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BONG Bull No. 683 and now this
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Charles Stough
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Oct 15, 2006 16:33 PDT
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The Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild's World-Famous Encyclical
BONG Bull
No. 683
Copyright © 2006 by BONG
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For Oct. 16, 2006. Let's get this straight, shall we? Newspapers
everywhere wonder how to boost circulation, and a whole press run of the
University of Southern Indiana's Shield disappears after it publishes a
photo of two naked coeds kissing? Everybody into committee, quick!
demands the Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild, and this is BONG Bull
No. 683!
WHAT THEY'RE SAYING. According to www.urbandictionary.com, here are only
a few slang terms one is not likely to get past a copy desk these days:
@.@ -- Sock (cq) and awe; wow; "I am speechless."
Zidaned -- Completely destroyed, as after a swift headbutt to the
chest by a French soccer star; "Man, that biology exam just got
zidaned."
ZZ Top effect -- Pubic hair protruding from a woman's swimsuit.
Z -- I win; the way it should be.
Compunicate -- To chat with someone in the same room via instant
message instead of in person.
Business provocative -- Attire used to provoke sexual attention in
the workplace.
Dandruff -- A person who flakes out and ditches friends.
Ringtone DJ -- An annoying person who shuffles through all of his
ringtones incessantly.
See http://www.urbandictionary.com. The Editorial Standards and
Martini Formulae Committee was a little troubled that the Urban
Dictionary accepts nominations from the world and votes on them, whereas
Webster prefers erudite if musty lexicographers using quill pens on
foolscap. Only Time magazine should be allowed to create its own
vocabulary.
REMEMBER WHEN PAGINATION WAS RADICAL? Richard Mateosian
(xrm-@gmail.com) posts, "Everybody gets the Page-a-Day calendar jokes,
but it took a tech writer to notice that Foley was guilty of improper
pagination." All right, that's all for the Foley jokes.
NO JOKING. Hey, Fox News, if you're ticked that Rep. Gerry Studds came
back from scandal in 1983 to win a standing ovation and re-election and
yet Rep. Mark Foley gets the door, quityerbitchin. Just have Mr. Hannity
and Mr. Coulter, and maybe that other poster boy for sexual probity Mr.
O'Reilly, stand up and cheer for Foley. It's time for news.
IN MEMORIAM. The Old Farts Times (enquire at OFST-@aol.com) laments
the passing of a pal. Quoting a 1999 Los Angeles Times Magazine obit by
Miles Corwin about the late LAT reporter Nieson Himmel, OFS (if not
timely at least sincerely) recalled:
-- Himmel, 77, rented Pontiac Grand Ams, and when their back seats
became stinking pest holes of old newspapers and uneaten lunches, he
turned them in for clean ones.
-- At his Echo Park apartment, where he lived since the 1950s, Himmel
bought about a half-dozen newspapers every day, subscribed to 56
magazines, and apparently never threw one away.
-- He dressed comfortably and when he found something he liked, he
bought in bulk. He had dozens of colorful Hawaiian shirts and
guayaberas. He complied with a necktie dress code for reporters by
borrowing scarves from girlfriends. A shocked publisher who saw him one
day rescinded the necktie order immediately.
-- Though other reporters scorned rivals who arrived late at crime
scenes, Himmel often shared his notes. He was even known to phone in a
story to a competing rewrite desk if their reporter was too drunk.
He was buried with a copy of the Los Angeles Times in his casket.
PAPA AS PROMOTER. Paul Devlin reviews for Slate, and recently covered
the 2005 book "Hemingway And the Mechanism of Fame: Statements, Public
Letters, Introductions, Forewords, Prefaces, Blurbs, Reviews, And
Endorsements" (University of South Carolina Press; geez, only a college
press would burden a book with a circus poster for a title). It's edited
by Judith S. Baughman.
Ernest Hemingway won fame as war correspondent and novelist, with an
emphasis on the fame. Spanish civil war veterans grumble about his
arrival at a quiet battlefield, where he grabbed a machine gun and
wailed off a few rounds to restart the battle, for which he did not
stay. World War II correspondents noticed how often he appeared in
press photos, including one purporting to show him liberating Paris.
Readers didn't have to know that he had obviously come in second to the
photographer, and less obviously to several divisions of mechanized
infantry.
In those heady "For Whom the Bell Tolls" times he let his photo grace
magazine ads for such paying customers as Ballantine Ale, Parker pens
and Pan American Airlines, for whom he extolled, "We started flying
commercially about the same time. They did the flying. I was the
passenger."
Yeah, well, before modern reporters cry shame and alas about
Hemingway's sidelines, Devlin cautions, "Let's not belittle a writer who
was able to (and could probably still) sell beer, when many cannot even
sell books."
ONCE AGAIN, BONG SENDS ETHICS TO THE CANVAS. News guys get fired for
messing with photos. But when they retire and call themselves art guys,
they become famous and rich. Go to here or
opy-@sbcglobal.net/album/576460762314262947/photo/294928803160851368/2
to see what started as a 1946 Ford at a car show. It got remodeled
through PC magic to "Sort of a Ford" by Chief Copyboy Charley Stough.
This is the fame part: You can download it free for use as a screensaver
or small cubicle hanging. Now here's the rich part: For a larger
high-res print @ $35, contact bongs-@yahoo.com.
COMIX SECTION. The Further Adventures of Herman "Speed" Graphic, ace
photographer for the Chagrin Falls Commercial Scimitar, and his Faithful
Companion, Typo the Wonder Pig.
PANEL ONE: Speed wakes to see Typo arrive in the photo lab with two
roast beef sandwiches, a dozen Ferragamo suits for each of them, a
magnum of Dom Perignon and the keys to a new Lamborghini, and says to
his porcine pal, "Oh dear, I must have dozed off reading that biz story
about Hewlett-Packard's spying on reporters, Typo! Oh, you brought
lunch!"
PANEL TWO: Laying out a pound of caviar and two shrimp cocktails,
Typo responds, "No problem, Boss! I had an errand to run!"
Munching his sandwich, Speed reflects, "But anyway, Typo, as I was
saying, if HP wanted to know what reporters were doing, I wonder why
they haven't thought of planting little spy chips in all their printers,
scanners and modems, transmitting every keystroke and baud through spy
satellites directly to corporate headquarters?"
PANEL THREE: Speed continues, "Or for that matter, what if newspaper
companies put miniature creepie-peepies in that wall calendar or this
pizza cutter, sending journalists' private secrets to nefarious
corporate stooges amassing dossiers on everyone? I wonder if they've
thought of that!"
PANEL FOUR: Brushing foie gras off his trenchcoat, a deathbed gift
from an ancient mystic wire service executive editor on a fog-shrouded
eastern island, Speed opines, "Why, I bet there are weasely boardroom
quislings who would pay richly for the idea of bugging every stapler and
letter opener with paper-thin transponder microphones, Typo! I bet
somebody could get a million-dollar bonus for suggesting it to -- !"
INTERPANEL SILHOUETTE: Fixing his pal with a matte-eyed stare and his
best clairvoyant vibrations, Typo intones, "Forget it, Boss!"
PANEL FIVE: Speed continues, " -- Well, yes, Typo, how 'bout them
Detroit Tigers, huh?"
Clipping the tip of a Beso de Suegra No. 2 Robusto with a
diamond-studded cigar cutter, Typo leers, "Indeed, Boss! Who could have
imagined it?"
BONG Bull is the product of Chief Copyboy Charley Stough in Dayton,
Ohio. E-mail bongs-@yahoo.com for any reason. Or what the hell, for
no reason.
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