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Opinion
Guest Editorial
Everything I Ever Needed To Know,
I Learned at QSaltLake
by Jere Keys
Everyone always imagines that when the time comes to leave one career behind, they will take the opportunity to really say what they think. For some (most, perhaps) this involves telling the boss exactly what kind of horse urine he smells like accompanied by some suggestions about sexual positions that would be anatomically difficult if not impossible.
Well, it’s been a few weeks since I cleaned out my office at Metro and I’ve had a few days to reflect on a parting message to leave behind about the experience. As it turns out, Metro taught me more than a few life lessons.
1. Deadlines are like speed limits, interesting suggestions that most people feel free to ignore. The writers for QSaltLake are among the funniest, friendliest and most interesting people I’ve met in Zion, but they’re not always great about meeting deadlines. Some are better than others, of course, and some could really use the gift of a personal organizer this year if you’re thinking about holiday gifts.
2. No matter how random, unrelated and tragic a crime, David Nelson will use it to remind us that more people should have guns. Haha, just kidding David! Kind of.
3. The people who will complain the loudest have the least right to. Specifically, I’m referring to those people who will always claim that Metro doesn’t have enough coverage of local events, but don’t send press releases or information about those events until the last minute after we’re gone to press or finalized our content.
4. When it comes down to it, I’m a lazy bastard, too. Organizations and events who sent us a well-written, grammatically correct press release on a subject relevant to our readership were 99.9% more likely to be included in the paper than the groups who write 30 word invites without punctuation, spell-check or quotes from the people involved in the subject of the release.
5. Even big news sounds boring after a while. The points in #4 notwithstanding, how many “emerging gay artists” or “innovative film experiments” can really live up to the hype their P.R. company gives them? How many events can be “the biggest of the year” or the “most anticipated?” Find other ways to catch the attention of the editorial staff as well as our readers!
6. What we are and what other people want us to be are rarely the same thing. QSaltLake is a business. As such, we have costs for printing every page, demographics to appeal to, and salaries to pay. As much as we’d enjoy giving everybody free advertising, cover stories and 3,000 word articles, it’s a quick road to no more Metro.
7. My niece and nephew really are the cutest in the world. It’s amazing how many people are convinced that their career/life story/birthday party/favorite topic would be interesting to all the readers of this paper. Show of hands, who really turns to Metro for authoritative advice on retirement investing?
8. The guy I’m drooling over feels fat and ugly. On the few occasions I ventured out with a camera in hand, asking the hottest guys to pose for pictures was like asking Oprah for her cell phone number, something that earned me a look of vague horror and apprehension. The all-too-common response was a polite, “I’m not pretty today.”
9. You can lead a queer to the opposite sex, but you can’t make them … It’s astonishing to me how few people actually take advantage of the recommendations we made about restaurants, events, products, etc. The writers and the editorial staff have put their personal credibility and sincerest efforts into pointing the entire community in the direction of really cool stuff. Sometimes, for reasons we can’t grasp, y’all just aren’t interested.
10. Gay Republican Mormons are fucked up. For a year I’ve tried to find nicer ways to say that, tried to see things from their point of view, tried to be politically correct and leave room for personal faith that is drastically different from mine. I give up. I don’t get it. How you can be queer while belonging to a political party and a religion that routinely treats you like shit… and don’t give me that crap about making change from within, if anything, the visible presence of queers has pushed both groups to further extremism while allowing them to falsely claim that they are compassionate and inclusive … y’all are just fucked up.
Jere Keys is the former editor of QSaltLake.
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