The Critics Respond, Part Five
Everybody open up your secular bible to the The Book Of Liz and sing along:
It's nice / to be liked / but it's better by far to get paid
This morning I announced that I am replacing Bertel Schmitt as Editor-In-Chief at TheTruthAboutCars.com. Herr Schmitt found himself in the position of the customer service department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. I'll miss the guy. He was a brilliant, witty, admirable man who just woke up one morning and decided that I was his mortal enemy and that the readers were disposable garbage. From then on it was just a matter of time.
I do not intend to hold this position forever. I've asked to be called EIC pro tem because I'm not the kind of guy who can be happy doing a job like this very long. I have other irons in the fire, including all sorts of stuff coming up in Road&Track and the long-awaited (by me, anyway) arrival of the final MelodyBurner prototypes. I'll leave the site in better shape than I found it, the same way Ed Niedermeyer did.
While I'm in charge, however, we are going to have fun and we're going to gore some sacred cows directly in the perineum. I'm looking for writers. Some of my commenters here would make outstanding TTAC contributors. Talk to me.
I wrote my first story about cars in December of 2007. (You can read it here.) Five and a half years later, I've appeared everywhere from the local Barnes&Noble to SpeedTV. I have three groups of people to thank:
The Believers: Zerin Dube, Steve Levy, Jonny Lieberman (yes, really), Robert Farago, Ed Niedermeyer, Sam Smith. You gave me a place and a voice and a recommendation and you stood up against the people who said I was too controversial/damaged/angry/violent/boring/self-involved/loquacious/whatevs. Thank you.
The readers: The literally hundreds of thousands of people who have chosen to read me, share me on Facebook, retweet me, hand the magazine to a friend, email a link. You've made it possible. I do it for you. Well, I do it for me, and for the money, and for the lulz. But also for you.
The haters: Every Mom's-basement loser who penned furious screeds against me with Cheetos-stained fingers. Every S2000-driving wannabe drifter who hid in the tower at Mid-Ohio when I showed up there. Every suck-ass club racer who was holding me up on-track and went crying to the Internet or the sanctioning bodies. Every angry husband or beta boyfriend or white-knight orbiter who found themselves on the losing end of the battle for a woman's heart, soul, or other parts. You have no idea how many times I would have quit writing about cars if I hadn't known it would gratify the legions of people who have done nothing with their lives but piss and moan about what I'm doing with mine. You're the biggest motivation I have. Every time I meet a new fan at a new racetrack or slide my Amex through the machine for another custom-shop guitar I say a silent prayer of thanks that you're still there egging me on. Keep it up.
Thanks to all of you. I'll keep on writing if you'll keep reading. If you haven't checked TTAC out for a while, stop on by. You'll be welcome there, just like you are here.