My junior year of college, I lived in a 3-bedroom apartment with some friends. There were six of us on the lease, but we actually had seven people living there for the first quarter. Dusty, who actually attended a university back east, was able to finagle the system so that he could get credit by going to UCSB with us for a quarter. It also happened to be the quarter that he turned 21, so good times abounded. (I don't think I've ever written 'finagle' before, so we're witnessing a little bit of history here.)
The seven of us were in a variety of academic disciplines. We had the arts covered with Acting, Film Studies, and Art History. I represented the humanities with my English major; Greg's Communication major took care of the social sciences, and then Dusty's Psychology and Dave's Electrical Engineering brought the harder sciences home. With that breadth of studies, we didn't get to collaborate too often on anything more exciting than ordering pizza.
But then one day, Film major Ben told us that he and a friend were starting a new monthly newspaper for the students. It would be called Campus Point (or Campus Pointe, I don't remember if the unnecessary 'e' was included or not), and since he was in charge of it, he could find a space for me and Dusty to write a column together about whatever we wanted. We were in heaven.
The first issue would be coming out early in the fall, so our article was going to be a recap of the big events of the summer. We wrote under the pseudonyms "Bob and Todd" for reasons I may explain at a future date. I remember us sitting together, throwing ideas out, and having a great time writing together. We wanted to be funny, clever, irreverent, and most importantly, something that people would want to see as a regular feature. Therefore, we pulled out all the stops. For example, we wrote, "Then Princess Di made her name sound like a frickin' command by getting in a fatal car crash." After mentioning that Mother Teresa died as well, we wrote, "We nominate Elizabeth Dole to take over whatever the hell Mother Teresa was doing with her time. We also second that motion. Any abstentions? Ok then, moving on."
This was the same year that El Nino was coming, and the storm warnings were everywhere all the time since Californians melt in water. What? We don't? Wow, the power of the media never ceases to amaze me. In any case, we wrote a little about "The Storm of the Century," and made a joke about reserving your ocean-side Sueno apartment today (that street was about three blocks from the ocean; therein lies the attempted humor). Then we said, "Man, I'd hate to meet El Padre." We thought that was both clever and symbolic of how we wanted our humor to come across.
We gave it to Ben, and he liked it enough that he said it would be in the inaugural issue of the paper. We were very excited but didn't tell too many people, because it would be cool if people were wondering who "Bob and Todd" really were. The day it came out, I immediately flipped through the pages to find the article. I found it, and smiling, started reading through it. "What?" I asked aloud to no one in particular. "What's up?" Dusty asked. "Well, they edited it, and poorly at that," I told him. I guess they didn't like the Princess Di joke, so they took out that paragraph (including the Mother Teresa and Elizabeth Dole part). The only problem is they left one part of it there. Without referencing anything, there's a stand-along paragraph in the middle of the article that reads:
"We also second that motion. Any abstentions? Ok then, moving on."
We weren't happy with that, because it seemed even more random than we intended. Who seconds motions that weren't made anywhere? But oh, that wasn't the more egregious edit, my friends. I kept reading, and found this:
"Storm of the Century! Reserve your ocean-side Sueno apartments now! Man, I'd hate to meet El Nino."
I guess the editor figured that we didn't know the name of El Nino and incorrectly called it El Padre and made the substitution on our behalf. That's a problem, because the new version not only took away a line that we really liked, but it didn't make any fucking sense. (Sorry, I'm still a little upset after 10 years.) We kept re-reading it aloud, trying to make it sound ok: "Man, I hate to meet El Nino." Ya know, in a dark alley or something. No matter how hard we tried though, our article came off as disjointed and weirder than we wanted.
I seem to recall that we wrote another article for the next issue, but I honestly can't remember a single thing about it. And that was it. We weren't running around, telling everyone that we were indeed THE "Bob and Todd," because we thought we were funnier than those guys.
In any case, I lived through that and learned a valuable lesson: if I'm ever editing something, it's better to ask than to guess, lest you piss someone off who will hold a grudge for a decade. "I'd hate to meet El Nino." What does that even mean? Deep breath...hold it...and out.
Have a good day, gentle readers. Please remember to write in to ptklein@gmail.com with things for tomorrow's Follow Up Friday or future posts. I also second that motion.
The seven of us were in a variety of academic disciplines. We had the arts covered with Acting, Film Studies, and Art History. I represented the humanities with my English major; Greg's Communication major took care of the social sciences, and then Dusty's Psychology and Dave's Electrical Engineering brought the harder sciences home. With that breadth of studies, we didn't get to collaborate too often on anything more exciting than ordering pizza.
But then one day, Film major Ben told us that he and a friend were starting a new monthly newspaper for the students. It would be called Campus Point (or Campus Pointe, I don't remember if the unnecessary 'e' was included or not), and since he was in charge of it, he could find a space for me and Dusty to write a column together about whatever we wanted. We were in heaven.
The first issue would be coming out early in the fall, so our article was going to be a recap of the big events of the summer. We wrote under the pseudonyms "Bob and Todd" for reasons I may explain at a future date. I remember us sitting together, throwing ideas out, and having a great time writing together. We wanted to be funny, clever, irreverent, and most importantly, something that people would want to see as a regular feature. Therefore, we pulled out all the stops. For example, we wrote, "Then Princess Di made her name sound like a frickin' command by getting in a fatal car crash." After mentioning that Mother Teresa died as well, we wrote, "We nominate Elizabeth Dole to take over whatever the hell Mother Teresa was doing with her time. We also second that motion. Any abstentions? Ok then, moving on."
This was the same year that El Nino was coming, and the storm warnings were everywhere all the time since Californians melt in water. What? We don't? Wow, the power of the media never ceases to amaze me. In any case, we wrote a little about "The Storm of the Century," and made a joke about reserving your ocean-side Sueno apartment today (that street was about three blocks from the ocean; therein lies the attempted humor). Then we said, "Man, I'd hate to meet El Padre." We thought that was both clever and symbolic of how we wanted our humor to come across.
We gave it to Ben, and he liked it enough that he said it would be in the inaugural issue of the paper. We were very excited but didn't tell too many people, because it would be cool if people were wondering who "Bob and Todd" really were. The day it came out, I immediately flipped through the pages to find the article. I found it, and smiling, started reading through it. "What?" I asked aloud to no one in particular. "What's up?" Dusty asked. "Well, they edited it, and poorly at that," I told him. I guess they didn't like the Princess Di joke, so they took out that paragraph (including the Mother Teresa and Elizabeth Dole part). The only problem is they left one part of it there. Without referencing anything, there's a stand-along paragraph in the middle of the article that reads:
"We also second that motion. Any abstentions? Ok then, moving on."
We weren't happy with that, because it seemed even more random than we intended. Who seconds motions that weren't made anywhere? But oh, that wasn't the more egregious edit, my friends. I kept reading, and found this:
"Storm of the Century! Reserve your ocean-side Sueno apartments now! Man, I'd hate to meet El Nino."
I guess the editor figured that we didn't know the name of El Nino and incorrectly called it El Padre and made the substitution on our behalf. That's a problem, because the new version not only took away a line that we really liked, but it didn't make any fucking sense. (Sorry, I'm still a little upset after 10 years.) We kept re-reading it aloud, trying to make it sound ok: "Man, I hate to meet El Nino." Ya know, in a dark alley or something. No matter how hard we tried though, our article came off as disjointed and weirder than we wanted.
I seem to recall that we wrote another article for the next issue, but I honestly can't remember a single thing about it. And that was it. We weren't running around, telling everyone that we were indeed THE "Bob and Todd," because we thought we were funnier than those guys.
In any case, I lived through that and learned a valuable lesson: if I'm ever editing something, it's better to ask than to guess, lest you piss someone off who will hold a grudge for a decade. "I'd hate to meet El Nino." What does that even mean? Deep breath...hold it...and out.
Have a good day, gentle readers. Please remember to write in to ptklein@gmail.com with things for tomorrow's Follow Up Friday or future posts. I also second that motion.
2 comments:
Why did you have to do that? Now I'm all pissed off again. You're defeating the self-preserving purpose of my sieve-like memory.
I wrote a Nexus article for Steven once and he cut out what I thought was my funniest line and I've kind of never forgiven him for it. I totally feel your pain, bro.
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