Ryan has written for the Reader Weekly since 2002, when publisher Bob Boone discovered him and naively assumed Ryan would someday write insightful content instead of dick jokes. Ryan is widely considered “over the hill” and has suffered several notable injuries over the past few seasons. Last year he had Tommy John surgery to repair his writing arm, and his work hasn’t quite been the same since.
In his prime 10 years ago, Ryan was a Nobel Laureate and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where he wrote about boobs and various things he was proud of having urinated upon, just like he does now. But the genre of poor taste Ryan helped pioneer has been hurt by an oversaturation of material over the years. Film and TV studios now produce brash sexual content almost exclusively. Crudeness, it seems, has become a cliche.
“Hunter S. Thompson once said, ‘When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,’ and that’s become very true,” said Miguel Gorbachev, a world-renowned expert on classic literature and badger fellatio. “Crudeness is done, it’s passe. Once the mainstream establishment starts using it to make money, it ceases to be a tool for the nobodies to freak out the squares.”
Ryan doesn’t seem concerned. He likens himself to actress Lindsay Lohan, who’s also been reduced to producing mediocre content during rare bouts of sobriety.
“She’s an unbearable, obnoxious piece of garbage, just like me, and she also only has $14 in her checking account right now, just like me, but we’ll both rise again,” said Ryan through a translator, who for some reason was hired to translate Ryan’s comments into Chinese. “The Reader Weekly doesn’t like me now, but just wait until I write my next column! It’s a list of tips for students, or tips for Irish people or something. I dunno. It’s gonna be a list, though. People love lists. Hu Jintao shangdi baoyou, wo de makesi liening zhuyi de lingzhu he zhu!”
Ryan then asked his translator not to translate the last sentence, so people won’t know he’s a Communist-Marxist-Leninist spy.
Despite being demoted to the minor leagues of shitty, irrelevant news publications, Ryan’s contract still allows him to earn his full salary of $3 in Brewhouse gift cards this year. However, Publisher Boone’s move will still free up nearly $6 in Duluth Family Sauna “dude massage” coupons the following year. Boone will use those coupons himself.
Asked what Boone told him to work on in Superior, Ryan said, “He basically just wanted me to work one town away from him so I’d stop deleting his cellphone contacts and shaving his cats while he sleeps.”
Besides Ryan, the Reader also optioned reporter Barb Olsen to AAA Superior. Boone said Olsen was writing content that made the rest of the newspaper look “really shitty” in comparison. Rumor has it Boone is looking to use her freed up gift cards to hire Duluth News Tribune Editor Robin Washington.
The News Tribune is expected to counter this by offering Washington occasional use of the company jet, which is actually just an old cardboard box that columnist Jim Heffernan found in a dumpster and decorated like an airplane. Heffernan and colleague Sam Cook often ride in the box together, taking turns pouring each other martinis and pretending they work for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Ironically, Star Tribune reporters often play make believe in a similar cardboard box, pretending it’s a coffin and that sweet, sweet death has freed them from their miserable, thankless line of work.
Ryan has already begun rehabilitating himself and planning his comeback. He’s been working with retired league MVP Slim Goodbuzz to improve his alcoholism, and has even reached out to Hall of Famer Paul Lundgren in hopes of learning how to write a coherent sentence that doesn’t include the word “vagina”. Scouts have noted multiple appearances by Ryan at Lundgren’s 12,000 square foot solid gold mansion in East Duluth.
“Paul Ryan wants to be that guy,” said Scout Paul Whyte. “He wants to be unreasonably wealthy, like everyone else who writes part-time for alt-weekly newspapers in markets that can barely support two movie theaters. He’s got the drive, but he’s almost 33 years old, and I tend to wonder if he has any magic left in him. Most alcoholic, meth dealing, slut hoarding, Pokemon collecting, cocaine-fueled necrophiliacs like Paul lose their ability to write around the age of 27. Here’s hoping a family member molests him or he loses a leg in a farming accident so his writing can become interesting again.”
To his credit, Ryan said he’s been trying to get molested for decades, without any success.
In the meantime, be sure to catch Ryan’s new column, “Feeble Meanderings”, in Weekly Todd. This periodical is available exclusively in massage parlors and bars with wood chips covering the floor.
I have a job interview coming up, and since my columns are available online, I should probably be on my best behavior this week. I should probably write a faux column about how much I love kittens, or how mean Hitler was, or perhaps share a really great recipe for apple brown betty. It would be smart to do that, but honestly, I don’t give a shit.