An Apology to Joe Sharkey
Some travel blogs are all attitude and no original research, seemingly typed by hung-over media manqués whose idea of reporting is to tumble out of bed late each morning and desperately scan the newspapers for items to make sarcastic comments about.Thus spake New York Times business travel columnist Joe Sharkey back in 2006. This anti-blog broadside was delivered less than a month after I made impish sport of Sharkey for one of the NYT's clumsier attempts to slap online video on every subject, no matter how dull. But that wasn't Joe's fault, and in the aforelinked article, he calls out a few sites he likes even while slaggin' blogs in general. Sharkey notes that both his personal site and his attic are perpetually under construction, and "don't hold your breath waiting for my own blog to go up. The attic comes first, I am reliably informed." Well, how's that attic coming? Let's check Sharkey's blog.
Don't misunderstand -- I have no intention of a scrappin' with Joe any further. After all, the man has cheated death even as he skirted the (previously vague) limits of the NYT freelance freebie policy. And he's broadminded enough to recommend that ladies be just cute enough to avoid abandonment by forgetful male escorts.
But you really should enjoy Sharkey's personal blog. Sincerely! He's an old-school career journalist, and his posts are often nonbloggy -- more like unedited short bits for the NYT, in a slightly folksier Times style. Though I'm pretty sure that even the prolific Times blog section would redact the phrase "Bumbutt Bugle." Nevertheless, I love that he uses the acronym "WTF." Now that is too cute to leave behind. Even if he's not coming from a bloggy angle, he's certainly fond of the "stories I'm already fed up with," as in his coincidentally titled wrapup "Stories I'm already fed up with." He's not quite into full-bore crotchety grampa territory, but he's at the border, presenting his passport.
All of that's not meant to trivialize Sharkey or his blog (in fact, it looks like he started the site back in late 2006 to study/cover the repercussions of that plane crash he narrowly survived). So here's to a predigital gentleman still clinging to life at a paper that seems determined to foment a shooting war between its print and online divisions. It's certainly tough to survive in the online travel space, so them ink-stained lizards may get the last laugh. Sir, this manqué salutes you.
