This... is my BOOMSTICK!

Dear reader...

Army of Darkness (1992)

Decades ago, I took a required college elective in communications. It was a summer offering that met one evening a week. Though I was a physics and math major, I always went into non-technical electives with an open mind. College, I have always thought, is supposed to be about a lot more than just job training. And some electives I found to be quite worthwhile. This was one of them.

I actually had to petition once to get into a senior-level art history course over the instructor’s objection. He was a sore loser too. It was the only “B” I got during my last two years of undergraduate work. Tickling the dragon’s tail has been a lifelong issue with me. A man’s got to know his afflictions.

So I went into this particular elective course high on hope but low on expectations based on many semesters of bitter experience. The course material itself was disappointing; any reasonable college student should have been able to pass the final on the first day. But the instructor was awesome. I went to class just for him.

Writing was a major requirement of this course, and one day after class the instructor asked me if I had time to visit for a bit in his office. I’d had several of these invitations over the years in classes where writing was required and they generally came down to the same thing: “I think you are plagiarizing your essays.”

Aim high was not a part of the cultural ethos at this U.

But this time, to my delight, the instructor just wanted to chat. He’d been intrigued by a recent essay where I’d taken a counterintuitive position on current events. During our discussion he paid me what was among the greatest compliments I’ve ever received—that my essay respected the reader’s intelligence with subtlety and nuance.

Old habits die hard. Though that was decades ago, I respect your intelligence here with subtlety and nuance in exactly the same way. I think you capable of reading between the lines and of extrapolating correctly things left unsaid. I think that you get that words and word choices are important. I’m rarely disappointed.

Howlin’ is my BOOMSTICK! It’s not S-Mart’s top-of-the-line Remington. But you aren’t “Primitive Screwheads” either. I think that we are generally on the same page.

I have an acquaintance, a fellow Substacker and subscriber to Howlin’, who used to work as a producer for a well-regarded PBS television show. He’s told me about the show’s mantra of cultivating not necessarily the biggest audience, but the right audience.

I think that’s one of the best things to which any writer may aspire. I cultivate my audience here carefully. I don’t pull punches, and I tell the truth as best I can, no matter who it may offend. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later. Life’s short, and then you’re dead a long time. Before that day arrives for me, the world is pretty knackered and there’s a lot to fix. I’ve got no time for half measures.

And I freaking hate safe spaces. That concept is a big reason why we’ve ended up with at least two generations of spineless, feckless, greedy wretches in leadership ranks in our society. As soon as we replaced “wait until your father gets home” with time-outs, the game was up. It just took the fullness of time for the alarming magnitude of this screw-up to be revealed. Perfect teeth, troubled souls.

But, I digress. When it comes to cultivating audiences, some Substack writers will occasionally break the fourth wall to complain about losing subscribers over content. Not me—content is a two-way street and I regard this coming and going as fine-tuning. It’s a sine wave sweep for the right audience.

Just as with my physical circle of acquaintances, there is no requirement here that you agree with me on everything—just that you be willing to hear me out.

Try being a center-right kind of guy who avoids church and doesn’t believe that there is a higher power to bail us out of our misdeeds. Or a libertarian-ish individual who’s also convinced that humans are lousy at self-regulation. Or a scientist who thinks that science has caused as much harm as good as of late. My circle of friends and acquaintances would be mighty small if I thought that everyone had to be with me all of the way all of the time.

But I do throw haymakers. The one thing I want to make sure of is that none of you ever get confused that I’m disparaging you merely by association. Earlier this week, for instance, I was hard on judges and lawyers. There are dozens of folks in the legal profession who subscribe to Howlin’. I’ve been similarly hard on university administrators and other professionals. All of you are individuals, not part of a hive-mind. I think that you are part of the solutions rather than the problems.

Based on your comments, I feel comfortable that you understand the difference between the people I think are wankers and those who are wonderful at what they do, who, as I mentioned in the last piece, are a prize above rubies. But it never hurts to make sure. To drive home the point, I’m harder on scientists and academics than anyone. Have a look at the byline below. As you can see, I live in an auto-da-fé of my own creation.

That’s it for today. I really appreciate each and every one of you. The sense of community here is much greater than with any newspaper or magazine I’ve ever written for. Howlin may not have the largest audience on Substack (though we are growing in leaps and bounds), but it’s the right audience. Cheers, all.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, climber, skier, motorcyclist, musician, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time raising four kids. Follow him on X at @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com.