A familiar tale.
January 4th, 2012
The tortured mind leads the path to glory.
There were no lights where he was. He was alone and, for the most part, intact. He felt upward and grasped hand-holds for cold, iron shackles. Hung lifelessly from the wall like death-row prisoners who had the floor kicked out from under them. The rest had met similar, horrible, ironic fates, but this was his own. He could see it, touch it, dread it, yet it was as tangible as the taste of the rough cement against his lower back.
He was next. He knew it.
Outside, he heard voices. Three arguing, and he knew their dissent lie with him.
“Are you guys really going to make me do this?” he heard in-between muffles through the thick wooden door. “He’s just a kid.” A sigh, and then brilliant white light shone through as the wooden slab moaned open. A man waddled in and descended into a chair in the middle of the room.
“Please, join me,” he invited, and jerked a string above him that blinded the boy’s entire world.
He could see the man now: short, stout, and serious. The boy rose and placed himself in a chair opposite the man’s. The man observed the boy’s composure after his night of hell: his eyes were sunken after hours of restless sleep; his golden blonde hair was matted and knotted and out of place; and his favorite navy blue sweater was ripped in several places.
“What do you make of this?” the man began, slamming an empty glass bottle on the table. No answer. The man grabbed a tuft of blonde hair and pulled, locking the boy’s eyes to his.
“It’s from the… bottling room that…” the boy managed in-between sobs. Stout Man formed a crescent moon with his lips.
“Yes, it’s from our bottling room. You signed a contract, young man, that explicitly stated you were to take nothing from our premises unless otherwise told. Did you think it was a joke?” The boy cradled his head in his hands, soaking his arms. “We are a billion dollar organization, we have dozens if not hundreds of companies looking to steal from us. Nothing can come out of our doors, do you understand?”
The man stood up. The boy instinctively shot back, shielding his face with his hands. Stout Man watched for a long time as the boy shivered and shook. “Look,” he sighed. “The boss doesn’t want to hurt you. Just give him what he wants and he’ll let you go.”
A pause. Another sigh. Stout Man shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the door.
“I’ve done all I can, then.” The door took the light with him as he left.
The roaring creep of the door woke him again. Two men—short men—took him by the shoulders and deposited him into a half room. A man at a desk was in heavy conversation with someone else in the room. That’s when he turned. The boy noticed the pale, withered visage of his grandfather, half dead, draped and useless in the room as if hanging from a coat rack.
“When does he get it?”
“He doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he broke the rules.” The grandfather was defeated. Surely, there was a reason for all this.
Still, he prodded further: “What rules? We didn’t see any rules.” He turned to the boy. “Did we, Charlie?”
Charlie heard none of this conversation. All this, just for an empty bottle? The man slammed his fists into the desk and sharply rose, full of rage, kicking his half chair.
“Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if—and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy: I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained, et cetera, et cetera… Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera… Memo bis punitor delicatum!”
“It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!”
The older man went in swinging. Charlie stood in place.
“You’re a crook. You’re a cheat and a swindler! That’s what you are! How could you do something like this, build up a little boy’s hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces? You’re an inhuman monster!”
“I said, good day!” With that, the man sat down back at his desk.
Just give him what he wants and he’ll let you go. Stout Man’s words rang in Charlie’s head. It seemed insane: through all the torture, the vicious questioning, the sleep deprivation, could this really be all they wanted?
He slowly made his way toward the man’s desk. At any moment, the unhinged racketeer could lunge at him, collapsing his throat. He would then cut off his hands and mix the evidence in the chocolate river, never to see the outside world again. It was clear his workers never saw light; generations of inbreeding gave way to short, fat, orange creatures that only vaguely resembled humans. If he could do that to his employees, who knows what would he do to a complete stranger.
Charlie placed the helix-shaped object next to the man’s hand. Slowly, the man tiptoed his fingers over, caressing the object of his desire. Would the lunatic turn and blind him with it? No, he wouldn’t give him that opportunity. Charlie made his way toward the door, hoping the man’s obsession was enough to occupy him for another ten–
“Charlie.” He froze. He knows. It’s best to do as he says, to address him. Charlie twisted his head toward the man. The smile on his face showed every one of his perfect white teeth. “My boy…”
Run. Run. Escape plans rushed through Charlie’s head. But in the end, he knew there was no escape. In the end, they were all meant to end up like this.
You’ve won.
Something old. But it’s new to you!
November 5th, 2010
This was originally a review slated for a website that never came to fruition. Please, enjoy the article for its entertainment value. Inspired by the “Let’s Play” series of Something Awful and Penny Arcade fame, I wished to create an entire site devoted to articles that focused on the gaming experience of the user. I believe that reviews should reflect more than just a graphics/gameplay/story/sound breakdown. Games are a completely subjective experience. Playing a game alone and then playing it with a friend yields a completely different result and can sometimes change the opinion one has of a game.
March 17, 2010,
I used to be a DDR master. But that seems like a lifetime behind me now.
My fame knew no bounds. I would gather crowds at arcades and at parties. Ten-foot songs were no problem for me. I tore through the PlayStation 2 home releases: Max, Max 2, Extreme, and so on. Then, not satisfied by what the United States had to offer, I imported. Through a series of uncalculated risks, I purchased a Japanese PlayStation 2 from another avid rhythm game enthusiast on a Bemani fansite—clearly, a man who had hit rock bottom and sought to pass his addiction to someone else. I bought the PS1 classics—remember these?—3rd Mix and 4th Mix, and blew through those too.
And then: Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party. It’s an old title now, and one that’s been in my collection since 2007. I bought it when the game released, you see, but something happened that you wouldn’t think is much of a curse. But it is one.
My family bought an HDTV.
This absolutely devastated me. While television shows were now in crystal-clear high definition, anyone who has ever played Guitar Hero on a laggy set can tell you how incoherent the experience is. Imagine a world where every single quick time event (QTE) resulted in you losing. As a rhythm game is a series of blinding QTEs, you are forced to lose repeatedly until you shut the game off in frustration.
The arcade scene had long since packed up and left my cozy town, so I had no choice but to let my legacy collect dust. Until now.
The first thing I noticed was the large set of instructions that came with the box. The third bullet point under “Things You Should Not Do To Avoid Killing Yourself While Dancing” reads: “Bare feet should be used to operate the DDR CONTROLLER. Do not use with shoes or stocking feet.” While I disagree on the point of using socks over being barefoot, I am sure I have broken at least five of the caveats listed in this manual, including:
-Playing when it’s late and night and you will wake people up with your rhythmic stomping
-Playing outside
-Playing while under the influence of (performance enhancing) drugs
-Playing near someone so as to intentionally hit them
-Playing games other than DDR with the mat (actually, forget this warning, everyone needs to try this)
Loading the game shows the standard DDR fare: a story mode, a free play mode, a workout mode, and an annoying announcer. There are some new faces this time around; all of the characters, in fact, are new and exclusive to the Wii version, but they’re all so familiar you won’t have a problem picking out who you want as your dancer. I settled on U.G., a classy African-American sporting a rainbow afro, zebra-striped suit, and star-shaped sunglasses. Hoorah.Gameplay is identical to every other game in the series. You step with the arrows on the top part of the screen, your dance meter builds. If your meter falls to zero, the game stops the song and fails you. There are a few twists this time around, though, and the first involves the Wii Remote and Nunchuck used as additional beats in a song. New arrows fill the screen which require not steps, but shakes from either peripheral to satisfy the game. This allows for some fun (and frustrating) combinations, and is overall a good addition.
Other departures from traditional DDR are “foot destructors,” “foot confusers,” “screen stompers,” and so on which act like the modifiers from previous games. It pretty much boils down to “step on this, don’t step on this,” though the gimmicks here can get annoying while moving around the screen.
Story mode unlocks songs by finishing venues under certain requirements. Completing a world could require anything from “finish three songs in a list” to “finish all songs in a list on Difficult with a 100+ combo.” Every venue has a “master” you must challenge in order to officially complete the stage. The challenge is in the form of a dance-off, ala Guitar Hero III, where hitting certain hand gestures will throw the beats over to your opponent, who must then knock them back to you or risk losing a good portion of their dance meter. The battles themselves are difficult compared to the rest of the stage, and can be frustrating. You will unlock most songs in an afternoon, though, if you are persistent.
New to the story is the option to play with a friend. Friendship Mode gives the highest arrow judgment to the whole group, which lets younger players join in on the fun without the risk of failing out. Anywhere from two to four players can join in. Four player co-op DDR was introduced in the Ultramix series for the Xbox, but this is the first time four players can play all at once to unlock songs in story mode. It’s a very fresh approach to the series and definitely something Konami needed to do, as the franchise was becoming stale even back when I regularly played.
But in 2010, three years and 15 pounds later, it’s clear I’m out of the game. My first dance-off with the master in the first venue, I got annihilated on Basic. My opponent tossed “hand missiles” effortlessly at me and I just couldn’t keep up with what was on screen. My arms waved wildly. My stocking feet futilely shuffled across the mat. My bag of goldfish crackers toppled over during a particularly passionate swing of my Nunchuck. The announcer bellowed at me through the Wii Remote speaker. I had to sit down afterward to take in what all had happened.
It was way too much. I had to think of a simpler time, when I could easily predict the steps of a DDR song just by how it sounded. My feet moved gracefully across the mat, and I was greeted with As and AAs, not Cs and Ds. DDR Hottest Party is a good game, probably the best thing to happen to DDR in years, but it’s certainly not for me.
Putting the “Heft” Back in Hefner’s Franchise
October 15th, 2009
A typical Playboy cover.
“Are you eighteen?” the girl at the counter asked. That’s the first thing she asked me when I came in through the door and asked for the latest copy of Playboy. She looked like she was my age, perhaps a little older, her jet black hair partially obscured her pimple-covered face.
“Twenty-two,” I replied, not put off by the question. I get carded everywhere that’s fun: bars, casinos, and adult book stores. That’s where I was, after a two-day search for a copy of Playboy. An adult book store. I began looking in Barnes and Noble stores near my girlfriend’s school in Delaware, looking in bookstores in Wilmington, and Newark. I continued my search by my house in Pennsylvania, in North Wales and Lansdale. I even looked by Temple University in Philadelphia. Nothing. Borders stores gave similar results. No copies in grocery stores, no copies on newsstands.
This franchise was supposed to be the ultimate standard in softcore pornography, backed by millions upon millions of dollars. In its heyday in the early 1970s, Playboy sold 7 million copies a week. Hugh Hefner wanted to sell his massive franchise for $300 million in February of this year. Wandering into Hot Topics, Adult Worlds or Spencers stores you will see the little bunny logo on everything from backpacks to women’s underwear. Wildly popular television shows like The Girls Next Door and Kendra fill the airwaves and gather hundreds of thousands of viewers every episode. So why was it so hard to find the magazine?
The girl at Adult World scanned my Playboy and put it in a discreetly unmarked black plastic bag. The bag crinkled with judgment. Vampires graced the October issue, promising me that I’d learn the reason why “the undead is hot again” for the low, low price of $5.99. Her eyes crossed mine as she slapped the receipt on the counter. “It’s for a school project,” I stammered, hoping to clear up any confusion. “A magazine class. I’m profiling the decline of a popular magazine.”
“Oh.” Her voice cooled, shifting to a more condescending tone. “Well, that should be interesting.”
Playboy's cute little bunny logo.
Clearly, I’m not Playboy‘s audience. I am their target audience, but the magazine itself is not catered toward my age group. So who is Playboy for? Far and wide, there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the people buying the magazine and the content inside the magazine itself. At first glance, the magazine tries to play itself off of its own image. “This is the magazine that your grandfather looked at, and your father after him,” it seems to say. “Don’t you want that same quality journalism in your life?”
Paging through the magazine, there are articles with celebrity interviews, psychology articles about scientists discovering just how programmable the brain is, and first-hand accounts of just who the Somali Pirates are, and why they are nothing like the glorified pirates from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. There are movie and music reviews, tidbits on the latest cultural trends like how “butchers are now sexy.” There are even recipes for drinks, as well as the latest sports news. Certainly, there is more to the book than just a tantalizing centerfold.
I have to admit, I was impressed with some of the articles. The piece that impressed me the most was a six page Woody Harrelson interview—more of a discussion than an interview—where Harrelson opens up about his issues with sexual temptation, regrets about being unable to rescue his father from prison before his death, and thoughts on marijuana. As he smokes it. David Hochman, the journalist who interviewed Harrelson, spent a large amount of time with the celebrity before he even turned a voice recorder on. “Woody opened his world—and his mind—for days of uninhibited conversation and fun. … And yes, there was quite a bit of inhaling,” Hochman said.
It didn’t matter that there were almost no pictures in the entire interview, or that the journalist himself was injected into the interview at certain points to foster conversation between the two. I learned more about the Cheers bartender than I thought I ever would have, and it made me really glad to pick up the issue. It’s journalism at its finest, an article that really brings out Harrelson’s true qualities, and it was something I’d never thought I’d find in Playboy in a million years.
Kendra Wilkinson, now Kendra Baskett. She's not the smartest Playmate of the bunch, but she did get her own TV show.
Looking at the ads tells a different story. A new Batman video game graces one full color page while another shows off a group of twenty-somethings in a Newport cigarettes ad. One ad is related to Playboy, letting college girls know that there are some modeling opportunities around certain universities, and lists them on the page as well as contact information for the agencies. An obtrusive ad in the Woody Harrelson interview leads the reader to believe at first glance that Wolverine has clawed his way into the magazine, rendering the rest of the interview unreadable, while turning the page reveals that it’s just a two page ad for the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. Several pages after that, an ad commands readers to “Take Control Of Your Sleep” by getting a Sleep Number mattress. At the back of the book, there are advertisements for Romeo y Julienta cigars and diamond-encrusted gold watches. The whole ad campaign for Playboy practically screams, “Throw whatever you can at us and we’ll try to make it stick.”
A reasonable man would conclude that Playboy is for men in their early thirties to early forties who want to relive the excitement of their late twenties. That would explain the video games, the Axe deodorant, the tequila and vodka ads—but not the Boy’s Life-style jokes in the back of the book. “What has 75 balls and screws old ladies?” asks the magazine, a vindictive sneer present on its lips. “Bingo!” “Playboy Advisor,” a “Dear Abby” column for sex and relationship problems is also in the magazine, with gems like “How do I get my husband to have a baby when he doesn’t want to?” and “Is it okay to bring my own steak knife to dinner?” chosen as the topics of the month.
Also littered around the pages of the book like little Easter eggs are cartoons, usually having to do with sex, that look like they are out of a Far Side calendar. There are no less than a dozen of these clever little comics spread throughout the magazine, and every one of them is eye-roll worthy. So far, Playboy is shaping up to be a balding man in his forties with back problems who hasn’t grown tired of silicone women and still forwards the jokes his aunt sends him in chain letter e-mails because they’re just so damn funny.
In short, Playboy just tries to do too much and caters to too many different types of people to be effective. It wants to stick to the general interest feel it had in 1953 when Hefner founded the magazine, but one of the problems is that same man is still running Playboy 56 years later. The quality magazine that brought interviews with Martin Luther King Jr., art from a young Shel Silverstein, and stories from Jack Kerouac is still exactly the same as it was after the Korean War, and critics will defend the magazine for being a start for many famous writers, artists, and celebrities, but that overlooks many of the problems both the magazine and the franchise have.
Efforts to launch an effective Web site have been largely ignored, even after a relaunch of the site in April, which offered new interactive features and original content. It seems like the business model that made Playboy so successful at first—racy, beautiful nude women posing for centerfolds comprised with in-depth, serious journalistic interviews of important people—doesn’t have a place in the 21st Century new journalism world.
Everyone on three: one, two, three. AAAAAHHH!!
So what needs to change? Playboy needs to specialize. Not just by releasing yet another version of Playboy’s Busty Babes. Stick to one thing, and do it well. The magazine does very well and is known for their celebrity interviews, and that should be their focus. The naked women can come later, but the kind of glitzy, glamorized manufactured bombshells Playboy is known for can be found elsewhere now, and for as cheap as free thanks to the Internet. Hefner needs to realize that brand name alone can’t sell his magazine anymore, especially in a recession-based economy.
Playboy has been trying to cater to new demographics for years now; it’s what magazines do. But within the past five years, a disturbing trend has developed. CGI and animated women have graced the cover of the magazine—starting in 2004 with the character Bloodrayne from a video game of the same name, and continuing most recently with a familiar cartoon character on the new November issue: Marge Simpson. Morbid curiosity drove the media frenzy which resulted from the announcement. People were scratching their heads as to just who was this issue for. College students? People who grew up with The Simpsons who are now in their thirties and would find the idea of Marge posing in the magazine arousing? Why Marge Simpson, and not a character from a more recent show like Family Guy? The decision to put Marge on the cover shows just how much Hefner is out of touch with his target demographic.
Even so, Playboy very nearly sold me on a subscription. I was amazed by the price tag offered by the blow-in tags clipped in the inside of the book—a meager $12 for a year subscription. You could buy two newsstand issues for that price, but the issue of quality in the magazine stopped my pen from writing in that check. Are the incredible interviews really worth paging through the muck that sticks between the pages? Do I want to stare at jokes about infidelity, one night stands, and loveless relationships every time I crack open the magazine?
And the reputation, the obfuscating combination of reading about Woody Harrelson’s struggle of dealing with what he believes to be his father’s death in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and how he dealt with the pain. Couple that with reading about how Twilight fever is sweeping the nation accompanying an uncomfortable series of photos of models clad in nothing but white plastic vampire teeth, is really worth seeing that Adult World cashier stare at me for yet another night? Can’t there be a more convenient way of getting this information? Can’t I pick Woody and leave the plastic vampire teeth at home?
I don’t pretend to know how to save magazines from the advent of free information readily available on the Internet, but I know Playboy isn’t doing its absolute best to prosper. Perhaps it’s Hefner’s old age—at 83, it’s been suggested he wants to settle down with his millions and spend all day in his mansion with his girlfriends. And after 56 years at the wheel of a successful franchise, he probably deserves it. Maybe Playboy isn’t meant to survive this round of magazine closures, and we’ll have to get our fix from somewhere else. But through all the Woody Harrelson interviews and Marge Simpson Hail Mary passes, one thing’s for sure: if Playboy is going to continue sticking around, they better be damned easier to find.
Cutting Room Floor: Bucks publisher is accused in prostitution case
September 2nd, 2009
Aside from my ever-increasing problem of having the Daily News database purge my articles from their site six months after they’re published, Cutting Room Floor has been a hit among readers of the site. Once PDF scans of the originals are up, I can link to those rather than try to plug up a leaking dam. Eventually, the dam will burst and I’ll have no choice but to scan all my originals and put them in a place where a flash drive malfunction won’t hurt them anymore. There, there: you’re safe now.
In any case, here is the offender. Google captures all things internet, and with its help I was able to regain a rendition of the article cross posted on another website. Please bear with me and focus only on the content of the article and not the fact that I’ve been neglecting my portfolio due to lack of a scanner. It really was one of my best articles, but it almost was a complete and utter failure, one of the biggest mistakes of my undergraduate career.
It starts, like most things in a newsroom, with an assignment. It was December, and I had been with the paper for almost three months. Gar Joseph, the senior City Editor, suggested I take on a challenge and cover a press release over at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Never one to turn down an assignment, I set off an hour early so I could walk to the U.S. Attorney building, a modest 25 minute walk in December weather.
The spitting image of my old look.
People wonder why I never tire when I walk. It’s because when I’m in Philly, I walk everywhere. The trip to the U.S. Attorney’s Office was 1.3 miles according to Google Maps, and I barely broke a sweat in my sweet black P-coat. It’s better than my last winter coat, a tan snowcoat I got in the seventh grade reminiscent of the overbearing ensemble Randy wore in A Christmas Story. My P-coat reminds me I am part of an elite club, and I wear it proudly.
And it’s lucky I had my coat, because like all the other times in my life following directions, I got lost. Horribly, horribly lost.
If you look at a map of Philadelphia, it is mostly grid-shaped. Everything is in a square, and if you are lost while walking, you can backtrack and reorient yourself with little to no difficulty. And I learned this lesson very quickly.
Right after I got lost in Jeweler’s Row. Even though on a map Jeweler’s Row runs a block away from the area I was supposed to be in, without formal directions, taking one wrong turn because thoughts like “that building couldn’t possibly be the U.S. Attorney’s Office” can get you anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes lost.
My mistake lied in the fact that Center City and Washington Square have very distinct looks to them. I thought for sure I was in some sort of commercial neighborhood. The towering skylines stopped, and I could see the next few blocks ahead of me were row homes. Eventually, though, my wandering led me on the right track. I checked my cell phone. Five minutes late.
For getting me lost in Jeweler's Row!
It turned out I wasn’t the only one late to this press conference. There was a line of people waiting to go upstairs to the conference room. I had to practically disrobe to enter the building. Coat, cell phones, shoes, belt, glasses. It was like airport security, and I was about to miss my plane.
Upstairs, a small conference room housed about two dozen reporters, chatting away about deadlines to other colleagues. Everyone in the business knows everyone else in Philadelphia, so if it wasn’t uncomfortable for me not knowing anyone, it was made extremely uncomfortable by what happened next.
The U.S. Attorney’s secretary was handing out briefs for the presser, which detailed the case. As she passed me a packet, she condescendingly asked what news group I was with. Of course, I was with the Daily News.
As if to scoff at the People Paper’s trouble with losing readers and money, or perhaps just to poke fun at print in general, her next comment sent me spinning:
“Oh, I didn’t know the Daily News was hiring infants now!”
The whole world stopped, and then cackled in front of me like a group of old ladies gossiping and giggling to themselves. I felt my face turning red, but not from embarrassment. The word infant stung, a quick whip of a tongue that was forgotten by the room seconds later, but characterized just how cliquey the old journalism world still is. This is why people don’t take us seriously, I thought. Fucking stuck up bitches like you.
I took my coat off and put it on the chair behind me.
There is a twist to my past. Keep reading!
My mind fogged a bit after that. Laurie Magid, the U.S. District Attorney for Philadelphia came in and announced that they had arrested a young man in Bucks County for allegedly running a child pornography ring in Russia. Everything spoken at the press conference was already written in the packets. Even so, everyone was furiously scribbling notes, and even though I knew no new information was being presented, out of some sort of feeling that I would not belong to this high school clique if I wasn’t doing what these professionals were doing, wearing what they were wearing, wearing my wool winter coat with the warm inlines and deep pockets, I scribbled into my spiral notebook, just as they did, and waited for a change in pace.
In a Q&A session at a press release, there is time for five or six questions at most before the meeting is adjourned. In addition, writing an entire article off of quotes based on a press release is a bad idea; in general, you want live quotes said by the experts you’re writing about. In a perfect world, the journalists would have looked over the information given to them and are prepared to ask intelligent questions to yield intelligent and detailed responses.
That is not at all what happened here.
When Magid opened the floor for questions, every single person in the room shot out of their chairs as if giving a standing ovation, as if they were applauding the most spectacular performance they had seen in their lives. I stood only because, at 5’7″, I could barely make out the sea of faces behind the wooden podium up front with everyone standing. The room became a cacophonous orchestra, men shouting over women, women screeching over men. I could barely process what was being asked, let alone the answers.
Journalist tip #5: If you feel the need to ask a question just because you have the opportunity to ask a question, you’re doing it wrong.
The reason for this absolute mess is easily explained. Print and broadcast media, by definition, is about deadlines. Every single person there had an editor, a boss, or supervisor with certain expectations about how the story was going to turn out and who was going to be interviewed.
Sometimes, these expectations are extraordinarily high, and the pressure to deliver is oftentimes more overbearing than the actual task itself. So when every single person in the room–let’s say, 30 people or so–all have the same weight placed on their shoulders, you better believe there is going to be shouting. Everyone wants the big break, everyone wants to look like the the authority on their story, everyone wants something over everyone else.
None of the journalists were so prolific as ABC night anchor John Rawlins. Rawlins has had a long history with ABC, spanning well before I was born.
John Rawlins: Asking the tough questions before you even get a chance to.
“Why couldn’t you tell us the circumstances of this man’s arrest in Bucks County?”
“Why is his history and ties to Russia shrouded in mystery?”
“Where did he find these girls he was supposedly prostituting, and where did he take them?”
All good questions, expected of a veteran reporter. Predictably, Magid reacted harshly to his questions. Refusing to comment further on the circumstances of his arrest, the crowd emitted a large, collective raspberry. I, for one, was tired of listening to the constant back-and-forth bickering. I couldn’t tell who was good and who was bad anymore. I just wanted to get back and write the piece. So, after the meeting dispersed I listened to the post-presser questions to see if I could get anything else and set off for the newsroom.
David Preston was the editor when I got in. David is an amazing writer and editor (and a 1986 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) so I considered him my mentor and confidant for my internship. I recalled the “infant” comments the attorney’s secretary made for both editors, including my own inner monologue. They laughed it off, and Gar told me not to worry since the attorney’s office was about to turn over anyway.
The next two hours came and went. I wrote a small little write-up about the press release, using quotes from Magid and her assistants and sent the copy over to David. It wasn’t until the 6:00 news, as I was about to walk out the door, that I had realized I made a terrible mistake.
It was John Rawlins that informed me of my mistake. I heard Gar call me over to the TV. Thinking there was some sort of breaking disaster story, I went over. What I heard next turned me the whitest I have ever been.
John told me that Mogilyansky was actually a very famous publisher in Bucks County. He was also a humanitarian, and helped thousands of victims recover from a hostage crisis in Beslan, Russia, where 1,100 people were taken hostage by rebels in the area to demand an end to a conflict in Chechnya. After six months, he raised over $650,000.
The charges in the press release, John went on, said he ran a prostitution ring in the same town he was raising the money.
Oh. Shit.
Journalist tip #6: Never, never trust a press release to have all the information.
What was a minor story buried in the pages of the Daily News suddenly became a front-page story. Oh. Shit. Gar and David turned to me almost simultaneously.
“Why doesn’t your story have any of that?”
See? I told you there was a twist!
I had no answer for them. Maybe I was still angry about the secretary. Maybe I was preoccupied with another story and wanted to work on that instead. Still, I fucked up. But instead of making excuses, I did the only thing I’m good at when I’m in trouble: I asked questions.
“How quickly can we fix this?”
David and I frantically scrambled to our desks. He looked up information on the hostage crisis as background for the piece; I called around to see if anyone could vouch for Mogilyansky. After calling a few people, I found a man he went to high school with. ”I have known him for over 20 years,” he said. “We went to high school together. He’s a very good person and has helped a lot of people.”
Oh thank God. I’m saved.
“Did you contact his lawyer?” I hear David call two cubicles over. Shit.
“Uh, yeah, working on that right now.” Shit.
I did contact his lawyer, surprisingly. He was a very smug man who seemed confident in his client’s innocence. “We fervently deny all charges. Give Laurie Magid my best in finding a new job,” he said gleefully. (Mogilyansky later pled guilty, if you are interested.)
David called me over later to tell me the importance of checking all facts before dismissing a story. I told him I had unequivocally learned my lesson. I even told him I wanted to share a byline with him, to show him how much I appreciated his help. “No,” he said. “It’s your article.”
“It’s our article, David. You saved my ass.” He insisted on a single name in the byline: mine. I thanked him profusely and headed out for the night, our crunch time still spinning in my head.
I took two things away from that day.
Journalism tip #7: Never take a story at face value.
Journalism tip #8: A good relationship with your editor is absolutely crucial for success.
David was the best editor I ever had, not only because he saved my ass, but because he sat me down to tell me why he saved my ass. And beyond the wool P-coats, the feeling of being an elite, the high of getting the lead story, David made me realize that his selflessness was why I idolized journalism.
That was enough for me.
Dave Cherokee, the Secret Founding Father
June 11th, 2009
Whether you hate the America of today or not, you have to admit that there were a lot of outstanding people and a lot of controversial ideas implemented during her birth. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison. Benjamin Franklin. John Jay. George Washington. All of these names ring true as some of the best orators, writers, and specimens the human race has to offer. And of course, we all have our favorites from having to memorize them in school.
But tonight, I want to talk about someone you may not have heard of. He is an unsung hero of the revolution and has a hallowed place in history as being a behind-the-scenes thinktank for some of the Constitution’s most important ideas.
His name? Dave Cherokee.
No, not Davy Crockett. Don't you pay attention in school?
Dave was born in 1751, a product of a Puritan father and a Quaker mother. Eloping into what was to become a bitter marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Jeriche fled England as teenagers in protest in the 1730s following King George II’s famous “rice patty fiasco.” After coming over the pond on a fishing boat in a Virginia port, they made a trip north, up to the colony which would later become New Jersey. There, they befriended the Cherokee Indians (they got a bit lost), changed their last name in support of their new Indian friends, developed hilariously bad driving skills and had their first of sixteen children, David Rockefeller Cherokee.
As an only child, Dave had no trouble getting the attention of everyone around him. When his parents would take frequent trips to visit their Cherokee friends, he taught his childhood friend, James Madison, everything he knew about orating and above all, convincing him that if there ever were need for a revolution, that there should be a Bill of Rights with the drafted government constitution. While Madison didn’t follow orders with the Articles of Confederation (an idea Cherokee vehemently lobbied against in his early 30s), he did manage to get a Bill of Rights in the second American form of government. Good going, Dave and Jim.
Specifically, Dave worked with Jim in publishing some of the Federalist papers. Cherokee prefered to work anonymously, so the name “Publius” was used for all the authors of the document, which makes it nearly impossible to prove who wrote what, no matter what Wikipedia says. Some of Cherokee’s most profound ideas were included in Federalist No. 10, No. 62, and No. 63, documented here.
Federalist No. 10 (Federalist Number 10) is an essay by James Madison and the tenth of the Federalist Papers, a series arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. It was published on November 22, 1787, under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. Good friends with Dave Cherokee, Madison consulted him for Federalist No. 10 in addition to Federalist No. 62 and Federalist No. 63. The essay is the most famous of the Federalist Papers, along with Federalist No. 51, also by James Madison, and is among the most highly regarded of all American political writings.[1]
Federalist No. 10 answers a question posed by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 9, which is the idea of “factions,” or groups that would seek interests contrary to the good of the government or the people. A large republic, Cherokee argued, would be more apt to dispel these forces than smaller republics, like those found in the government of the Articles of Confederation.
Federalist No. 62 is an essay by James Madison, the sixty-second of the Federalist Papers. It was published on February 27, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. This is the first of two essays by Madison detailing, and seeking to justify, the organization of the United States Senate. Madison consulted with Dave Cherokee for this essay in addition to Federalist No. 63, the continuation of this piece. It is titled, “The Senate.” Madison details the importance of having a stability in the government for both Americans, and for foreign countries.
Federalist No. 63 is an essay by James Madison, the sixty-third of the Federalist Papers. It was published on March 1, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. Continuing what Madison began in Federalist No. 62, it is the second of two essays detailing and justifying the organization of the United States Senate. Madison actually talked to most of the founding fathers, including Dave Cherokee, to compose this piece. No. 63 is titled, “The Senate Continued.” This essay is the last of Madison’s contributions to the series.
The importance of a Senate in the new republic is paramount: all the cool democracies in history had some form of Senate, and we wanted to be cool, right? But while senators in previous democracies were elected for life, Cherokee thought a limit for the seat was in order. So every six years, we elect a new senator. This way, people like Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd don’t keep their seats for life! Dave Cherokee and the Founding Fathers were such forward thinkers.
But unfortunately, Dave Cherokee is in trouble. Despite my best efforts to chronicle his impressive feats on the world’s most accurate online encyclopedia, the website’s peer editing feature is making it difficult. I’m thankful that the entry I made in January is still there, but I’ve had quite a few setbacks in trying to bring out the truth behind Cherokee’s secret history. Honestly, my dream is to give Dave his own Wikipedia entry, backed by credible first person accounts of his work. If you have stories about Dave that have been passed down in your family, please share them in the comments or add them to the appropriate Wikipedia entries.
Luckily, there have already been a few supporters, like the users who made several grammar and content edits to the Federalist No. 10 and No. 63 entries while leaving the statements about Cherokee untouched. To them, I say thank you. Dave Cherokee thanks you. Truly, you’re making Wikipedia a better place.
Cutting Room Floor: Professor by Day, DJ by Night
May 21st, 2009
This is a new section I’m opening on the site, and I feel it’s a bit more relevant than a few of the other types of entries I’ve written.
There are some things that aren’t included in my articles. Events I’ve experienced, people I’ve met, angles I’ve considered. All of these elements are necessary to get the full scene I’m trying to describe in a piece, but for various reasons weren’t included.
“Cutting Room Floor” is going to try and amend that unfortunate aspect of writing by letting you know the other side of the story. Obviously, it helps if you read the stories first. And, depending on how far back I go, details may be sketchy, quotes may not be 100% accurate, and entries may be shorter than normal, but I will cross those bridges when I get to them. For now, we’ll start with my Temple News “Professor by Day, DJ by Night” story, as that is one of the more recent in memory.
First, some background to set the mood. I had a magazine class at school which required three published articles in a publication to pass, whether it be in a newspaper, magazine, or online. After querying several magazines with article ideas at the behest of my professor, I realized I was out of time with getting these articles published and was essentially screwed in passing this class. So, I turned to The Temple News out of desperation.
Club pictures produce the best faces ever. FACT.
A veteran of dropping myself into fish-out-of-water scenarios and making the best of uncomfortable situations, I thought this Arts & Entertainment assignment would be no sweat. I was assigned to a nightclub in Philadelphia called Shampoo, one of the biggest clubs for kids under 21 where you can be dancing with goths one night and gays the next. It’s a great place where kids can have fun safely for a few hours under the watchful eyes of very intimidating, but excessively polite security. So, nightclub. I don’t go clubbing, but it should be no problem talking to a few people and getting out of there before it gets too busy.
I was profiling a Penn State professor who DJed in her free time, and she invited me to attend one night in April. To get some background, I called her colleagues at Penn State Great Valley for some comments on how she acted in class, and if there was any mention of her DJing within her professional life.
There wasn’t. At least, not until I told them. I couldn’t shake this creeping feeling that I let this huge secret out of the bag at first, like I just ruined this woman’s entire career for a stupid class at Temple.
Her secretary at Great Valley had sounded a little flustered, as if her image of this woman had gone down dramatically, as if I had revealed some dark, despicable secret of Kathy’s double life. She had mentioned DJing to this secretary, but she didn’t know Kathy was actually actively pursuing her hobby. The problem with this negative assumption is a supplemental point in the article: DJing is tied to drugs, sex, and a gaudy nightlife which simply doesn’t exist at Shampoo. Kathy DJs there because, among other reasons, she feels the club has a positive impact on its regulars. I had incredibly mixed feelings getting off the phone with Kathy’s secretary because I thought she was going to confront Kathy about this revelation and then I would be stuck with no source and no story. Journalist tip #1: Always be nice to secretaries. Always.
Her department head was more helpful, but also more dubious. He pretended not to know about Kathy DJing on the side, but after a few questions, let up. “Now that you mention it,” he said, “I did a Google search of her name and her DJing website came up.” You did a Google search of her name? I thought. Gee, I wonder what my bosses are going to find when I finally hit the outside world. His tone came off more “Oh, I’m just dicking around at work, let me see what comes up when I type in this person’s name,” than anything else, so I didn’t feel like his intentions were malicious, just a little bit Big Brother, and maybe a little creepy.
SEPTA Fail is a great source of everyday Philadelphia citizens ripping on an inefficient transit system. Hurray!
The night of Nocturne I suddenly realized I had absolutely no clue how I was going to get to the club. Google Maps reveals that Shampoo is an eight minute drive from Temple, but with no car, I had to rely on public transit, one of my least favorite things. SEPTA’s online scheduling is a mess: their “Plan My Trip” function on their website is clunky and unintuitive. And they refuse to let Google know where their station stops are because they insist on using their own stupid format, so when you search Google Maps for a public transit route, it spits out a messaging saying there might be public transit in the area, but since the transit authority didn’t give up that information, you just have to sort of guess. Fun times.
I never could figure out SEPTA’s bus schedule and couldn’t count on the subway to get me anywhere close to where I needed to be. And walking from Temple was certainly out of the question. So, I did the only thing a good journalist would do: I made my friend drive me there.
Rather, I went to Facebook and asked for a place to crash for the night, since Nocturne runs from 9 pm – 2 am. There’s nothing more annoying than taking a late night train home to end your night after you’ve bumblefucked your way through the Philadelphia transit system only to take a train back the next morning to school. Really, a couch to sleep on was my only option.
Luckily, my friend Heather offered me her couch and in return I got her a free pass into Shampoo. Her boyfriend, buckling under pressure from Heather’s puppy dog eyes, had no choice but to drive the two of us to the club. I’m sure he didn’t feel too comfortable with me walking off with his girlfriend into a club he had never been to, and even less comfortable driving us there, but I assured him there was no danger to be had. Journalist tip #2: Don’t be afraid to abuse your authority, especially if it means getting the story done on time. And buy your ride beer.
So, after 20 minutes of getting lost (adding to our driver’s irritation), we finally arrived at Shampoo. I was travel weary and the Temple News photographer had called a few times wondering where I was, her phone calls lost in the seams of my pocket as I screamed out for the fifth time that no, going that way down Vine Street is going to put us on the Expressway. I was also considerably under dressed, in just a green t-shirt and jeans, but that didn’t stop me from passing groups of leather-clad high school girls who seemed to notice my failure to blend in. Journalist tip #3: Blend the fuck in.
Well, not THIS black man, but he IS wearing a Shampoo shirt.
Unable to get in contact with my photographer, I stumbled into the club, mumbling my reason for not paying at the door to the group of people talking outside. I just had to find the photographer and Kathy and everything would be okay. The worst was over, until this exchange occurred as my journalist tunnel vision got closelined by an intimidating black man at the door:
“You have pens?”
“I… have pens?” The question itself wasn’t immediately clear. Yes, I did have pens on my person, but the relevance of that was less than–
“You can’t take pens in here. Leave ‘em at the front.” Articulate as ever, I mustered a response.
“I… can’t have pens?”
“You can’t bring pens in. We just repainted and we don’t want to ruin the walls.” Was I going to scribble on the walls like a four-year-old? I finally snapped into my normal persona.
“So you’re telling me I can’t take notes in here? I’m a reporter writing about your club. If I can’t bring a pen in, how am I going to write anything down?” The man at the door shrugged, obviously unconcerned with my problem. A large hand flipped me around.
“Are you the Temple News guy? I’m sorry about the wait.” The owner, a very tall man in a trenchcoat grasped my hand and shook it. “He can bring his stuff in, he’s writing an article for his paper.” Those magical words brought down the physical barrier and Heather and I went in. Finally, we were there. Journalist tip #4: Sometimes, a little luck is needed.
My photographer and Kathy were waiting just down the stairs, and they thankfully forgave me for being late. Other than everyone assuming that Heather was also from The Temple News (she is not, but I was tired enough to roll with it), everything went smoothly. The DJs were awesome, I got to meet a few regulars, and there wasn’t anyone who stood out to me as being creepy or standoffish. I would go back there to visit in a heartbeat. Everyone made Heather and I feel extremely welcome, and I got to go downstairs to see the Velvet Underground, the 21 and up section of the club, as well as the really cool steampunk backstage room that bands use as a dressing room when they play at Shampoo.
Some final thoughts about the article: it’s honestly one of my favorites, in terms of writing and experiencing it. It’s right up there with smoking pipes with the Christopher Morley Pipe Club at the P&P. Sometimes, I really wonder if I should be getting paid for what I do. But then, I get terrible assignments and remember why this is a job and not just a hobby. But I’ll share a terrible story another time; this tale ended on a high note.
Something new will this way come.
April 26th, 2009
Stay tuned.
TNS. Temple News Students. Or, Typical N—– Shit.
March 31st, 2009
One of my classmates was in the news this morning.
Rather, her article was in the news, which is always fun to talk about, because it means whatever you spent the last couple days slaving over is popular. I remember waking up the next morning after spending a long night in the Daily News newsroom only to see that FOX, CBS, or NBC reported on something I wrote about the previous night, but got something completely wrong, or added a piece of information I missed. I can only imagine that having your article critiqued in front of millions is just a bit frightening. I’ll talk with her tonight and update this entry with a couple quotes from her so you can get it from the source, so to speak.
I can’t say I’m really surprised by this police officer mentioned in the article. There is a lot of push and pull that goes along with Philadelphia Police Officers: when they’re murdered in the streets, the officers are lauded as the protectors who can do no wrong. When they make a mistake, or say something out of turn, suddenly they slide to the other side of the spectrum in a blink of an eye. Though I’d hardly agree with the header: “dissing” a black person and calling him a “nigger” are two different things. And while I hate using that word, it’s real. It’s what real people use in the real world. Supposedly, it’s what this officer really said, and that’s why he’s really in trouble. I’m omitting the word from the title of the entry, but in the text, there shouldn’t be any censoring. I’m not using it pejoratively; it is what it is.
Shannon’s my boss at The Temple News, incidentally, so I’m particularly close to this incident. I’m going to be working on some articles for them to fulfill a class requirement for a magazine article writing class. It’s amazing how small this world is.
Time Skips in Paradise, “Galapagos”/Watching the “Watchmen” fans
March 12th, 2009
I took a nice trip to Florida last weekend to visit my family and introduce my girlfriend. That was the primary reason for the trip; the secondary reason, of course, was to get some reading done. Among my accomplishments are Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Alan Moore/Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen, a graphic novel with a surprising amount of reading involved.
Galapagos has a fragmented sense of time. The narrator, the dead relative of a character Vonnegut used in Slaughterhouse V, has been traveling the world for a million years and has seen the evolution of humanity on a deserted island as made possible by a shipwreck in 1986. The world soon fell ill with a terrible disease that made the entire human race impotent, save for those on the island.
It’s hard to say what is spoiling the book and what isn’t. Time and events are so mixed up in this story that you learn the end from the beginning, much like Slaughterhouse. The narrator even identifies which characters in the story will die relatively soon by placing an asterisk near their name. With nothing to go on but your belief that the narrator will somehow make a coherent story out of this chronological mess, you plod through the book, slowly gleaning pieces of information.
The book is full of eureka moments, but it’s here where I have my first problem with the book. Just what am I supposed to be reacting to? There are so many different issues the ghost narrator brings up (intelligence is our undoing, life is better off without civilization and corporations, and so on), but it’s difficult to care about any particular one of them when you’re trying to figure out just what is going on. My major problem was trying to figure out just what the narrator was, as he self-injected his own commentary in the story dozens of times. Just who is he? Who is he writing for if he’s dead? Who’s going to read this? Vonnegut creates this issue of disbelief when he creates the character and tries to answer it, but he still leaves some very important questions lingering about how the narration is structured.
After I played some Chrono Trigger to get my mind off of Galapagos, I settled into Watchmen. Going through two stories about time after finishing a novel where time jumps around like kernels in a Pop-Secret bag probably wasn’t the best idea, but let’s pretend it gave me the mental fortitude to bear more time skips instead of further fragmenting my perception of real life.
I liked Watchmen. Plain and simple. I felt that the original Nite Owl exposition and some of the extra stuff inbetween chapters was a bit too much, but the actual plot was well done. I’ve always loved the concept of “washed-up” superheroes, people far past their prime reminiscing about the good old days of running around in tights beating people up in the middle of the night. DC in particular does this very well: I love Batman Beyond, as well as all of their “future” comics depicting what our favorite heroes look like 20, 30, 50 years later. Bruce Wayne in particular is the most interesting for me (You can find out what ultimately happens to Wayne in the DC cartoon universe by doing a Google search for “Batman Beyond epilogue.” Spoilers ahoy, of course).
But what would a series be without its fans. And boy, does Watchmen have fans.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m almost afraid to, lest I be bombarded by people demanding to know if I agree with their opinion that the movie ruined the graphic novel, took away from the overall experience, or whatever other opinion they happen to be spouting at the moment. Hell, even Alan Moore has his own scathing opinion on the whole thing. I’ll post my thoughts on the movie when I see it Sunday, but until then, I’ll keep my mouth shut.
Apologies for the delayed update. I promise things will get better after my projects are out of the way.
Citizen journalism, norgs will be the norm
February 23rd, 2009
God damn. I saw it coming, but then I didn’t really see it coming: Philadelphia Newspapers LLC filed for bankruptcy this morning. This includes the Inquirer, Daily News, and philly.com.
As most of you know, I had a four month internship at the Daily News last year. Going in, I figured I had nothing to lose. Clips are clips, and it didn’t matter where I got them from, so long as they looked good and would act as a stepping stone for where I really wanted to go: magazine and online writing. I even told this story at my last day at the Daily News to the newsroom when they gathered to say goodbye to the interns: “I used to hate newspapers. If anyone could change my mind about that, it would be you guys.” And they did–they changed how I looked at journalism and print media forever.
But I’m not a complete convert, which is why I side with this Philly Mag feature article put out this month:
Tierney refuses to talk — the public relations wizard is hiding under his desk. But how did this happen? How did the cigar in his mouth come to seem less a symbol of prestige than of hubris, not even three years after he walked up Broad Street?
There are a host of reasons. Hubris, certainly, is one. The newspaper industry’s general tanking is another, and then there’s the economy’s downward spiral. Worse, though — and most threatening — is that the brain trust behind the Inquirer and Daily News doesn’t even seem to realize that a new day, in the way Americans get their news, has dawned.
The new day, Philly Mag posits, is Will Bunch’s idea of a Norg:
Bunch used the big, threatening Internet to kick-start his career. And in 2005, he formulated a compelling Internet-based vision for the industry’s future: the Norg. A Norg is a News Organization, an entity that gathers information and distributes it, primarily online, via audio, video and the written word, without all the old conceits and lumbering bureaucratic inefficiencies of the metro newspaper. While a daily paper seems to preach to its readers from on high, a Norg would partner with the community, using citizens to help gather information and set the enterprise’s course. In short, Bunch’s vision smartly marries the old idea of a newspaper with the greater sense of community fostered by the Internet.
While this idea was probably thought up by a bunch (see what I did there?) of other people, Bunch is the first journalist I know who really took the idea and ran with it. It’s the finished version of the idea I had kicking in my head for a year before I joined the Daily News and started searching for like-minded people who wanted to take journalism into a more interactive forum.
It’s an idea that, while rocky at first, will work in the long run. A Norg feeds off of a universal human character trait: people like to be a part of something bigger. The format will be criticized at first–credibility must be earned, not bought–but will eventually turn into the norm. And the organizations who don’t find a way to adapt will be left behind.
That’s not to say newspapers will completely die. There is always going to be a need for the written word. SEPTA doesn’t offer wireless along its Regional Rail lines and until it does, I’ll be reading dailies like Metro and alt weeklies like City Paper and Philly Weekly. There’s just something about having newsprint between my fingers that speaks to authenticity.