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DRINK UP
A memo to Cincinnati Post staff from editor Mike Philipps, on the occasion of the newspaper’s closing:
Please do not bring any alcoholic beverages into the newsroom. Let’s go out like the professionals we have been these last, difficult weeks.
To which Jack Shafer quite reasonably responds:
1) Since when is it considered unprofessional for a journalist to take a drink? and 2) If Post staffers, who were all scheduled for dismissal, did bring flasks to work, what was Philipps going to do if he caught them? Fire them?
(Via Rich Stadnik)
No booze and spelling errors in the editor’s memo…what a horrible place to work.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2008 01 03 at 07:55 AM • permalinkCan’t help but fear that this pompous twat has been recruited by Krudd and is about to emigrate to Australia and spread more puritan killjoy bullshit.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 03 at 07:55 AM • permalinkAs a Cincinnatian, I lament the closing of the Cincinnati Post. A great great newspaper. Now we’re stuck with just the Cincinnati Enquirer. I absolutely blame George Bush for this.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 01 03 at 07:57 AM • permalink#1. Very sad, indeed.
If you’re a fan of McDonald Fraser, you should also look up some of his other (non-Flashie) books, including his terrific, “Hollywood History of the World” and his autobiographical works, including “The General Danced At Dawn”.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2008 01 03 at 08:01 AM • permalinkAs a Cincinnatian, I lament the closing of the Cincinnati Post. A great great newspaper. Now we’re stuck with just the Cincinnati Enquirer.
On the other hand, the Enquirer now carries “Get Fuzzy” and “Pearls Before Swine”.
Of course, I read comics online anymore.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2008 01 03 at 08:37 AM • permalink#5 Abu: I had to stop reading the McCausland stories in public places because they threw me into fits of uncontrollable laughter. I think I’ve read all of Fraser’s stuff except for his non-fiction history of the border rustlers. His book on his service in Burma, Quartered Safe Out Here, is one of the finest WWII memoirs I’ve ever read.
The first paper I worked for was the Hudson Dispatch where not one but two reporters drank themselves to death in the Jersey City bureau. One did it at his desk after a glorious career plagiarizing authors no one ever heard of. I also gratefully accepted my first bribe there (a bottle of Chivas) for not completely screwing one of his political pals. It’s been downhill ever since.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2008 01 03 at 11:39 AM • permalinkGary from Jersey,
I worked on a sub desk with a fine old drinker named Dave. He had a glass eye that was green and a real eye that was hazel, and he kept a bottle of brandy in the briefcase next to his chair. He finished it after supper break every night.
He wrote the finest headers and won many awards, but died from the bottle.
At the sub table also were two other interesting journos. One taught me everything I now know about the stockmarket, the other’s son was the city’s most notorious hitman, who lived and died by his trade (a fascinating story in his own right).
Our newsroom in the 1970s was the funniest place. Most of us have dispersed around the country and around the world, but now and again some of us manage to catch up. I’ve seen two over Christmas, and the spouse & I will be catching up with some in Spain in March.
It’s really sad when newspapers go under because editorial newsrooms used to be a culture all their own, and printing floors also.
Speaking as a person whose family has been in printing and newspapers since the 1860s, I regret the end of every paper.
#4, wronwright, there you are!
I’d agree with you about the Enquirer, except that I’ve given up on newspapers (except when they’re handed to me for free, like they were while we were vacationing in Florida).
What happens to news reporters who can’t find another paper to write for (and it seems to be getting increasingly difficult)? Do they become baristas at Starbucks, Wal-Mart greeters, Jschool instructors, what?
Hi Rebecca,
Yes, I’ve been away. For some reason, Karl wanted to celebrate New Years Eve at the court of King Louis XIV in Versailles. I pointed out, in a trembling voice mind you, that since that’s in the past and we have the Tardis, we could go back there anytime. Why must we spend our 2007-2008 New Years Eve in some decadent Parisienne palace?
Needless to say we spent it in France. Food was great though. Here’s a sketch of Karl and me with two others (paco and MarkL). It cost me 50 francs for the drawing. Fifty! Rubens is a thief! Or was it Rembrandt? All those Baroque masters look alike to me.
And of course paco and MarkL said they had no money. So they couldn’t chip in. Riff raff, all of them. Well, not Karl of course.
The one selling the swords was paco. Naturally. I wish once, just once, we could take him somewhere and he not try to sell merchandise. I wonder where those swords came from?
Posted by wronwright on 2008 01 03 at 01:40 PM • permalinkMy college paper only prohibited drinking on the premises because it was state property.
That was on paper. The place was so messy, you couldn’t find a beer to hold someone responsible for, unless it was your own.
When we cleaned the place out at the beginning of each semester, some poor kid who needed the money would call dibs on all the aluminum cans that turned up.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2008 01 03 at 01:52 PM • permalink#20 Wronwright: I was going to hawk some AK-47’s, but I figured that nobody would know what to do with the things. As to the swords, I want to state, up front, that they were definitely not the ones missing from your personal museum. I mean, if any are missing from your personal museum. Which I don’t know for sure. But, er, if any are missing, those weren’t them. The ones I was selling, when you held ‘em upside down, were clearly marked with an “M”, for, er, musketeers.
Well all I can say is, I’m the man in the sketch with a serious demeanor, clearly sober (someone had to be), and with his hand on his money pouch. Quite a responsibility, considering I had to hold the funds for Karl’s spending.
And did he think to bring any gold? Hah! No. He simply suggested I bring a keg of Sumerian mead with me. I had to sell it! Of course, times being what they were, it did sell for a top price, even after paco’s outrageous commission. (How did come up with so many contacts?)
But imagine me having to hold onto 5000 gold Louis francs (not the Paris francs, that debased coinage) for two days. Knowing that MarkL and paco would steal it if I slept two minutes. To spend it on wine, song, and possibly some lavish clothing no doubt.
No sleep in two days. But at least I have the remainder of our gold. To my super secret place
mead storeroom in the basement with a big thick oak doorit goes.Posted by wronwright on 2008 01 03 at 02:42 PM • permalinkmissred,
MarkL might look like he’s a lamb being led to slaughter. But he’s fairly evil. Do NOT turn your back on him. Or leave several leather pouches filled with French gold unattended.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 01 03 at 03:02 PM • permalink18 MarieS,
Indeed, them were the daze. I worked in a very large newsroom in the 70’s and 80’s and ha to work the Saturday trick to get the
Sunday paper out. We had a desk of drunken curmugeons who were second to none in excessive behavior. Oh for the times when Elmer got so drunk on his break he’d lose his pages and the other guys joined him instead of covering up for him.How those papers hit the street is still a mystery. We won bunches of awards every year then we figured out it was for stuff we did before Elmer’s breaks. God how I miss those characters.
I still keep in touch but there’s nothing remotely like it nowadays. J-school kids come out indoctrinated; they have little use for fact checking or balance and they routinely rely on other bad reporting for established “facts.”
They think I’m talking about old movies when I tell them what we did. Some get righteously snippy when I point out that their current “profession” is sorely lacking in the basics.
And you’re right: it’s a sad day when any paper folds, but it’s even sadder because today’s crop of scribes refuse to believe they have anything to do with it.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2008 01 03 at 04:09 PM • permalinkMy father loved the Flashman novels. I used to read them after he did. One line from one of them (I forget which one, it’s been years) remained in my mind: the main character is lamenting the fashion choices of his wife—“Oh God, purple on a blond!”
Hey, I’m a girl. Who is not blond.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2008 01 03 at 04:12 PM • permalinkThe Telegraph (London) on George MacDonald Fraser.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2008 01 03 at 04:22 PM • permalinkVale, George Macdonald Fraser.
Soldier, and chronicler without equal. We will alas never know how Flashy contrived to serve on both sides during the War between the States. Whilst smsll affairs, such as his time down here in Oz during the gold rush (many descendants survive), would be fun to read about, this was the great unanswered question…one year a Federal officer, another a CSA colonel-how did he manage to set up the final enconter at Appomattox?
#11. Paco - Then I’m pretty confident you will enjoy the Donald Jack stories.
Did you say you’d read “The Hollywood History”? I found that pretty enjoyable, as he went through many of the great Hollywood films and showed how much they got wrong about history, plus pointing out all the anachronistic faux pas (vikings with wrist watches, etc). A fun read.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2008 01 03 at 06:11 PM • permalink#34 Abu: Commenter J.M. Heinrichs sent me some information on Donald Jack which included a laudatory blurb from the late Master, himself, P.G. Wodehouse! I’m really looking forward to getting hold of his books. Many thanks for bringing him to my attention.
I’ve also read the Hollywood History, and it’s a browser’s delight. Some of Fraser’s captions to the photos are hilarious.
#1 “People like rascals, they like rogues,” Fraser told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 2006.
“I was always on the side of the villain when I was a child and went to the movies. I wanted Basil Rathbone to kill Errol Flynn.
There we are. The explanantion for the frenzy of sympathy for David Hicks, Hamas, Chavez, etc etc etc.
Was there a character in Blackadder based on Flashman? I remember a bombastic type just like like this, played by Rik Mayall.
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 03 at 10:27 PM • permalinkPoor Cincinnati. I just found out Gary Burbank retired from WLW. I can just pick them up where I’m at, and always laughed hysterically on the drive home every day when he’d do his Earl Pitts bit.
Posted by Tex Lovera on 2008 01 04 at 12:34 AM • permalink
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Speaking of “closings”, this is sad.