Tag Archives: PoliticusUSA

Spring Is Sprung 2015 ► Unpacking The Writer

Spring forward. Snark back.

I miss Spring. I also miss Fall. I don’t miss winter, but I do miss the change of the seasons.

For the most part Florida has no seasons other than Hurricane Season. My first Hurricane Season in Florida, I met Wilma face-to-face.

In other climates Spring stands for renewal, rebirth, growth. It means climbing out of a long, dark winter and crawling into the sunlight. Meanwhile, Fall contains the most gorgeous colours in nature, various shades of brown, orange and gold that light up the trees. Spring and Fall are just two of the things I gave up when I left Canada to take care of Pops in Florida after my mom died 9 years ago.

As I write these words, I have another problem working at the back of my mind. I’m trying to decide whether I want to go to tonight’s Tequesta Drum Circle Spring Equinox Celebration. I’ve written before about my love of banging 2 pieces of wood together. I’ve found some wonderful friends by playing my claves

Four times a year — on the change of the seasons — the Tequesta Drum Circle takes up a section of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. which is on the spit of land between the ocean and the intercoastal. This is the largest local drumming event. It’s just under 13 miles due east of me as the crow flies, but it’s easier to drive along Sunrise Boulevard.

Claves, aka 2 pieces of wood

I wrote about going to my first and, so far, my only Tequesta Drum Circle in A Pagan Pastoral Letter. Long story short: That night I was desperately seeking spirituality (the irony is not lost on me). What I found instead was a crowded field with a fire at one end and tiny tent villages around the periphery. The field was teaming with people. No matter where I walked, or stood, or sat, I found myself jostled constantly.

It was impossible to relax, which is what I like to be doing when I am banging 2 pieces of wood together. Normally, during a drum circle I close my eyes, slip into a Zen groove, and see how many minutes I can lose to non-thought. I drift within the rhythm and add my little syncopated clicks to the boomba-boomba-boomba-boom of the drums — both big and small — all around me. When it all works, and I’m in the groove, I hear my part not as 2 pieces of wood, but more like those embellishments added by Scat singers or a horn section. My brain converts what is strictly a rhythm swirling around me into full band arrangements of tunes I’m writing in my head, on the fly, as I fall deeper into the groove.

While I didn’t go to the Tequesta Winter Solstice with a lot of expectations (other than finding peace and spirituality, of course), I didn’t quite figure it would be like going to a concert with festival seating and, when none of the bands showed up, the audience burned down the stage, howled at the moon, and made their own music by banging on anything handy. [Hoo boy, some of my drumming friends will hate that simile; others may not. Writers may marvel at that run-on sentence.]

I may not decide to go to the Tequesta Spring Solstice Drum Circle until I go. Or, I may not even decide. But, all this to say my attention is divided. That’s why this will be a shorter than usual Unpacking The Writer, a regular feature here in the Not Now Silly Newsroom.

In the last one, called Rakng Muck in the Big Miami, I was still doing a victory dance after getting an official apology from the City of Miami following my series The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse. I’ve now expanded upon on that series by dragging Kevin Spacey into the controversy. However, nothing that’s happened has disabused me of the notion that it’s all about the parking garage and the theater is a sop to culture to get it done.

Like The Falafel King, I’m looking out for you.

Lately, my Coconut Grove research has zoomed out to look at the bigger picture. I’ve have been pulling at several seemingly unrelated threads that — it turns out — may be part of the same tapestry. Think of these threads as the potential warp and woof of The Bigger Picture.

As I continue to pull at these threads, one of two things will happen: I will either discover my sources were right, or the entire thing will unravel in my hands; either I will finally locate the smoking gun of Miami corruption we’ve all been looking for, or I’ve spent all this time chasing tips that turn out to be false and writing run-on sentences like this.

While I’m thinking of it I’m going to drop another plug for my weekly Friday Fox Follies at PoliticusUSA, which I have to start writing almost immediately if it’s to be finished on a Friday. Lately it’s been a Load o’Laffs writing about Loofah Lad again.

Don’t be deceived that the controversy has died down. The Falafel King only appears to have dodged that bullet. From this moment on, like it hasn’t been the case already, every word he utters will be compared to every word he’s ever uttered, or written, and any deviation will be the next Bill O’Reilly Headline Du Jour. I believe Bill O’Reilly’s been grievously wounded by his lies having finally caught up with him.

Consequently, I predict he will be announcing his retirement shortly. He’s rich enough. He doesn’t need the daily criticism, some of which I hear is coming from inside the walls of Foxtown. Believe it or not, some Foxites believe that Loofah Lad’s Lies are bringing down the whole operation. I know, right? But, there it is.

So, yes, you will be reading of Bill O’Reilly’s retirement soon. When it comes to tee vee prognostication, remember I famously predicted that The Five would not be long for this world in the gut-buster The Five Is Simply Bad Tee Vee — An Aunty Em Review.  While you’re there, you can read all my columns for NewsHounds, written under the nom de plume of Aunty Em Ericann.

While on the topic of Fox “News,” don’t forget the little corner of the interwebs which I have carved out for Fox Follies and Fallacies. And, if you’re really that desperate for fake friends you can reach out to me on the facebookery, or Twitter my timbers.

That’s all for this month. Tune in next month to see who I’ve insulted in the interim.

Raking Muck in the Big Miami ► Unpacking The Writer

An app that allows me to pretend
I’m being sketched on the beach.

Hold on, dear readers! It’s that time of the month when I pull back the curtain like Toto did to the Wizard of Oz and reveal a bit more of myself. AUNTY EM!!! AUNTY EM!!!

But first, A NOT NOW SILLY NEWSROOM ALERT: Further to The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse, my 2-part investigative report from last week: While [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff has yet to answer any of my 11 questions, I did get an apology from the Miami Parking Authority and a confirmed time and date for a meeting with CEO Art Noriega. Hopefully I can answer some of the Charles Street neighbours’ questions afterwards.

Right after The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse was published Friends of Merrie Christmas Park reminded me of When Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff Lied To My Face. So I wrote up that exciting episode as well and posted it here a few days later. It’s all part of my relentless campaign to elect ABT – Anybody But Teresa in Miami’s upcoming District 2 election. Maybe I should start a PAC and then buy some radio adverts. But, since I can’t afford that, why not join my facebookery of the same name? Trust me, you’ve done worse things in your life.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ABT-Anybody-But-Teresa/378120335693205
Nine years ago, when I moved from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, back to ‘Merka, the land of my birth, the last thing I figured I’d be doing is getting involved in ‘Merkin politics. I lived in Canada for 35 years — more than twice as long as I lived in the States — taking out Canadian citizenship in the process. To become a citizen of Canada I had to swear an oath to Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and assigns. In that oath I swore that I would not serve in the armed forces of another country, nor would I vote in their elections. While it’s an oath I take seriously, once I got down here in Florida I was inexorably drawn into ‘Merkin politics. 
My political foray began as Aunty Em Ericann, my alter ego when I was writing for NewsHounds, the motto of which is “We watch Fox so you don’t have to.” I looked at Aunty Em as performance art, which I carried on for years. Being Aunty Em freed up my writing style considerably. She threw out a lot of the rules of writing and started inventing her own words and lexicon, a tradition I continue here and on the facebookery.

I wrote so many columns for NewsHounds that sometimes, when I’m researching the Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA, I trip over an article of mine that I don’t even remember writing. However, they always make me laugh, which is my primary purpose in life: making myself laugh. If I can make myself laugh with my own writing, then maybe you will too. The supreme compliment, as far as I’m concerned, is “That was funny.”

I still think one of my funniest columns for NewsHounds is retold in The Day I Shook Hands With Glenn Beck ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be. Your mileage may vary.

The E.W.F. Stirrup House continues to rot away in
the hands of a rapacious developer. This is what
nearly a decade of Demolition by Neglect looks like.
As my longtime readers know — but I pick up Newbies alla time — my ongoing project has been my 5-years-and-counting source of fascination, the 120-year old E.W.F. Stirrup House in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida. Every story I’ve written about Coconut Grove has been a direct outgrowth of my continued research of Ebeneezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup, his place in the late 1880s, and how he created a place that was, at one time, unique in this country.

I’ve written so much about him that I won’t repeat any of it today, but take a gander at Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past to see why it’s important to save his legacy, Then read Shocker!!! E.W.F. Stirrup House Plans Are Finally On File to see how badly this house, so important to the history of Coconut Grove, has been mismanaged.

Not Now Silly explores the historic Coconut Grove Colour Line:
Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins; Part I; Part II; Part III

As usual, I digress. I was talking about Miami politics. There was a time — and not all that long ago — I couldn’t have told you where District 2 was. Now I have people calling me up to test the waters for a run as Commissioner in District 2. Whether I really want to be involved in the District 2 race, I’m still being inexorably drawn in. So far I have only thrown my weight behind Anybody But Teresa. If, at any time, I come out in favour of a candidate, you’ll be the first to know.

Lately, I’ve also been getting more tips from sources who wish to remain anonymous. It takes a long time to nurture a secret source. So many people have been burned by journalists before. Occasionally, before my sources share their tip, they tell me how they’ve been burned. However, my sources trust that OFF THE RECORD truly means OFF THE RECORD. That’s how I get people to talk.

It takes time to chase down these tips and not all of them pan out. F’rinstance, The Coconut Grove Playhouse Trojan Horse, took a year’s worth of research, some of which included just sitting in parking lots observing for hours on end. At the time I didn’t even know I’d be writing an article about parking. Someone who read that story alerted me to an even bigger story of potential skulduggery and malfeasance. If true, this is EXPLOSIVE!!! This source has been solid on every tip so far, but getting to the truth of this one could be difficult. First I need to know which sewer to start dredging. As they say on the Tee Vee Tubery, STAY TUNED.
Not Now Silly set a new, all time record for readers in January, 2015.
NOT NOW SILLY HOUSEKEEPING: I know, I know, I know . . . I keep promising a new, improved Not Now Silly Newsroom, but what can I tell you at this point? I’m keeping up my end of the bargain by posting stories that my readers want to CLICK on. I no longer know what’s holding things up on the end of my Web Master.

To think this started as a casual conversation in July that began, “How can I monetize my web site?” That’s when the suggestion was made that I’d have to jump onto a WordPress template for that to happen and, while you’re at it, you may as well buy your own domain name. I replied, as I have to others who said the same thing, “But, I don’t want to lose everything that’s been posted up to now at the Not Now Silly Newsroom.” He’s the first guy to say, “You don’t have to,” so he began the process of moving everything to the new platform and template, which I love and approved months ago. Now I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And waiting patiently, I might add.

If you have any suggestions for me in that area, I’d love to hear it. 

Lastly, Pops celebrated his 89th birthday on Valentine’s Day. He’s the reason I came to Florida. After the death of my mother almost 10 years ago he asked me if I would come down and help him. He didn’t really need taking care of. He still golfed almost every day and was totally capable of taking care of himself. However, he had no idea of the magic created in the kitchen. He couldn’t even fry an egg, let along make himself dinners.

However, every year there is less and less he can do for himself. He’s no longer driving long distances, sticking to just local runs. He stopped golfing, but still meets the boys out on the course every morning. He walks with a cane, but most of the time he’s only using it for balance, swinging it parallel to the ground. That’s why it’s dangerous to walk in front of him or behind him. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been poked already.

So there it is, the life of a writer for another month. Tune in sometime during March for another exciting episode of Unpacking the Writer, from the real files of the Not Now Silly Newsroom. In the meantime, we rejoin the regular Not Now Silly Newsfeed, already in progress.

Packing Up 2014 ► Unpacking The Writer

A billboard erected in my honour will look nothing like this.

Howdy to new readers. Old readers know Unpacking The Writer as the monthly post where I pull back the curtain Wizard of Oz-like to reveal the interior life of a writer. AUNTY EM!!! AUNTY EM!!!

First an apology to my most rabid readers. I’ve not published as many original stories this month as usual. While Headlines Du Jour is fun to put together, and a very popular series, I don’t consider any of that original writing and don’t take all that much pride in it, other than a job well done when it’s done. It’s aggregation. I’m fine with calling it that, but wish I had published more new stuff this past month. Maybe I can make that my very first New Year’s Resolution to break.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going though the Not Now Silly Newsroom archives and sharing important, funny, or just plain weird stories on social media. I know it doesn’t fully make up for a lack of NEW, but as I like to tell people, “It’s not a repeat if you never saw it before.”

Part of what’s been keeping me busy is the Friday Fox Follies, which I’ve been crafting the last few months for PoliticusUSA. Because I always saw it as an outgrowth of Headlines Du Jour, from the start the idea was to use actual headlines found on the innertubes to craft a story arc that covers Fox “News” shenanigans and tomfoolery from Friday to Friday. Trying to shoehorn in the actual headlines creates some grammatical irregularities and awkward constructs, but overall I think it’s working. Your mileage may vary.

In the beginning it took me almost 2 days to compile and write, but I’ve managed to get it down to a solid 6 hours of writing for approximately 1200 words. Here’s my methodology: During the week I compile intriguing Fox “News” headlines as they present themselves. Midweek I look to see what themes might be developing and I start thinking about the shape the column might take if these trends continue. By the time I wake up Friday morning at 5AM to start writing it, I have the basic outline and an opening paragraph in my head. After taking a quick look to see which Fox “News” personality said something stupid while I was sleeping, I hit the ground running. Provided there are no power outages (never a guarantee around here), I send it off to the editors some time between 1 and 3PM.

But still, those 6 hours are 6 hours I can’t devote to writing about Coconut Grove, the E.W.F Stirrup House, and what I still hope will be a new ongoing series, Pastoral Letter.

Speaking of my Friday Fox Follies, this happened:

The Charles Avenue Historic Marker with
the E.W.F. Stirrup House in the background.

Also keeping me busy this month has been some pretty extensive research concerning Coconut Grove and Charles Avenue. I’m pulling at several different subject threads simultaneously. This has required spending many hours in the City Clerk’s office doing some deep research on Charles Avenue, the E.W.F. Stirrup House, and Miami Commission meetings, with still many more hours to come.

I have been researching two of these topics for an entire year. While I had hoped to hold them until I had all my ducks in a row, a recent flashpoint has made it important to finish one in a timely manner. To that end I now have outstanding emails with both a Media Relations Associate at a bank’s HQ and a City of Miami Commissioner. Each email requested ON THE RECORD written answers to a series of questions. We’ll see whether I even get the courtesy of replies. If I’m not satisfied I may have to resort to another FOIA request.

Meanwhile, the residents of West Grove continue to get the short end of the stick, while Aries Development and Gino Falsetto seem to get away with everything short of murder. My interest in Coconut Grove started with falling in love with a house, researching its history, falling in love with the legacy of the man who built it, and then falling in love with the people and the neighbourhood, that is sadly being gentrified out of existence around the edges.

I can remember — vividly — how years ago, after my first visit to Coconut Grove, I came back and told a group of friends that I thought I had found an interesting story at the corner of Charles Avenue and Main Hightway, I just wasn’t sure what it was yet. How could I have possibly known back then it would lead to even bigger stories on Trolleygate, Soilgate, Demolition by Neglect of the E.W.F. Stirrup House, rapacious developers, much potentially illegal shenanigans, a [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner, and mapping The Colour Line that still surrounds the historically Black neighbourhood of the West Grove? No wonder there are times I feel so busy.

Join the campaign to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House on Facebook.

Digging really deep into my id without revealing too much: It was just a month ago when I embarked on what I thought would be a great series — my own Tuesday’s With Morrie — when I published Finding An Old Friend ► Unpacking My Detroit. It still might. However, I must admit to initially being totally flummoxed about where to take it. Let me explain:
I was overjoyed to locate my childhood friend Kenneth Wilson and surprised to learn he was one of the first (maybe only) evangelical pastors in the entire country to OPENLY argue for the church to be inclusive (not just tolerant) of the LGBT communities. I wrote him that open letter, which I posted, and then waited for a reply. It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks later that maybe Pastor Kenny posted his reply somewhere on the innertubes. Turns out I was right. What surprised me more was the realization that he delivered his reply as a sermon from the pulpit. A printed version is at The Gospel of John, Chapter One: They Came in Twos and a live (slightly different) recording can be found HERE.
I arrived back in Kenny’s life at an interesting time for him. In his sermon he says goodbye to his church. He’s not explicit about who fired whom, but it’s clear this is his last sermon from the pulpit of The Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor. Obviously the same notoriety that allowed me to find my childhood friend so easily caused a rend in the tapestry of his church.  He said, in part:
Ann Arbor Vineyard, carry the seed of the kingdom with you into your next chapter. If there are tears, and I hope there will be a few, use those tears to sow the seed for a new harvest.

I could imagine you becoming an even more multi-ethnic congregation than you are now. I could imagine your ministries flourishing in new, unforeseen ways.

To those who will join Emily and me in new Blue Ocean Church Plant, lets use our tears to sow the seeds we bring with us, from this awesome place, this house of the Lord…

Together, Ann Arbor Vineyard and your newest Blue Ocean church plant lets make this our song:

Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
My final practical tip [as the recorded sermon deviates slightly from the printed version], is at a moment like this, when you don’t know what you’re supposed to say, don’t say nothing. 
And then he called for 2 minutes of silence which ends his reply to me. 
I’ve now read, and listened, to Pastor Kenny’s Pastoral Letter to me several times. I kept more than 2 minutes of silence because I wanted to respect any mourning period he may have had for losing his gig, but more importantly, because I simply didn’t know what to say. So, I said nothing.

His sermon — his reply to me — was religious allegory and I’m not steeped in religious allegory. It took me quite a while to interpret it. And, I recognize, I may still have it all wrong. However, it has meaning for me now when it was just words when I first read it. That’s why I’m working on the next Pastoral Letter, which (like everything else) is taking longer than I thought. However, it’s been started and is the next post I intend to finish. Meanwhile, Ken did send me his phone number and I really have to clear some time to phone him.

Incidentally, for those who keep track of this kind of Westerfield Minutia, Zachary Harvard Weed, who inhabits the pages of Farce Au Pain, lives in the house that Kenny’s family once lived in. Adrian Roland Thompson lives in the house I grew up in.

A snapshot in time: The All Time Top Ten at the time of this writing.

At year’s end it’s always nice to take a look at some stats, facts, and figures, especially as we get closer to launching a brand new, improved Not Now Silly Newsroom under our own domain name.

I’m quite proud of my All Time Top Ten, at left. Except for #6, Chow Mein and Bolling 5, which is silly fluff, but the readers just love it. I like to think the rest are all important stories on important topics and thank my readers for having the intelligence to boost them to the Top Ten list. The Blogger platform doesn’t give me very many stats, but one that’s always intrigued me is the search engine results that people received just before they washed up at Not Now Silly. Because this is getting long enough, and because I’ve got other shit to write, I’ll end this with 3 pics: The All Time search results, the top monthly search results, and the weekly flotsam and jetsam. 

See ya next year!

All Time:
 
Monthly:
 
Weekly:

 

It’s All Nothing But Words ► Unpacking the Writer

Hello again, dear readers. For newbies: Unpacking the Writer is the monthly series in which I expose some of the wrinkles of being a Writer for Hire.

I’m excited about a new (potential) series I started just this week. I almost called it “Pastoral Letters,” but opted to slot it under the ongoing rubric Unpacking My Detroit instead. Finding An Old Friend is an innocuous title for what could turn out to be an important exchange of ideas, especially for me as I grapple with my place in this world in my 6th decade. If it continues it could be far more revelatory than these monthly Unpacking the Writer episodes. While writing Finding An Old Friend I was conscious that in my head, where I do most of my living, the concept felt like Tuesdays With Morrie, the memoir by another Detroit writer, Mitch Alborn. However, the biggest difference is that Kenny and I are contemporaries. Other differences may reveal themselves.

I was also conscious of how we, as a society, have lost the art of letter writing. I’m no different or, maybe, I’m the worst. I’m terrible at answering letters and email. When I’m not writing the last thing I want to do is write, yannow, so I don’t. Taking coals to Newcastle. Busman’s holiday. Preaching to the choir, Kenny? Whatever you want to call it, it’s a bad habit I’ve developed in my life that has allowed old friends to slip out of the berth of my life.

I’ve already heard back from Pastor Kenny. He sent a one-liner to say that he will be more forthcoming with a reply suitable for publication. He did say my email made his day so I can’t wait to read his reply. And, while he included his phone number and asked me to call, I think I’ll wait for his response, so as not to taint his reply.

If you’re reading this, Kenny, I’m waiting.

It’s been a month of near-frantic writing as the Not Now Silly Newsroom makes its deadlines. Most of those deadlines are self-imposed and loosey-goosey. They can always be pushed off if needs be.

But not all deadlines are so fluid. Just before our last exciting episode Head Writer Headly Westerfield arranged a new leisure time activity for the Not Now Silly Newsroom. It has a hard deadline that can’t be pushed no matter how much of the staff has called in sick. Every week for the last 7, he’s had the entire news team pumping out a new edition of Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA. They are meant to be funny and informative. Your mileage may vary.

The Friday Fox Follies are not the first articles by Westerfield published there. Detroit is the New Conservative Wet Dream and Why Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law Has Got To Go are more than a year old, but as true today as they were when written.

But, it’s not just been Friday Fox Follies keeping the Not Now Silly Newsroom busy.

As long time readers of Not Now Silly will attest, I have been trying to Save The E.W.F. Stirrup House from Demolition by Neglect ever since the first time I laid eyes upon it. After I learned the amazing history of the man who built the house, saving it became an obsession. It should be something other than a Bed and Breakfast for tourists to Coconut Grove. The legacy of E.W.F. Stirrup is too deep and rich for his house to become a commercial enterprise enriching a rapacious developer. It’s the oldest house on Charles Avenue, the oldest street in Miami, and the 2nd oldest house in Miami.

November 17, 2014 – What Demolition by Neglect looks like up close

I’ve been at this for several years without making any discernible progress. Worse yet, there’s been no discernible progress on the house in the entire time I’ve been documenting how it is has been undergoing Demolition by Neglect for nearly a decade at the hands of a rapacious developer. However, between times of research and activity, I get dejected. My campaign to Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House is limited only by my inability to to make my campaign go viral.

Recently, I was energized all over again when I learned there were FINALLY plans on file of the E.W.F. Stirrup House at the City of Miami’s Historical Preservation Office. It took a FOI request to get access at the file. Imagine my disappointment to discover these plans are totally inadequate for historical preservation.

However, having been energized, I wrote a number of posts this month about Coconut Grove, the E.W.F. Stirrup House and Infamous Rapacious Developers:

I have a brand new one coming under the “Bad Neighbour” banner, but this time it’s an entirely different neighbour. It may take another week, or so, to put that one together.

Earlier this week I showed up at the stroke of 8AM and spent
several hours on the public City of Miami computer system researching
several of the Coconut Grove threads I’ve been pulling at for the last
few years to see what can be pulled out of the official records.

Oddly enough, there is only one computer in the entire city
that a member of the public can use to research all the files,
documents, and PDFs collected by the City Clerk. It’s in the City
Clerk’s office, which seems like a very public place to do my very private research. How long before I bump into [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff while using the washroom?

Now that I have been able to read and absorb what I
collected on my 1st visit, my appetite has only been whetted for more. I
think the answers I seek are in that infernal machine somewhere. All I need to
do is stumble upon the right search terms.

Meanwhile, tonight I will be on Miami After Dark, AM880, talking about the E.W.F. Stirrup House and historic preservation. When the podcast is posted, I’ll share it with you all.

At one point I was thinking of this as the new logo. This animation
is merely a proof of concept. Had I not decided against it, I would
have also animated my face in the screen. Maybe I still should.

The other thing that’s still taking place behind the scenes is building the NEW, IMPROVED Not Now Silly Newsroom. With fingers crossed it will launch soon. My web designer in Northern Ireland and I have scheduled a weekly Skype meeting as the pace picks up. I’ve seen the templates and mock-ups. This week I locked in the menus and ordered up a few changes. Meanwhile, my graphic designer is working on a new logo. She’s responsible for the logo at the top of the page, based on an archival picture I found of a Depression Era camp.

This time I’m giving her far more leeway. All I’ve told her is that I prefer a serif font with NOT NOW SILLY on 1 line and NEWSROOM on the next, with both lines taking up an equal width. I have also said it should have gravitas, because this is a fucking newsroom, dammit!!! In order to pretend to be more serious I may also retire the 2 slogans “Home of the Steam Powered Word-0-Matic” and “Your Rest Stop on the Information Highway.” 

However, on second thought, I’m really thinking of keeping the second one.

That’s it. That’s all. See you next month with another exciting episode of Unpacking the Writer, brought to you by The Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, the only machine of its kind on the innertubes.

The Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic is a labour intensive device, which takes 2 people to operate, but it’s worth it for my readers!!!

Spreading the Fox “News” News

Logo used with permission, unlike the WebVee Guide fiasco

The Not Now Silly Newsroom is all a’buzz and it’s been one big Bacchanalia all weekend. “Whyzzat?” you ask. Because our Head Writer, Headly Westerfield, has begun a brand new weekly Snark-0-Thon on the Fox “News” Channel for PoliticusUSA. Friday Fox Follies will appear each … err … Friday. This week he is getting started by Introducing The Friday Fox Follies.

Westerfield has free-lanced before and will, no doubt, continue to do so. This isn’t even the first time that he’s been published in the pages of PoliticusUSA:


Clearly Westerfield writes about what he knows. Tune into PoliticusUSA each Friday as he brings you the latest tomfoolery and shenanigans from the Fox “News” Channel.

However, don’t worry, dear readers. You will still be able to get your Daily Adult Requirement of Fox “News” Snark both here and at The Johnny Dollar Depreciation Society over at the facebookery.