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Emperor | Apr 03 2002

I am troubled. Yesterday one of my favorite websites, The Morning News, debuted a new design and a new direction. They’ve decided to make the site into what they call a broadsheet, which they describe as having something to do with all boats rising together.

I’m a part of this, actually, having signed on as a contributing writer, along with four other writers I rather respect the hell out of: Josh Allen, Paul Ford, Kevin Guilfoile, and Dennis Mahoney.

As part of the re-launch, TMN editors Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack wrote a piece explaining the rationale behind the changes. They also introduced their new slate of contributing writers, using a single adjective to describe each. Josh is prolific, Paul elusive, Kevin cunning, and Dennis gentlemanly.

I am troubled.

The troubled Michael Barrish.

Reading this felt a bit like overhearing someone gossip about you. So this is what folks think.

My first thought was that they’d gotten it wrong. Paul is the troubled one, I told myself. They only called him elusive because they needed to call someone elusive, and lord knows I’m not elusive. They perhaps considered calling Josh elusive, only that would have left prolific and troubled for me and Paul, and lord knows Paul is more prolific than I’ll ever be. I could perhaps have been cunning, I thought, only my brand of cunning is so cunning than no one even realizes how cunning it is. Besides, this would have left Kevin with troubled, and Kevin is too cunning to be troubled.

I report all this with a smile. I knew why they called me troubled. Still, it was a bit unnerving. After all, troubled is a negative word. We speak of troubled children, by which we mean children with mental or emotional problems. Another word for this is disturbed.

The disturbed Michael Barrish.

It goes on: troubled expressions, troubled areas, troubled sleep.

To be troubled would appear to be troubling, but I can’t say it feels that way.

Emperor Illustration: Erin O’Leary Brown

My favorite story as a child was The Emperor’s New Clothes. I fancied myself the child, of course, the one who sees things for what they are.

Very little has changed in thirty plus years. To my own mind, I’m still that child. About the only difference now is the emperor. Yes, he still parades around in nothing, telling himself it is something, and a magnificent something at that. The only difference is who he is.

He is me.