A Haunting Review of One’s Sins

In keeping with this column’s high literary tradition at Christmastime, printed here is yet another fable destined to endure as a perennial classic for all ages.

How did this come about?

Would you believe it? As in past seasons, there’s been a startling discovery among the papers of Charles Dickens, who, unbeknownst even to those who knew him best, had written shortly before his death a masterwork remarkably similar to his incandescent story of redemption, “A Christmas Carol.”

As it begins, the setting is a darkened house in Los Angeles where a man, bent, gnarled and pasty after a career of sniping at television, is awakened by clanking sounds in the dead of night. Cowering behind his covers, a terrified Ebenezer Scribe is confronted by a chalky apparition.

Scribe: Who are you?

Ghost: The Ghost of Cheap Shots.

Scribe: What do you want of me at this hour, ghost?

Ghost: I’m here to show you the errors of your ways.

Scribe: Where are you taking me?

Ghost: To a scrapbook of yellowed clippings. Behold!

Scribe: Why, it’s a column on television. One of mine from years ago, when I was young, callow, bright-eyed.

Ghost: Evaluate its tone.

Scribe: Rosy, optimistic, cheerful, upbeat, flawlessly realized, a triumph of the human spirit, wise and wonderful, unique and unforgettable, warm and compelling, assured and appealing, forget your problems and enjoy, one of the year’s 10 best, two thumbs up--

Ghost: All right, already!

Scribe: Sorry. It’s just that it’s been so long, I’d forgotten.

Ghost: Exactly. Now, observe closely again.

Scribe: Who is that woman sitting alone in a room and looking so forlorn, ghost?

Ghost: Don’t you recognize her?

Scribe: Why it’s the actress, Jaclyn Smith. But why is she weeping?

Ghost: Remember what you once wrote of her, that she made love on the screen with all the passion of someone drinking a milkshake?

Scribe: But that was years ago.

Ghost: Never got over it.

Scribe: Where are you taking me now? Why, it’s another actress, Joanne Whalley. Why is she crying?

Ghost: Can you blame her?

Scribe: I didn’t say she was a troll. I said she was troll-sized.

Ghost: She’s very sensitive.

Scribe: How could I have been so heartless?

Second ghost: Look upon me now, Scribe, for I am the Ghost of Overwriting.

Scribe: What is that you’re showing me?

Ghost: Do you not recognize another of your earliest columns?

Scribe: It’s so literate, so eloquent, so lyrical.

Ghost: Now behold!

Scribe: It’s one of my recent columns.

Ghost: Read the first line.

Scribe: “I laughed so hard snot ran out of my nose.”

Third ghost: Come with me, Scribe.

Scribe: And you are?

Ghost: The Ghost of Mispelling. How do you spell “heroin,” jerk?

Scribe: There’s no E at the end?

Ghost: That’s heroine, idiot. What drug are you on?

Scribe: It was a typo.

Fourth ghost: Behold, for I’m the Ghost of Lame Excuses.

Scribe: All right, so it wasn’t a typo.

Fifth ghost: Ooooooooh.

Scribe: Declare yourself, spirit.

Ghost: I’m the Ghost of Cheap Writing. Have you any idea how many times you’ve written “get outta here” in your columns? Observe this digital printout.

Scribe: That many times? Get outta here.

Sixth ghost: Ooooooooh.

Scribe: I feel a sudden dampness in the room, a curious spritzing and showering of moisture. Who are you?

Ghost: I’m the Ghost of the People, and I’m in YER corner!

Scribe: Mike Boguslawski at KCBS? Slobber on me no more, spirit. Will this nightmare never end?

Ghost: You called me the Boobster. It broke my heart.

Scribe: How was I to know you had a heart?

Seventh ghost: Behold once more, Scribe.

Scribe: Why you’re--

Ghost: Yes, the Ghost of Publicists You Abused, all the ones whose phone calls you didn’t return because you were too self-absorbed to care about their clients paying them to manipulate you into writing something nice about them.

Scribe: And that frail little thing hobbling along on the street in Hollywood, going door to door begging for a job, why it’s--

Ghost: Yes, Scribe, it’s Tiny Toady, a publicist you callously ignored, ruining his life. It appears he hasn’t much longer . . . in the business.

Scribe: If only I’d known.

Eighth ghost: Look upon me, Scribe, for I am the Ghost of Hearts You’ve Broken With Cruel Reviews.

Scribe: Why are we now in this graveyard, spirit?

Ghost: You don’t know, Ebenezer Scribe? Behold the tombstone!

Scribe: I’m afraid to look.

Ghost: You must, for it reads: “Here lies one of many viewers unable to go on after reading a sadist’s attack on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ ”

Scribe: I didn’t make it personal.

Ghost: When you question “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it’s always personal.

Scribe: I beseech, you, spirit. Show me no more. I’ll reform.

Ghost: As a test, how would you evaluate this column?

Scribe: I laughed so hard snot ran up my nose?

Ghost: You’re getting there.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted by e-mail at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.