Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on, four times? REALLY? How in the hell did I fall for this again? Was it the $40 (ten bucks more than last time) I was paid to choke out the words for the back cover of this “book?”

This time around, old angry ass couldn’t even get to one hundred columns for the LA Weekly. He keeled over at fifty-nine. How weak! I know what you’re thinking—he must have been fired, right? All the complaints and missed deadlines took their toll and the little paper that could, finally did and sent H Rollings packing, right back into to his glass box at the Smithsonian. Believe it or not, he quit. What an idiot! Do you have any idea how lucky he was to get that job in the first place? The people who hired him are long gone. You have to believe that they brought HR on as a parting shot, the proverbial lit paper bag on the front porch.

Finally, a bright spot on the horizon. This has to be last of these “Chop” books, right? Please let it be the last one. The stupid covers of a frickin’ pen “winning.” The whole pen-v-sword gag one more time shows you how much the under talented, over stimulated scrawler at a certain vanity label has NO IMAGINATION. Note to Henry Rollings: No one wants to read the “real” versions of your work! Don’t you get that? It was Andy Hermann’s great editing that made your worthless column barely readable in the first place. Talk about the lipstick hitting the pig. Rollings should mow Mr. Hermann’s lawn every other week and send the pig a get well card.

I bet Henry Rollings feels reeeeeal important since his column won the Southern California Journalism Award in 2017. Well, there’s one award that won’t ever get its integrity back. I can see him now, carrying it everywhere, carefully placing it next to his laptop when in the coffee places he inhabits, so everyone knows there's an AWARD WINNING WRITER in the room. Insecure much? I think I’m going to hurl.

You know what? This time around, I didn’t read the pdf file of the book that was sent to me. I already know what’s in it—and so do you. Henry’s the only person out there with an opinion, and citizen do you need to know it. Sound familiar?

Let’s all spare ourselves, shall we? Let’s give Before the Chop IV (and after): LA Weekly Writing (and more) 2012-2018 a miss. Put the book down. Put. It. Down. Good. Now walk away. Still here? Why? Trust me, he’s not going to get any better.

So glad it’s over. I feel like a three-legged rabbit, hopping away from a trap, leaving a trail of blood in the snow. Maimed and in excruciating pain. But free. Oooh. My name? It’s been dragged down so far by all this that even I can't find it. Enough!