... jewelry-polishing cloth that I paid a butt-ton of money for? I just had the damn thing out, like, two weeks ago to shine up one of my necklaces, and now I want to do a big giant ring I have because they’re all the rage right now.

Dammit.

during the rather substantial thunderstorm between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. last night: There’s a special place in hell for you, my friend. Leaving a poor, defenseless animal outside to bark, shriek and cry like that ...

Next time, I’m calling the cops on you for animal endangerment.

Been itchin’ to go off on another one of my pseudo political rants, but then I read the paper this morning and well, lookyhere! my latest pet peeve has been addressed: Lookit

For those I haven’t spouted off to over the past few weeksunaware, Indiana issued at the beginning of the year a new license plate. And it’s a lovely plate, all blue with a nice big American Flag and “In God We Trust” in a pleasant white serif font. If nothing else, it’s damn more attractive than the current plates, which are and have been ass-ugly since they rolled out in 2004. You can even get the new plate AT NO EXTRA CHARGE when you go to renew your plates.

That’s great, except for the obvious problem that the state is opting to throw away a sizable chunk of change so we can all look like a bunch of simple, God-fearin’ folk. I mean, if someone can find data on how many Hoosiers actually attend Christian churches regularly and faithfully, please send it my way; otherwise, you’re not going to convince me that everyone’s getting this plate because they’re devout Christians. Judging by the cars I see on the road every day of my life, however, you will convince me that we’re a vain bunch of m’er f’ers when it comes to our rides—again, 2004 license plates? Ass-ugly, so who WOULDN’T jump at the chance to get a better-looking plate FOR ZERO DOLLAH (besides me, because I’m pissed off enough about this issue, plus it goes against every one of Mother’s sensibilities, and that’s an always an added bonus)!?? It’s just like those morons who buy “Support the Troop” magnets, if you think about it: They’d much rather shell out the $2 to a for-profit business on a ribbon magnet—not to mention ruin their paint jobs—than, say, spend $4 on a pack of disposable razors or toilet paper to send overseas to an actual soldier. At least the for-profit’s making money, because the STATE sure won’t with this nightmare.

No. Separate church and state, or else every single religion in Indiana needs to have its own plate available free-of-charge.

Many of my pals often lament the state of clothing these days; since I’ve been a free-lancer, my wardrobe has gone from casual business casual to “straight out of the dorms,” what with my affinity for tie-dyes, concert t-shirts, flip-flops, yoga pants and the like. (Last year, I started maturing my wardrobe a tad, but I often still look like one of those scary people who never quite declare a major—even when they’re, you know, 49.) This weekend brought Peep’s christening, however, and the delicious weather that would be SO inappropriate for my usual black suit or brown dress pants, so I decided that I would hit Tarzhay to see if they had anything remotely interesting for cheap. Amazingly enough, they did, and I ended up getting the first dress (!) I tried on, a faux-wrap number with an empire waist and black, white and gray leopard print. All it needed was red accessories—and I do have the be-all to end all in red accessories, as y’all know— and I’ll make a nattily dressed christening witnesser, I thought. It’ll be wonderful.

So, fast forward to Sunday: It’s 12:35, and after I’d a) spent 40 minutes in the bathtub ridding my legs of their winter covering (hey, it was a celibate winter, and I’m Eastern European. Do I gotta paint more of a picture?); b) covered an assignment at the local Romanian Orthodox church; and c) gotten stuck by a train as I mad the mad dash to one church from the other, I arrive with moments to spare. And I cut a pretty dashing figure, if I do say so—had my dress on, my nails painted, my contacts in, my hair toussled perfectly by the wind, and I’m rockin’ the Manolos. Couldn’t be better, right?

The first thing I noticed as I began my descent to the floormat in the church foyer (OH. YES.) was that my foot completely dislodged from my right Manolo as its dainty little stiletto wedged itself in the doorjam. After that, it was the searing pain to my knees, which had not only partially broken my fall, but were now skinned as my body lurched forward upon impact. And as I lay there stomach down and praying that my dress is still covering my ass because holy shit! no one needs to see either the industrial sized girdle I’ve got on or the fact that I’ve only shaved above my knee because hey! celibate, it took every bit of my composure not to yell “FUCK! THAT HURT!” at the top of my lungs. Fortunately, a gentleman who turned out to be Peep’s Godmother’s husband unwedged my shoe and helped yank me up off the floormat, slightly worse for the wear and not just a tad mortified.

Poppy’s brother, who was in the foyer with his little girl, also witnessed my grand entrance and, ever the videographer, said that he caught it on tape. He was just kidding, of course, but if y’all happen to catch something on YouTube and my dress is up over my ass, do me a favor and flag it as “Offensive”; NOBODY needs to see that.

I interviewed this cat for a Monday centerpiece; he’s a hairstylist/musician who owns a teeny salon in the back of a guitar shop. All I’m saying is, be prepared to laugh your fool heads off, because this is AWESOME:

Haircuts in the Summer music video

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PS: If you think he looks familiar, you’re very observant!

My ... ahem ... PURCHASE from the weiner party is in, but instead of driving out to work to pick it up, one of MY BOSSES is bringing it to me when we have our hair done Tuesday. Isn’t that awful? We both were skeeved out when she made the suggestion, and yet I still wasn’t motivated to get my ass off the couch.

Heard from Mer a couple times this week—she’s having an excellent time in Iran and is down to her last $50. God help customs, because she does NOT take too kindly to the rules. But she loves the people over there and said she has plenty to share when she gets back. Hope she brought me back something cool.

after unexpectedly seeing someone you still sort ofused to have feelings for, you have explosive diarrhea? I mean, is it coincidence or subconscience? Seriously.

I got one guy telling me I’m a slave to the incumbent party because I don’t think getting out of Cal Twp. this election cycle is a good move. How cute.

But the good news? I don’t have to report for Fed jury duty tomorrow morning at the asscrack! That’s a beautiful thing.

Oh, and I went to my first fake wiener party yesterday with one of my editors and a whole bunch of my co-workers. I’m not sure whether they were impressed or horrified when I threw out such terms as “shnirty flanzhez” and “squelching."*

(An epic about the sad little people who take precious oxygen from the rest of us)

Of course, that was before my experience with a guy who shall heretofore be known as “The Ghoul” and how said experience is testing my resolve at engaging (not engaging?) with crazy people. Because Lawd hep me, this guy is asking for a purple nurple of the nth degree. (Yes, my doctor did ply me full of samples to stave off what would’ve been my 19th nervous breakdown, thanks for asking.)

How I got hooked up with this jackass is irrelevant for our purposes, but the jist is I did a story on him and his fledgling company. If only I’d listened to my instincts about him, I may have been able to avert the following nonsense: You know how a person generally discovers all they need to know about someone else within the first 15 minutes of meeting them? The Ghoul, who’d placed dead last in a business competition—no doubt because of his sparkling personality, as you’ll see—was “pulling an Oscar” or whatever the term is for people who have to pretend they’ve lost gracefully. The fact that he looks like this except with mottled olive skin, mousy brown hair, no beard and both of his jug ears didn’t help his cause; think crypt keeper in a moderately priced suit, and you get the idea. Anyway, I spent about an hour with The Ghoul at a local chain bookstore listening to his shtick; he bought me a coffee and we went on our way, but not before he asked me if he can see the story before it’s published. Now, any self-respecting reporter knows that any legitimate publication doesn’t allow a subject’s prior approval on a story, but because the guy was sooooo freakin’ uptight, I told him I would send him the story after I filed it and then I would make changes only if there were factual errors.

Well, a few weeks pass between the interview and the story running, and in that time, The Ghoul must’ve called me at least once a week to find out when the story was running, which, you know, fine, but don’t expect me to pick up every time you call only to tell you that no, I don’t know when the fucking pub date is going to be, all right? But I file the story and then send it to him as promised. Of course he was all sunshine and puppies—his exact words were, “It’s real good”—but he of course had some changes, which he put in red for me in a return copy. One of those changes was to take out the name of the company that makes the product he’s trying to license. I didn’t understand why that would be an issue because the company does indeed make the product, so I left it in.

After the jump, you’ll see how it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.

I’m going to preface this by saying that all that needed to happen was for The Ghoul to say that there had been a mistake in the article, and a correction would be run. That IS in fact what happened. But this is how The Ghoul took matters into his own hands:

Broad,

I am dissatisfied with your inability to contact me regarding the minor changes. [Product maker] somehow got the article before I actually did. They called me today and asked why they were mentioned as having an agreement with [Ghoul’s company].

I never ever said this to you! I mentioned that the product was a [product maker] creation. You misunderstood what was said. I explained to you that I was in the process of securing other distribution, licensing, direct-sales and joint-venture agreements to bring [the crux of Ghoul’s business] to [target market]. This would include the [product] as well. It must be noted that [Ghoul’s company’s] focus is on the [product] for [target market]. We are going to test the chemistry with permission from [product] and [another company].

At no time did I say specifically that I had an agreement with [product maker]! I did mention that I had an agreement with [another company] for aftercare applications using [product]. I never even said that I had an agreement with [product] either. You obviously took things out of context and misquoted me.

Please forward this to your legal department.[emphasis mine] If I ever ended up in court, I am confident that these email communications to you and the word attachment would show that I made an effort to correct the problem well before the publishing of the article. I even left voice mail for you to contact me about minor corrections. I was aware of the fact that no big changes would be allowed for fear of compromising the article’s tone. But, I did ask you to remove [product maker] from the article on February 28th 2006 via email. Please see attachments.

Ghoul

P.S. It seems unlikely that legal action will be taken, but, be advised that Dow Corning is a big company with a great legal team. I am just making you aware of the situation.

See, now as I’ve said a million times before, I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, especially when it comes to my stories; I tell subjects CONSTANTLY to give me feedback and let me know when I’ve misunderstood something. But like all things, the tone in your delivery is important, and bringing up legal action for a simple correction is a surefire way to get me to come out with barrels. Put another way, Ghoul didn’t get the apology he was waiting for:

Ghoul:

I’ve already spoken to [redacted], the editor you called about this, and she said that a correction will be run based on what I’ve highlighted in red below. If what I have highlighted is incorrect, you’ll need to take it up with either her or [redacted].

In the meantime, what I told you about your seeing the story prior to print is that [the paper] DOES NOT allow it, but that as a courtesy—one that I distinctly remember telling you I’m not supposed to give—I would send it to you only after I filed it with my editor and that I would change only facts that were incorrect. Well, [product] being [made by product maker] is NOT incorrect, so in my mind, there was no reason for me to remove any reference to it. As for misinterpreting what you said about the licensing, you DID NOT specify any misinterpretation; all you said in your e-mail was, “Please remove [product maker] also,” and I’ll be happy to forward those e-mails to my editors as well if they’d care to see them. But had you been specific, I would’ve been more than happy to correct it.

Going forward, I respectfully offer that if you want complete control over anything published about [Ghoul’s company] in [the paper] or any other publication in the known universe, you need to purchase an ad.

Best,
Broad

Unhappy with my response, Ghoul kicked his ire up a notch:

This was in the first attachment in red and is what was said originally: Then in February 2004, he formed [Ghoul’s company] as well as secured distribution, licensing direct-sales and joint-venture agreements to bring [product] to [target market]. Attached is the document that you received Thu, 1 Mar 2007 08:09:58 -0800 (PST).

If you answered your email, or bothered to answer your phone, this all could have been easily communicated. I tried professionally to convey my minor concerns. Just because you feel that you are doing me a favor, does not mean that you should ignore my requests. I was grateful for your time. But, you did not look at the attachment that was sent on March 1st.  I am correct in that I asked you to omit [product maker] with regard to an agreement, not about the [product] being a [product maker] creation. I have proof that I sent minor corrections with those being posted in red. You did mention that I could change something if it did not compromise the article as a whole. Sorry, but, you are wrong.[ED: And YOU can’t punctuate your way out of paper bag.]

The bottom line is that you do not care, nor did you care about doing things right. I communicated nicely to you and showed professionalism. My email today was an attempt to show you want [sic] I was trying to say at borders and my disappointment.

Going forward, I respectfully offer that if you want to be a better interviewer, you need to listen and write verbatim what is being said. You came to me, I did not go to you!

So I looked at the attachment he sent and compared it with my original, and lo and behold, they didn’t look any different to me. My response:

I have the originals you sent, too, and I stand by my actions.

Best,
Broad

At this point, you’d think that The Ghoul, regardless of who was right, would get it that the correction was being made and all would be well. And you’d be wrong.

My final comment:

You know that I what I asked you to change was in red and was sent to you in a word attachment before the article was published. You had plenty of time to have those very minor changes made prior to print. All you had to do was re-send the new word document with those red highlighted words to your editor. If she saw the very minor changes, she could have made a 1 minute alteration before print. Anyway, you better hope that [product maker] makes no big deal of it. Legally I am protected and I have already talked with [product maker].

On another note, after re-reading your article, I have concluded that it is not very good after all.

No, that last e-mail, sent this morning, didn’t contain a “Nanny nanny boo boo” or “Yo mama!” remarkably enough.



Naturally, it is taking every ounce of my willpower to not respond with either “You got mad picked on in school, didn’t you?” or “You’re not going to start stalking me now, are you!??”

Oh, whatEVER.

Question: When y’all were in college and it came to the idealistic notions that virutally all of us have at that age, how did you express them? Like, did you find people who shared your interests, band together and work to change the minds of others? Keep it to yourself? I ask this because last night, I met for the first time the horror that Political Correctness hath birthed, and either I was a dirty hippy in my past life or students these days are engaging in pragmatism far earlier than they should.

The jist: A grad assistant with the school brought forth a non-binding resolution to the campus’ SGA so it could declare March 19-23 “Peace Week,” where and faculty and students would be encouraged to talk about the Iraq War. There would be movies shown in the student lounge and speakers and so on and so forth. Well, since the resolution was only brought to the SGA by a senator and not actually “sponsored” (aka, correct paperwork not filed), a vote wasn’t going to be taken. Before they’ll even consider it, however, the resolution is going to have to be reworded to, at the very least, be more “inclusive” to everyone’s views, which, on one hand, is probably not a bad idea. But the other reason? They don’t want the SGA—a group that’s been back on campus only since 2005—to be associated with the school’s Social Justice Club, a group they consider “too far to the left”—a direct quote. ("We need to make this more PC,” was another direct quote that almost made me choke on my tongue.)

Seeing what are supposed to be, in my mind, young idealists not just drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, but mainlining it, a few things came to mind as I scraped my jaw off the floor. Outside of the fact that the resolution was essentially slapped together based on a few discussions the grad assistant had with her classes when it could’ve been better easily substantiated by an informal poll of students, I was stunned that the group would not take a stand, whatever that stand would’ve been. I mean, the SGA couldn’t have said “We support getting troops out” or “We need to send 60 zillion more troops to the Middle East” while also supporting discussion from the other side? (Incidentally, at least two of the senators said they agreed personally with the resolution as it stood.) And as far as not being associated with the other club ... well, that was more out of concern for the individuals being associated with what they perceive as being an unpopular group than it was concern for the group itself, pure and simple, and it’s a sad, sad day when you have to temper your thoughts because you’re concerned people won’t like you. All this to say, it was a puss move on their part.

Story’s after the jump.

Just got off the phone with the Patient Assistance Program trying to find out when my meds are going to arrive: I was told that oh, they’re on back order and we have no idea when they won’t be on backorder, but we’ll send them out when we get them. This after the new (on) crack team reception people at my doctor’s office forgot to put the scrip in the SASE I provided for them FOUR WEEKS AGO. I had a month’s worth of meds when I started the refill process; I now have four pills left.

After fighting with the paper over getting paid on time and getting some mad-horrifying news about someone I still kinda sortaused to love, the last thing I needed to hear was that I’m now going to have to shell out $130 I don’t have because of someone else’s incompetence. I can’t even begin to tell you how defeated I feel right now*.

I know I brag, brag bragyammer on like a big starstruck goon about all the cool people I get to see in my travels, but if I could just get y’all to indulge me once again as I tell you about seeing author, poet and activist and living legend Nikki Giovanni speak at my alma mater ...

Man.

I mean, how do people attain such clarity!?? You couldn’t even believe it as she was talking. And what really sucks is that events like that are so hard to cover, because there’s no way to capture the brilliance of it in any way even close to how it actually went down. She was talking about her children’s book Rosa, which was obviously about Rosa Parks and how the bus incident really went down as opposed to how it’s taught in the history books. One of the best parts was when she was talking about how the day she came into Atlanta to accept the Coretta Scott King Award for the book, James Tate, the infamous bus driver that started it all, died. Well, journalists, as is our wont, were pestering her to give them a sound bite about how she felt about it, and after she got fed up with the pestering, she said, “Welp, another one bites the dust,” just to be an ass. Naturally, the journos went to the Tate widow with her pithiness, to which the Tate widow replied:

that reminded me of how, as much as Mother and I get on each other’s nerves, she really is an amazing creature: We were sitting at the VU Chorale show, and at the end, they sang F. Melius Christiansen’s “Praise to the Lord,” (yeah, I knew that one without looking at the program just now. Snerk.) And as we’re sitting there, I notice that not only is she singing along, but she’s singing the alto harmony part. Apparently, it was a song she used to sing with her church choir. I was just kinda like, “Huh. Look at you. That’s ... really pretty cool.”

the chorale director and music chair of our esteemed Aaaaaaaaandy’s alma mater (and Ima let y’all look it up so you can see for yourself.) Then again, if you conducted a group as amazing as he does, your name could be Yingly Wingly, and it wouldn’t matter. Took Mother to see a performance by them tonight for an assignment I had and, no lie, they were perfect in every sense of the word. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t get that crying thing, but if there was ever a time I SHOULD’VE, that would’ve been the time. (@ Aaaaaaandy: Were you part of the chorale group? If so, I bow to your greatness.)