THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 23, 1995 TAG: 9501210023
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
HOO-BOY IS THIS a tough time for columnists or what?
I guess you have read by now that Bill Gates, the 39-year-old genius who is CEO of the billion-dollar Microsoft Corp., is a regular columnist with The New York Times Syndicate.
Gates has only recently begun his column and, as you might expect, all of us down here at the bottom of the column ladder are envious and bitter.
You'd think anyone worth billions could find a way to hustle a buck somewhere else.
Gates is already in the software business. Why didn't he open a hardware store or two? Or a chain of restaurants? Great idea. . . . Paint 'em a pearl color and call 'em the Pearly Gates.
But no, just plain billion-dollar Bill wanted to be a columnist. But not an ordinary columnist who grinds 'em out three times a week or more for the Sacramento Bee or the Boise Bugle.
No siree. He decided to be one of those every other week columnists for The New York Times Syndicate. It's a very nice job. And although Bill has only been at it a week, he is already successful.
He gets between 200 and 300 electronic questions a week from readers. The questions are delivered to his computer via software purchased from Gates' company. And he gets paid big bucks for answering them.
Is that a nice deal or what?
As as you may have guessed, Gates is a genius at column writing, too. He has already learned that it's easier to do a question-and-answer format rather than an essay. And he is a master of finding interesting questions to answer.
One of the questions asked by a reader in his latest column is:
``What possessed you to buy one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks?''
What a great question! The reader of his column who asked the question isn't mentioned. But notice how Gates framed the question so that the price he paid for the notebooks never comes up? That's genius at work. And the very reason so many columnists will never get to The New York Times Syndicate.
The trouble with ordinary columnists is their lack of imagination. It takes someone with the mega-wattage brilliance of a Bill Gates to expose us as drudges and dolts.
For example, I have been writing a column myself for many years. Fool that I was, I never once thought about buying Leonardo's notebooks. They just never seemed to turn up among the worn paperback novels in the pasteboard boxes that I browse through at yard sales.
I also never thought of purchasing the Gutenberg Bible. Or the Mona Lisa. Or The Last Brunch, let alone The Last Supper.
Worse, even if I had bought such a treasure I wouldn't know how to explain it with the verve and flourish of Bill Gates.
He writes: ``The manuscript is unique and important to me because I've had a keen interest in Leonardo since I was 10.'' Way to go, Bill!
Now that Bill Gates has shown us how it's done, I'd like to see more columnists buying major works and writing about them.
Those purchases would bring a freshness to the column format unseen until Gates began weaving his word magic into print.
I certainly intend to be doing that myself in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on this space and - after a few shopping errands to museums overseas - you'll be sending me questions such as:
``What possessed you to purchase the Mona Lisa?''
Answer: ``The Mona Lisa is unique and important to me because I have had a keen interest in Leonardo and soft-smiling women since I was 13.''
Isn't it amazing how easy your job can be once a genius like Gates has shown the way? ILLUSTRATION: CEO Bill Gates is a regular columnist with The New York Times
Syndicate.
by CNB