Do You Hear the People Sing?

"I'ma do what I gotta do," Kevin Hoffman, the City Pages' apple-cheeked editrix and inveterate graf-buster, was saying on the phone the other day. He was talking to our source's voicemail, giving the words a little goombah top-spin that made the Hoff sound less like, say, Al Lettieri and more like, oh, Estelle Getty.

Over the past two weeks, the Hoff has rained both legal and vaguely physical threats on our source, who had provided this blog with small pieces of information about the Hoff's editing style and personal charm. In two phone calls and a voicemail, the Hoff said a great many things. He called this blog a "hate site" and demanded -- through our source -- that it be taken down. He raged about our use of "Pax." He generally proved himself to be every bit the foof we said he is. Our favorite moment, though, has to be the above quote, which we now have in .wav format on our desktop. From time to time, we set the mood with a little k.d. lang and give the clip a listen. It makes us laugh. And it makes us wonder how boring Minnesota must be. "Ahmuh dooh whuh ah gotta dooh." It's the New Times Village Voice Media ethic -- hollow and misdirected bluster, tinhorn machismo, the works -- busted in six words by the chain's doughty wonderboy. Quite frankly, he continues to make our point, in person and in print, better than we ever could.

It seems we've come to a pretty pass. Lately, our small satirical operation has occasioned some transcendent dumbfuckery on the part of journalists who should know better but would rather watch their dicks swing. There was, most recently, the string of comments to our previous post, which resulted in at least one writer being threatened with blacklisting. And there is the Hoff, who, you'll recall, buckled his swash so memorably around that comments section, going so far as to heckle his former writer about filing for bankruptcy. (Who wouldn't want to write for this guy?) There's more. In addition to haranguing another journalist's source (ours), even threatening to call our source's current, non-VVM boss, Hoffman says he is now weighing a lawsuit. Its purpose, it must be noted, would be to overturn a longstanding legal precedent regarding satire, buttressed recently by one waggish media company's hard-fought victory in Texas Supreme Court.

The case is called New Times v. Isaacks.

If our biggest problem were just one VVM editor who carries himself like some junior-varsity Ben Bradlee with a Clairol frosting set, we'd laugh, photoshop him into a flannel shirt, and go on our way. But when folks with no connection to this blog are named in a comments section that we have no yen to police, well, it makes us both sad and bemused. And it makes us ask: These are journalists?

We thought this over, debated, chewed our pens, and decided in the end that, rather than subject anyone to a misguided VVM-brand bloodwrath on our account, it might just be best to take down the shingle and close up shop, at least for the time being. (But look to the horizons for Alt-Weekly Death Watch balaclavas, coming soon to a second-tier American city near you!) To judge by your e-mails, there were times we served as a sort of bloggy id for the legions of disaffected in Mike Lacey's demesne. Apologies and many thanks then to those people, who, if they wish to contact us during our cicada-like repose, can still reach us at altweeklydeathwatch@gmail.com. It's been fun. We busted many grafs. And now we'll bust one more before shuffling off.

Pax.

--Your humble Death Watch

Bury Those Leads

New Times Village Voice Media is known for its punchy lead writing. A VVM lead doesn't just set the scene -- it grabs your tits by their balls and hurls you into it. Here's a smattering of recent favorites.

With a 9mm Beretta strapped to his chest, Iztok Plevnik opened the passenger door of the bulletproof, black sedan and climbed in. (*)

The gray-haired professor cracks his whip in mid-air. "Wake up back there!" he commands the two dozen folks lounging around on plush cream couches. (*)

Paul and Cheryl Anderson were sinking into their king-size bed late one night in the fall of 2004 when they heard a loud, ominous thump. (*)

The 120 dutiful souls who'd answered their jury summons on January 9 had been sitting in the historic Waxahachie courthouse listening to lawyers drone on for hours. Then suddenly things got weird. (*)

Only a bad acid trip or real life in Orange County could conjure up this question: Is there a relationship between pudgy, polyester-clad U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, 59, and the “Wascally Wabbit Vibrator,” “Miracle Dick Pump,” “Paradise Pocket Pussy,” “Triple Clit Flicker,” “So Real 8-inch Dong,” “Aria’s Pussy and Ass Inflatable Doll” and such cinematic wonders as Sprachen ze Dick and Everybody Loves Big Boobies, Vol. 3?(*)

After nightfall, western Hollywood goes dark and an otherwise featureless horizon comes to be dominated, suddenly, by the Hollywood Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, the phosphorescent glow of its turrets visible for miles in every direction. (*)

After he got sprayed with a face full blood while on the job last month, Minneapolis sewer work Ron Huebner—like a lot of the people who heard about the incident— responded with a mix of shock and repulsion. (*)

When Donna Dennis swung her legs over the side of her bed, planted her feet on the carpet, and took a few steps on New Year's Day 2004 — which just happened to be her birthday — she knew something was dreadfully awry. (*)

Shauntay Henderson sauntered past the TV cameras with a sly smile on her face just three days after she was arrested March 31 by Kansas City, Missouri, police. The 24-year-old had reason to gloat: She's among a very choice group of women criminals. (*)

Keith Hardine is a tall, fit African-American with a big smile; he looks not unlike a younger Ernie Hudson circa Ghostbusters, or Larry Elder if he hit the gym a little more. He shakes my hand and gives me some pepper spray. Hardine is about to teach me how to defend myself against Mexicans. (*)

Tales of Hoffman

The Twin Cities' Star Tribune reports that City Pages senior editor and writer Britt Robson abruptly resigned yesterday, leaving the paper after 10 years of loyal service. The latest ewe to wander from the New Times Village Voice Media flock, Robson told the Star Tribune: "Somebody from Denver [New Times Village Voice executive Andy Van De Voorde] hired somebody from Cleveland [30-year-old lesbian marriage pioneer Kevin Hoffman, above] to run a paper in Minneapolis. I saw that as a repudiation of the way we do things at City Pages and as a repudiation of the kind of work I do there."

The influence that the second somebody, 30-year old incoming editor and X-Men zealot Kevin Hoffman, will have on City Pages is remains to be seen, though from the young turk's astute knowledge of the region, we have high hopes. Besides, who but another brilliant Columbia grad could write this?

If ever someone personified Winston Churchill’s famous phrase — "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" — it must be David Dunn, the 28-year-old North Olmsted waiter who perpetrated what may be the most baffling hoax to emerge from the rubble of September 11. Even now, several months after he first fooled Cleveland’s daily newspaper and garnered worldwide attention, no one — perhaps not even he — can say for sure where the truth ends and the lies begin. His story has more skins than an onion and has produced just as many false tears.

Read more: The Bloodwrath Hoax, Cleveland Free Times.