You Little Devil You.

Dude, I finally made the big time; I've been profiled in the State Press. 

An ASU law student getting his degree in December is the local go-to guy for all things political in Arizona.

In late fall 2004, EspressoPundit.com creator Greg Patterson, now 45, was happy if four or five people visited his new site every day. Now it’s blown out into a 2,000-hit-a-day local and national source for political junkies who want to be in the political know.

Who would have known that an espresso machine bought for him as a father’s day gift four years ago would have played so heavily into his political fame.

“I was drinking three cups a day and getting so agitated about politics and the media that I was driving my kids crazy — I eventually realized that the machine automatically made double espressos,” Patterson said. “I finally decided to start writing my thoughts down and decided to call the blog Espresso Pundit.”

Whenever I see coverage of myself, it always triggers a bunch of mixed feelings, most of which involve embarrassment.   

First, I want to express my appreciation to Phil Haldiman for his patience when writing the story.  I spent quite a bit of time explaining that one of my major themes is the death of traditional journalism and wondering why anyone would try to become a journalist in this market.  Naturally, in my ranting, I was oblivious to the fact that he is, of course, a journalism student.  But he was nice about it.

I guess the second thing that bothers me about being profiled is the way that photographers always try to make me look bad by accurately reflecting my appearance.  Dude, when did I become a middle aged bald guy? 

Another embarrassing aspect of the article is the way I sound.  My friend Bill Mundell, once said that it's humbling to read yourself in a transcript.  He's exactly right and when I read a story in which I am quoted verbatim I often find myself wondering what the heck I meant. 

This quote is an especially good example.  "It’s been slow but exponential growth, Patterson said."

"Slow but exponential"?  That simply proves that I'm an idiot. 

Actually, Espresso Pundit has been on a classic exponential growth curve--going from a few dozen hits per month to over 60,000--but that growth has occurred over four years,  thus the slope of the exponential curve  has been shallow.  So while it's technically accurate to call the growth "slow but exponential," the phrase makes no sense to the reader.

Then there are the little personal embarrassing points.  Like the fact that I have to be on campus today, and I'm wearing the same shirt that I was wearing in the picture.  No, not a similar shirt, the same shirt.  It was still fairly clean and I was late this morning so I figured that no one would notice that I simply put on the same clothes that I wore yesterday.  With 50,000 pictures of me in this exact shirt distributed all over campus, I think I'm busted.

Finally, I'm concerned that my dad may read the article and make the connection that I'm really at ASU. My parents moved to Tucson when they were kids, so from Outer Limits Pre-school to UA, I'm a Tucson guy.  My dad bought his UA basketball season tickets when Ben Lindsey was the coach and the team record was  like 3 and 100.  He's been to about 400 games since then and while he's heard that I'm in law school, he thinks it's a cover story. 

I've told him that I actually spend my spare time running a Meth Lab and that the ASU law school story is just a cover.  Now he will realize it's true and I'm sure he will be devastated. 

So aside from my personal pain, it's a great story and I want to thank all the people who contributed to making it possible.   

Comments

[Matt]

Thanks for not eating a young journalist.

[Matt S.]

Dude, your m will always be positive with me no matter what the x or the y or the b even.

[State Press Reader]

The college republican chairman was also recently profiled by Mr. Haldiman.. Looks like he's interviewing all the young, rising stars at ASU ;-)

[K.Sorenson]

Congrats on the success of your site. You can even go on record as having one bleeding heart liberal who visits your site every couple of weeks.

Good luck on finals.

By the way, if you hate reading yourself verbatim, wait until you read your first deposition transcript.

Karl