6 GREAT REASONS TO WRITE AN ARTICLE By Ben Gleib. Article Writer. Writing is the noblest endeavor in the world. It is a risky and frightening task, where typos can pop up at any moment, making you question your grasp on reality. And writing for a magazine is an even greater challenge, because it is shiny and can roll up into a tube. (As all great writing can.) But people often ask me, “Gleib, why do you do it? It’s such hard work with few rewards.” Here is my answer to them. The main 6 reasons I risk it all, to bring my words to you every month. 1. To speak out on the many issues plaguing this troubled planet. Like war. Or homelessness. Or the rising cost of ice cream at local drugstores. Or how childhood only lasts a certain number of years. Or Britney Spears’ influence on the socio-economic climate in the Peruvian rainforests (which is non-existent, but a wonderful topic to waste four years of your life researching.) 2. Writing reminds you how many combinations of words are possible. For example, the sentence “Appealing Martians eat green pies of paper duckling pants in Wichita’s corner pocket square machine dance summer frenzy outbreak” has never before been written. And for good damn reason. The public is simply not ready. 3. You look really sophisticated when typing your article at Starbucks. People around you drinking their soy half-caff chilled vanilla non-latte lattes will think you are a genius. It helps to occasionally take off your glasses (which have no prescription and are only being worn to further your image in the Starbucks community,) rub your eyes like “this work is exhausting,” and act moved by nodding your head to create a false sense of significance. The key is to just make it seem like what you’re writing is VERY IMPORTANT! You don’t get free coffees by doing this, but the Baristas WILL look at you with a nice mixture of respect and unpleasantness. 4. When it’s published you get to leave a copy of the magazine on your living room table. As soon as any guest in your apartment is anywhere near the table, you get to immediately say, “Oh my, so embarrassing! It’s just this magazine I write for. I don’t usually let people see it.” Then before they can indicate that it’s no problem and they don’t really want to read it, you have the pleasure of cutting them off and adding, “You can read it I guess, just don’t tell more than 5 of your friends. I don’t like to show off.” I’ve found this is also a great way to get people to never return to your place. 5. Articles are very difficult to complete if you don’t write them. Passing them down to people orally never works. It becomes a game of telephone where the third person repeating it thinks it’s an article on “6 Great Reasons to Fight a Barnacle.” And beating up a marine crustacean, while a real blast, is not a topic worthy of a well thought out essay.
6. Of course the best reason to write an article, and the only real reason I do this is…the girls!!! Magazine writers get mad pussy. That’s probably obvious. People think rockstars and politicians pull all the top quality tail, but it just ain’t true. They get magazine writer leftovers. I remember once I wrote a moving essay on global warming, and it led to me banging these three hot Cuban chicks in the back of my typewriter-mobile. Well, two weeks later I saw a video online of one of them being tag-teamed by Sammy Hagar and Senator Joe Lieberman. The two other hot Cuban girls were probably still too sore to make it. Thank God for global warming! And a special thanks to Saturday Night Magazine for making this all possible. If you ever see me at your local Starbucks, please say hello, and tell me how much my articles mean to you. Especially if you’re Cuban. Ben Gleib is an actor and comedian, and is one of the stars of the new NBC show “The Real Wedding Crashers.” He can be found online at gleib.com, or myspace.com/gleib.