MY DATE WITH LEDUFF

By BABY BALLS

Charlie Leduff is what is commonly referred to as a “contentious figure” in the media world. Pedantic types like to point out that he was friends with Jayson Blair and used a similar description for a person’s house in two articles written ten years apart, as if that’s supposed to overturn the fact that he’s responsible for two of the best collections of domestic reporting since the heyday of Ron Rosenbaum. I tend to think that most of his critics’ hang-ups have more to do with his mustache and the fact that his Michigander accent sometimes contains shades of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now than anything in his writing, but that could just be my own inherent bias for reading stories by an excitable guy who’s actually interested in his subjects over 50-word recaps of People cover-stories by moribund bloggers with heads shaped like a bean. I mean, come on! The man went for a ride in Jack Kevorkian’s Moonraker buggy. What more do you assholes need?