So I'm back from my week in Las Vegas, and will on Thursday be posting some of the photos I took out there in the desert. It was my second time in that city and overall it was splendid.
Today, though, I'd like to bring my readers up to speed on the latest bizarre thing circulating the internet.
I'm a fan of the Oatmeal, a humor site which lays emphasis on things like grammar and punctuation, but also on more absurd things like how to tell if your cat is trying to kill you or how good your chances are of surviving a zombie attack. About a year ago, Matthew Inman, the curious individual behind this website, expressed his irritation with a rival site called FunnyJunk, which had a habit of reposting his material in order to benefit financially. Other things happened, FunnyJunk removed some of the reposted comics, and Inman decided to let the matter drop. All was quiet.
Suddenly, earlier this month, he was contacted by a lawyer on behalf of FunnyJunk demanding - I don't quite understand this either - recompense to the tune of $20,000. I really don't get it. The website that stole stuff is requesting damages from the guy they stole it from? This is straight up there with the Cooks Source debacle of 2010 for sheer weirdness and audacity.
I'm honestly not sure what I would do if I were in Inman's shoes, with the possible exception of panic. What he did, however, was to refuse to pay. Instead, he announced that he would establish a fundraiser to collect the $20,000. He would photograph the money and send that to Charles Carreon, the lawyer in question, along with a crudely drawn illustration of the gentleman's mother behaving inappropriately toward a bear. He would then divide the money and give half each to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society because, as he says, bears are good and cancer is bad.
The fundraiser went live on the internet a short time later. In less than two hours, the goal was reached. Now, several days into the effort, the goal has been exceeded some 900%. Inman has become even more internet-famous than he already was, which is quite a bit.
And now comes the second half of this crazy scenario. Carreon, who currently tops my list of lawyers I would never hire for traffic court much less anything else, has decided to sue not only Inman, but also the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. First, as he told an MSNBC journalist, he attempted to shut down the fundraiser; when that didn't work, he launched this improbable lawsuit.
There's no possible way that this will not get thrown out of court, but that doesn't make it less annoying for Inman, who laments how much this all cuts into his time spent being profitably funny. I wish I could be half so profitably funny. Since I can't, though, I will support him in his efforts to get back to that day job he does so well. Because the sooner we shame Charles Carreon into dropping his frivolous lawsuit, the sooner we can all get back to enjoying brilliant comics like my personal favorite, Cat Vs. Internet.
Join me Mondays and Thursdays to laugh, to think, and to maybe change the world a little bit.
Showing posts with label oh people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oh people. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Planet Under Siege
So it's been a very...interesting week or so here on planet Earth, it seems. Gunshots, fire, flood, and an earthquake anniversary. Joyous. I considered not touching on any of these things in this blog, since they're sort of everywhere; but on the flip side, since this blog is partially dedicated to social responsibility and action, it seemed sort of socially irresponsible to behave like they're not happening. So let's take them one at a time.
Arizona Shootings
I deliberately did not discuss the Arizona shootings in Monday's blog post because, like most of the rest of the United States, I was busy trying to process the whole thing. I'm still not sure I completely understand what's happened or why, and I'm not going anywhere near the political aspect of the matter, because there are more important things to consider. Specifically, what's more important is the fact that several people are dead for having done nothing worse than attend a public meeting. One of them is a nine-year-old girl who had dreams of a career in public service.
On top of the pain their families are already experiencing, the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to picket the funerals.
I have only one thing to say about the WBC: they do serve one interesting purpose in society. They unite everyone else in agreement that the things they do are awful. They really make me angry, though, so I don't want to talk about them too much. Being a Christian, I feel like they're giving the rest of us a bad name. The God I was taught to love and worship doesn't hate anybody and certainly would not send someone to shoot a nine-year-old child. (I can believe, however, that He's the one sending the Patriot Guard Riders to the funerals of our fallen soldiers, which are another popular picket target for the WBC.)
Back to topic. I couldn't find any specific information on how to help with this particular tragedy. However, I will point the interested in the direction of Pax USA, an organization dedicated to eliminating gun violence. It was founded by Dan Gross after his brother was shot several years ago, and they have lots of great resources. The main page currently contains a message from Dan regarding the Arizona shootings. It's a really informative and thoughtful website, one I encourage everyone to visit.
Edited to add: Thanks to the link provided in comments by my pal Naomi, I was able to discover the website of the Tucson Memorial Project. Here you can find information about specific funerals, how to contribute to the victims' fund, and more.
Haitian Earthquake
Hard to believe, but yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti. Where does the time go? Unfortunately, one year farther on, Haiti still needs help. They're starting to rebuild but they still need global support.
You might recall my mentioning in a previous post that I work at Ten Thousand Villages. That's really what reminded me about the anniversary -- I got to work yesterday and discovered that we had a special display of our Haitian merchandise to let people know that they still need help. Fortunately, there are a lot of organizations that are still working to provide the assistance they need. Some of them have already been mentioned in other blog posts, like Clean the World and Save the Children. The American Institute of Philanthropy has compiled a list of charities still involved with the Haitian relief effort and has assigned them a letter grade based on the portion of their budget which actually goes to the work. I'll list some of the high honors students below.
Australian Fires and Flooding
It doesn't seem entirely possible, but Australia is suffering a dual problem right now -- simultaneous bush fires and severe flooding. The state of Queensland is apparently two-thirds covered in water, an amount of land roughly equal to France and Germany combined. My friend Naomi (the one who was here for Thanksgiving) told me yesterday that residents of Ipswich were warned to stay out of the flood waters not just for the sanitation hazards present, but also because there was a shark swimming downtown.
It would almost sound like a joke if it weren't so deadly serious.
Many of the groups which are helping Haiti will also provide assistance to the Australian relief effort. So if you're looking to do something to help, there are plenty of options. Also, if you're a LiveJournal user like I am, I encourage you to check out the Help Haiti Community and/or the Queensland Flood Auction for creative ways to participate in the relief effort for both calamities; there's also the Help Pakistan Community to help with the relief efforts for Pakistan following their flooding.
In closing, the following charities are some of those who received either an A or B grade from the American Institute of Philanthropy, and would be a good resource for you to find a way to help out.
Hang in there, everybody. The year's got to get better.
Arizona Shootings
I deliberately did not discuss the Arizona shootings in Monday's blog post because, like most of the rest of the United States, I was busy trying to process the whole thing. I'm still not sure I completely understand what's happened or why, and I'm not going anywhere near the political aspect of the matter, because there are more important things to consider. Specifically, what's more important is the fact that several people are dead for having done nothing worse than attend a public meeting. One of them is a nine-year-old girl who had dreams of a career in public service.
On top of the pain their families are already experiencing, the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to picket the funerals.
I have only one thing to say about the WBC: they do serve one interesting purpose in society. They unite everyone else in agreement that the things they do are awful. They really make me angry, though, so I don't want to talk about them too much. Being a Christian, I feel like they're giving the rest of us a bad name. The God I was taught to love and worship doesn't hate anybody and certainly would not send someone to shoot a nine-year-old child. (I can believe, however, that He's the one sending the Patriot Guard Riders to the funerals of our fallen soldiers, which are another popular picket target for the WBC.)
Back to topic. I couldn't find any specific information on how to help with this particular tragedy. However, I will point the interested in the direction of Pax USA, an organization dedicated to eliminating gun violence. It was founded by Dan Gross after his brother was shot several years ago, and they have lots of great resources. The main page currently contains a message from Dan regarding the Arizona shootings. It's a really informative and thoughtful website, one I encourage everyone to visit.
Edited to add: Thanks to the link provided in comments by my pal Naomi, I was able to discover the website of the Tucson Memorial Project. Here you can find information about specific funerals, how to contribute to the victims' fund, and more.
Haitian Earthquake
Hard to believe, but yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti. Where does the time go? Unfortunately, one year farther on, Haiti still needs help. They're starting to rebuild but they still need global support.
You might recall my mentioning in a previous post that I work at Ten Thousand Villages. That's really what reminded me about the anniversary -- I got to work yesterday and discovered that we had a special display of our Haitian merchandise to let people know that they still need help. Fortunately, there are a lot of organizations that are still working to provide the assistance they need. Some of them have already been mentioned in other blog posts, like Clean the World and Save the Children. The American Institute of Philanthropy has compiled a list of charities still involved with the Haitian relief effort and has assigned them a letter grade based on the portion of their budget which actually goes to the work. I'll list some of the high honors students below.
Australian Fires and Flooding
It doesn't seem entirely possible, but Australia is suffering a dual problem right now -- simultaneous bush fires and severe flooding. The state of Queensland is apparently two-thirds covered in water, an amount of land roughly equal to France and Germany combined. My friend Naomi (the one who was here for Thanksgiving) told me yesterday that residents of Ipswich were warned to stay out of the flood waters not just for the sanitation hazards present, but also because there was a shark swimming downtown.
It would almost sound like a joke if it weren't so deadly serious.
Many of the groups which are helping Haiti will also provide assistance to the Australian relief effort. So if you're looking to do something to help, there are plenty of options. Also, if you're a LiveJournal user like I am, I encourage you to check out the Help Haiti Community and/or the Queensland Flood Auction for creative ways to participate in the relief effort for both calamities; there's also the Help Pakistan Community to help with the relief efforts for Pakistan following their flooding.
In closing, the following charities are some of those who received either an A or B grade from the American Institute of Philanthropy, and would be a good resource for you to find a way to help out.
Hang in there, everybody. The year's got to get better.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Copyright and the Internet: The Beat Goes On
This past Monday, I shared with you the story of Monica (also known by the Twitter hashtag #buthonestlymonica) and her remarkable story of how the internet waged war on the small publication which violated her copyright and printed an article she wrote without compensating her or even asking her permission to do so. It's been an interesting story and one that I, as a writer and photographer, have been following with great curiosity.
In my post, I linked to the blog of the estimable Mr. John Scalzi, the author who was at least part of the reason that the story exploded on the internet in the first place. (Mr. Scalzi was also, by the by, the reason that my readership exploded; he very graciously posted a return link to my post, which as of this writing has been read more times than all my other posts combined. Thank you kindly, sir.) As he reported in another recent blog entry, there has finally been an official response to the mayhem by Cooks Source, the two-bit magazine which pulled the infringement stunt.
They've apologized...well. Sort of.
It's hard to take them very seriously. As many others have stated, their so-called apology comes across more like "I'm sorry you got mad" than "I'm sorry because I did something wrong." Ms. Griggs, or whoever she got to post the thing for her, shuffles blame around like a street magician shuffling plastic cups so you can't find the red ball. The implication is given that Monica was properly credited for her work and was therefore okay with its use; the implication is also given that the poor widdle magazine was not to blame, but was rather the victim of unscrupulous writers who evilly submitted pieces that they had stolen from other sources.
No, really, go read the thing and try not to get a headache from the double talk. EDITED QUITE A BIT LATER: Sorry -- the website has been taken down. If I can find an archived screenshot, I will link to that.
I'm just hanging around to see if Cooks Source survives the firestorm of cease and desist letters. According to a recent broadcast on NPR, they should already have received at least one -- from NPR itself. Meanwhile, however, perusing the comments on Mr. Scalzi's blog has brought to light a similar situation.
To use the new expression that's all the rage online, someone else was recently griggsed by an unrepentant editor.
Suzanne McMinn is the owner of a website called Chickens in the Road, a cute look at country living. Recently, Ms. McMinn posted an adorable photo of some goats. A lovely photo which she herself took in May 2008. A lovely photo which has been reproduced, without her consent and without recompense, in something called the Dairy Goat Journal.
Understandably, Ms. McMinn was a little upset. So she contacted Dave Belanger, the head of Countryside Publications, which is the parent company that owns Dairy Goat Journal. (Man, is it tempting to have fun with that title, which I originally read and posted as Daily Goat Journal. Did you get your daily goat?) Mr. Belanger refused to admit that it was Ms. McMinn's photograph and, when she stated her terms, he hung up on her.
I'll be watching Ms. McMinn's story for a resolution, and hoping for the best. It would be interesting to see hers go as viral as Monica's did, and watch the internet get up in arms about copyright infringement all over again. Certainly Ms. McMinn is no less deserving of defense than Monica was. The thing is, though, here are two examples in less than the space of a week. How many more similiar incidents have gone unnoticed? How many times does this have to happen?
It's really annoying that in the modern world, with new media being what it is and the many opportunities it provides for creative people to share their visions with everyone else, we still have to watch out for sharks like Mr. Belanger and Ms. Griggs. I guess it's a good thing we also still have lawyers.
UPDATE ON MS. MCMINN'S CASE: I'm pleased to report that as of a very short while ago, Ms. McMinn received a call from Mr. Belanger. He apologized for both the theft and his rudeness, and will be paying her $2100 for the use of her stolen photograph. Ms. Griggs could learn a thing or two, here, especially about how to apologize. I'm very happy to see that her case was resolved satisfactorily; I wish all such cases would have happy endings like that.
In my post, I linked to the blog of the estimable Mr. John Scalzi, the author who was at least part of the reason that the story exploded on the internet in the first place. (Mr. Scalzi was also, by the by, the reason that my readership exploded; he very graciously posted a return link to my post, which as of this writing has been read more times than all my other posts combined. Thank you kindly, sir.) As he reported in another recent blog entry, there has finally been an official response to the mayhem by Cooks Source, the two-bit magazine which pulled the infringement stunt.
They've apologized...well. Sort of.
It's hard to take them very seriously. As many others have stated, their so-called apology comes across more like "I'm sorry you got mad" than "I'm sorry because I did something wrong." Ms. Griggs, or whoever she got to post the thing for her, shuffles blame around like a street magician shuffling plastic cups so you can't find the red ball. The implication is given that Monica was properly credited for her work and was therefore okay with its use; the implication is also given that the poor widdle magazine was not to blame, but was rather the victim of unscrupulous writers who evilly submitted pieces that they had stolen from other sources.
No, really, go read the thing and try not to get a headache from the double talk. EDITED QUITE A BIT LATER: Sorry -- the website has been taken down. If I can find an archived screenshot, I will link to that.
I'm just hanging around to see if Cooks Source survives the firestorm of cease and desist letters. According to a recent broadcast on NPR, they should already have received at least one -- from NPR itself. Meanwhile, however, perusing the comments on Mr. Scalzi's blog has brought to light a similar situation.
To use the new expression that's all the rage online, someone else was recently griggsed by an unrepentant editor.
Suzanne McMinn is the owner of a website called Chickens in the Road, a cute look at country living. Recently, Ms. McMinn posted an adorable photo of some goats. A lovely photo which she herself took in May 2008. A lovely photo which has been reproduced, without her consent and without recompense, in something called the Dairy Goat Journal.
Understandably, Ms. McMinn was a little upset. So she contacted Dave Belanger, the head of Countryside Publications, which is the parent company that owns Dairy Goat Journal. (Man, is it tempting to have fun with that title, which I originally read and posted as Daily Goat Journal. Did you get your daily goat?) Mr. Belanger refused to admit that it was Ms. McMinn's photograph and, when she stated her terms, he hung up on her.
I'll be watching Ms. McMinn's story for a resolution, and hoping for the best. It would be interesting to see hers go as viral as Monica's did, and watch the internet get up in arms about copyright infringement all over again. Certainly Ms. McMinn is no less deserving of defense than Monica was. The thing is, though, here are two examples in less than the space of a week. How many more similiar incidents have gone unnoticed? How many times does this have to happen?
It's really annoying that in the modern world, with new media being what it is and the many opportunities it provides for creative people to share their visions with everyone else, we still have to watch out for sharks like Mr. Belanger and Ms. Griggs. I guess it's a good thing we also still have lawyers.
UPDATE ON MS. MCMINN'S CASE: I'm pleased to report that as of a very short while ago, Ms. McMinn received a call from Mr. Belanger. He apologized for both the theft and his rudeness, and will be paying her $2100 for the use of her stolen photograph. Ms. Griggs could learn a thing or two, here, especially about how to apologize. I'm very happy to see that her case was resolved satisfactorily; I wish all such cases would have happy endings like that.
Monday, November 8, 2010
I Like Them Apples
By now, if you spend any amount of time reading news blips on the web, you've probably heard at least a little bit about the recent kerfuffle concerning apple pies, copyright theft, and vigilante justice on the internet. And if you haven't, allow me to share the story.
Much longer than I've been keeping this blog (or, indeed, doing most of my current online activities), I've been journaling the details of my life on a website called LiveJournal. It's been very useful in terms of this blog, because I can go back and find the specifics of past misadventures and then present them here. I also enjoy the community feel, and have met several of my current friends through the journaling system.
Last Thursday, shortly after I made my post here, one of my friends alerted me to the post of a woman named Monica. Monica is, like myself, a medieval enthusiast and a writer. Unlike myself, she actually merged those two facts and wrote a few pieces on the subject. One of these, which was posted at a website known as GodeCookery.com (no, that's not a misspelling), was about the history and evolution of the apple pie. Yum.
Monica's post to which I was directed, however, was about the fact that a publication known as Cooks Source had lifted the entire article from that website and reprinted it, with her byline but without her permission. She hadn't even been aware of the reprint; a writer friend of hers had asked her how she managed to be published in the magazine, and that one innocent question set off a magnificent chain of events that can best be described as a bomb detonation in slow motion.
Monica's actions were reasonable enough. She contacted the editor of Cooks Source to ask them what gives. The editor, a woman by the name of Judith Griggs, inquired what Monica wanted them to do about the situation. Monica suggested that a public apology was in order -- one in the magazine, one on the magazine's Facebook account -- and requested payment for their use of the copyrighted article. Specifically, she asked for $130 (ten cents per word for the 1,300-word piece), and even charitably asked to have it donated to the Columbia School of Journalism rather than sent to her directly. Not hard, right?
Ms. Griggs disagreed. The response this garnered was...actually, I'm not going to repeat it here. If you'd like to read it, it's over this way. It was frankly astonishing in both its smugness and its complete ignorance of copyright law. In essence, she told Monica that Monica should be grateful that her little two-bit magazine printed the piece with Monica's byline, instead of claiming that it was written by someone else. She even went so far as to suggest that Monica reimburse her for the "editing" she did to the article.
(The editing in question? "Correcting" the medieval English that Monica had used in the two recipes in her article. One was from the 14th century, the other from the 16th century. Monica had left the original spellings intact.)
Right. And if someone mugs me on the street and steals my purse, but then admits to it instead of trying to blame it on someone else, I should be grateful and just let the mugger keep whatever money was in my wallet. It makes about as much sense as what Ms. Griggs was suggesting.
Here's the real kicker, though: Ms. Griggs insisted in her email that it was perfectly legal to do what she did...because Monica's article was on the internet. And if something is on the internet, it's in the public domain.
Let me repeat that. In 2010, after a purported 30 years of experience in publishing, this woman thinks that anything posted on the internet is public domain. To use my mugging analogy, this is like the mugger telling me that stealing my purse was okay because I was in a public place at the time.
Suddenly I'm flashing to the movie Tombstone, when Ike told Wyatt Earp that "law don't go 'round here." I'm imagining Ms. Griggs in Cowboy getup, informing a card-dealing Monica that "copyright law don't go 'round here. Savvy?"
From what I understand, all Monica intended to accomplish by posting the news was to vent to her friends (LiveJournal is awesome for that) and find out if any of them had opinions as to what she should do. Was it worth hiring an attorney or pursuing it farther, etc. Instead, what happened was that one of her friends, Nick, repeated the story to his friends.
Nick's friends, as it turns out, include John Scalzi. And thus began the revolution.
The power of the internet is swift and terrible. We are legion, and we are coming for you.
Within 48 hours the story was viral. Celebrities posted it on their blogs and Twitter accounts, instantly sharing the mess with thousands of people at once. From there it all went crazy. The Cooks Source Facebook page was taken over by hundreds of people, and the magazine's website was hit so hard by visitors that the server was overloaded.
Both the Facebook account and the magazine's website were swiftly edited (by Ms. Griggs, I presume) to remove any evidence of articles or copyright infringement. But not swiftly enough, because the damage was done. Screenshots were taken and the investigation began.
Apparently, Cooks Source has been doing this for years. Evidence quickly surfaced to show that they had taken both articles and photographs not only from individuals, but corporations. Last I heard, those who had evidently been ripped off included NPR, Martha Stewart, Paula Deen and the Food Network, and Disney.
Disney.
They stole copyrighted material from the company that essentially writes the copyright laws. Folks, this is what planned career suicide looks like, right here.
Anyway, I won't bog down this post with more details about the actual news. If you want to read more about it, this is probably the best article available; you can also read about it on Wikipedia.
What's kind of fun is the internet's other reactions. See, some of the things people have done are sensible -- the research into other copyright thefts, finding and contacting the businesses which advertise in Cooks Source and letting them know what they've been supporting (many have pulled their ads already), that sort of thing. But others, while somewhat juvenile and petty, are nevertheless pretty funny. The Facebook account is filled with Chuck Norris facts-style claims about the magazine. Some of my favorites:
There's the tribute song, which is actually quite catchy. There's also a video which purports that Hitler is the real editor of the magazine; it might not be funny to those who don't know about internet memes concerning things like Ceiling Cat, but if you want to see it, here it is. The website "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books" has appropriated the editor's name and defined it as meaning the act of stealing someone's work and then suggesting they pay you for it. (I wonder if they'll try to get Ms. Griggs to pay them for this...)
The thing is, all of this hilarity (and serious concern) would never have happened if the woman had just gone along with Monica's reasonable demands. The way things stand, she's certainly losing her business, and may lose a lot more in the way of personal assets; I know a representative of Paula Deen has stated that the matter is being handled by her legal department, and I don't imagine the Mouse will be any less quick to act. The only reason she's gotten away with it up to this point is by flying under the radar; Cooks Source (which needs an apostrophe, dangit) is apparently only circulated in a small region of New England. So if you're wondering why you never heard of it until now, it's because almost nobody has.
But there's something to be said for the way people have responded. As I remarked to my husband, it's wild to see pretty nearly the entire internet in agreement about something. You just can't say that everything online is in the public domain and then be surprised when internet retribution happens. Writers, artists, photographers, anyone who creates tends to be at least a little possessive about what we've done; just because we share it with the world on the internet doesn't give anyone the right to take it away. Copyright exists for a reason.
Oh, and this entire post is mine. I know you were thinking of taking it and "editing" it a little bit, and then republishing it someplace else, and if I found out about it you were totally going to charge me for the service. But honestly Monica! Maybe you should pay me for the privilege of reading my blog!
(Then again, if you want to do exactly that, I could retire a lot sooner.)
Much longer than I've been keeping this blog (or, indeed, doing most of my current online activities), I've been journaling the details of my life on a website called LiveJournal. It's been very useful in terms of this blog, because I can go back and find the specifics of past misadventures and then present them here. I also enjoy the community feel, and have met several of my current friends through the journaling system.
Last Thursday, shortly after I made my post here, one of my friends alerted me to the post of a woman named Monica. Monica is, like myself, a medieval enthusiast and a writer. Unlike myself, she actually merged those two facts and wrote a few pieces on the subject. One of these, which was posted at a website known as GodeCookery.com (no, that's not a misspelling), was about the history and evolution of the apple pie. Yum.
Monica's post to which I was directed, however, was about the fact that a publication known as Cooks Source had lifted the entire article from that website and reprinted it, with her byline but without her permission. She hadn't even been aware of the reprint; a writer friend of hers had asked her how she managed to be published in the magazine, and that one innocent question set off a magnificent chain of events that can best be described as a bomb detonation in slow motion.
Monica's actions were reasonable enough. She contacted the editor of Cooks Source to ask them what gives. The editor, a woman by the name of Judith Griggs, inquired what Monica wanted them to do about the situation. Monica suggested that a public apology was in order -- one in the magazine, one on the magazine's Facebook account -- and requested payment for their use of the copyrighted article. Specifically, she asked for $130 (ten cents per word for the 1,300-word piece), and even charitably asked to have it donated to the Columbia School of Journalism rather than sent to her directly. Not hard, right?
Ms. Griggs disagreed. The response this garnered was...actually, I'm not going to repeat it here. If you'd like to read it, it's over this way. It was frankly astonishing in both its smugness and its complete ignorance of copyright law. In essence, she told Monica that Monica should be grateful that her little two-bit magazine printed the piece with Monica's byline, instead of claiming that it was written by someone else. She even went so far as to suggest that Monica reimburse her for the "editing" she did to the article.
(The editing in question? "Correcting" the medieval English that Monica had used in the two recipes in her article. One was from the 14th century, the other from the 16th century. Monica had left the original spellings intact.)
Right. And if someone mugs me on the street and steals my purse, but then admits to it instead of trying to blame it on someone else, I should be grateful and just let the mugger keep whatever money was in my wallet. It makes about as much sense as what Ms. Griggs was suggesting.
Here's the real kicker, though: Ms. Griggs insisted in her email that it was perfectly legal to do what she did...because Monica's article was on the internet. And if something is on the internet, it's in the public domain.
Let me repeat that. In 2010, after a purported 30 years of experience in publishing, this woman thinks that anything posted on the internet is public domain. To use my mugging analogy, this is like the mugger telling me that stealing my purse was okay because I was in a public place at the time.
Suddenly I'm flashing to the movie Tombstone, when Ike told Wyatt Earp that "law don't go 'round here." I'm imagining Ms. Griggs in Cowboy getup, informing a card-dealing Monica that "copyright law don't go 'round here. Savvy?"
From what I understand, all Monica intended to accomplish by posting the news was to vent to her friends (LiveJournal is awesome for that) and find out if any of them had opinions as to what she should do. Was it worth hiring an attorney or pursuing it farther, etc. Instead, what happened was that one of her friends, Nick, repeated the story to his friends.
Nick's friends, as it turns out, include John Scalzi. And thus began the revolution.
The power of the internet is swift and terrible. We are legion, and we are coming for you.
Within 48 hours the story was viral. Celebrities posted it on their blogs and Twitter accounts, instantly sharing the mess with thousands of people at once. From there it all went crazy. The Cooks Source Facebook page was taken over by hundreds of people, and the magazine's website was hit so hard by visitors that the server was overloaded.
Both the Facebook account and the magazine's website were swiftly edited (by Ms. Griggs, I presume) to remove any evidence of articles or copyright infringement. But not swiftly enough, because the damage was done. Screenshots were taken and the investigation began.
Apparently, Cooks Source has been doing this for years. Evidence quickly surfaced to show that they had taken both articles and photographs not only from individuals, but corporations. Last I heard, those who had evidently been ripped off included NPR, Martha Stewart, Paula Deen and the Food Network, and Disney.
Disney.
They stole copyrighted material from the company that essentially writes the copyright laws. Folks, this is what planned career suicide looks like, right here.
Anyway, I won't bog down this post with more details about the actual news. If you want to read more about it, this is probably the best article available; you can also read about it on Wikipedia.
What's kind of fun is the internet's other reactions. See, some of the things people have done are sensible -- the research into other copyright thefts, finding and contacting the businesses which advertise in Cooks Source and letting them know what they've been supporting (many have pulled their ads already), that sort of thing. But others, while somewhat juvenile and petty, are nevertheless pretty funny. The Facebook account is filled with Chuck Norris facts-style claims about the magazine. Some of my favorites:
- Cooks Source started the Great Chicago Fire.
- Cooks Source was on the grassy knoll.
- Cooks Source didn't get enough hugs as a child.
- Cooks Source thinks a website is a condo for spiders.
- Cooks Source is with Dick Cheney in an undisclosed location.
There's the tribute song, which is actually quite catchy. There's also a video which purports that Hitler is the real editor of the magazine; it might not be funny to those who don't know about internet memes concerning things like Ceiling Cat, but if you want to see it, here it is. The website "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books" has appropriated the editor's name and defined it as meaning the act of stealing someone's work and then suggesting they pay you for it. (I wonder if they'll try to get Ms. Griggs to pay them for this...)
The thing is, all of this hilarity (and serious concern) would never have happened if the woman had just gone along with Monica's reasonable demands. The way things stand, she's certainly losing her business, and may lose a lot more in the way of personal assets; I know a representative of Paula Deen has stated that the matter is being handled by her legal department, and I don't imagine the Mouse will be any less quick to act. The only reason she's gotten away with it up to this point is by flying under the radar; Cooks Source (which needs an apostrophe, dangit) is apparently only circulated in a small region of New England. So if you're wondering why you never heard of it until now, it's because almost nobody has.
But there's something to be said for the way people have responded. As I remarked to my husband, it's wild to see pretty nearly the entire internet in agreement about something. You just can't say that everything online is in the public domain and then be surprised when internet retribution happens. Writers, artists, photographers, anyone who creates tends to be at least a little possessive about what we've done; just because we share it with the world on the internet doesn't give anyone the right to take it away. Copyright exists for a reason.
Oh, and this entire post is mine. I know you were thinking of taking it and "editing" it a little bit, and then republishing it someplace else, and if I found out about it you were totally going to charge me for the service. But honestly Monica! Maybe you should pay me for the privilege of reading my blog!
(Then again, if you want to do exactly that, I could retire a lot sooner.)
Monday, October 18, 2010
For Whom the Bell Tolls...Too Loudly?
The main problem I keep encountering with this blog is deciding which stories to tell. As I mentioned in my recent post about video games, I've turned to my friends and requested their help in selecting the real-life adventures that are most likely to be entertaining. Among the requested topics is the saga of my encounters with a woman I will satirically identify as Belle.
I have to make up a name for this woman not only to avoid possible slander accusations, but also because she never told me who she was. This curious individual is among the many I encountered during a five-year stint as the secretary of a church. For a time I considered compiling these peculiar anecdotes into a book, which I was planning to dub Please Don't Eat the Secretary after a joke I received in my email. I ultimately abandoned the idea -- not out of a shortage of material, but because I was pretty sure it sounded like I was making most of it up. As Jeff Foxworthy once remarked in a stand-up routine, "True stuff's funny stuff," and I have a lot of true stuff to share.
My first interaction with Belle came on a weekday afternoon. The church did not have a bell proper, but rather a carillon system which played a hymn. It went off each day at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. Shortly after noon, while I was attempting to eat my lunch, the phone rang and I answered it.
"I'd like to know who to speak with about your church bells."
"Our...bells, ma'am?"
"They're too loud. My infant can't get any sleep because of your bells ringing all the time."
She proceeded to reference the infant three or four more times. I offered to take her contact information and have the pastor or the property director call her back, but she refused to identify herself. Then she hung up on me. I was mystified, as was my boss.
About two weeks later, she called again. I recognized the voice. This time there was no mention of an infant; her complaint was that her husband worked night shift, and could get no sleep during the day because of the bells. I sympathized, having worked night shift for ten years myself, but told her that the police had checked our bells and we were within the town's permitted decibel range. She proceeded to call me a liar and to tell me that "if you can't do your [expletive removed] job, I suggest you find another line of work!" before slamming down the phone.
I began to suspect that we were dealing with someone who -- as my husband so delicately phrased it -- was not entirely in possession of her faculties. The next several phone calls, which were progressively more abusive, persuaded me that this was the case. Her story was always different; first it was the infant, then it was the husband working night shift, then it was that she worked night shift herself, then it was a small child again, then it was that we were discriminating against her because she didn't work and was home all day.
She declared her intention to stand outside the church during service on Sunday and blare the most offensive music she could find. She informed me that she knew at least a dozen other people who objected to the noise level, that she knew she wasn't the only one complaining, and that she had a petition with at least 150 signatures on it that was designed to get our bells permanently shut off. (Considering that there aren't that many adults residing within walking distance of the church, this seemed unlikely.) She also maintained that she was an atheist, that she had been in the neighborhood longer than the church, and that we would not drive her away. When I pointed out that being in the neighborhood longer than the church would mean that she was approximately 160 years old, she screamed obscenities and hung up.
I think my favorite part of her argument was when she first informed me that she didn't believe in God, then -- not two minutes later -- asked me why churches should be allowed to play music at "infuriatingly high volume" when children are not allowed to pray in school. If anyone can explain her logic to me, feel free to leave a comment, because five years later I still don't get it.
It happened, some little while after her fourth or fifth venomous and incongruent diatribe (my, wouldn't my sixth-grade English teacher be proud of that sentence!) that the carillon malfunctioned and could not be used for several months, which meant we didn't hear from our friend. I reveled in the bliss and endeavored to forget her existence. It was a peaceful Christmas.
In the spring, it was fixed. This was good, except for the obvious. She was back on the phone.
"I'm going to call you every day until this gets resolved," she said. "You and I are going to be good friends. I'm calling the police, and the mayor, and everyone I can think of who is going to shut your bells down for good."
"Ma'am, you can do all of those things, but I have more important things to do than listen to you. You have a nice day."
She called me a word I won't print here. I hung up on her, for a change.
To my astonishment, she actually followed through on her threats. Not the one about calling me, but the others. The pastor was in touch with the mayor and the police chief, both of whom reported phone calls on the subject. She wouldn't identify herself to them, either. The chief put me in touch with the phone company, who explained that Belle's number was blocked (so caller ID wouldn't have availed us anything), but if she called again I could hang up and then dial a specific code to have them trace the call. They would then provide her identity to the police.
This was precisely how it went down. But I decided to have fun with her during what turned out to be our last conversation.
"Your church bells are ridiculous. I want to talk to whoever I have to talk to in order to get those bells turned down, and don't tell me there's no one else there!"
"Of course, ma'am. If you'll please hold, I will be glad to transfer you to our Department for Frivolous Concerns About Which Nobody Cares." Before she could object, I hung up the phone and immediately dialed the code I had been taught. She attempted to call me while I was on the phone with the operator, but I ignored the second line.
The police chief later called the pastor. They had contacted Belle to inform her that if she persisted in calling the church, she would be prosecuted for harassment. Apparently her response was to scream that her civil liberties were being violated and that they had no right looking up her phone number when it was unlisted and blocked. However, she never called again, so I can only assume she found a new target.
Meanwhile, on a clear, quiet night, I can still hear the carillon from my house on the other side of town.
I have to make up a name for this woman not only to avoid possible slander accusations, but also because she never told me who she was. This curious individual is among the many I encountered during a five-year stint as the secretary of a church. For a time I considered compiling these peculiar anecdotes into a book, which I was planning to dub Please Don't Eat the Secretary after a joke I received in my email. I ultimately abandoned the idea -- not out of a shortage of material, but because I was pretty sure it sounded like I was making most of it up. As Jeff Foxworthy once remarked in a stand-up routine, "True stuff's funny stuff," and I have a lot of true stuff to share.
My first interaction with Belle came on a weekday afternoon. The church did not have a bell proper, but rather a carillon system which played a hymn. It went off each day at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. Shortly after noon, while I was attempting to eat my lunch, the phone rang and I answered it.
"I'd like to know who to speak with about your church bells."
"Our...bells, ma'am?"
"They're too loud. My infant can't get any sleep because of your bells ringing all the time."
She proceeded to reference the infant three or four more times. I offered to take her contact information and have the pastor or the property director call her back, but she refused to identify herself. Then she hung up on me. I was mystified, as was my boss.
About two weeks later, she called again. I recognized the voice. This time there was no mention of an infant; her complaint was that her husband worked night shift, and could get no sleep during the day because of the bells. I sympathized, having worked night shift for ten years myself, but told her that the police had checked our bells and we were within the town's permitted decibel range. She proceeded to call me a liar and to tell me that "if you can't do your [expletive removed] job, I suggest you find another line of work!" before slamming down the phone.
I began to suspect that we were dealing with someone who -- as my husband so delicately phrased it -- was not entirely in possession of her faculties. The next several phone calls, which were progressively more abusive, persuaded me that this was the case. Her story was always different; first it was the infant, then it was the husband working night shift, then it was that she worked night shift herself, then it was a small child again, then it was that we were discriminating against her because she didn't work and was home all day.
She declared her intention to stand outside the church during service on Sunday and blare the most offensive music she could find. She informed me that she knew at least a dozen other people who objected to the noise level, that she knew she wasn't the only one complaining, and that she had a petition with at least 150 signatures on it that was designed to get our bells permanently shut off. (Considering that there aren't that many adults residing within walking distance of the church, this seemed unlikely.) She also maintained that she was an atheist, that she had been in the neighborhood longer than the church, and that we would not drive her away. When I pointed out that being in the neighborhood longer than the church would mean that she was approximately 160 years old, she screamed obscenities and hung up.
I think my favorite part of her argument was when she first informed me that she didn't believe in God, then -- not two minutes later -- asked me why churches should be allowed to play music at "infuriatingly high volume" when children are not allowed to pray in school. If anyone can explain her logic to me, feel free to leave a comment, because five years later I still don't get it.
It happened, some little while after her fourth or fifth venomous and incongruent diatribe (my, wouldn't my sixth-grade English teacher be proud of that sentence!) that the carillon malfunctioned and could not be used for several months, which meant we didn't hear from our friend. I reveled in the bliss and endeavored to forget her existence. It was a peaceful Christmas.
In the spring, it was fixed. This was good, except for the obvious. She was back on the phone.
"I'm going to call you every day until this gets resolved," she said. "You and I are going to be good friends. I'm calling the police, and the mayor, and everyone I can think of who is going to shut your bells down for good."
"Ma'am, you can do all of those things, but I have more important things to do than listen to you. You have a nice day."
She called me a word I won't print here. I hung up on her, for a change.
To my astonishment, she actually followed through on her threats. Not the one about calling me, but the others. The pastor was in touch with the mayor and the police chief, both of whom reported phone calls on the subject. She wouldn't identify herself to them, either. The chief put me in touch with the phone company, who explained that Belle's number was blocked (so caller ID wouldn't have availed us anything), but if she called again I could hang up and then dial a specific code to have them trace the call. They would then provide her identity to the police.
This was precisely how it went down. But I decided to have fun with her during what turned out to be our last conversation.
"Your church bells are ridiculous. I want to talk to whoever I have to talk to in order to get those bells turned down, and don't tell me there's no one else there!"
"Of course, ma'am. If you'll please hold, I will be glad to transfer you to our Department for Frivolous Concerns About Which Nobody Cares." Before she could object, I hung up the phone and immediately dialed the code I had been taught. She attempted to call me while I was on the phone with the operator, but I ignored the second line.
The police chief later called the pastor. They had contacted Belle to inform her that if she persisted in calling the church, she would be prosecuted for harassment. Apparently her response was to scream that her civil liberties were being violated and that they had no right looking up her phone number when it was unlisted and blocked. However, she never called again, so I can only assume she found a new target.
Meanwhile, on a clear, quiet night, I can still hear the carillon from my house on the other side of town.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Hey, Football Coaches: Forget Something?
When I polled my friends to see what they wanted me to write my last blog post about, my friend Kate (webmistress of utter randomonium) requested this one, as it's apparently one of the few stories in my personal arsenal that she hasn't yet heard. Here you go, Kate.
You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I used to be on my high school's varsity football team. Oh yes. Junior and senior years, I was part of the football team. I'm not claiming that my small town was particularly progressive and allowed girls to play, mind you; I was the equipment manager. But a jersey's a jersey, and my place in the school district's athletic hall of fame was secured by our achieving district championship during my junior year. I still have my medal, somewhere. It was a point of pride for me to have an athletic activity on my transcript when applying to college, mostly because it was the sort of activity that my doctor told me not to do. Being the equipment manager was exertion enough, not just for the varsity team but also for the junior varsity and freshman teams.
It was an interesting experience, and by interesting I mean that I'm really happy I did it (if only so I have wacky stories to tell in my blog years later) but you couldn't pay me to do it now. I was, in my cheerfully oblivious way, genuinely fond of the players to whose equipment needs I tended. I would mend tears in the practice jerseys, run onto the field with bottles of water during timeouts, mix Gatorade for them to drink at halftime, and generally make myself useful to the coaches whenever I could. In return they tended to shower me with affection, usually in the form of practice footballs being thrown with my head as a target.
I have two specific memories of incidents from this remarkable time. One was of being on hand for a junior varsity game and realizing a split second too late that the crowd of rushing players was diverting off the field and making a beeline for myself. The crash happened in slow motion. I can still remember the water bottles flying out of my hands, lids popping off, water shining silver in the stadium lighting as it arced through the air before splashing to the ground. And then suddenly time caught up with itself and I was bouncing into the gravel. One of the parents asked me later why it took me a few minutes to get up.
"Well," said I, "I just sort of lay there, thinking, This was not in my job description."
It's the second story which is best remembered by anyone who ever heard it, however. The story I'm about to tell you is a little embarrassing for some of those who were affiliated with it, but it has the benefit of being true, which means nobody can sue me for slander.
As I mentioned, the varsity team achieved district championship during my junior year. Unfortunately, at the end of that year, all of the senior players graduated, and with one exception, the seniors were all of our really good players. Of the starting lineup from my junior year, only one of the players was in my own class, meaning that the team for my senior year was...well, they had...that is...
I don't think I can sugarcoat this. They just weren't as good as the team from the previous year. Nowhere was this as apparent as in one particular game, which took place on our opponents' home field.
As equipment manager, I always rode to away games on the same bus with the head coach, which was the varsity team's bus; the second bus in the caravan carried the junior varsity players. There were also two buses to carry the school's band, and one of the "short buses" for the cheerleaders. (We only had maybe eight cheerleaders.) This is vaguely important to the story.
It should also be noted that I was the only equipment manager for the three teams. I recruited a friend of mine, who was the equipment manager for the boys' basketball team, to come and help me just so I could get everything done.
Well, it was a brutal game. Horrific. We didn't score a single touchdown. The score at the end of the night was 35 to 0. Morale was, as might be expected, in the toilet. It was the coach's rule that a ride home from a losing away game was to be spent in silent contemplation, so everyone piling onto the bus was quiet. The only ones allowed to speak were myself (because, well, the loss wasn't exactly my fault) and my friend who was helping me, and we spoke only to each other or the coaches. There was a lot of equipment in the locker room to be loaded onto the bus.
Our school buses, and I presume this is typical but who knows, have storage units on the side. I would prop these open and load all the equipment into them. We had kits for helmet repair, water coolers, water bottles, a box of towels, spare footballs, tools, and so forth and so on. There was so much to load that even with two of us, my friend and I were going to have to make two trips. We brought out the first wave of equipment and loaded it, then left the storage units propped open and went back to the locker room for the remaining items. I had the key, and we locked the door to the locker room before setting out to join the rest of the team.
We reached the parking lot in time to see the tail lights of the bus as it drove off.
It was dark; they were far ahead; there was no way they could have caught sight of us. They were so far ahead that we could have been on fire and they wouldn't have noticed.
My friend and I looked at each other. I'm not sure which of us asked the obvious question, but rest assured, it was asked. "Are we on Candid Camera?"
We were lucky in one respect. My grandfather, heaven rest his soul, was working at that time as a school bus driver, and he liked to sign up for outings where I was going to be on the trip. He was one of the drivers for the band that evening, so we hightailed it over to his bus and explained the situation. I wasn't really sure what kind of reaction to expect, because he was a stubborn old German man with a bit of a temper and I thought he might be angry at the coach.
No, he laughed like hell.
We settled ourselves in the seat behind him, and he got on the radio to speak with the other drivers. This was the only part that I myself found amusing. "Say, Carol?"
"Yeah, Ed?"
"You took off in a hurry."
"Yeah, we did."
"You do have my granddaughter with you, don't you?"
Silence. We waited. After a few minutes, she got back on the radio. "No, Ed, she's not here...Nancy, is she with you?"
Another silence. Then the driver for the junior varsity team said, warily, "No....."
Carol sounded panicked. "Uh...Ed...we don't have her."
He didn't leave them in suspense for very long, which disappointed me slightly, since I felt like that was the least they deserved. I got quite the apology from the head coach when we finally got back to the school. He was a sweet man who always treated me kindly, so I couldn't stay mad at him, but it was pretty tense for a bit.
To conclude the story, the following Monday I was sitting in my psychology class. Our psychology teacher was an irascible gentleman who enjoyed shouting at students. He was also very intelligent and my class kind of adored him; we made him our faculty advisor. He and I had an amusing rapport because I would be sitting at my desk, making notes (or doodling) and minding my own business, and he would spontaneously yell my name, to which I would calmly respond. It never failed to get a laugh out of him.
During the final fifteen minutes of class, discussion diverged to the Friday night game, as both I and one of the players happened to be in the room. I was only half paying attention, on account of whatever I was writing at the moment, and our teacher happened to observe this.
"LAURA!"
"Sir?"
He laughed. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"What about that game on Friday?"
"Oh. That...was pretty bad."
He snorted. "You think you had it bad? They lost 35 to nothing!"
I sat up straighter and fired back, "You think they had it bad? They left me at the other school."
The entire room roared, and hard as he tried to keep his composure, even the teacher laughed. Finally he nodded. "Okay, you win."
I wish I could tell you that the team went on to improve for the rest of the season, that they picked up their game and went on to be champions again. Not that they didn't try, bless them, they did. But the fact remained that when the football season was over, we had lost all but one game. And we only "won" that game on a technicality, since the other team was disqualified because somebody hadn't gotten his shots or something equally odd.
What I can tell you is that at least the coaches learned something from the experience, and there was never again an instance of a student being left at an away game following an athletic event. It's not the legacy I'd hoped to leave with my school when I graduated, but I suppose there's something to be said for being a bad example.
You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I used to be on my high school's varsity football team. Oh yes. Junior and senior years, I was part of the football team. I'm not claiming that my small town was particularly progressive and allowed girls to play, mind you; I was the equipment manager. But a jersey's a jersey, and my place in the school district's athletic hall of fame was secured by our achieving district championship during my junior year. I still have my medal, somewhere. It was a point of pride for me to have an athletic activity on my transcript when applying to college, mostly because it was the sort of activity that my doctor told me not to do. Being the equipment manager was exertion enough, not just for the varsity team but also for the junior varsity and freshman teams.
It was an interesting experience, and by interesting I mean that I'm really happy I did it (if only so I have wacky stories to tell in my blog years later) but you couldn't pay me to do it now. I was, in my cheerfully oblivious way, genuinely fond of the players to whose equipment needs I tended. I would mend tears in the practice jerseys, run onto the field with bottles of water during timeouts, mix Gatorade for them to drink at halftime, and generally make myself useful to the coaches whenever I could. In return they tended to shower me with affection, usually in the form of practice footballs being thrown with my head as a target.
I have two specific memories of incidents from this remarkable time. One was of being on hand for a junior varsity game and realizing a split second too late that the crowd of rushing players was diverting off the field and making a beeline for myself. The crash happened in slow motion. I can still remember the water bottles flying out of my hands, lids popping off, water shining silver in the stadium lighting as it arced through the air before splashing to the ground. And then suddenly time caught up with itself and I was bouncing into the gravel. One of the parents asked me later why it took me a few minutes to get up.
"Well," said I, "I just sort of lay there, thinking, This was not in my job description."
It's the second story which is best remembered by anyone who ever heard it, however. The story I'm about to tell you is a little embarrassing for some of those who were affiliated with it, but it has the benefit of being true, which means nobody can sue me for slander.
As I mentioned, the varsity team achieved district championship during my junior year. Unfortunately, at the end of that year, all of the senior players graduated, and with one exception, the seniors were all of our really good players. Of the starting lineup from my junior year, only one of the players was in my own class, meaning that the team for my senior year was...well, they had...that is...
I don't think I can sugarcoat this. They just weren't as good as the team from the previous year. Nowhere was this as apparent as in one particular game, which took place on our opponents' home field.
As equipment manager, I always rode to away games on the same bus with the head coach, which was the varsity team's bus; the second bus in the caravan carried the junior varsity players. There were also two buses to carry the school's band, and one of the "short buses" for the cheerleaders. (We only had maybe eight cheerleaders.) This is vaguely important to the story.
It should also be noted that I was the only equipment manager for the three teams. I recruited a friend of mine, who was the equipment manager for the boys' basketball team, to come and help me just so I could get everything done.
Well, it was a brutal game. Horrific. We didn't score a single touchdown. The score at the end of the night was 35 to 0. Morale was, as might be expected, in the toilet. It was the coach's rule that a ride home from a losing away game was to be spent in silent contemplation, so everyone piling onto the bus was quiet. The only ones allowed to speak were myself (because, well, the loss wasn't exactly my fault) and my friend who was helping me, and we spoke only to each other or the coaches. There was a lot of equipment in the locker room to be loaded onto the bus.
Our school buses, and I presume this is typical but who knows, have storage units on the side. I would prop these open and load all the equipment into them. We had kits for helmet repair, water coolers, water bottles, a box of towels, spare footballs, tools, and so forth and so on. There was so much to load that even with two of us, my friend and I were going to have to make two trips. We brought out the first wave of equipment and loaded it, then left the storage units propped open and went back to the locker room for the remaining items. I had the key, and we locked the door to the locker room before setting out to join the rest of the team.
We reached the parking lot in time to see the tail lights of the bus as it drove off.
It was dark; they were far ahead; there was no way they could have caught sight of us. They were so far ahead that we could have been on fire and they wouldn't have noticed.
My friend and I looked at each other. I'm not sure which of us asked the obvious question, but rest assured, it was asked. "Are we on Candid Camera?"
We were lucky in one respect. My grandfather, heaven rest his soul, was working at that time as a school bus driver, and he liked to sign up for outings where I was going to be on the trip. He was one of the drivers for the band that evening, so we hightailed it over to his bus and explained the situation. I wasn't really sure what kind of reaction to expect, because he was a stubborn old German man with a bit of a temper and I thought he might be angry at the coach.
No, he laughed like hell.
We settled ourselves in the seat behind him, and he got on the radio to speak with the other drivers. This was the only part that I myself found amusing. "Say, Carol?"
"Yeah, Ed?"
"You took off in a hurry."
"Yeah, we did."
"You do have my granddaughter with you, don't you?"
Silence. We waited. After a few minutes, she got back on the radio. "No, Ed, she's not here...Nancy, is she with you?"
Another silence. Then the driver for the junior varsity team said, warily, "No....."
Carol sounded panicked. "Uh...Ed...we don't have her."
He didn't leave them in suspense for very long, which disappointed me slightly, since I felt like that was the least they deserved. I got quite the apology from the head coach when we finally got back to the school. He was a sweet man who always treated me kindly, so I couldn't stay mad at him, but it was pretty tense for a bit.
To conclude the story, the following Monday I was sitting in my psychology class. Our psychology teacher was an irascible gentleman who enjoyed shouting at students. He was also very intelligent and my class kind of adored him; we made him our faculty advisor. He and I had an amusing rapport because I would be sitting at my desk, making notes (or doodling) and minding my own business, and he would spontaneously yell my name, to which I would calmly respond. It never failed to get a laugh out of him.
During the final fifteen minutes of class, discussion diverged to the Friday night game, as both I and one of the players happened to be in the room. I was only half paying attention, on account of whatever I was writing at the moment, and our teacher happened to observe this.
"LAURA!"
"Sir?"
He laughed. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"What about that game on Friday?"
"Oh. That...was pretty bad."
He snorted. "You think you had it bad? They lost 35 to nothing!"
I sat up straighter and fired back, "You think they had it bad? They left me at the other school."
The entire room roared, and hard as he tried to keep his composure, even the teacher laughed. Finally he nodded. "Okay, you win."
I wish I could tell you that the team went on to improve for the rest of the season, that they picked up their game and went on to be champions again. Not that they didn't try, bless them, they did. But the fact remained that when the football season was over, we had lost all but one game. And we only "won" that game on a technicality, since the other team was disqualified because somebody hadn't gotten his shots or something equally odd.
What I can tell you is that at least the coaches learned something from the experience, and there was never again an instance of a student being left at an away game following an athletic event. It's not the legacy I'd hoped to leave with my school when I graduated, but I suppose there's something to be said for being a bad example.
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