If Weekly Planet had the resources — and if PETA wouldn't put up such a fuss we would send out monkeys every Thursday morning at 6 a.m. to come to your home, jump up and down on your bed until you wake up and hand-deliver the current edition of this fine newspaper. Our readership would increase exponentially.
Now, not counting the troops that arm its many call centers that local Chamber of Commerce representatives would just love to bring to Tampa, AOL Time Warner doesn't have an army of monkeys. But in the Tampa Bay area, its sortie to put Bay News 9 on the frontlines of your humble abode is just as insidious as would be our brigade of Planet-toting primates.
When Bay area cable subscribers turn on their new digital boxes manufactured by Scientific Atlanta, the channel defaults to nine. That, of course, brings up Bay News 9, the 24-hour local news network that — surprise, surprise — AOL Time Warner owns. This dubious marketing tactic gives Bay News 9 countless numbers of default viewers who, groggy and tired, just want to hear whether today's rush hour accident is on the Howard Frankland or Gandy Bridge. Even Planet Copy Editor Kelli Kwiatkowski admits she watches Jen Holloway and Al Ruechel because her cable box defaults to their pampered, rosy cheeks.
But don't be sucked in to some seven-figure executive's swindle. To stick it to the world's largest corporation, you must line the pockets of companies a few rungs down on the irresponsible corporations ladder. That's right, you've got to throw some change at TECO or Florida Power. To prevent being welcomed to the world by Holloway and Ruechel — the horror! — simply turn your boob tube off from the television rather than the cable box, leaving that AOL Time Warner vessel to buzz and glow for the entire 24 hours Bay News 9 loops through the same reel of bet-you-didn't-know-this journalism. Wasting electricity to power your cable box 24/7 could raise the ire of local environmentalists. If they start calling, just tell them you heard this tip from PETA.
—Trevor Aaronson
'Weekly Plainit'
If you're a regular Planet reader, you may have noticed some strange things in the paper lately.
Columns with "continued" lines at the bottom of the page that, in fact, don't continue. Page numbers in the table of contents and on the cover that don't correspond to the actual location of the story.
Confession time: We're having issues with our production process.
In April, Planet parent Creative Loafing Inc. moved production of the paper from Tampa to Atlanta. Although CL Chief Executive Officer Ben Eason told an industry publication at the time that the switch would improve quality and save money, he recently admitted: "We're not there yet."
The appearance of the Planet, which used to win design awards, has suffered as harried and seemingly overworked graphic artists and page designers in Atlanta struggle to put out on time our paper and four other CL-owned titles every week.
We hit a nadir in sloppiness with last week's Planet.
A review of subUrbia by our performance critic Mark E. Leib was interrupted mid-act by two advertisements slapped over his editorial copy on page 54. Much to our amazement, somebody in Atlanta dropped the ads onto the heart of Leib's review, making what the reader could see of the review incomprehensible (we don't see the pages with the ads on them before they go the printer).
On page 56, music critic Scott Harrell was telling us all about Rocksteady@8's June 21 CD release party when readers came across one of those "continued" lines. If readers turned the page, the rest of the Rocksteady preview was nowhere to be found.
We'll spare you a rundown of the dozens of other foul-ups in recent months. We can only offer our sincere apologies to readers. Mea culpas, too, to Leib and Harrell for mangling their hard work. (Leib's review, without the ad adornment, is at http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2002-06-19/performance_feature.html; Harrell's complete Rocksteady piece is at http://www.weeklyplanet.com/2002-06-19/music_feature.html.)
Our bosses keep telling us that it will get better. After several months, however, it has not. Planet Publisher Bill Boyd said he hopes the paper's production problems can be straightened out by the end of summer.
—Francis X. Gilpin
Old School Cool
The ladies still love cool James. Saturday night's show at Jannus Landing provided proof positive. Throughout L.L. Cool J's performance, chorus after chorus of high-pitched cheers — squeals, really — reverberated through the jammed courtyard. At one point, L.L. selected an array of women from the crowd to join him on stage. How's this for a fantasy, fellas? You're bellowing into a mic at a packed house and a harem of young (mostly) lovelies are pawing your sweaty torso from behind.
Welcome to L.L.'s world.
L.L. Cool J has never been about gats or fuck-tha-poe-lece or blunts or bling or 20s or Bentleys or Henney or Cris. L.L is about sex and how he can rock a lady's world. Not a ho, mind you. And that may be the main reason ladies love cool James so much.
For his Jannus show, L.L. kicked it extremely old school — just him and a mic and a DJ. He pounced and bounded around the stage, striking quick body-builder poses from time to time. He did a slow strip tease, starting with a baseball shirt, which ended up in the crowd and gave way to a beater T, down to nothing but pecs, bulging arms and ripped abs. He kept his shorts, sneakers and trademark Kangol on.
Unless you were among the bevy of giddy ladies, L.L. didn't offer much — especially on the music tip. He tore through most of his hits, which sounded like the songs that weren't hits, because every song sounded the same. The standard funk groove laid down by the DJ stayed virtually constant. L.L has lacked relevance in the hip-hop world for some time now; his younger counterparts view him as a sellout. He's like a poor man's Will Smith, appearing in B movies instead of blockbusters, lame sitcoms instead of hits. That said, the Jannus Landing blowout showed it still must be pretty cool to be L.L. Cool J.
—Eric Snider
Writers vs. Lawyers
Don't like something you read in the St. Petersburg Times? Sue "em!
That's what wealthy lawyers do, anyway.
Last August, Times columnist Bill Maxwell introduced Theresa Noelle Ponce to readers in a column that explained how the Mexican-American mother, who earns approximately $18,000 annually, was in the middle of a nasty custody battle with her daughter's wealthy father, attorney Gary Minda.
"My gut feeling — and I told Minda and his attorney so — is that the deck was stacked against Ponce from the outset," Maxwell wrote. "She, an unmarried Mexican without financial means, was up against an attorney, a university law professor, who knows how to work the system, a system run by his peers."
Eleven days after the column ran, the Times spanked Maxwell. The newspaper published a correction and a 1,217-word letter from Minda, who alleged bias on the part of the columnist.
"It's horseshit," Maxwell said of the correction and Minda's letter.
But Maxwell's column did have errors. The columnist also insinuated that the child had been permanently taken away from Ponce, when in effect Lenderman granted primary residence to Minda. Additionally, Maxwell referred to Ponce as Mexican when she is a third-generation Mexican-American.
The Times columnist, known for sticking up for the underdog, disputes the last charge. "You had a brown-skinned woman sitting in a courtroom full of white people," Maxwell said. "Only a fool would say that doesn't matter."
But Maxwell's errors were the least of the Times' headaches. The Planet learned that Minda threatened to sue Times Publishing Co. for defamation of character after the column ran. The correction offered and the letter space given prevented a lawsuit against the newspaper, confirmed Times attorney George Rahdert, who helped draft the correction. "It addressed the issues that were raised," Rahdert said of the correction.
Said Maxwell: "It was just cover."
Ponce will meet Minda in court again on June 28. Although Maxwell will be in Virginia that day, he's not finished defending Ponce against rabid attorneys and lawsuit-fearing Times executives. "I'm going to write about this again," he told the Planet. "I write what I want to write."
Thank God. It's about time the Sunday "Perspective" section offered readers something with teeth.
—Trevor Aaronson, who became a writer because he didn't have the guts to take the LSAT
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2002.