P. J. O'Rourke Loves Me!

Conservative humorist P. J. O'Rourke needs no introduction from me. But I do, and Mr. O'Rourke has just provided me one.

My name is Jeremiah Horrigan. I recently wrote an essay for the anthology "Woodstock Revisited." Mr. O'Rourke recently reviewed the anthology in his column in The Weekly Standard.

I won't repeat his comments. Suffice it to say he was, as anyone familiar with his perspective will guess, disgusted by what he found.

But I’m not here to mock Mr. O'Rourke but to praise him, as he does me. Although he unjustly maligns the book in which my essay is embedded, he has kind words for my contribution.

Mr. O’Rourke’s harsh judgment of “Woodstock Revisted” was unworthy of someone perspicacious enough to spot a hot, talented essayist such as myself in the pages of a book where, I feel it safe to say, he least expected to find one. Maybe he was just trying to be funny.

The essay I wrote was my humble attempt to capture, in a mere 1,100 words, the essence of what's come to be known in aging ex-hippie circles as "the Woodstock Experience."

I want it known here and now that I do not know Mr. O'Rourke personally and have not solicited, leaned on, threatened, bribed or begged him for a literary endorsement. I did not attend high school with him. Nor did we attend clandestine meetings of the Young Americans for Freedom during our college careers. I did not, to my knowledge, march with him in any anti-war parade back in the dark days before he saw the light and converted to Republicanism.

I have read, over the years, several of his essays and have found them hilarious, easily the equal of my best efforts, which have suffered, over those same years, from a lack of public exposure, due no doubt to my principled refusal to "play the game" of "literary log-rolling" in which the works of one's friends are praised to the skies in the certain knowledge that when these selfsame authors are asked for a kind word on the occasion of the blurbster's latest work (in my case, a soon-to-be- self-published comic memoir bearing the working title: "To Hell in a Collection Basket: Confessions of a Bad Altar Boy") they will return the favor.

But now, thanks to Mr. O'Rourke's unsolicited praise, I have an unexpected friend in the literary establishment. I too have seen the light and am prepared to throw off my hidebound and financially counter-productive "principles" in order to sit back and enjoy the benefits of a verifiably true literary blurb.

Here, then, in its entirety, is what P. J. O'Rourke had to say about my work:

"The 240-page paperback contains exactly one intelligent sentence, from a Jeremiah Horrigan, who asks, ‘Who invited Sh-Na-Na to the party?’”

Forget for the moment that Mr. O'Rourke misquotes me by misspelling "Sha-Na-Na." Since I am not without writerly sin, I will not cast the first typograpghical stone. Forget I even mentioned it. I’m only trying to be funny.

My wife suggests Mr. O'Rourke’s praise is nothing more than stealing my material for his own uses. Perhaps, I tell her. But to be the subject of a literary highjacking by one so otherwise as he is an honor, and a high one. And in any case, I, like so many other successful writers, plan to do my own version of literary highjacking.

When "Bad Altar Boy" is finally published, you can be assured Mr. O'Rourke's quotes will prominently displayed. The front cover will say simply "Intelligent! – P. J. O’Rourke." And, in answer to a rhetorical question contained on the back cover, "Isn't this the best comic memoir of a guilt-ridden Caboomer you've ever read?" Mr. Rourke will be quoted as saying "Exactly!" His encomiums will be prominently featured, along with quotes of a somewhat longer, if less profound nature, given by people you've never heard of who owe me money.

And should anyone complain about the selectivity of my quotations, I'll quote Mr. O'Rourke one last time, by putting my index finger to my lips and quoting him once again by just saying "Sh."