It’s that time of year again
Almost one year ago I wrote this:
Not that I’m complaining
But apparently the official, mandatory and exclusive Halloween costume for every American female is whore. School girl whores, teacher whores, zombie whores, pirate whores, princes whores, prom queen whores, b-girl whores, punk chick whores, Quicky-Mart employee whores; the list goes on and on and on. Pretty whores, ugly whores, skinny whores, fat whores, White, Black, Asian, Latino and Martian whores.
I love this country.
Happy Halloween my fellow miscreants.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one to notice.
link link link link link link
However, I for one am outraged at some of the outrage in those stories. If for one day and one day only the average American is willing to shed some of his/her ridiculous sexual hang-ups, it would stand to reason that progress is in fact being made.
Boston’s Weekly Dig serves WoMag a knockout punch
So by now I’m sure most of you who live in Worcester have seen WoMag’s phonebook size 30th anniversary issue which dropped yesterday. What you might not have seen unless you’re the kind of person who trolls industry sites is the first round knock out landed by Boston’s Weekly Dig via The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies after WoMag publisher Diane Lieberman made what reads as a light hearted joke about the size of the Dig’s 5 year anniversary issue, in a press release.
“According to my records, no other American alt-weekly in history has ever crossed the three-figure threshold,” said Jeff Lawrence, founder and president of Boston’s alternative paper Weekly Dig, which just celebrated the publication of its biggest issue ever at 124 pages.
“Did he reach 124 pages? How cute,” commented Worcester Magazine Publisher Diane Lieberman. “Not quite as big as ours, but c’est la vie.”
Well the Dig responded with a beautiful rebuttal that can not be done justice without a full reprint, so here goes.
Posted October 27, 2006
Boston’s Weekly Dig Celebrate Being in Boston, Not WorcesterSource: Weekly Dig Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Jeff Lawrence
Phone: (617) 426-8942
Fax: (617) 426-8944
Jeff@weeklydig.comBOSTON–The staff of Boston’s Weekly Dig, having recently been mocked on the Web site of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies by the publisher of Worcester Magazine, announced today that they still live in Boston, as opposed to Worcester.
“Sure, it’s true that WoMag’s ‘Best of … ‘ issue was 12 pages bigger than ours,” said Dig Publisher Chris Rohland, “But the pain of that is easily trumped by the fact that we still live in one of the great American cities, and they’re still in Worcester.”
The offending press release, which appeared at AAN.org on October 26, mocked Dig President Jeff Lawrence’s contention that the most recent issue, which clocked in at 124 pages, was the first alt-paper ever to reach three figures.
“Did he reach 124 pages? How cute,” said Worcester Magazine Publisher Diane Lieberman. “Not quite as big as ours, but c’est la vie.”
“No question, a 136-page issue would have been sweet,” responded Editor Joe Keohane, noting that if one were to count the stand-alone Belgian Beer Festival Guide the Dig put out, that would have brought the week’s total to 148 pages. “But, then again we’re still in Boston, and they’re still in Worcester.”
Dig President, Jeff Lawrence, could not be reached for comment, but was last seen eating lobster and drinking a Harpoon IPA while walking along Boston’s historic Freedom Trail.
The Dig always puts out some of the best Press Releases, but this one from back in May is still my favorite.
Mommy, when I grow up…
From the ‘oh, I am so happy to have a son’ department comes this tale of one Cheshire woman’s battle to keep her daughters from working at Scores. The Peekaboo pole is… well it’s a pole. A stripper pole if you want to get technical. A stripper pole that had been for sale at Tesco, Britain’s number one chain in the children’s toy section. You know, for those early bloomers in your life. From the product description:
“Soon you’ll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars”.
Look, I love strippers. I love strip clubs. I prefer that strip clubs be full of strippers. But I also like to live with the myth that all beautiful strippers are plying their trade to pay for law school. It would bring some serious creepiness to the table if I had to imagine 5 year old girls being primed for stripping by their well meaning uncles via this particular Christmas gift. Seriously, what the fuck? I demand to meet the genius/idiot who got this through a planning meeting.
In fairness to Tesco, the product is now only for sale online and will be sold as an adult fitness item. That would make this a perfect companion to the personal massager you just bought.
Wrapping up the base
I don’t watch a lot of TV and what little I do watch is almost never network. So in the spirit of looking out for likeminded media whores who miss the local angles, here’s a look at the Patrick/Murray ad which starts running this week. Targeting the Worcester County market in particular and designed to seal the proverbial deal on Tim’s home turf.
Pirates of the Blackstone
One of the most predictable and unavoidable realities of spending time in online message boards is that eventually you’ll end up watching otherwise normal, well adjusted adults threaten to beat each other up. I’ve fallen victim to this myself; threatening to light local artist Doug Chapel on fire some years back due to, of all inane reasons, overuse of CAPITOL LETTERS IN HIS SHAMELESS PROMOTING. Of course I never set flame to Doug; that would be silly, but threatening to do so…now that was a blast. I didn’t know him at the time and had no idea he was a talented, well meaning guy. In other words, the perfect target for a text based blunderbuss. Ask anyone who moderates online communities about this phenomenon and they’ll have to admit the ugly truth; people tend to act like idiots given the opportunity. This really shouldn’t be all that surprising. As cultured and diverse as we may claim to be, Americans do such a good job homogenizing their circles of influence, realizing not everybody shares your particular world view can be enough to put anyone on the defensive. And what better way to defend your positions than threatening to beat up someone you’ve never met and just as likely to be your neighbor, child’s teacher, Rabbi or anyone else you’d be hesitant to thwack unprovoked with a 2×4 if you saw them in line at Dunkin Donuts.
Such is life in make believe worlds. I can claim to have seen on at least two different occasions, on two different local communities virtual gangs form to challenge their virtual enemies to real world fisticuffs that of course, never materialize.
CAN. YOU. DIG IT.
So with this knowledge and personal experience behind me, I would like to offer the following bit of free advice to the moderators of the Telegram and Gazettes disaster of a message board, The Speakeasy:
Walk over to the server where the board is hosted, reach behind it, grab hold of the plug and before you get a chance to second guess yourself, unplug the bitch. Forever.
I’ve been watching this dizzying display of humanity at its worst since day one and everyday I’m amazed to see the Ancient Order of Editors continue to let this beast grow. If nothing else, it’s horrible PR for the only paper in Worcester, unless outing your user base as sub-cretin troglodytes is considered the hip thing to do in the shrinking world of print dailies. How can a newspaper which prides itself on being family friendly sit back and watch an improve troop of baloney heads circle humanities drain without realizing their experiment in sociology has gone way off course? I can’t imagine the goal of the paper is to showcase the crankish ideologies Worcester has long been famous for; homophobia, racism, misogyny and general stupidity being the examples that stand out. Remember T&G decision makers, people actually read this crap and it reflects on all of us who call Worcester home. But even if we move past the obvious, how’s it going to look if the paper is forced to start reporting on violence rooted in its own house? I know you’re still new in the interactive user department, but if you insist on having the service continue, grow and have the general public participate you’re going to have to cut out the douche bags before they have the opportunity to scare off the people who are going to follow your advertising trail and pay for otherwise useless services. There’s no shortage of places on the net for me to go and be an idiot, the sole paper for the second largest city in New England (eff-you ProVo) shouldn’t be one of them.
digg this, Mihos
As of this writing Christy Mihos is on the front page of digg.com for his little cartoon advertisement. With over 815 digg’s so far one could easily make a case for this being the most viewed ad spot of the election cycle. Of-course there is little 14 year old kids from Idaho can do for Christys chances of winning the governors race, but his name just went national via one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web.
Here’s the link to the digg page with all sorts of meaningless commentary.
And if you haven’t see it yet, here’s the ad getting the attention.
edit: Don’t know how I missed it, but the Mihos spot was also covered last week on MetaFilter.
