Am I too good or not good enough for newspaper work?

If you’re not in the mood for a bitter, vain rant, you should probably click away now.

This is turning into a banner week for head-shots to my normally death-proof ego. First, a teller at my credit union mis-took an attempted witty comment as a come-on and now visibly shrinks when our eyes meet (girl, you aren’t that cute) and now a certain local newspaper has passed me up for a part-time, 9-month gig in their Travel department, citing my lack of experience.

OK, valid point. I haven’t been doing this for long - just over five years. And people have only been paying me a living wage for three of those five years. And my resume is conspicuously lacking in certain eye-catching words like ‘editor’ and ‘columnist’ and ‘masters degree’ and ‘writing classes’.

Nevertheless, my name has appeared in five wildly popular international travel guidebooks, several glossy magazines, web sites that receive 100 times the daily pages loads as this newspaper and I’m a minor journalism celebrity on Guam. I also speak three foreign languages (Spanish, Romania & Italian) well enough to live, work and play with those folks, I’ve lived in and traveled through dozens of foreign countries, I write a hilarious, almost-award winning travel blog (never mind that I sometimes use it as a forum to curse like a 75-year old comedienne and post cheap insults about hacky foreign media), and I can escape from a straitjacket in under a minute. What the f*ck else do these bitches want?

Having seen the caliber of writer that this particular newspaper chooses to employ and the caliber of writer that this newspaper chooses to dump after decades of admirable work, I suppose it’s foolish of me to act surprised. I’m the first to admit that I’m a little naïve about print publishing and I’m well aware that cold, clammy newspaper editors are still writing for people born in the 30s, 40s and 50s instead of people born in the 70s, 80s and 90s (which is why they will die an ungraceful death in the next decade), but was I passed over because of experience and talent or because of style and content choices? Pardon my borderline dangerous conceit, but I’m finding it difficult to imagine that there’s really a more engaging and entertaining writer out there with nothing better to do than to apply for a part-time, local rag temp job.

I’m aware that my style is generally too informal for crusty newspapers, but I find it endlessly frustrating that these people seemingly choose to pass over people who may offend readers with the liberal use of the word ‘doo-doo’ and unashamed, enthusiastic discussions about Micronesian islands full of topless women and instead print material that will potentially offend readers with it’s staggering narrow-mindedness and blatant prejudices. I can stop saying ‘boobies’ whenever I want. Can the same be done with your writers that apparently stopped evolving in the early 60s?

I’ve indulgently slammed newspapers for their ridiculous approach to dealing with freelancers, so I would genuinely like to see what it’s like working on the other side (thus the appeal of this particular temp job), but I suppose I should start listening to Buddha’s benevolent hints and just let that form of media go.

It wasn’t a complete blow-off. My rejection email invited me to draw upon my vast experience of travel in 43 different countries on five continents and knowledge of developing tourism trends and resources by pitching stories about day and weekend short-drive trips from the Twin Cities for $0.36 a word, with no compensation for expenses. Natch.

OK, OK, let’s just calm down and see who they hired. Maybe Tim Cahill decided to slum it for a while and I’m truly being passed over by the sheer weight of staggering talent.

Local media, Rants | 18.06.2008 11:41 | 7 Comments

2007 US airline delay results – Minneapolis not factored in?

Hi. I’m back in Minneapolis now. Did I miss anything? I heard the weather was awesome.

My flight home from SFO departed exactly 90 minutes late yesterday, like clockwork. I realize that a 90 minute delay isn’t even remotely as objectionable as say a 24 hour delay at JFK with no recourse, but still this is something like the 9th consecutive Northworst flight I’ve taken now that was late for totally avoidable, trivial reasons (a seat in economy needed a mechanic’s attention before we could take off).

So, it’s Super Tuesday today and voting doesn’t start for several hours, as such news outlets are filling space by scooping out the bottom of the 2007 Year-End Stats Barrel. This Yahoo clip reports that 2007 was the second worst year for airline delays since the birth of Christ. Well, duh. Kudos to the Transportation Department’s Division of Obvious Facts. But hold on, something doesn’t seem quite right.

They claim that in 2007 airlines were late “more than 26 percent of the time”. Does this seem a little off to anyone else? I fly a lot and unless I’ve forgotten how to calculate percentages (which is entirely possible – dammit Jim, I’m a travel writer not a statistician), the cumulative domestic flights I took in 2007 left late about 78% of the time. Wait, is anything under a 90 minute late departure no longer considered “delayed”?

I wonder if these numbers are off because MSP was not included in the sampling process? Maybe they left us out because they thought our numbers would skew the overall results since we’re largely trapped into flying Northworst and Delta out of Minneapolis, a conglomeration of degenerates and pinheads that couldn’t get a plane off the ground on time if you waved a squillion dollar bill in front of their faces.

Is it just my infernal airport luck that’s tainting my personal numbers or does everyone else think this 26% stat is about 50 points shy of MSP’s numbers?

Rants | 5.02.2008 11:31 | 8 Comments

Carl Pohlad – 2007 Suckubus of the Year

(Yes, I spelled ’succubus’ with a ‘k’ on purpose, for comic effect)

First off, since this is the first TIWILM yearend award ever, we’ll retroactively give Pohlad the Suckubus of the Year title every year all the way back to 1995 when I first realized that he was going to dupe my city out of nearly 400 million dollars. Actually, back in 1995 it was only going to be 300 million, and we were going to get a retractable dome stadium for that tidy sum, but inflation and even stupider politicians have managed to get us less for more. Also, it took 10 years for Pohlad to learn how to parallel park his P.R. Spin Bus without touching the taxpayer curb and lure all the county commissioners down to his evil scientist lab where he shoved hoses up their nostrils and sucked 50 IQ points out of their brains.

Here’s the ugly truth: the new stadium will cost an estimated 522 million dollars. Since no stadium has been built at or under budget since Roman times, let’s call it 600 million by the time the last screw is turned and the final Port-O-John bill is paid. Rounding up and adjusting for going over budget, about 400 million of this sum will ultimately come from Hennepin County courtesy of a new 0.15% sales tax. That’s an awful lot of money just to make one rich old man even richer.

But wait, this stadium is going to benefit all of us right? Increased downtown revenue, higher profile sports scene, more satisfied fans… Hold on, that’s the brainwashing script that Pohlad’s stooges have been whispering into our ears as we sleep. After 10 years of that insufferable osmosis repetition, he’s succeeded in confusing and/or re-programming enough people to get his stadium built.

Let’s boil this down to simple terms, then expose the absurdity of it all and finally explore a few ways for us innocent bystanders to recoup our money…
Read the rest of this entry »

Rants | 28.12.2007 23:37 | 4 Comments