Some of you may not realize this, but a weekly column in an august publication such as this one requires literally minutes of preparation.
Each week I gather up the "Paddling Upstream" staff in a windowless bunker deep in the compound to brainstorm ideas. It's an intense meeting where tempers flare and futures in the Know-It-All trade can be made...or broken. It's not a place for the squeamish, or the rational for that matter. You should be glad we don't have a YouTube account.
There isn't much rationality in the Know-It-All trade. I mean, what rational person would actually think they know it all? The same kind of rational person who would think a TV show about firing people would be a good idea. The same kind of rational person who suggests all drug addicts should be locked up while dabbling in 20-30 pain pills a day. It's the kind of irrational rationality that sells a whole lot of soap. And that kind of person is me.
But I digress. We Know-It-Alls digress quite a bit.
What I was really talking about is the amount of work it requires to pull these massive 500 word undertakings together. Once my staff has filled my supersized brain with ideas, I settle them down with a round of Mountain Dews and brown M&Ms. When they've dozed off from the sugar shock, I sort through the themes, separate the bad ones from the really bad ones, choose the one guaranteed to annoy competing Know-It-Alls, and get to researching.
The research for the column is intensive, but of course, short. Why short? Because I know it all. Do you think Wikipedia could improve upon the outhouse of knowledge that is my brain? Of course not. Evidence? References? Kid's stuff.
So by the time I actually start the process of putting fingers to keys, or more commonly crayons to walls, I have an almost thoroughly thought out thesis. The thesis is the playground of the Know-It-All. It is the board from which we dive into the pool of righteous jello. And the more outlandish the thesis, the bigger the splash of scrumptuous jello righteousness sticking to the walls.
All the great ones work this way. Buchanan, Madow, Limbaugh, Colbert...show me a Know It All and I'll show you a person with a half-baked idea and an overcooked desire to sell it. That desire drives them to work their staff's fingers to the bone while they...we...bask in our righteousness and collect the great rewards we deserve--riches and fame.
So there you have it. And now I can submit this gem, this multicolored masterpiece built around a tiny little thesis. A thesis as deep and basic to the Know-It-All class as there is. A thesis all the greats have overcome over millenia of Know-It-Allness. And what is that thesis you're undoubtedly asking?
It's the thesis called "What the heck am i going to write about this week?"