Back in July, Kansas City Star columnist C.W. Gusewelle filed the first of several dispatches from Russia. Like the ones to come, it was an impenetrable fortress of storytelling, the only flash of clarity coming in the column's final sentence, when Gusewelle revealed that he would be reporting from Russia -- for the local section -- through late August.
Summer came and went. As Kansas City's East Side bled through another murderous summer, and election season left its biennial rash on the city's soul, story after story arrived from 5,000 miles away. Finally, in October, the unfamiliar datelines disappeared. But just because Gusewelle is back from Europe doesn't mean the end of his vacation diary.
Since his return, Gusewelle has filed elusive dispatches from his wife's high school reunion, the Ozarks and dinner. Then, on Sunday, just to ensure that his prose didn't accidentally wake the Star's editors, Gusewelle devoted an entire column to his recent discovery of Google Street View.
He began by calling himself a "troglodyte," then condescendingly instructed his readers to look up the word. (Judging by the context, I'm guessing it means "grumpy bastard.") Then, after declaring the computer otherwise useless, he recapped a recent "trip" furnished by Google Maps.
Of course, Gusewelle couldn't be bothered to train Google's cameras on Kansas City. He looked instead to Paris, "where we lived for a glorious year, 1984-85." He found the "patisserie whose sweets could bring sunshine on a rainy day" and "the brasserie ... where my wife and I loved to enjoy a café crème."
And he found it all "with a damned computer" -- which, coincidentally, is exactly what Plog wished would fall on its head upon reading the column.
Check back next Sunday, when Gusewelle, mind once again blown, will use Kayak to book his next vacation, part of the Star's continuing series, "Just Making Doubly Sure We Don't Have Any Readers Under 60."
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Gusewelle's problem is that although he often writes well, he almost never writes about anything substantive, so the reader ends up disappointed when the craftmanship is wasted on a inane topic. (Also for someone who allegedly loves Hemingway, he rarely uses simple and clear prose to state what his point is.) The column he wrote after the election was an exception, and it attracted a lot of reaction, partly because it rattled the cage of tea party supporters, but also because it was so unexpected to have him weigh in on a significant current event. (Oh, look, he really does live in the real world!) This navel gazing and avoiding the controversies of the day have been his modus operandi for 25 years or more, and he has never fit his supposed role as a metro columnist.
Chuckie is a phony.He spouts a lot of left wing ,anti conservative bile,but is unable to be contacted by the readers who dis agree with his brand of hateful journalism.He is the only "journalist"at the Star who is protected from e mail and phone calls,wonder how others at the paper feel about that sort of elitism?
Gusewelle used to be delightful. I think he's burned out or something these days.
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