Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go: I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, other than a promise to myself to get through the upcoming year. Even that is out of my ultimate control, because the Flying Spaghetti Monster manifests itself into all our destinies.
However, we can take a look backward at 2012 without offending the FSM’s sensibilities. Two-thousand and twelve was the year I transitioned from Aunty Em Ericann back to Headly Westerfield. In a nutshell (because I still get email asking about it), here’s how that happened:
- Woke up one day to discover that the walking piece of human excrement Mark Koldys, also known as Johnny Dollar, revealed my nom de plume of Aunty Em Ericann, along with details of my sex life. No, really! I couldn’t believe it either;
- To Johnny Dollar’s eternal dismay, the outing of my nom de plume accidentally confirmed every other aspect of Aunty Em’s biography that J$ had placed in doubt, including whether I had ever worked at Citytv;
- Left NewsHounds of my own volition when I had a disagreement with the editor on whether NewsHounds should retaliate for the above;
- Started the Aunty Em Ericann Blog with the post disallowed at NewsHounds.
The Aunty Em Ericann Blog picks up from Aunty Em’s Place, the blog I launched when I first created the meta-character of Aunty Em Ericann. When I created her and her biography I had no idea I would one day be using the pen name to write news. However, at some point in time, I was approached by the editor at NewsHounds, where I was already commenting on threads, whether I wanted to write for the blog. I thought that was an honour because I was already a fan of NewsHounds and the movie Outfoxed.
While I agreed to write for NewsHounds, I demanded to continue to write under the name Aunty Em Ericann, even though I revealed to her my real identity. She agreed. I think she was happily surprised that I actually worked as a tee vee news writer at Citytv for a decade. However, at the same time, she must have thought I was crazy because I had some very wacky ideas for Aunty Em’s posts. Aunty Em was always meant to be a meta-character, who would comment as much on the pop culture of the day as on Fox “News.” My editor quickly disabused me of this notion with her judicious editing. Eventually I fell into line and no longer had to be edited and could post directly to the NewsHounds blog.
Being unmasked as Aunty Em has been both freeing and a constricting. On one hand I no longer have to keep my posts to Fox “News” and they don’t have to rise to the same level of accuracy. On the other hand: There was always some protection from the Reich Wing Nut Jobs, who (I fear) all own guns. Speaking of enemies: Since leaving NewsHounds and launching the Aunty Em Ericann Blog, I’ve made more enemies at Fox “News” than I ever had at NH.
That’s because I can’t leave Fox “News” alone as a source of merriment.
