Having suffered through the rather extensive excerpts of the “editorials” that earned those laudatory self-reviews, I feel comfortable in correcting the presumed typo. Thompson, as if the reader needed it stated explicitly that Judge is just another asshole that thinks a typewriter and a predilection for alcohol abuse is all it takes to be “pure ersatz gonzo” or “genuine faux Thompson”. As if his literary inspirations weren’t already transparent enough, in one of his (many) seemingly condensed or unlikely anecdotes he relates his introduction to the work of Hunter S. It’s college creative writing 101 introspection wrapped in high school English comp level prose. It’s rambling, self-indulgent, poorly-written, surface-thin, and other hyphenated negative descriptors. Frankly, its astounding this book was ever published at all in the days before the internet and Amazon allowed for the explosion is self-epublishing. God knows what he won his awards for, but it certainly wasn’t Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk. If ever conservatives had an actual argument for how participation ribbons have ruined America it is this.

In the About the Author page at the end of this godforsaken book, Mark Judge describes himself as an “award winning journalist”.

Wasted book okavanaugh