Preview: John Kelso

On Tuesday, Oct. 21 in OM 234, John Kelso will be speaking about his career as a columnist for the Austin American-Statesman.

Kelso has been called the court jester of South Austin, an icon and a humorous columnist. He began his career with Statesman in 1976 after reaching out to a former boss that enjoyed his humor.

According to Kelso, in an interview on www.austindaze.com, Kelso met his boss in West Palm Beach, Florida where he was an outdoors writer for their newspaper. According to Kelso, he didn’t know anything about hunting or fishing and his boss thought that was funny. His humor columns, said Kelso, came from the army. “I was asked to write a weekly and then a biweekly column,” said Kelso. “The only thing I could think to do would be interesting at all would be to write in a funny way because just being in Germany in the Army wasn’t funny.”

Kelso also has a column on the Statesman’s Web site called Kelso’s Cranky Corner, where he writes about personal and non-personal stories with a funny twist. His topics each week are about what everyone is talking about and local news.His humor column appears every week on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in the Austin American-Statesman under the Metro and State section.