Lucy the Blog

First, an editorial note.  We are still here.  And in the next few days, there will be an important announcement regarding the future of Lucy the Dog and this once-formidable web presence.  We are not euthanizing the blog yet.  But small changes are in the works.

In the meantime, we wanted to share some quick thoughts on two of Lucy’s former coworkers, John Tomase and Dave Granlund, neither of whom would know us if we bit them in the ankle.

Much of the editorial brilliance that you witness here regularly (sort-of) was developed in the modest newsroom of the MetroWest Daily News.  My first day as a paid writer started on the morning that the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded.  I localized that shit.  Hard-core.

Anyway, I always used to peek into the office of the paper’s editorial cartoonist, Dave Granlund.  It was so cool to see all his little paintbrushes and pencils lying around, as I found him and his work fascinating. 

Editorial cartoons are generally quite lame.  But Granlund consistently captures hilarious, poignant, and sometimes tragic moments in one single image.  He is as much a storyteller as any columnist or novelist, and a kickass artist to boot. 

I remember thinking how lucky the Daily News was to have a voice like Granlund’s in-house.  Very few papers, especially of that size, employ a full-time cartoonist.  And to have such a talent on staff, presenting unique, fresh commentary on national and local news, is a gift to readers.

So naturally Granlund got canned unexpectedly yesterday after 31 years at the paper.  Because newspapers suck.

Lucy the Blog extends our best wishes to the now unemployed cartoonist.  And if he would ever like a position here, we will gladly offer him a three dollars a month and a mix CD.

While Granlund only lost a job, Boston Herald Patriots scribe John Tomase may soon lose much more.  Since reporting that the Pats videotaped a Rams walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI, Tomase has replaced Curly-Haired Boyfriend Dan Shaughnessy as the Boston journalist most likely to be found floating in the Charles River.  Or at least the one most likely to get his house egged.

Now that the story’s been proven false, bloodlust for Tomase has soared to new heights.  Nothing short of his shriveled testicles on a skewer will satisfy the legions of wronged Patriots fans.  They are pissed.  (It would be appropriate here to insert a quote that illustrates how pissed they are, but I can’t seem to find anything that adequately represents the mood.  Here’s a sampling of the reaction to his mea culpa.  But take my word for it, it’s ugly.)

I worked at The Eagle-Tribune before Tomase left that paper to go to the Herald.  I rarely interacted with him, but he was likable when we did.  He covered the Red Sox and injected a lot of personality into what could have been bland, routine game recaps.  I haven’t read him since, but at the time I thought he was a great writer - certainly a cut above average.

Early in his Herald career, Tomase returned to the Tribune newsroom to pick up some belongings or complete some paperwork or something.  At the time, we were deep into our union organizing campaign and one of our supporters asked him what he thought of the Herald’s union.  With uncharacteristic volume and anger (at least from what I’d seen from him), Tomase replied that the union was a bunch of assholes and he couldn’t stand them.  When asked to elaborate, he offered no specifics.  He just hated them, he said.

I never knew what to make of those comments.  But now that Tomase has fucked up ROYALLY, enabled no doubt by his editors, I wonder if the Newspaper Guild is doing anything to protect him.  Should they?  I have no idea.  But if so, they probably shouldn’t try too hard.

Storm clouds are gathering on this Do What You Feel Friday. 

But at the moment, the sun is shining on Lowell and the weather is ideal for a stroll down memory lane. 

Yesterday marked one full year of soul searchin’ and knowledge-droppin’ at Lucy the Blog headquarters.  And what a year it’s been for the Dog. 

We laughed.  We cried.  We learned 12 things about Tyra Banks’s vagina.  We opened foreign bureaus in Pakistan, Sweden, and Chechnya.  And we licked the interior of our anus.  It was awesome!

So today, please take our paw and join us as we revisit some highlights from the last 365 days.  Or don’t.  It’s Friday, so do whatcha wanna, do whatyalike, and do what you feel.

Cue sappy accoustic Green Day song, and commence nostalgic clip montage.

Continue reading Do What You Feel Friday!: Reflect Reflectively on Year One…

(Ed. Note:  This post unintentionally turned into a long, hard slog, and I wound up, in news parlance, burying the lede.  My bad.) 

It’s no secret that the newspaper industry is kinda fucked.  There are more professional, dignified ways to state that.  And many have, or do on a regular basis. 

I’m told that HBO’s “The Wire” has devoted its final season to the newspaper’s demise.  But I wouldn’t know, because less than three years of working at a newspaper left me so poor that I still can’t afford anything beyond the most basic of basic cable packages.

The rise of the Internets and technology is most often sited as the force behind declining circulation, ad revenue, and newsroom staffs.  Corporate boobs atop the masthead lacked the minimal foresight it would’ve taken to see this train roaring down the tracks.  But after years of resistance, they’re finally loosening the vice grip on their piggybanks, and they’ve started to acknowledge that they might have to adjust their thinking.  Or at least start thinking.

As reported by Lucy the Dog man-crush Dan Kennedy, The Evil-Tribune recently announced it will make all of its content available for free on its website, a move that even dumb old Lucy the Dog claimed was a dire necessity before the blond cabal of Tribunazis kicked my sorry ass to the curb.

Publishers are also investing more in their technolomogical capabilities.  Yesterday, Kennedy posted a nifty story about Catherine Keefe O’Hare, an editor at the Danvers Herald.  Kennedy writes:“It wasn’t long ago that a local reporter could head out on an assignment with nothing more than a notebook and a pen. Maybe a camera, but only if there were no photographers available. But those days are rapidly drawing to a close.”

Now reporters and editors like O’Hare get a video camera and editing equipment.  So not only do they have to file that story by deadline, they also have to shoot a short film, edit it, and post it on the website, an increase in workload that is surely reflected in their paychecks.  Or not.

Because it’s also no secret that no one gets into this truly noble profession to get rich.  Or even to break even.  Being a newspaper reporter is a great life if your spouse is a doctor or lawyer.  If you don’t care about little things like spending quality time with your family.  If you aspire to grow man-jugs because you only have time and funds for hasty lunch runs through the Burger King drive thru.  But it’s not the racket you jump into if you’d like a comfortable life.

If I sound bitter about any of this, I guess I am.  I would have loved being a newspaper reporter if I could have made a living doing it.  But it’s a masochistic way of life that’s only getting worse.

 Bloggasm reports that 25% of 770 newspaper journalists polled said they intend to leave newspaper journalism, and 36% said they’re uncertain if they’ll stay.  Among respondents under the age of 34, those numbers rise to 31% and 43%. 

According to the study’s author:“Those intending to leave indicate that they will freelance, enter public relations, move into academia or return to school…”

He also mentions that the brightest among them will build media empires around zombies and Kendrick Perkins.

In my opinion, this brain drain from newsrooms is as dangerous a threat as anything to newspapers’ survival.  I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by humiliating wages and 60-hour workweeks.  We were all replaced by equally gifted journalists with ideals and hopes that will also, in time, be squashed.  The cycle of burnout and turnover will continue, resulting in a sad decay of institutional knowledge.  Reporters who’ve been around for years and know their community inside and out will become increasingly rare.  And despite revamped websites, complementary videos, and discussion boards, the quality of coverage in your community will suffer.  But this is not why I’m writing today.

Lucy the Dog does not have the answers to save the newspaper industry.  However, we do have one bit of advice to save the Lowell Sun.  It is profound.  It is radical.  It is so far outside the box that it’s almost back inside the box.  It will blow your mind.  And it appears after the jump.

(No, it’s not weekly inserts of posters featuring sexiest son of a bitch of all-time Charles Nelson Reilly, though that wouldn’t be a bad start.) Continue reading EXTRA, EXTRA! Lowell Sun Gets the Gooseface…

Ladies and gentlemen,

We ask that you please direct your attention to Daddy Steinbrenner’s box for an important announcement…

It is true, patient readers. Your long national nightmare is over. Lucy the Dog is back.

It’s been quite some time, and much has transpired in my absence. But the biggest development is this: I became retarded. It’s true!

I didn’t even see it happening. But on Sunday, I sat down to write a simple feature article for a magazine. Much to my surprise, this took me the better part of three full days–far longer than I’d anticipated. I could hardly link subject to predicate. And in the end, I generated 2,200 words of useless garbage that could have been produced by any mere simpleton, even an executive sports editor at a mid-size daily paper in the upper Merrimack Valley.

Ironically, one reason I lost interest in this blog was I thought it was making me retarded. I could no longer see the point in writing about Sanjaya, Lowell politics, or masturbation. But sweet sassy Freddy Blassie, was I wrong. Dead wrong. Just the opposite was happening!

The only good part about writing for a newspaper was being forced to write every day. That and getting mad pussy. And I now realize that without disciplined writing on a regular basis, this brilliant mind can quickly turn to crud. So I will endeavor to exercise it more frequently here in this web space. You, reader, will be the beneficiary of these efforts.

Now I know what you’re thinking: my generosity knows no bounds. But bounds there shall be. I ask that you bear with me in the early-goings. Be gentle. For if I go too hard initially, I am destined to risk further, possibly permanent, brain damage. Or worse, a pulled groin. And that would be disastrous.

So this was fun. I’m feeling good. And maybe I’ll post again in December. Thanks for stopping by!

I’ve really only worked at one newspaper, so I can’t say for sure if this goes on everywhere. 

But at the The Eagle-Tribune, and apparently the Lowell Sun, we used to create a ‘mock’ front page as a parting gift whenever people left the paper.  Which seemed to be every other week or so.

These spoof fronts gave coworkers of the outgoing employee a chance to write something clever and fun, filled with inside jokes and wit and hilarity and oh my God, those were the good old days. 

But like most good old days, they came to an end when one of our faux stories somehow got posted on the Tribune website.  The story was not well-received by local pols, several of whom were portrayed in a less than flattering fashion.  (Politicians can get so touchy when you mock their former DUIs on the Internet.) 

At the time, there was much speculation that the unionistas had posted the story to embarass the Trib.  But I don’t think any of us had the technical savvy to do such a thing.  And we were generally quite busy leaving nails in our editors’ driveways and bashing our elbows through windshields.  We loved bashing windshields!

Anyway, the union agitators must now be infiltrating the Lowell Sun. I didn’t get my Sun delivered today, so I just checked out lowellsun.com. 

It appears that the going-away stories for business reporter Tom Spoth were all posted online, or at least the stories: “‘Ruthless, Dirty…and He Bites’, Placid journalist by day, Tom Spoth emerges as athletic demon at night”“He can write, but he’s no actor” and its sidebar, “OK, maybe he can act”

Sadly, there’s nothing all-too incriminating here.  And these links will be dead by the time your eyes read this.

Continue reading Sun Pulls a Trib and Outs Biz Reporter as Athletic Demon! Sadly, Hilarity Does Not Ensue….

While perusing through the August edition of The Valley Patriot, I stumbled upon this titillating shot across the bow from Merrimack Valley tabloid provocateur Tommy Duggan.

In a Notebook item called “Let’s Keep It Clean”, Duggan warns the editorial staff of The Eagle-Tribune to stay out of political candidates’ personal lives, lest their own skeletons be dragged from the closet. 

Duggan writes:

“If you cross the line again by writing about people’s personal lives when it has nothing to do with their abilities to do the job they are running for (or doing), I will unleash a series of stories about the backgrounds and personal lives of certain people at the Eagle Tribune, including arrest records, divorce records and a very unpleasant story about Canada.”

CANADA???  Do tell!

While it’s long been rumored that departed publisher Richard Franks sired a bastard child with Canuk folk singer Gordon Lightfoot*, Franks was kicked to the curb months ago, and Duggan’s item does not mention former employees.  Any Valley Patriot reader knows Duggan is a stickler for precision and accuracy, so surely this would have been noted.

Thus, I am left to wonder.  What could the unpleasant story about Canada be?  I know this Scandanavian doofus who used to traffic pirated DVD’s and fireworks north of the border, but again, he is a former Tribune employee so he would not apply.

For now, we can only speculate.  And we encourage you to join us in reckless, slanderous speculation in the comments section.

But goddamn you, Tommy Duggan, you have done it again.  From the edge of our seats, your readers await.  Breathlessly.

*This rumor was actually started by Lucy the Dog, just this very moment.  To the best of our knowledge, it carries no truth whatsoever.

Yesterday, Eagle-Tribune sports editor Bill Burt apologized for calling ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon a “jerk” in his July 2 column titled, “Pardon the Interruption, but Wilbon is a jerk.”  You can read that column here, followed by Burt’s initial blog recap at www.bradfordonbaseball.com.

Lucy the Blog commends Burt for his humility; we sort of know him and don’t imagine he’s the type that deliberately attempts to offend.  Of course, we don’t know him well enough to make any such judgment, so who knows?  But offering him the benefit of the doubt, we give Burt’s apology a Kudos or Thumbs-Up, or whatever the Trib Opinion page might say in their mail-it-in Saturday column.

Following Burt’s lead, I’m sure the Tribune brass will also bury the hatchet with its former Red Sox beat reporter, Rob Bradford.  Bradford left the Tribune earlier this year for a gig at the Boston Herald, where he hoped to continue his once-popular and once-beefy Bradford on Baseball blog, found at www.bradfordonbaseball.com.  As you can see, that didn’t work out for Bradford.  On Baseball.

Continue reading Do What You Feel Friday!: Bury the Hatchet…

Jerry Falwell is dead, and I could care less one way or another.  Just another Jesus loon, but really no worse than any of the others and perhaps even more admirable if you think about it.

Take, for instance, the Lowell City Council and the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance (GLILA).  At the behest of GLILA, and more importantly, the city’s lawyer, the City Council recently agreed to stop reciting the Lord’s Prayer before its meetings.  (Click here for prior coverage on Lucy the Blog.)

It doesn’t take much smarts to see that the Lord’s Prayer is a distinctly Christian prayer, and thus wholly inappropriate to kick off meetings conducting city business.  Taking things a step further, logic might also dictate that there are better places than the City Council meeting to pray out loud to any God.  And perhaps one of those pleasant moments of silence would be more appropriate.  But that’s not what we got here in Lowell.

Instead, the City Council adopted a watered down “nonsectarian” prayer, written by GLILA, which they read as follows:

“Dear God,

Today as this session opens, we pray that your presence will be before us and everyone who serves in the decision-making process of our city.  We pray for direction which will lead our city to be strong and unified.  May we continue the legacy of our founders.  May we be granted this day the wisdom to make decisions which will be for the good of the city.

We also pray for your special blessing on all those who are working to transform our city and make it a better place to live and work.

Amen.”

According to a Lowell Sun op-ed piece by Stephen Fisher, president of GLILA, “The use of a nonsectarian prayer welcomes everyone into full participation as citizens.”

Uh, not quite, Stephen.  To the contrary, standing up for the Lord’s Prayer or this lame-ass substitution makes me feel excluded, itchy, and isolated, since I don’t really believe in your one-size-fits-all God.  And, in fact, when you froth all over him and ask him to guide our city, it sorta creeps me out.  So count me as one citizen not feeling the full participation vibe.

Fisher also writes, “When the council prays at a meeting, it is no longer simply a personal devotional matter but a public action taken on behalf of the whole city.  [Gee, thanks!]  The use of a nonsectarian prayer welcomes everyone into full participation as citizens.”  Again, Stephen, not everyone.

While I object to the premise of the councilors praying out loud at the meeting to begin with, I also object to the mamby-pamby lunacy of this Mad-Libbed nonsectarian prayer.  If I was of any religious ilk, there’s no way I’d say it.  What’s the point of pretending that your God is some super-unifying force?  That the Christian’s God is the Jew’s God is the Hindu’s God is your momma’s God.  Has everyone lost their goddamned minds?

Continue reading Jerry Falwell, Those Precious God Hates Fags Folk, and the City That Prays Together Revisited…

Overheard this morning at the grocery store, between an elderly bagger and a cashier:

Bagger:  “You know that Landry kid that got killed in Iraq?”

Cashier:  “What about him?”

Bagger:  “My son lives next to his sister.  He said the grandmother was over there yesterday.  They went for a walk.”

The Landry kid was Pfc. John Landry Jr., who was buried yesterday as the first Iraq casualty from the city of Lowell.  The bagger’s story is probably garbage, not only because most old people’s stories are garbage, but also because Landry only has a 17-year-old sister, who probably doesn’t live on her own.

Nonetheless, the brief exchange illustrated just how blisfully removed we are from this war.  In one jarring moment, like a boulder dropped into a lake, the family gets The Knock on the door.  And from there, the news spreads in concentric circles as the ripples grow smaller and smaller.  From John’s parents, to his closest friends, to his distant relatives, to the kids in his biology class, to the parents of the kids in his biology class, to the neighbor of somebody, to the grocery store bagger, to the cashier, who didn’t know him at all and greets the news of grandma’s walk with a raised eyebrow.  And there, the ripples stop.

I have nothing profound to say in conclusion.  But I’m grateful that as a reporter, I had the opportunity to meet parents who’d lost their kids to war.  It gave me a better understanding of what a “surge” really means.  It re-enforced my objections to the culture of militarism.  And it gave me a tiny taste, but a taste all the same, of the debilitating pain these families live with every day.  More people should get that taste.

After the jump is an essay I wrote a while ago about another kid like Landry, LCpl. PJ Sora.  PJ never even got the chance to die in a war.

Related: Lowell Sun story on Landry funeral (this link will probably be dead in about 10 minutes, as their website sucks)
Related: Boston Globe story on Landry funeral (Photo above courtesy of Boston Globe.  And by “courtesy,” I mean I took it from their website.  Thanks, Boston Globe.  You guys are the best.) Continue reading Pfc. John Landry Jr. (1986-2007) & LCpl. PJ Sora (1984-2004)…

One thing I learned at The Eagle-Tribune is weather drives the news.  You would think in New England, home to the nation’s most volatile and diverse weather conditions, a light snow flurry might not warrant six 20-inch stories with four breakout boxes and nine photographs.  But you’d be wrong.  Because there is nothing - NOTHING! - more important than the weather.  (Gas prices and the Red Sox rank a distant second and third.)

Given this knowledge, I’ve been inexplicably delinquent in providing weather coverage during the first few weeks of Lucy the Blog.  I should know better.  Weather is what the people want, so today, weather is what the people will get.

Last week, our annual thaw was in full swing here in Lowell.  The snow had melted, revealing the first signs of spring - piles and piles of garbage.  Food wrappers, beer cans, condoms, those red plastic sticks that spread the cheez in your cheez-n-crackers. And dogshit, everywhere.  Lots of dogshit.

In an effort to do some real boots-on-the-ground reporting, I tried to count the piles of dogshit lining the sidewalk between Moody and Austin Streets.  But the task proved impossible.  Not even that bearded know-it-all on CSI could figure out where one pile of shit ends and the next starts.  The entire block is lined with it, like luminaria candles on Christmas Eve. Continue reading Snow Beef…