Column on a columnist

Jon Carroll...

The most interesting man in the world? Maybe.

A somewhat self-effacing and satirical man, who started the Unitarian Jihad, was assistant editor of Rolling Stone magazine, editor of the Playboy spinoff magazine Oui, and now writes five weekday columns for the San Francisco Chronicle, all of this, and more, without a college degree.

Maybe not the most interesting man in the world, but interesting nonetheless.

Carroll was born and raised in southern California on an unspecified date. According to his biography on sfgate.com, he is “pre-baby boom by 1.3 years”. He attended college at the University of California, Berkeley where he did not graduate, but was the editor of the UC Berkeley’s humor magazine the California Pelican.

After leaving Berkeley, for unspecified reasons, though intriguing innuendoes were offered as to why, he got a job for the San Francisco Chronicle editing the crossword puzzle, writing summaries for television movies and interviewing minor celebrities.

In 1970, he left the Chronicle and became assistant editor of Rolling Stone magazine where he did not stay long. Throughout the 1970s Carroll stayed in the magazine world, but was somewhat of a nomad. When he became editor of New West magazine in 1978 he won a National Magazine Award.

Carroll was forced into retirement (again, for reasons unknown) until 1982 when he landed the job that he currently has as a column writer for the newspaper that gave him his start in the journalism industry, the San Francisco Chronicle.

He has become known for his columns about his cats, his creative wit involving the minutia of everyday situations and for starting the Unitarian Jihad.

Unlike the Dos Equis’ “most interesting man in the world”, Carroll is not fond of social gatherings. Carroll’s diagnosis of the awkward situations in his recent two-part columns “The bad party guest” is reminiscent of famed writer and actor Larry David’s.

“Sometimes there are no private rooms available - perhaps they are all upstairs, and the staircase is in plain view of the living room, and if I start upstairs someone will yell, "There's a bathroom down here," and then it will get awkward. I'll have to go to the bathroom even if I don't want to. I can't stay in the bathroom, for obvious reasons, so there goes that private space.


I have spent a lot of time on back porches too, which in San Francisco at holiday time is often uncomfortable, because of course I am not wearing my overcoat because then it would look as though I were preparing to leave and people would say goodbye and then what? If only I smoked! I may have to take it up again just to explain my abrupt disappearances.”

The Unitarian Jihad is a tongue-and-cheek movement which uses peaceful means to oppose religious extremists. This sort of satirical writing and way of thinking make Carroll’s writing so enjoyable.

While reading his columns for research I began to notice I would be at the end of the article without realizing it. Though he uses “I”, “me” and “my” quite frequently, it does not interfere or alienate the reader.

Jon Carroll...

The most interesting column writer for the Chronicle it the world? I’d say so.