Is SD Reader’s Party Crasher really someone you want to invite into your home?
Josh Board poses with Tom Jones in his Facebook profile image.
Here’s question #1 of the day: Is it OK, under any circumstances, for a professional writer person to make fun of a 4-year-old child for being adopted?
That’s exactly what San Diego Reader columnist Josh Board did today in a Facebook message to CityBeat columnist and adoptive mother Aaryn Belfer:
…thought I saw your kids real mom in a fast food place the other day. Not positive. Registers were being thrown around and a tandrum was being thrown.
Forget for a moment that he can’t spell “tantrum” or use apostrophes properly. Here’s some background:
In this week’s “Backwards & in High Heels” column in CityBeat, Belfer took this jab at Josh Board, a writer and the “Party Crasher” at the San Diego Reader:
I did have a dream the other night that my editors canned me and though I cried and begged, promising not to swear so much, they opted to hire Josh Board (The Reader’s “Party Crasher”) instead because they felt his grammatical ineptitude and interchangeable uses of there, their and they’re were more authentically indie.
Sure, CityBeat likes to poke at competing publications and writers. It’s what we do and we have fun doing it. If you follow our writers on Twitter, you know that we’re perpetually in battle with the Union-Tribune‘s Rob Hopwood and metro editor Ricky Young. To Hopwood’s credit, he’s never been anything but polite (even in his indignation, he’s, for the most part, irritatingly professional). Young also takes it in good humor, best illustrated by his blog post today in response to a recent story in which we criticize a San Diego News Network contributor.
So, we were more than shocked at a series of messages Board sent to Belfer via Facebook. Here’s part one of the Facebook message from Josh Board:
Thanks for the shout-out in CityBeat.
Your column keeps getting lamer and lamer. You miss the point on so much. A teacher cutting a kids hair is racism. You’re hysterical.
Have fun on your job search, loser.
And, with the satisfaction of knowing I probably get more readers on each blog I do daily…and get paid more to write a blog, then your periodic column.
You’ve done the same thing Margaret Cho, Garafolo, and Rosie O have all done. Went from having a small bit of talent, to instead wanting to rant about your own political views and petty things…which are of interest to only a fraction of the population.
We can take a beating over here, but in this case, Board… well, there are a lot of people who should be offended by his attitude. In the column, Belfer talks about how, due to the economy, she may see her day job eliminated. If so, she shares something in common with hundreds of thousands of San Diegans: In November 2009 alone, San Diego County saw the loss of more than 10,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, what kind of writer brags about how much he makes? We’re not stockbrokers, lawyers, venture capitalists. Writers are journalists and artists and any writer who brags about his salary probably doesn’t have enough faith in his writing to justify it on its own merits. Just because you get paid doesn’t mean you’re any good, especially if you really can’t spell or punctuate. It could mean you’re corrupt; it could mean that you’re in a romantic relationship with the publisher.
But here’s where Board really crosses the line from poor taste into offensiveness that would be cause for termination at any legitimate newspaper. In that second message, he went so far as to attack the birth mother of Belfer’s adopted daughter, a 4-year-old African-American child:
Also…thought I saw your kids real mom in a fast food place the other day. Not positive. Registers were being thrown around and a tandrum was being thrown.
This is a reference to an AP story yesterday about a clearly mentally ill woman who “trashed” a McDonalds in Kansas City.
Belfer responded with: “You are so CUTE when you’re angry.” By this time, I had left messages for Reader publisher Jim Holman and Board himself. As you’ll see in this FB message back to Belfer, Board was too much of a coward to respond to my questions directly:
You’re such a chick. I love it.
You want to write to me “oh, you’re angry when you’re cute.”
Yet you then forward my messages to your citybeat buddies, who always, inevitably, end up telling me you’re a bit insane, but that I’m also over the top making fun of your kid.
Yes, forward this message to them all, too. It just lets me know I did get under your caucasian skin (ahhhh…that white privilge, I love it)
Shouldn’t your dumb ass be out looking for nother job? Or another dopey kid to adopt? Instead of worrying about how I spell or my punctuation? hehehehehehe….
Now this is fun.
You’re not as cute when you’re angry. Just predictable.
Good day.
(and hi CityBeat staff that are all reading this!)
Once again, Board insults those who’ve lost their jobs and a mother for adopting a child and, once again, proves he can’t spell. And just so you know, this isn’t first time Board has spewed at Belfer. Check out this message from awhile back:
At least my penis can create children.
If there’s a god, he probably made you sterile for a reason.
Wow. There are 7.3 million women suffering from infertility and 2 million men. It’s not really funny.
Here’s questions #2 and #3. Board makes his big bucks reporting on parties: Is this really a guy you would want to invite inside your home? And does this guy even deserve to have job at all? Holman has, so far, not responded to any of them.
UPDATE: More Party Crasher *hate* mail: SD Reader’s Josh Board attacks a 4-year-old girl’s race. You’ll want to click here or just read through the comments until you get what Kelly Davis posted.
Again, I love it when Journalists fight… But wow… all I can really say at this point is wow…
Independent of the lovely content, aren’t these private messages between Belfer and Board?
No longer, but, well, I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s obviously not a good guy, and she can’t get over bashing him publicly. If she continues to tweak him in her columns, he will continue to email her hateful, racist bile. One is more guilty than the other, but both need to put it behind them or something nasty is going to go down.
I honestly think Ed Decker would be a better “Party Crasher” columnist anyway, since he, you know, parties. Maybe CityBeat can just rip off that column and do a better job with it. I’d read it.
David, don’t think we haven’t thought of doing just that. But I didn’t think of Ed doing it. He’d be great.
In my opinion, David #1, Joshua Board was responding to something Aaryn Belfer put in print. As far as I’m concerned, that’s fair game.
Let’s say a writer/politician/whatever called a black columnist by the N-word (not in the rap sense) because of something he wrote. Even if it was a private conversation, if I overheard it, I’d write about it. It’s as newsworthy as if he’d punched the columnist in the face.
Or let’s say there’s a mayor and a publisher. The publisher starts running stories that connect the mayor to the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl 60 years ago. The publisher tells the mayor he has a witness and they get into a fist fight. Is it a private fight because it didn’t happen in a formal news interview situation?
No, it’s not. It’s awesome: http://maassive.com/?p=1027
Just as a final point, Board was well aware after the first correspondence that we were going to write about it and he kept going. I left two messages before I wrote the story and he’s yet to return my call.
If I ever did a party crasher type column, it would be unreadable. Every one of them would go like this:
Arrived at the part around 10pm. Went to the bar. Found the punch bowl. Drank from the punch bowl. Woke up at noon, still in clothes, vomit on my chest, television blaring.
what piece of shit makes fun of people who adopt children or are infertile? Does this guy have the maturity level of a 12 year old? just goes to show why these SD periodicals are a joke.
What an ass! He interviewed me once… I spoke slowly so he could get what I was saying down. When it was published, he misquoted me with the wrong information, and put everything I’d said into fractured sentences. I don’t know how he got his job.
Oy! What a ginormous douchebag. Don’t even get me started on the idiocy that is the Reader. I don’t think people actually read it as much as they use its pages to wrap & pack glassware or cushion their heads at bus stops. They hate everyone (for the most part) especially LGBTs and those with HIV.
Holman won’t respond to you because he’s too busy hawking farkakte classifieds so he has enough $1 bills to spend at De Ja Vu Showgirls. Or no, wait, perhaps he’s giving all the Reader’s moolah away to James Hartline, I’m not sure. Wait, maybe Board is the most expensive nonsensical writer/blogger in all of San Diego and it’s going to him. Who knows.
Let me just say this. No adult in San Diego with an IQ above, say 40, reads Board’s column for its content. They read it to make fun of how bad it is…and poorly written. So, if that’s the journo legacy he’s happy to hang his hat on, you know, with his super fat wallet and throngs of blog & column readers, let him live out his fantasy. Those of us (and I’m referring to the rest of San Diego) who know better will just continue to be embarrassed for him. #boardfail
I have a biological child and an adoptive child. Yes, this was offensive.
This article is LAME! Just in case you want to add more fuel to the fire, Board is also the same guy who said the next time he ran into the critical mass mob he’d just dart out into the intersection and say it was an honest mistake in order to cover it up <3
http://biccontrol.blogspot.com/2009/09/local-writer-admits-assaulting-cm-rider.html
Read up bitches.
I stopped bitching and read, and I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with what he said. If bikers don’t use the highway in a lawful way it’s only a matter of time before you’ll meet your Daisy Buchanan on San Diego’s streets.
But this all just goes to prove my theory that satire is over the head of your average fixie rider.
If you think that’s bad, here’s what Josh Board sent Aaryn a few months ago:
You should try finding (or writing) a book about why black kids sit in cars, with their stereos blasting, as if they think everyone else wants to hear 50 Cent.
Or, why they sit in movie theatres making noise, talking on cell phones or at the screen, as if they are Chris Rock.
I’m sure you’ll get to deal with all that fun, when your little one grows up.
(read Freakanomics, they talk about how adopted kids are never as smart…because they get the intelligence from the folks that gave them up).
So, good luck with that.
Geez, now that I think about it, it’s probably good you couldn’t have kids. It’s one less idiot that has your genes in this world.
Am I a bad person for making this public? Maybe. Don’t care, though.
Sorry Kelly, Dave Chappelle showed us that black kids aren’t the only ones who sit in their cars playing that rap muzak:
Wow, this is quite the clash of journalistic giants. I’m sure I would have a hard time finding humor in someone who I’ve already been fighting with writing a column claiming I was really bad at my job. Board’s response was over the top and I’m not excusing him, but Belfer’s “poke” in no way seemed in good fun, especially given what’s obviously a history between them. After his previous messages to her, it’s pretty obvious he was going to react like an asshole if poked again. Given how your carefully written post (complete with quotes from the earlier exchange all ready), hits only two days later, it sort of seems like that was the plan.
That would have been an awesome plan but, alas, we aren’t that well organized.
well I hate CM with a passion too. Who hasn’t wished they could drive right thru them at a stoplight they are blocking?
that said, guy is still a moron.
Ha! I was hoping someone would touch on that! The CM deal has reached critical annoyance levels. How can you even ride a bike with jeans that tight? I think this may be why actual bikers prefer spandex. Either way, you still get to look like a douche. Someone has to tell these kids that Grizzly Bear is playing a secret show in Pine Valley the night of their next ride-then they can all just pedal their single speed asses east towards the mountains. They will be wanting those extra gears once they hit those hills!
Good god! She probably should have gotten a restraining order against him instead of forwarding the email/facebook message to the city beat staff, but good god. Some people.
Sadly, this is about a million times more interesting than the whole Watchdog Institute series of posts.
Maybe if you put down the bong, you’d get the point of those posts, David.
… Or, perhaps, I would enjoy them less?
I kid, I kid. It was moreso a commentary on the tmz culture of today than a criticism of your authorship, (i.e., compare the amount of comments on this post with the other) but I digress. This conversation needs more Josh Board, less me.
Point taken. And maybe if I were stoned when I wrote them, they’d be far more entertaining.
Board is, and always has been, a moronic leech that has little in the way of interesting views or writing talent. Normally I’d say stop picking on the idiot and rise above his comments. Don’t play his game. But I suppose there is a line that must be drawn and when he makes comments like these it’s only right to divulge just how racist, foolish, and tacky he is. Though I have to wonder if this will actually have any practical effect on his so-called readership. Sadly, I doubt it.
While I wholly disagree with Holman’s political and business views I can say that he’s not really all that abhorrent a person and I doubt he would openly support an attack such as this. In this case I’d have to guess that his lack of response is either that he’s pretty well disentangled from the day-to-day writing at The Reader. Or is too busy trying to stave off a dwindling page count with ever-increasing ad to edit ratios to worry about what some minor jerk-face on his staff has to say about some competing columnist he probably hasn’t even read.
In the end most of the people reading this know that Board is at best a kook with a contemptible world-view. At worst he’s still employed and insulting San Diegans with his tripe on a regular basis.
Aaryn, keep your chin up and don’t sweat the small stuff. Board is definitely the small stuff.
You guys are all jealous of Josh’s writing talents. Punctuation and grammar aren’t important. It’s the intense, amazing details that he puts into Party Crasher that really makes you feel like you’re there. Genius imagery like “They had potato salad. It was good.” and “I talked to this guy for awhile about cars. Then I went outside because I was warm.” is the reason that imitators like R Kelly came up with “Trapped In The Closet”. By very simply describing things that occurred, he gives us so much more than anything CityBeat has ever come up with. So much more.
Ha! I think you need to take over his column!
Ouch. That Adam Gimbel guy can get sassy, can’t he! What’s funny is that Gimbel and Board both matter the same (which is to say not at all). Gimbel just needs something to kvetch about. Why does City Beat care at all about this worthless Crasher column? In fact, the fact that the Reader keeps this yawn-inducing space filler only helps City Beat.
I DO MATTER! I JUST POSTED SOMETHING ON AN INTERNET PAGE!!!
The only reason they have “Crasher” around is that they’ve run out of liposuction, medical marijuana, and strip-club ads. God forbid there should be some empty space or Ted Rall cartoons (eons ago his strip was in the Reader) on a quarter-page; we need somebody who makes Brizzolara look like the next Hemingway. Josh Board is a symptom of the decline of the Reader; remember when they had a classical music column and a column interviewing new authors? Now they interview people they find reading books and they’ve jammed Duncan Shepherd’s film reviews in the front after the last jump of the cover story. The Geezer really needs to find a publisher who is more interested in it rather than their side project.
Wow. Josh Board sounds genuinely disturbed, I’m talking the type to totally lose it one day and shoot people. To top it all off, he is a really bad writer. Does he actually think that he is witty or intelligent.? Poor deluded fool.
“His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.”
I amended the first graf of this story. Check it out. I think you’ll find it’s more accurate.
Look, if your column is only about crashing people’s parties and you write nothing else, you deserve quotation marks around the title of “professional writer.” All of this back-and-forth by Board to Belfer reinforces this, along with my previous statement that the Reader is in decline and desperately needs an editor/publisher who is willing to make the publication better. Not even the professional couch potato Ollie (now an ex-contributor to the Weezer) would sink to the Crasher’s level.
You guys remind me of the kid that runs his mouth, then runs home to Mommy when some other kid wants to kick his ass. Yes, Board’s email response was over the top and out of line, but YOU STARTED IT. Like they tell little kids, if you can’t get along, then just stay away from each other. No talking TO each other, and no talking ABOUT each other.
You know, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. If you wanna go with kids, it’s more like a little leaguer talking yelling shit across the field about the other team’s pitcher, then that pitcher coming to him after the game and whispering racial slurs into his ear. The first is just part of the game, the second is when the parents need to be called.
Bingo.
Bingo to Rickey
“Even if the retarded badger deserves to be called names, don’t call the retarded badger names (especially in print to a large audience) because an angry, retarded badger is something no one wants to deal with.” My great-grandmother told me that on her death bed.
“Retarded Badger” is the best name for Josh Board ever.
holy moly!
the Reader has racists & sexists working for it? what a revelation!
the reader exists only to keep us lulled into thinking things are “just fine” so we can worry about that next facelift, while holzman takes his ad bucks out and funds flat-earther campaigns to keep women barefoot & pregnant.
Last September in response to Board’s solicitation for people to join him in South Park to attack cyclists with weapons and his encouragement to commit other acts of violence against cyclists, the Revolutionary Velo Fraction was organized to respond to the threats. RVF initiated a Boycott of all advertisers in The Reader. Local merchants received unannounced visits at their storefronts explaining why their businesses were being targeted by a Campaign of Direct Action. The Reader was notified that the Boycott was in place and would be lifted when they disavowed approval of Board’s bigoted posts and terminated their relationship with him. The Boycott is still in place as The Reader failed to respond in any meaningful way to the demands of RVF. Now it looks as if the Panthers will need to contact The Reader as well. So be it.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2719/4049712199_f92293cfc3_b.jpg
Commando Ray RVF
How much money can Josh Board actually make? He works for a paper that is largely written by its audience for $20 to $50 bucks a shot. They actually run ads soliciting their readers to contribute.
Let’s take a look at most of their weekly features:
Off the Cuff- Entirely “man on the street” quotes. Board actually gets a byline for that? I guess he does come up with the genius questions like “Have you ever smuggled anything?” and then decides which fascinating responses to print (in this case, three different people who said “cuban cigars”).
Stringers – Short “personal” news stories written by readers, with recycled comments from their website tacked on.
As I Hear It – “Man on the street” local music reviews.
Everyone’s a Critic – Reader generated concert and CD reviews.
Blurt – Technically written by actual writers, but as any musician knows, the content is driven by Jay Allen Sanford’s email solicitations offering to pay local musicians to give up dirt on their peers.
News of the Weird – Recycled news stories from other publications.
Typo Patrol – When your audience is providing all your content, I suppose they may as well edit it as well.
Apparently The Reader decided to take it’s name quite literally by having their readers provide all the actual writing.
Citybeat, don’t you realize you could double your page count and cut your salary budget in half with this strategy?
It’s probably best if you don’t let Kevin Hellman read this.
“Blurt – Technically written by actual writers, but as any musician knows, the content is driven by Jay Allen Sanford’s email solicitations offering to pay local musicians to give up dirt on their peers.”
Is that really true? Have any local musicians gone on the record saying thats true? If thats true its a better story someone at Citybeat should be writing.
OK, sure Josh Board is weak, and the Reader does have its issues (Holman goes overboard on Catholic stuff). And yes paying musicians to share dirt may not be too cool. But are you seriously trying to say City Beat is better? It’s sister publication City Beat L.A. went tits up last year and I hear 2010 is the year City Beat SD will cease publication. At least the Reader will still be around in 12 months.
Funny, K. Paul. Nope—we’ll be here until at least 2011. If not 2013. Southland Publishing papers only go out of business in odd-numbered years.
I will absolutely say City Beat is better, but that’s just my opinion, and you certainly don’t have to agree. Clearly CityBeat is a bit local-centric, a criticism I’m sure they would agree with (I often refer to it as the personal newsletter for me and my friends). But after all, it is called CITY Beat, and not County Beat or Greater San Diego Beat.
That said, I find the quality of their writing and journalism to be head and shoulders above The Reader.
Honestly, I could care less if The Reader is in business 12 months from now. I find it completely unreadable (and I used to read it religiously) and void of anything that interests me. If City Beat goes under, I will mourn its loss fairly significantly. Nobody else goes as deep into local politics and other issues that I care about, and their recent trend of calling other news organizations on their horse-shit is refreshing. Most media outlets deserve their impending fate, as they are little more than thinly propped up stuffed shirts that no longer do any real reporting (I include local TV News in that as well.) The Reader has no equivelant to Dave Rolland’s political insight and concern for the minutae of local government. Kelly Davis’s reporting is always well written, researched and insightful, often causing me to look at issues in a completely new light. I don’t often see that in The Reader. I enjoy City Beats columnists more as well, but that’s all a matter of taste. Still, front to back, I find City Beat to be a better written, better edited paper.
I don’t work for City Beat, so can’t comment on their financial status, but I will speculate that any troubles they may or may not have, are more due to the economic realities that all print media is facing these days, and less due to the quality of their rag.
The death of the classified ad, and ad revenues in general are faltering for every paper. Ever notice how all the ads in CityBeat are for Pot Collectives and strippers and the Reader is mostly plastic surgery ads? I doubt these are the only choices either publication would prefer to have.
I hope City Beat continues to find a way to scrape by. The Reader? That would be no loss.
Thanks Drew. Be assured that all rumors of CityBeat’s demise are false. We’re just fine and only one year into a five-year lease on a new office. We’ll be around for a long, long time.
We have Josh.
Replace him with Decker or he dies.
The RVF
http://www.picvalley.net/v.php?p=u/1545/142156497013118034151262992110LCYkfVIuAZLwJnEHaa0H.JPG
Pull the trigger!
I love Ed Decker.
hey Ed if you read this
WE LOVE YOU!!!
i don’t hang out with the guys from “our table” anymore, but i can’t wait to get up to viejas again.
/i love ed rant
I’m sure everyone at LA CityBeat were saying the same thing just before they went away. Because you signed a lease doesn’t mean you’re in good shape. Do you have any idea how many commercial leases have been broken in the last year?
OK, Huddleston, let’s see you put your money where your mouth is.
Here’s what I’ll put on the line: A 28″ three-topping “King Special” from Giant Pizza King, deliverable January 7. 2011. You send it here if we’re still in business. If not, I’ll send it to you. Just let me know it’s a bet and email me your address.
All Josh Boards Daily Crasher blogs vanished from the Reader site a few hours ago, including hundred of contentious comment threads similiar to above. Anyones guess whether his Crasher column or Off The Cuff will run with his byline next week.
His Staff Blog listing has been removed from the Blog page.
Guess he finally went too far …
Be interesting to hear what his followers have to say about it.
Wowee Zowee…
Actually, it’s still there. So are his blog/srories; they’re just not listed on the stories page.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/staff/josh-board/
May have spoken too soon. Blog is back on line, admin is saying there was a computer glitch. Strange glitch if it just affected one staff blogger ……….
If he had been canned, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy…………………..
They might’ve had to take the blog down temporarily to scrub the comments of all traces of links to this blog entry. I went in and posted a few myself and they were immediately deleted. Nevertheless, we still had more than a dozen hits from the Reader’s site.
Because this post seems to be reaching a broader audience than is typical to this blog, I have taken it upon myself to remove some coarse language in order to make it more friendly to the unaccustomed alt reader.
I inserted:
“you’re in a romantic relationship with the publisher.”
in place of:
“you’re sucking off the publisher.”
That dirty poke can live down here in the comments section.
No all the Daily Crasher blogs are all still wiped off the site – the Staff Blog contents only have six blogs rather than seven, Daily Crasher is the only MIA. However his Crasher columns from the paper version and his posts on other Reader blogs are still on the website
Whatever you think of the revolving content of the Reader, there are people out here who think it worth saving. The question is not so much do we want to invite the party crasher into our homes–he gets into our homes in every copy of the Reader–no, the practical question is, how do we get Board fired? He has been writing the same or worse in his daily blogs as he has to Belfer. What’s it gonna take? Massive email campaign? Getting action groups at local colleges (if any still exist) aware, and writing in to protest? What? I don’t know about you people, but I’m sick of this guy having such a huge presence in our largest free weekly, which again–whether you like it or not–is in some way representative of San Diego. I’d like to hear what Belfer, Davis, and Rolland think.
“Blurt – Technically written by actual writers, but as any musician knows, the content is driven by Jay Allen Sanford’s email solicitations offering to pay local musicians to give up dirt on their peers.”
Is that really true? Have any local musicians gone on the record saying thats true? If thats true its a better story someone at Citybeat should be writing.
The Reader has long paid people for “tips”—news and otherwise. I think it’s only $25, though. I’ll see what Seth can find out…
To Dave Maas: Yes, there are a lot of us from the Reader site who are reading your topic thread with great interest. Your topic question reminded me of comments posted at the Reader site some time back during a discussion about Josh Board and whether his conduct violated the TOS. These comments meticulously detailed example after example of offensive content in Board articles all written within the space of one month, October of last year. The poster asked variations on your topic question, here copied from those comments, edited slightly.:
_____________________________________
Thread posted 29 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/29/athletes-hot-doggin-it/
I’d also like to point out that, if there’s ever a person in the NFL that sounds like he’d be eating tacos, it would be Mark Sanchez.
——————-
So what does that make Mr. Board saying someone with a name like Mark Sanchez sounds like he’d be eating a taco? An unfunny racist idiot employed by the Reader?
Thread posted 27 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/27/stupid-cops—-the-no-habla-english-edition/
And on a lot of the talk shows yesterday, I was hearing about this cop in Dallas that gave a woman a ticket for not speaking English.
On CNN, they said one officer gave 39 drivers tickets for this in a three year period.
I would have no problem with cops doing that, except for one small thing. There’s apparently no law against this.
There should be.
I can understand how frustrating it might be to pull someone over and ask “Do you know how fast you were going?” Only to hear a response of “No habla English.” Or mere silence.
———————-
Is demanding that it be illegal not to speak English funny? Is mocking the way white people stereotypically think Mexicans speak funny?
Thread posted on 20 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/20/death/
And can someone explain to me how a person goes out there at 1:00 a.m. and is still there during rush hour traffic in the morning, screwing up commuters. We need to bring that guy over from China. Remember the guy that pushed the person off the bridge because he was holding up traffic?
Seriously, we need to work on our police dealing with jumper scenarios. It worked so well in Lethal Weapon. Mel Gibson jumps up, handcuffs the guy, and they fall safely together. Can we get Gibson doing these in real life? I mean, he can ask them first if their Jewish. And if they aren’t, he can bring them down safely. If they are, he can push them. His call, really.
———————
Two references to pushing a suicidal person. Is pushing a suicidal person funny?
Thread posted on 19 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/19/music-and-metallica-fans—-dumb-or-smart/
I just heard on CNN that a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student disappeared after attending a concert. Be on the look-out for a cute blonde in a Pantera T-shirt and black mini skirt, with knee high boots.
The photo of singer Thom Yorke, looks like a person on stage with Downs Syndrome.
——————–
Is a missing student funny? Is making fun of someone’s looks by saying it looks like they have Downs Syndrome funny?
Thread posted 18 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/18/crazy-costumes—-target-targeted-illegal-aliens-o/
I don’t think there would’ve been anything so offensive about it, although, one of the aliens came with a big Cheech Marin style mustache.
After complaints, Target pulled the costumes. Apparently they were upsetting to illegal aliens. And of course, that’s the last thing we’d want to do in this country – offend people that aren’t legally here.
———————
Is stereotyping Hispanics’ appearance funny? The second paragraph is absolutely ridiculous. My understanding is two different groups complained about the costumes. I have no idea what their legal status is. Does Mr. Board? Is calling people “illegal aliens” funny?
Thread posted 15 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/15/up-up-and-awayin-a-silver-balloon/
It involved a boy who supposedly climbed into a helium filled, silver balloon. It became untethered, and the boy was soaring at 25 miles per hour…towards the Denver airport.
I was watching it live, laughing. It was better than one of those police chases all the stations cut to live.
———————-
Is it funny to think about a child’s life being endangered?
Thread posted 10 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/10/black-barbie-and-hats-off-to-stew/
I tried thinking of a joke I could have in this blog. I thought about the Barbie beach house, and how the black Barbie had a harder time getting a home loan. I thought about the Barbie Corvette, and how she put spinners on it and a real car stereo.
——————–
Is stereotyping black people funny?
Thread posted 8 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/08/grumpy-gus-says—-i-dare-you-to-sue-me/
I wake up to see Paul Shaffer on The View. The first question they ask is about Letterman, and he mentions his dad being a lawyer and how he legally can’t comment on the situation. So, this group of dingbat women ask again. I suppose they think he’ll answer on the second attempt.
Then I open my email, and see a story someone has sent me about that 72-year-old woman that was tasered by the cops. At the time, I did a blog saying I was happy she got zapped. She was resisting arrest and refusing to provide the officer with information and ID. And she dared him to tase her.
Okay, maybe someone daring you to tase them doesn’t warrant it. Maybe if she double or triple-dared him. But the reason I didn’t fault the officer is because he probably didn’t have many other alternatives. Had he tackled and cuffed her, that would’ve been a PR nightmare as well.
So, what happens in this situation? This old bat gets a $40,000 settlement.
——————-
Is calling the women on The View, including pioneer journalist Barbara Walters, dingbat women, funny?
Is calling a woman who was unjustly tasered by a police officer an old bat funny?
Thread posted 7 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/07/dont-box-me-in—-kids-and-animals-do-the-darndest/
She let the girl ride in a cardboard box on top of their van.
Well, the 37-year-old, mom-of-the-year, didn’t do it for fun. She said the box was too big to fit in the van, and the daughter was inside to hold it down.
And how was the box secured on the van? With clothes hangers, of course.
The only thing that would’ve made the story better would’ve been had they not cleared a bridge.
———————–
Is it funny to say that it would have been better if a child had died?
Thread posted 25 September 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/sep/25/one-dad-at-a-time—-celebrity-sex-scandals/
I just find it hard to believe that a dad can rape his 19-year-old daughter, and the daughter decides….well, that wasn’t so bad. I guess I can continue seeing the old man. I mean, he did write California Dreamin’.
————————
Are incest jokes funny?
________________________________________
In that same month, in this edition of Party Crasher, JB gets himself invited to a “celebration of life” party and writes completely wrong information about the person’s medical condition, stating that the person had “only a few weeks to live” and then when one of the people at the party confronts him about some comments made off the site, is flamed on Facebook, and then the entire family starts fighting on the comments section. It gets pretty ugly.:
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/oct/14/crasher-friends-are-jewels/#c41351
I personally was forwarded the content of a message Board sent to someone connected with this party, it was vile. My understanding is that at one time some of the people involved in this fiasco were considering legal action. Who would even force themselves into a gathering like this, and then slam the people at the gathering?
Even contributors on the site, according to comments posted on some of the articles, appear to have been harassed and insulted by Board, who doesn’t hesitate to use personal information gleaned through private conversations and social interactions and contacts initiated through the Reader website, to carry out those attacks. The Reader administration can not say that they are not aware of these issues since it has been brought to their attention many times.
Ultimately, this isn’t about the repugnant Josh Board, this is about the publication that keeps him on as an employee. I’m sure they’ve asked themselves whether they want to lose Board’s readership, and they’ve decided they can’t afford the loss. This is their direction, and they are sticking with it.
I have noted a number of people commenting, both on this site and over on the Reader site, that Board is just doing what he needs to do to generate controversy and that if you respond, you are playing right into his hands, and that his comments are meant to be satirical. I think most people can intuit the difference between satirical and mean-spirited. Those comments to the lady with her adoptive child are contemptible.
Hey Kelly, what do you think of my suggestions? Is this a thread where people mobilize, or is this just a bitchfest?
I personally don’t care if the Reader keeps Board or cans him.
Oh then it is just a bitchfest.
A new “Off the Cuff” is out!
http://www.picvalley.net/v.php?p=u/2532/16149916528934324231263076555wsW1cqabKiIhoikPap9n.JPG
photo_1
Hey fuckwads? Josh Board has a pair of the biggest balls I’ve yet to see out of this two-bit, piece of shit city. You guys claim to be political provocateurs but you’re ALL talk and no action-just like Sandy Eggo! Go fuck yourself City Beat!
you’ve seen them? AND he has two? I’m jealous.
Lance
Something tells me you’re a Chargeless fan as well…
p.s.
All you haters know what to do with them:
http://vimeo.com/7565870
Aaryn, the times I have read your column I really enjoyed it. The one about “sleeping bras” was hilarious. Your photography isn’t bad either. By contrast, I have never been able to get through more than a few graphs of Josh Board’s “Crasher” (penned at a fourth-grade level gramatically and intellectually) before tossing it aside out of BOARD-om. To realize his full dullard dork essence one must check out the videos of his clueless bumbling forays into San Diego social life over at the Reader’s Web site. Commentary as insipid as his columns — and that Peter Brady voice, man, I almost pitty the balding bigot. But then again, not really.
you’ve seen them? AND he has two? So jealous.
Lance
Patricio, Nestor Makhno, and ” Lance Ballstrong” are my new heros! All hail!
Hmmmm….a nigger whose also a Critical Masser…..I’m SHOCKED!!!!! :-O
PistolPete = troll
Let him go hungry.
Damn right I’m a troll. Talk shit about another paper’s writers and you’ll get trolls like me. Don’t want people like me on your site, shut the fuck up!
Witness: This is the kind of “reader” Josh Boring attracts. Racist? Check. Balding? Check. Fat? Check. Lexographically challenged? Check. Discovering threads by another clueless racist where I can plant my fat, racist ass? Priceless.
And your point is? Something tells me you’re a clueless Democrat as well…
HEY there’s a lot of perfectly decent fat people around. Don’t lump us all in with Pistol Pete.
I suppose the only thing better about City Beat as opposed to The Reader is, I can say whatever the fuck I want without being censored by the PC, Ultra-Liberal, Elitist Democrats or Nazi Republicans.
Pete, the only reason your N-word comment is still up is because I go back and forth between thinking such racism has no place in thoughtful discourse and wanting to expose the racism that still exists in our society. If it disappears, it will be because my staff has convinced me to boot your sorry ass.
First off, look up the definition of the word nigger sometime. Last time I looked, ignorance had nothing to do with race. Second, I’m only on here defending Josh. I could REALLY give a flying fuck if I’m booted or not seeing as A)-I can come back under a different name with a different e-mail address & B)-It’s not as if I’m a regular around here.
I’ve read City Beat on and off for almost 5 years. I’ll take the Reader any day of the week. City Beat I could read while taking a huge Midwestern sized beer shit. The Reader takes me alot longer. That alone speaks volumes for the information gleaned from your fine publication.
I’m actually pretty satisfied that CityBeat sustained you for the duration of a midwestern-sized shit. Although, I would’ve hoped something in there—such as Congress’ tariff favor–would’ve made your sphincter tight.
I’ve actually got a copy of the reader–the one with a teacher and chalkboard on the cover–on my upstairs toilet. When I’m suffering from a cheap Mexican food BM, I’ve actually started counting the coupons to make sure they match the number on the cover.
Here’s a question for you, PP, an honest one. If CityBeat were 130 pages long, with, for better or worse, the level of depth, style and talent we currently exhibit, would you be more likely to spend more time reading it?
Yeah, but the thing is, you are going to bore the good people here just as much as your buddy Josh Boring does, unless he stands on his hind legs and yelps the national anthem. Be a good little racist redneck now, and scoot your fat hiney back over to the Reader.
LOL! It’s funny-City Beat and it’s ass kissing readers wanted a war. Now that they have one, it’s time for me to go back to The Reader? Sounds like someone can’t handle the heat…
Yep, definitely a bitchfest.
jenjen, I apologize for the fat comments–fat is relative. But this guy’s fat stinks of Midwestern pork and racist ignorance. And Amen, I’m sick of reading this troll’s posts on both sites now, and a hypocritical troll too BTW because he has called Bored boring too. So speaking of wars, are we going to start one with a measurable result? IE, the firing of Josh Bored?
#1-I’m VERY proud to be from the Midwest. Sandy Eggo is NOT another country.
#2-Nobody is forcing you to read any of the comments on any website I visit. If you’re too fuckin’ stupid to change the channel, you don’t have any right to bitch about what’s on.
#3-Hypocritical I’m not. I will agree that Josh is boring but we all have our faults. I enjoy reading 90% of what he writes. He’s got more balls to say what’s on his mind than half the fake socialites in this city.
#4-Why are you scared to hide behind a psuedonym here on the CB site? I’ve NEVER seen any comment posted under the SN ReaderfansagainstBoard. Why don’t you come out of the closet and reveal your true identity? Oh wait! I forgot! You’re probably a lame native with 0 balls & pride. My mistake…
To Dave Maas: Yes, there are a lot of us from the Reader site who are reading your topic thread with great interest.
Ultimately, this isn’t about the repugnant Josh Board, this is about the publication that keeps him on as an employee. I’m sure they’ve asked themselves whether they want to lose Board’s readership, and they’ve decided they can’t afford the loss. This is their direction, and they are sticking with it.
A show of hands please – how many people think that PistolPete is really Josh Board?
Ignorant? check
Moronic? check
Racist? check
Bad writer? check
Blow hard? check
Narcissistic personality disorder? check
Oh the lulz I had with this one. Why don’t you do humanity a fuckin’ favor and blow your goddamn head clean off? I hope to GOD you haven’t further fucked up our gene pool and had kids. PLEASE tell me you have bore no life from your loins! PLEASE!
Here’s a thought Inspector Gadget…Why don’t you mosey the fuck on over to the on-line Reader and find out just how fuckin’ brilliant your observations really are?
I doubt Pistol Pete is Josh Board. Why? Because he has his own blog on SD Reader….and on it, he declared Josh Board’s blog RIP.
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/diary-of-a-mad-man/2010/jan/09/for-boards-blogsrip/
Pete, the other night you were saying it was technical thing. What have you heard since?
With all due respect for you since my beef isn’t with you and with all due respect for Josh since I consider him a friend, I’m going to remain commentless for now. He e-mailed me yesterday and let me know the scoop. I e-mailed him back with support and asked him if he minded if I let everyone know what the scoop is. I just got back online and haven’t checked my email since earlier this morning.
I’ll keep you posted with what he says. I WILL respect his wishes. You guys can interperate that how you want.
That’s fair. Thank you.
Thought I would share something Pistol Pete just posted over at the Reader website:
Aaryn Belfer is a f***in’ 1st class c***!!!! I’m in my own war of words with the ass kissers over there right now and I’m not backing down. I just wish I knew who ReaderfansagainstBoard was. I find the irony of hiding behind another name when you go to another website utterly hilarious. Show your true identity, RfaB, I DARE you!
By PistolPete 10:53 a.m., Jan 10, 2010
Are you stupid? What does this prove? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING!!!!
LULZ! You guys crack me up. ANYONE could’ve seen that by going to the link Dave posted. A huge DUH to JBIAI.
With all due respect to PP’s right to expression, I am surprised that the SD Reader has so far left that up. It looks like PP is a bit surprised too.
OK. I just read a reply from Josh. He says he’d rather I not discuss anything with anyone for reasons I won’t divulge. That’s fair and I respect that. As the saying goes, “It’ll ALL come out with the wash…”.
Pistol Pete said this:
“City Beat I could read while taking a huge Midwestern sized beer shit. The Reader takes me alot longer. That alone speaks volumes for the information gleaned from your fine publication.”
But he should have said something along these lines:
“The Reader is so jam-packed with interesting articles and insightful commentary that I usually choose to read it whilst in the midst of a huge midwestern sized beer shit. A specific type of shitting which requires ass-plantation on a toilet bowl for at least 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile, the thin content of CityBeat can be easily gleaned during a 30 second northern territories style Zima happy hour piss break.”
One would have to assume a “huge midwestern sized beer shit” would take some time ya know.
I’m not surprised in the least bit. I’m simply defending someone I call a friend and respect because he has the balls to post controversial material on his blogs. Like I stated in my own blog to refriedgringo, if the Reader pulls my blogs refering to Josh, I’m eventually going to get pissed and hack the fuck out of their website. This fight isn’t mine but I’ve made it mine on behalf of Josh. I don’t work for either the Reader or City Beat so there’s not much that they can do to me but ban me and pull my material. I’ll then re-post it. If it gets pulled under a different name, I’ll start a tech war. It’s that simple.
To: Dave Maass
I find you very unprofessional. You are an idiot to start this blog in the first place. A writer of City Beat putting down another writer from The Reader? Unbelieveable. I will no longer be reading the CB…Never liked it anyway.
100th comment. I honestly had no idea people would get this vocal.
Josh Board is now An hero
To answer Dave’s question honestly, I probably would. I’ve read City Beat while on a mid-afternoon bus ride from Rancho Bernardo/Carmel Mountain to downtown Sandy Eggo. I’ve also read City Beat from Rancho Bernardo/Carmel Mountain to Mira Mesa. I’ll be the first to admit that The Reader is far from Pulitzer Prize material but as a voracious reader, I like to read things with some substance. As an Independent, The Reader is more of my political taste because it gives me the opportunity to read, laugh at and discuss both Dems and Repubs. I am a fan of Ed Decker. I can’t stand Aaryn Belfer. I haven’t read much of your stuff, Dave so I certainly won’t bash you for the sake of being an asshole.
The ONLY reason I even said anything about this whole bitch fight was because I felt that Josh needed someone to defend him. If most people had posted, “Josh Who?” or ” Whatever. Fuck him”, I probably would’ve stayed silent. We’re all entitled to our own opinion, no matter how unpopular, though. That goes for Aaryn Belfer as well. As much as I can’t stand her or her opinion, I’d lay my life to defend her right to say it.
Josh isn’t a hero of mine. However, he says what he thinks and for that, he gets my respect. I don’t give two flying fucks what people think or say about me. This isn’t high school. I too would like someone to defend me even if they didn’t agree with everything I say. For all I know, Josh isn’t on here defending himself because of legalities. I can say for certainty, that I’m not sure if that’s the case or not.
I haven’t had that much to read: I’ve been in San Diego less than three months. Though, feel free to pop my last name into the search at http://sdcitybeat.com
I’ve been stuck in this shithole 4 1/2 years. My GF better realize how much I love her and the sacrifices I make by staying out here. I’ll give a great example between natives and transplants, Dave.
I call this, The Newcomer-
Native to Transplant:
“Welcome to America’s Finest City!”
Transplant to Transplant:
“Welcome to Sandy Eggo”
or
“Welcome!”
See the difference?
Oh Peter, Peter Nadreau, why are you so angry?
Why aren’t you angry? Our country is going down the shitter and everyone sits around with their thumb up their ass like they’re living in some two-bit,corrupt, resort beach town…
BTW, next week, we’ll work on saying your name.
It looks like this Aaryn chick pushed him one time too many, and he just snapped. He’s not a racist, and the stuff he wrote does not imply that he’s a racist. It just shows an angry man who said what he thought would upset her to get back at her. The racist thing IMHO is a stretch- there isn’t a single person in America who hasn’t said or thought something (in private) that they regretted, because it could be taken as racist. Saying things about a young child is inappropriate and insensitive, but it looks like there was a history here of back and forth bantering between the two, which lead up to this. I don’t think Aaryn is an innocent victim.
Personally, I think Aaryn suffers from a massive case of White Guilt. She’s white, well off and feels guilty so…..she adopts a black child thinking everything will be alright. I’ll bet Aaryn also uses the word nigga around her ghetto friends but acts uppity around her suburban soccer mom friends. Southern California is a fuckin’ joke.
beesknees Says: He’s not a racist, and the stuff he wrote does not imply that he’s a racist.
Thread posted 29 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/29/athletes-hot-doggin-it/
I’d also like to point out that, if there’s ever a person in the NFL that sounds like he’d be eating tacos, it would be Mark Sanchez.
——————-
So what does that make Mr. Board saying someone with a name like Mark Sanchez sounds like he’d be eating a taco? An unfunny racist idiot employed by the Reader?
That’s not racist you moron. Stereotypical perhaps, but not racist. Try again. They say the sun shines on a dog’s ass every now and then so maybe if you keep digging through his blogs, you’ll find a nugget of shit.
Thread posted 27 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/27/stupid-cops—-the-no-habla-english-edition/
And on a lot of the talk shows yesterday, I was hearing about this cop in Dallas that gave a woman a ticket for not speaking English.
On CNN, they said one officer gave 39 drivers tickets for this in a three year period.
I would have no problem with cops doing that, except for one small thing. There’s apparently no law against this.
There should be.
I can understand how frustrating it might be to pull someone over and ask “Do you know how fast you were going?” Only to hear a response of “No habla English.” Or mere silence.
———————-
Is demanding that it be illegal not to speak English funny? Is mocking the way white people stereotypically think Mexicans speak funny?
I thought it was hilarious and totally agree. I’m tired of non-English speaking wetbacks crossing MY border, taking MY jobs and not assimilating into MY culture. My forefathers had enough sense not to rock the boat in the New World. Why can’t they?
Thread posted 18 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/18/crazy-costumes—-target-targeted-illegal-aliens-o/
I don’t think there would’ve been anything so offensive about it, although, one of the aliens came with a big Cheech Marin style mustache.
After complaints, Target pulled the costumes. Apparently they were upsetting to illegal aliens. And of course, that’s the last thing we’d want to do in this country – offend people that aren’t legally here.
———————
Is stereotyping Hispanics’ appearance funny? The second paragraph is absolutely ridiculous. My understanding is two different groups complained about the costumes. I have no idea what their legal status is. Does Mr. Board? Is calling people “illegal aliens” funny?
If those people actually are illegal, then yes. It is down right fucking hilarious! Why don’t you get off your PC soapbox bitch? Join the REAL world.
Thread posted 10 October 2009
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/daily-crasher/2009/oct/10/black-barbie-and-hats-off-to-stew/
I tried thinking of a joke I could have in this blog. I thought about the Barbie beach house, and how the black Barbie had a harder time getting a home loan. I thought about the Barbie Corvette, and how she put spinners on it and a real car stereo.
——————–
Is stereotyping black people funny?
Considering the fact that stereotypes exist for a reason, yes…yes it is.
How is our country going “down the shitter?”
Also, when you say “war of words,” what do you mean by that?
Ummmm….Are you mentally retarded? Our rights are disappearing faster than shrimp at an all-you-can-eat buffet in Manilla Mesa. Our country is being sold to China. We have a Socialist mutt for a president(Yes, I did in fact vote for the black Jimmy Carter and believe me, it WON’T happen again). The economy has no hope of recovery if we continue to buy worthless shit and not save for our rainy days. Need I go on? I know this is sunny Sandy Eggo where EVERYTHING goes away if you stick your head in the beach but I’m from the Midwest. Real life, real people.
As for the War of Words, it’s kind of like Hallway Sex:
“Fuck you!”
“No…Fuck you!”
I said, “Fuck you!”
Get it? Got it? GOOD!
You’re from the Midwest? Me too. Born and raised. My whole dad’s side is from there. My whole mom’s side is from here, by way of the East Coast in the early 60′s. I’ve spent lots of time here when I lived there and try to make it back there as much as I can now that I live here. Real life, real people.
I’ll agree but I think this is real life and real people here in SD as well, quite a few of them in fact. Perhaps, more than you care to see, more than you want to see, more than you search out to see? Maybe it’s just how YOU see things, maybe it’s been bad life for you, maybe you think you haven’t gotten a fair shake, maybe this anger is new to you or maybe it’s old and has been festering? Either way, having this uncontrolled anger isn’t healthy.
Typing (without thinking) first and answering (with a War of Words) later might not be the best way to get people on to your side. Why would you even say that word at all if you didn’t mean it? To start controversy? Maybe you’ll get tons of hits and TheReader will pick up your blog on a daily basis like your friend Josh? Maybe you’re bored and racist and that’s just how you feel. I mean, do you have a confederate flag and a gun rack in your truck window? Are you one of THOSE “real people” from the Midwest?
Maybe you had racist family members, but you loved them so you emulated them not knowing or believing what they said even, but you’d say a word as offensive as THAT word that you used earlier, just because you’re trying to be funny or because you want connect with somebody or simply be acknowledged and heard for any reason! I don’t know. I think you and I just have different definitions for the word “real” in your phrase “real life, real people.”
Would you include me in the “real people,” or would you swear at me and try to learn me something because I’m not agreeing with your opinion, even though I technically fit into your definition of a real person?
good grief…. 24 hours later and you are still blogging about this …except now the blog has deteriorated to bashing the anonymous blogger who defended Josh Board. Come on. The fact is, City Beat does not matter. It’s L.A. sister paper folded last year and this City Beat will bite the dust this year. Yes, parts of the Reader do suck (especially Board). Parts of the U-T suck. But worse, than sucking, City Beat DOES NOT MATTER. Please tell me who it matters to. Criticizing Josh Board is healthy. But trying to say he exists at the Reader and therefore the Reader is inferior to the nothing City Beat is a pretty big leap of logic. And by the way, a now-and-then appearance by Ed Decker does not save City Beat.
I agree. Sandy Eggo as a residence does not matter. Is there anything good about living out here? O_o
Hey, I’m not bashing Pistol Pete. He’s actually provided some useful feedback and a little bit of intel.
I have to give it to him: he knows how to drive people nuts with his comments.
Speaking of comments, these seem to be getting way off topic and, to be blunt, a little tedious. Nothing personal. Feel free to keep talking, but please don’t hold it against me if I stop keeping up.
(But, Huddleston, I’ll just point out that you wouldn’t put your money where your mouth is.)
I learned early in life that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so…why the fuck not? Am I right? Of course I’m right. I’m ALWAYS right. And if proven wrong, I’ll gladly admit it and learn from it. I’m controversial because I don’t look at the world through rose-colored glasses. For example, I’ve got it good. However, I haven’t always had it good and I could have it bad in the blink of an eye. Because of this, I tend to be VERY cynical. 90% of the sheeple in this country who call themselves patriotic Americans wouldn’t know how to question their government if I sat down with graphs and pie-charts. They’re too busy voting on the next freak show on American Idol or bashing(insert any politician here). In other words, this country has gone soft. VERY soft. How do I change it? I’d like to walk the streets with a flame thrower killing random stupid people but I realize that not only would that be highly illegal and immoral, it’s not the right approach. I’m constantly learning about the things that pique my interest in life so it’s only fitting that I school the masses. Don’t just get involved, don’t be afraid to say what you’re thinking. The PC, Ultra Liberal Elitist scumbags want to outlaw free speech. I say FUCK THAT AND THE HORSE THEY RODE IN ON!!!!!!
Remember kiddies, just like life isn’t all black and white, it’s not all Democratic and Conservative either…
Why is it you “give it” to Pete and realize he knows how to drive people nuts with his comments when it seems Board was trying to do the very same thing to Belfer in a PRIVATE EMAIL. Board isn’t a racist, but he is an idiot. He let anger (and stupidity) take over sending messages that were obviously just a move to piss a person off or drive them nuts. If you read his blogs you know this is a move he’s been long playing. Hell I think it’s down right asshole what came out but I don’t think it’s something which should have been published. Isn’t there a privacy or copywrite law against this?
Well, Sealed, Pistol Pete is a proud troll and not an employee of the SD Reader. So, you don’t think I’m holding double standards, I’ll point out that I did tweet that a SD Reader community blogger dropped the N-bomb on our blog.
As for the privacy issue. No, there’s no guarantee of privacy, especially in regards to a public figure sending unsolicited hate mail to a writer about a piece. But go back and read my post: Board gave implicit consent in his second message, which was received before I published this post.
Dave -
Interesting. I never really thought much into it, but I guess I would have assumed there was some type of privacy or even stretch of a copy write law when it came to emails. The receiver is the owner, but still cannot be published without consent – just what I would have guessed if forced.
I still belive this should have remained between City Beat and Holman – plane, train or auto.
And my guess is if Board would have called you back this still would have been published. It would seem the calls were more of a warning or to get quotes rather then a chance at stoping it all together. I can’t imagine anyone over there likes him much or that anything he would have said would have made a difference in this run.
I don’t necessarily think email copyright has anything to do with it. Ultimately, if we were talking about a politician sending messages like that to the press, I think everyone would agree they’re fair game.
I certainly intended to publish the messages, but I also could’ve been talked out of it had someone responded.
If someone snail-mails you a letter, then you are free to use the contents any way you choose, aren’t you? Why would it be any different in the case of an e-mail?
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2009/09/14/is-personal-email-subject-to-open-records-law/
http://www.emaildisclaimers.com/
Just curious: Are you objecting to the release of the “Climategate” emails? It’s not comparable, since that was between scientists and hacked whereas ours was leaked by one of the parties and involves a response to a published story. Just curious.
If the ClimateGate e-mails were in fact false, then I do object. If they’re true, then I don’t. It’s totally legal to publish any e-mail sent to you UNLESS there is a disclaimer stating otherwise. Dave, if you were to publish all the e-mails I’ve sent you in their authentic form, there wouldn’t be jackshit I could do. I could only be pissed. If I put a disclaimer on them, that would be a different story.
It’s kind of like photography-You can take a picture of anyone, anywhere in this country as long as it’s in a public setting. The only time you cannot take a picture of someone or videotape them is when it’s on private property and there’s an expectation of privacy.
I expect people not to publish my emails but unfortunetely, the law doesn’t look at private e-mails the same as they do private photos.
I don’t buy the blanket disclaimer protection. That standard “confidential” mark appears on almost every official email I get–even the ones that are meant for publication. It’s a case by case judgment.
Anyway, like the climategate emails, these facebook messages weren’t sent to me. They were forwarded/shared with me and it met my threshold for publication.
Your emails: I wouldn’t put them out there except under extenuating circumstances. If you suddenly went postal and took out a Naval cruiser with a homemade torpedo made of baked beans, I’d probably use everything I can get my hands on. Of course, your case is unique in that you’ve already got so many words out there.
But!
Do I support scanning in absolutely bizarre hand written letters and posting them on a blog? Yes. Do I love it when ridiculous voicemails left by rapid readers are streamed online? Yes though they rarely leave their names.
I can’t really fully imagine what it would be like to be in Belfer’s place.
I will say: if a subject responds to a story in which he appeared with a complaint, that is default on the record unless I already have an established off-the-record relationship with someone. Otherwise, if a subject wanted to correspond off the record, I would consider saying no. What I’m not going to do is let someone cyberstalk me.
Awww, don’t kill the thread, Dave!
Pete, Cuddlefish: Oh, I’m not. It’s just that it seems like the points and arguments have been exhausted and I’m moving onto other issues.
Dave, I’m really glad you’re onto the City’s official blacklist of journalists who won’t just repeat the official line.
Go get ‘em!
(I too got a post I intended for the bottom inserted into the middle as a “reply”. I think this happens when you click the link to the latest comments…note how the url refers to that comment, so the system “thinks” you’re replying to that comment even if you want to make a new bottom of the page post. So to make a bottom post, you have to clear everything after the #, refresh, then comment.)
So I’m still getting the hang of this, too. We have to reply to a specific message in order to keep continuity, or else just post at the bottom? Yet–some messages, for some reason, are inserted randomly?
The system here is a bit screwy.
It’s a whole lot easier when aren’t 200 comments to navigate.
One more reason why The Reader kicks the shit out of City Beat everytime. ;-P
Rollin’ the eyes. Obviously not every time, Mr Pistol.
Just think…this blog MIGHT have 300 comments by now if it was easier to read them…
Just sayin’… :-O
Ha. I don’t know that would be a good thing. At least 50 of those would be from you. :-O
Meant to bottom-post this: The Reader relaunched its own new Party Crasher column in the May 3rd issue, now written by Chad Deal (the Reader’s third Crasher – Daniel Ridge wrote the column through 2003, when Josh Board took over). So now there are TWO competing Party Crasher columns running, one in the Reader and the other at sandiego.com.
Be proud, Dave! 200 comments! Woohoo!
Hmph, my reply went random – not every comment has a “reply button” below it – confusing.
Dave,
I see where he says to forward around to your colleagues but not to publish. I’m no lawyer, just curious how that allows then for a private email to be published. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s DISGUSTING what Board wrote. Whether Belfer pokes at him in her column or not, there is no excuse to say anything along the lines of what he did. However everything he said just shows me a guy who has anger issues that come out with words. I think it should have remained private, even being sent to the boss of Reader in private email or letter would have worked for me…but not published online for the public to read when we don’t see the other side. There is a reason (note:not a good one) he felt like his only option of hurting someone was with such disgusting words.
Board was continually on the attack. Writers, bloggers, including on the Reader website, posters to the Reader website, people he met at those parties he crashed. Board did not hesitate to use personal or confidential information he gleaned through personal messages, emails, conversations, social gatherings, meetings, to insult and abuse anyone and everyone who he thought had crossed him. He got away with it, until he didn’t.
I disagree.
First: Calls were made to two editors at the Reader offering to show them the messages before publishing this blog. One editor said they did not want to see the messages in advance and would prefer to read them when published. The other did not return the call. Two messages were left for Board himself and he did not return my calls.
Second: Whenever a subject of a story writes hate mail in response to the story it is, by default, public. There was no consent to privacy: Board sent the messages unsolicited and Belfer had no option to say whether she wanted to received them or not.
Third: Previously when Board sent her offensive emails, Belfer published them on her blog, so he had no expectation that these would not be treated the same way.
Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to be about Josh Board anymore. After all, his staff blog has been discontinued, at least for the moment, and I guess we’ll all see what the future will bring. It seems to be – at least judging by this blog entry and most of the comments – all about CityBeat writers having a lack of material. Mr. Maass, I don’t know you, but with all due respect if CityBeat is paying you to create this drivel then you are quite overpaid.
But, since this is the stuff that CityBeat wants, who shall you go after next? Deploy a spy and try to catch the atheist Barbarella attending morning mass? Set up Don Bauder with a crooked politician paying for some good press? Try and catch Naomi Wise lunching at McDonald’s? Invite Mathew Lickona to a devil-worshiping ceremony?
Compelling stuff.
I don’t know Aaryn Belfer, but I’ll assume that she is a wonderful and lovely human being in every sense. Maybe she was bored. Maybe she had nothing to write about. Only she knows why she took a poke at Josh Board. Obviously, Josh couldn’t help himself and launched an inexpedient and questionably more than personal attack in his defense. Whether or not (or how far) he went over the top is not for you to decide, it is for his employer to deal with.
I do know Josh Board. He is often brash, always opinionated, and certainly controversial. I have not always gotten along with him and certainly not always agreed with him, but I do have a complete understanding of what his staff blog was all about. Controversy. Apparently, he did a great job because even before all of this, he had people feeling strongly enough about what he said in that a group of haters began popping up, one by one.
If only I had that power!
So, this isn’t about Josh Board anymore. It’s about the folks over at CityBeat taking shots at the Reader now. Is that all that CityBeat has left? With a city full of corruption and crooked politicians, an NFL team poised to take off to Los Angeles, and the influence of a foreign country merely footsteps away, you’ll have to excuse my sardonic notion of CityBeat editors berating their writers over not getting the latest scoop on the Reader staff.
“But, since this is the stuff that CityBeat wants, who shall you go after next? Deploy a spy and try to catch the atheist Barbarella attending morning mass? Set up Don Bauder with a crooked politician paying for some good press? Try and catch Naomi Wise lunching at McDonald’s? Invite Mathew Lickona to a devil-worshiping ceremony?”
This is kinda the sad part. Out of all the names on that list I only recognize one, Barbarella, because I made it through about one tenth of the cover story she did for The Reader on losing a bunch of weight – which was quite commendable I must add, just not the page turner I was hoping for. I don’t recognize any of those other names, but I will assume from the text that Don handles politics, Lickona is a spiritual advisor, and that Naomi works for Carl’s Jr. The Reader’s content isn’t exactly lighting this city on fire ya know. I think the only two areas of the paper that have any sort of following are the film and music sections, and the latter has thrived for years on the formula of stirring up shit locally. It is nice to see the paper chilling out in this department though. I have probably read four or five cover stories that have interested me over the years. One was about the metal detector people who worked the beaches circa 98 or 99, another was a piece that centered on condo owners after the real-estate crash, there was a great candid piece written about an experience getting a DUI and its aftermath, and of course, the best Reader cover story ever, the tale of the concert bootlegger who revealed tricks such as sneaking his girlfriend into a concert with half a basketball stuffed down her shirt, filled with recording equipment, so she appeared pregant.
What it comes down to is that most people used to pick up The Reader for concert and film listings and the classifieds, and now most people pick it up for concert and film listings and the 500 coupons. It’s kinda depressing to see it suffer such shrinkage. That paper used to be a fat mofo, now it’s like Lindsay Lohan on a cracker binge.
“I don’t recognize any of those other names, but I will assume from the text that Don handles politics, Lickona is a spiritual advisor, and that Naomi works for Carl’s Jr.”
If you don’t recognize Bauder, then you don’t read much. He wrote for the UT for many years. But you’ve missed my point anyway, so no matter – you are proving it, unintentionally. Both CityBeat and The Reader are throw-away weeklies, neither will garner a Pulitzer any time soon. Or more to the point, you get what you pay for.
I have never read any columns or staff blogs in The Reader pointing out CityBeat muck. Yet, I read it here.
I doan reed mush.
Well I never pay attention to the UT so I guess that would make sense. And I guess The Reader kinda trumps CB since they basically pay their readers to write their content now. Maybe they should start paying people to read it as well. People in this city could BANK! Sure there would be a lot of crying, misery, self-inflicted stab wounds, but people would GET PAID, YO!!!
“I have never read any columns or staff blogs in The Reader pointing out CityBeat muck.”
Apparently you don’t read much either. This one had a cartoon to go with it in the print edition:
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/oct/28/blurt2/
you guys have to realize at this point that the Reader would have rushed this whole thread into print–sans a few parts that offended massa Holtzman– it’s free copy, after all. perhaps they would have called it Flame-O-Rama.
What I get from refried’s thread is that the Reader has names on its staff that are recognizable, and that the Reader has made a ton of difference over the years and has really stirred the pot and affected change. Except for Ed Decker (who the Reader should hire to replace Board then this whole thread would be even more meaningless) who the hell does City Beat have? The City Beat staff is famous for tearing down Reader writers. And that is fine. But for the love of God, what the hell does City Beat bring to the table? To either the city as a whole or to advertisers? I can offer one answer: it has the same impact that City Beat L.A. had on L.A.
They’ve got me, and for one I’m proud of that. The full-time staff are a hard-working, honest group of journalist whose stories have impact on the people that read them, which, apparently, you’re one of.
Ryan Blue- It’s funny you say that you’re from the Midwest yet mention the East Coast. I’ve been all over this great land of ours and have noticed the lack of realness from anyone not living in the Midwest or the South. When I think of the East Coast or West Coast, I think of egotism(America’s Finest City), pretentiousness(We’re not L.A.) & an overall inflated sense of self(Chargeless fans).
Allow me to throw some REAL words that REAL people use everyday while existing in the REAL world:
Nigger
Spic
Faggot
Wop
Sandnigger
Mick
Kike
Jiggaboo
Porchmonkey
Whigger
Honkey
Redskin
Slanteye
Gook
There are a ton more. The reason I still use these terms is because I was brainwashed at an early age that it’s better to lie and be unoffensive than tell the truth no matter how bad it hurts. It’s a fantasy vs. cold, hard truth kind of thing.
It’s been said before and I’ll continue to say it:
If what I say offends you, maybe you need to be offended.
It’s funny…I’m considered a racist because I call the thug down the street a nigger but wouldn’t hesitate to help some random black guy who needed it. Methinks that the race card has been pulled so many times in the past that nobody has the intelligence to see through the transparency of it all. If I was racist, I’d be Christian, an NRA member, proud member of the KKK and wouldn’t help anyone who wasn’t white. Last time I checked, Christians piss me off, I’m a hunter who hates guns and only use them for sport to get some free meat, don’t give a shit one way or the other about the KKK and help out humans regardless of color as long as I judge that they deserve it.
Care to assume anything else about me?
As for REAL people living out here, I’ve met a few transplants that were REAL before they sold out their ideologies for boring weather, corrupt politicians and shitty sports teams. The only reason why I side with natives against transplants is because transplants have invaded and brought their fucked up sense of morals with them. The beach ban is a perfect example of some pompous asshole transplant fucking it up for the rest of us. Like the old adage says, “Be careful what you ask for-you might just get it…”
GET A LIFE PETE. Go to the park, the dry cleaners, the grocery store. Go anywhere. Go write in your journal at the beach (instead of writing journal entries on this blog).
Please, please shut up. I know I don’t have to read what you write but it’s so pathetic I can’t help myself. You’re like an American Idol reject, except instead of bad impersonations of famous singers you do a bad impersonation of George Carlin.
I know you’re probably just going to make fun of me for not using my real name, or try to SHOCK me with some vulgar language, but please don’t. Please go to the beach or something, and leave my poor eyes alone.
LULZ! Once again, I don’t have to really say anything to prove my point.
JAS from the Reader here – someone said my name was being dropped. I doubt this thread is still being read by anyone except a couple of combatants, but I’d like to clarify some things, by way of provided some actual factual info and (somewhat insider) intel —-
First, thanks for the compliment “Senator” made about my “Confessions of a Bootlegger” cover feature – one of my faves, and I should’ve deferred payment for the article in lieu of all the great local concert recordings I got from the guy.
RE me supposedly paying local musicians for “dirt” on their fellows – I’ve written for Blurt for almost 15 years, and I’ve been the predominant Blurt writer for around a year now. In 2008 and 2009, I submitted vouchers for a total of five “tip fees,” as the paper used to call them in the Blurt indicia, at $25 per. Four of those tip fees went to local bloggers who provided story leads that got written up (none of them musicians), and three of THOSE were to the same blogger, Rosey at sddialed.com. Of the five tips paid, only one concerned the actual tipster – we quoted so heavily from one of Rosey’s blogs about her VS one video-shy touring band, I felt she deserved a payout, more as co-writer than tipster.
The Reader’s general policy is to NOT pay story SUBJECTS anything – the closest I ever came to doing so was buying Wild Man Fischer a Burger King lunch while we chatted. I can’t vouch for other Reader writers —
Someone above said the Reader is anti-gay and/or sexist. If you browse the last 100 music features (each profiling a single local act), most written by myself, you’ll find around 20 focus on a female solo performers, 15 more concern bands which include women, and at least 8 are about performers I know to be gay, most very openly (plus one who essentially “came out” in her Reader feature). So it’s demonstrably untrue that the Reader itself is somehow anti-gay or anti-women, tho I cant vouch for eds or other writers.
I don’t know if it’s the same at CityBeat, but most Reader writers find and create articles independent of the publisher’s or editorial instruction. I’ve never been told to seek content that aligns with the publisher’s POV. I didn’t even KNOW about Mr. Holman’s political and social leanings until reading about them in an old CityBeat article, and my professional association with the Reader dates back almost 20 years.
Now for the best “intel” I can offer, which is something I recently posted on the Reader site as instructional for the our growing crew of stringer reporters — it’s something the publisher told me many years ago that sums up the paper’s editorial voice in a way that also demonstrates what sets it apart from CityBeat, and indeed from most other weekly publications, most of which have gone under or are dying.
Mr. Holman said “Our job isn’t necessarily to inform, nor even to entertain, but rather to ENGAGE.”
Our stories, no matter the topic, tend to come across as concerning things that MATTER (if perhaps only to a niche crowd). In addition, the best and busiest Reader writers are the ones you feel like you’ve gotten to know a bit, just by reading their work. Yes, that’s almost the antithesis of Journalism 101 instructions, that reporters should keep themselves out of the story – however, it’s that first-person reporter’s “journalism-with-an-agenda” POV that I think has allowed the Reader to be one of the few weeklies in the nation still thriving in 2010.
I like CityBeat okay – the only time I DISlike it is when things degenerate (as in this thread) into discourteous behavior and, worse, name calling. The current era of piss-off reporting at CityBeat seems to have been ushered in with Seth Combs’ first demo reviews. That approach may seem on the surface to emulate the Reader’s own longstanding policy to “engage” readers above and beyond anything else.
However, I’d opine that such mean-spirited content (I hesitate to call it “journalism”) instead approximates a schoolyard bully’s tendency to reward any peer’s attempt at philosophical or intellectual endeavors with a punch in the fukken head.
Finally, in keeping with this thread’s long-windedness (and inability to focus on the original topic), I do not speak FOR the Reader, nor for Josh Board, nor for members of the public who post on the Reader’s website. I’m just another writer and cartoonist who’s been around this fine and funny city long enough to hope the things I do and draw continue to engage the vast readership enjoyed by the Reader —
Jay -
Thanks for the contribution. Your cartoons suck a stunning amount of cock.
LULZ!
Tuesday, and Board hasn’t posted since Saturday.
That’s because he’s gone. They have removed him from the list of writers.
Gone, as in sending him to rehab, or anger management, or sensitivity training, or gone as in gone?
You might ask the Reader about the terms of him being gone. We’re interested in seeing what’s in tomorrow’s Reader.
Again, you are proving my point, watching for Board’s column in the Reader is noteworthy? His column(s) will be there if he is sceduled to be published that week, regardless. The columns are written in advance. So are those of CityBeat.
What point? That you’re daft and don’t understand newspaper deadlines?
Ah, and now you resort to insults. I think that we are getting to the narrow, short bridge that separates you from Josh Board. It certainly didn’t take much time.
Just pointing out that you’re ignorant to how newspapers work. If I was fired on a Saturday, there’s no way my scheduled story would run in the next issue because I finish it on Tuesday. Stories frequently fall through and we successfully scramble to replace them.
Ah, daft AND ignorant. Nice. That’s a great way to make friends and garner readership, and you do it so well!
So, CityBeat writers hand in their columns on Tuesday and they go to press immediately. Well, the Reader doesn’t work that way, for the most part. They may or may not have pulled Josh’s column, but if he was scheduled to do a column for that week, it would have been written well in advance. Of course, I’m just daft and ignorant, so don’t listen to me, ask someone over there who isn’t daft and ignorant.
Weren’t you wrong in the end?
The deadlines vary writer to writer, depending on which section. In my case, as a news writer, we try to keep the stories as timely and up-to-date as possible, which means a tuesday deadline. To suggest there’s anything wrong with that is to say that daily papers shouldn’t exist.
And as for “friendship,” why would I want to be your friend. As far as building readership—you keep coming back.
Pistolas at dawn, gentlemen?
Me thinks the SN JoshBoardIsAnIdiot is HIGHLY ironic. Anyone else agree with me or is the truth too much for you to handle?
It is interesting that Jay Allen Sanford who he claims is so important to the Reader does not even live in California. How does that work? Do I get $25?
If you call the Reader front desk and ask for Josh Board you get:
“he is no longer with the company.”
They need to hire Ed Decker and replace the worst weekly alternative writer in SD with the best.
SD Reader is advertising for new house party content. http://bit.ly/5Cr0yY
How many Reader writers don’t live in Calif? There’s Bauder, who’s apparently in Colorado. And Sanford, if that’s true. Might as well outsource the thing to India.
As a long-time poster on the Reader website, I can only say that Josh was always been kind to me and I considered him to be a friend. I thought his “offensive” comments deliberate so as to ignite controversy. I didn’t take him that seriously. I haven’t heard of City Beat before this flap occurred, but I have to say you sound jealous of the Reader and Josh; and, like you can dish it out but you can’t take it. You also play the race card, “An AFRICAN AMERICAN adopted child.” Don’t you think that considering our president is black, that its time to stop making everything about color, each and every time the opportunity arises?
Yes, Josh is the type of person I want to have at my house. Josh, when do you want to come to dinner?
You, your married lover, Michael Jackson, and JB.
Four in a bed would be kind of crowded, yeah?
I am late to this discussion folks, but would like to say that it is with great joy that I hear of Josh Board’s firing. Finally, the powers that be at the Reader realize that Board was an unscrupulous character, privately begging casual commenters to come back and contribute, and stooping to using slurs based on sex and gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds, rather than real talent and well-researched issues commentary, to try and drum up a readership and “controversy.” Or did they? Perhaps, rather, they were worried that just as in the Critical Mass threads of his they had to take down, in which he incited public violence on cyclists, liabilities were just piling up like little clinking gold bars. Or perhaps they finally realized he was spending a little too much time harrassing people by chasing them around online, or using off the record content from private conversations with people he’d decided to turn on, so turnabout is more than fair play in this blog, I’d say.
Whatever the reasons, I applaud the decision.
This is my goodbye to Josh Board, ironically on another site, and only the second I’ve ever blogged on. Time for something new, I guess. Which reminds me–I hope Josh enjoys looking for a job in this economy with his writing (ahem) “skills.” Get in line behind all of the unemployed people who can write, Josh; meanwhile, enjoy slinging them burgers.
Whoever this Ed Decker is, I welcome him with open commas, parentheses, and winky faces.
Wow. Thanks for the response. Ed Decker is one of CityBeat’s columnists and should stay that way.
CityBeat is a fine publication, I have enjoyed reading it for a long time now.
You certainly arrived with a splash, Dave Maas.
Thank you! You know, I’m just that kind of writer: Why ease in at the shallow end? Seems like a waste of time when I can swim perfectly well in the deep water.
interesting that City Beat staffer Dave Maas spends all day blogging. No wonder the paper is going down. If Ed Decker segues to the Reader, it would allow him a timely departure from this sinking ship, and it would give the Reader needed credibility and a compelling must-read writer which they seem to need now.
All day blogging? Hardly.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/author/dave_maass/372/
Question for jayallen sanford: Why did you feel it necessary to lie about Board’s firing? According to Pistol Pete’s blog on the Reader site, you said removing Board’s blog was a computer glitch.
And to Board:
Have fun on your job search, loser.
Uhhhhhhhh….Yeah….I just re-read what JAS said and NOWHERE in it does he claim that Board did or did not get fired. So tell me….If he didn’t say ANYTHING about Board getting fired, how in the motherfuck did he lie?
As for the computer glitch, at the time, I too, believed that it was a computer glitch seeing as my own blog was having technical difficulties one night. The original blog in question is no longer up. The Reader did in fact delete it. I have no idea why exactly but I’m pretty sure it had to do with sensitive subject matter at that time. I’m not real happy about my shit getting pulled but at this time, I must choose my battles very wisely.
As for Josh, he’ll be fine. He’ll find work somewhere else.
Well, seeing as the comment has been removed, we will never know now exactly what was said on the blog. Unless Pistol Pete cares to share exactly what Sanford said to him. He must surely have it saved on his e-mail messages. Or Sanford can answer for himself. Unless he prefers that Pistol Pete speak for him.
Okay, rethinking this, sort of: So lied may not be accurate. Misdirected. Or possibly at the time he answered your query, Pistol Pete, he didn’t know the situation with Board.
Hmmmm …
I ask because Sanford was discussing the importance of trustworthiness on the forum one day re a poster who claimed not to have reported another poster. Seems to me a writer for the Reader should be held to at least the same standard as a poster.
Could all just be a misunderstanding, though …
This is the never ending thread!
I’ve commented on Josh’s (now gone) blog posts. I’d say most of the time I was strongly opposed to what he wrote, and I described exactly why.
But I never thought he was a bad person. His job was to get eyeballs on the site, and by writing deliberately provacative and very politically incorrect stuff, he succeeded.
The one time we met face to face, he seemed all right to me. He enjoys a good argument, as do I, but at the end of the day I never hated him.
So I think it was a bit over-the-top to drop him. He should have been reprimanded, sure. But so should Belfry. They were both being unprofessional, and if you ask Josh I’m sure he’ll admit he was wrong to take it so far. He lost his temper, and so he lost his job.
He’s been punished enough.
I’m glad to see writers who are open in their points of views, instead of this pretended “I’m unbiased” stance most take. I read stuff I disagree with all the time, and appreciate a writer who’s willing to engage with me in our disagreements. It motivates me to learn more on the subject, and by commenting on stories I where I find fault, I actually get to present the other point of view.
And Josh was ACTIVE on his blog, responding frequently. He didn’t just write and hide away. That was his downfall, perhaps, but it would be a shame if other writers decide to not risk offending and stay away from the conversation they’ve generated.
Oh well. There’s my three cents. I wish Josh well…and I also wish Aaron well. Writing is a tough business, especially when you put yourself on the line. We need more of this, not less, even when it reveals the fact that writers have warts, prejudices, bias, and personal flaws.
BTW: Dave, so far so good. I’m glad you’re in San Diego. When I eventually give you a hard time (just wait, it will happen) please understand that it’s probably not personal.
Thanks, Fred.
But, what exactly should Belfer apologize for? Taking a shot at another columnist in her column? That’s perfectly appropriate. Forwarding a harassing email from that columnist to her employer? No, that’s appropriate too.
As usual, Fred, letting us know that you have an “in” with the columnist, and know them personally. You do get around.
Yes, one tends to appreciate someone who engages consistently in argument, but I spent my fair share of time engaged in “argument” with Board (yes, if it matters, in person, too), and rather than offering well-researched or seated responses to my objections to his clueless observations, he always offered more clueless observations–and soon, ridiculous ad hominem attacks, which drifted into harassment on private email, and then revelation of off the record conversations, in person and in email. Yep. Doubt he did that to you, since you did not engage that seriously with him.
He talked ceaselessly about debate, but wouldn’t know one if it hit him in the eye, and you know that. Hi stepbrother (whom we all know to be rickeysays) seems to have brainwashed him over the years to his own brand of essentialist doctrine about how human beings are all about genetics and behavior, and cultural influence DOES NOT EXIST. This allowed the two of them, armed with the only book Josh has ever read, Freakanomics, to go around spewing that “blacks” are doomed by inferior genetic makeup to live in ghettos and blast music in their cars and talk loudly in theatres, and resort to senseless violence that annoy the good police force and white citizens of this country. This racist and ill-researched doctrine is what led him to make those statements to Belfer, too. People erupt in anger with racist statements because they believe in what they are saying, not because they were “pushed” to say irrational racist things. Board’s threads (if they can even be accessed anymore) exist(ed) solely as record of how ignorant and lazy minds drift toward this kind of errored and appalling thinking.
Fred, the point is that just because Board was engaged, and constantly spewing on the Reader threads does not mean that these were good solid contributions. White supremacists spew their rhetoric too; this does not make them admirable, just because they stick with it, and attempt to answer their interlocutors. Don’t let your allegiance to the Reader lead you to make falsely sentimental statements about what Board “did” there.
Why is this thread still going? I mean, the issue is pretty much over. Can we not move onto something else, like the mayor across-the-board blackballing the Reader’s “neighborhood stringers”?
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/jan/14/sorry-citizen-journalist/
Dave, the thread is titled: “Is SD Reader’s Party Crasher really someone you want to invite into your home?”
I’ve said my piece, but deserved to do so, and the content is appropriate to the title subject.
Why don’t you start a thread titled: “Why is the mayor across-the-board blackballing the Reader’s “neighborhood stringers?”
Oops. The words “Board” and “black” are in that title. You might want to reword that.
I didn’t mean that personally. I meant to post it at the very bottom of the blog, but apparently popped my comment into the wrong box. My apologies.
This is the thread that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends, some people starting reading it, not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue reading it forever just because, this is the thread that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends, some people starting reading it, not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue reading it forever just because this is the thread that never ends ….
[repeat ad nauseum]
It’ll be a LOOOOOOOONG time before this blog dies a horrible death. I’ll say one thing for your staying power, Dave-we can shoot, stab, poison, hang and drown this thread but it’ll die hard!
Hee hee. What horrible fate awaits the blog that never dies?
So, let’s indeed start a new topic. Dave, my man, I’m all about new discussions. Give us your energetic, your rich, your roomy threads of new and exciting topics. Carpal tunnel be damned!
Hey! One thing CityBeat threads have on the Reader’s? Winkies and smilies are round and yellow and sassy, not just a semicolon and half a parentheses. Right on. I’ll take a serving.
So: As a Reader community blogger for about a year, I’d like to say that it looks like Reader community bloggers get a bad rap for some reason. Sure, we are sort of stuck with Pete’s occasional racist rants, but he’s only been around for a few months, and you’ll find that 99.9% of the other contributors do not share his views.
There also seems to be an awful lotta lazy condemnation of Holman, for one, and conflation of his politics with the content of the Reader; it looks like the hip, ‘knowing’ retort many here resort to when without anything else to say of substance. Thing is, as much as I abhor Holman’s politics when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, I just don’t see them influencing the Reader’s content–and I’ve spent about fifteen years examining text for subtextual rhetoric. In fact, I know that Holman has also given support to writers who do not share his politics, going so far as to pay a writer’s extensive medical bills. That’s pretty cool in my book. And now that Board is gone, the Reader’s got a clean slate when it comes to bigoted social commentary. If you bother to read some of the bloggers’ content, you’ll find some interesting stuff, like an expat’s view of Tijuana, or some fairly decent prose on neighborhoods of SD, or some talented stringer contributors, translating news from Mexican news sources (some of these are questionable, yes), and reporting on neighborhood and community incidents that bigger publications don’t bother reporting.
So what is it really, aside from Board or the fact that Holman owns the paper, that really irks CityBeat contributors and writers about the Reader’s politics? What is the makeup of this supposed ideology you object to? I would earnestly like to understand.
It’s the battle of the yahdudes vs the yahoos, Daniels.
All snark and no sense.
I’m not the one to ask about the ideological issues…I just think that there’s a lot of awful writing and reporting. But I do think the experiment in citizen journalism is interesting.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Ironically, by getting rid of Board, the Reader has sent it’s most frequent posters over her to CityBeat.
Posted today on the Reader site about the return of Josh Board’s Crasher column. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/autobiography-channel/2010/mar/09/party-crasher-returns-elsewhere/
Tho the Reader’s Crasher column existed before Josh Board wrote it, he seems to have taken the column name and format with him — http://www.sandiego.com/crasher/party-crasher-ombac-s-unjust-dessert
[snip] does the Reader hold a trademark on the Crasher name and concept?
How do you like his new Crasher column? I like it fine – always did – tho I wonder why a competing paper wants to ape a Reader-created feature?
And does a writer hired to take over a column then own that column name and format enough to take it elsewhere?
The Reader relaunched its own new Party Crasher column in the May 3rd issue, now written by Chad Deal (the Reader’s third Crasher – Daniel Ridge wrote the column through 2003, when Josh Board took over). So now there are TWO competing Party Crasher columns running, one in the Reader and the other at sandiego.com.
Earlier this year the San Diego Reader unceremoniously fired Board after a tenure of 15 years. In his forties he is desperate scambling to get work of any kind.
May I suggest sign twirling?
Funny. I don’t seem to recall ever seeing someone named Delia Parker giving movie reviews on Fox 5, yet I have seen someone named Josh Board. I wonder why that is….
Tell me something:
Why are there no pictures of Josh Board anywhere?
Because nobody wants a bald, Sea Bond Denture Cream crasher at their party!
Guffaw! Guffaw! Guffaw! There’s a pic of Josh at his new home.
Winnah, winnah, Spammy dinnah!!!*
*borrowed that from SDaniels.