to. That might have been my first “they’ll remember you idea.” By that I mean an idea that an editor might say no to but that he or she will remember you for, and in a good way.

I want to say the editor wrote back immediately—like before I could put my jacket on to leave. Like, he read it immediately and responded immediately. I’m 90 percent sure his entire response was, “great freaking idea.” I was SO EXCITED. Man, that email was so great.

It was my first cover story. The way the magazine packaged it —the art department CRUSHED it (we had voodoo dolls made), I was given all the time/resources I needed … at the risk of sounding weepy, I felt LOVED.

I wrote an essay to open the package. It read like a bad tribute band trying to sound like P.J. O’Rourke, which was not a coincidence. I aped his style until my own emerged.

Twenty years later, it’s the most important work idea I’ve ever had. It sent my career on a path it was not previously on. Maybe I would have found this path with some other idea. I don't/can't know.

I do know this: That piece led to another, and another, and another, until eventually Sporting News moved me out of editing and into writing, and here I am … all because I pitched an idea after hearing someone complain about how much they hated Steve Yzerman.

It’s sad to confess that I’m STILL learning that lesson, 20 years later. I still have to screw up the courage to swing big. You’d think I’d know that by now.