Frank Lewis, Tell Me How My Ass Tastes

I know I haven't written a blog in quite some time. The events of the last few days have given me a few blog ideas. The Celtics-Bulls playoff series has turned into perhaps the best ever played, as it heads to game seven after the sixth edition went three overtimes. It's been some sick shit, and has reminded everyone that the NBA, despite whatever malady ails it at the time, is still freaking awesome.

But that's not why I've decided to write today.

Since the 2002 election, I've stayed away from politics. I still pay attention, I watch the news (and not just MSNBC), read newspapers online that I don't pay for (unless I start attending the advertised University of Phoenix online, I don't think I'm paying for my New York Times "subscription"), and I debate my conservative friends whenever I get a chance. Healthy. I also vote. I'm just not waving any flags or going door-to-door these days.

The gubernatorial election of 2002 changed my take on the whole process. Driving around my uncle, I knew he was gonna lose. He knew he was gonna lose. In March. But he fought on with guts and true character. He drank his Diet Cokes, and we enjoyed cheeseburgers from Athens to Zanesville, and sat through depressing Jefferson Day Dinners from Ashtabula to Cincy. It always amazed me, as a 23-year old relying on Red Bull to drive the candidate and our posse (usually three deep, but sometimes just the two of us) how he could, at 56 years old, stay so on point. He was delivering a liberal stump speech five or six or eight times a day, something right out of the 2008 campaign playbook, but unfortunately it was six years early.

But that said it all. He was not compromising his core principles. At a union hall, when he drank a Bud (and he doesn't drink beer), the fired up and increasingly intoxicated attendees literally started passing around a hat, throwing cash into it. Now, keep in mind, Bob Taft had about an AIG bailout's worth of cash for his campaign, while my uncle had enough to pay for our next tank of gas and ten yard signs. I saw this as a potential bonanza, and even entertained the idea of purchasing a few Red Bulls with it (I was on a very modest campaign stipend, and three bulls a day was taking about 10% of my net worth).

"Matt, find an envelope, put the cash in it, and give it back to (I forget the name, our union contact and friend of the campaign.)" DAMN, Tim, let's compromise here, dooood, it's like three hundred bucks. PlayStation game. Christie's Cabaret. C'mon unkskie...

Not a chance.

Enter The Other Paper. The "alternative" (note- I may or may not tense shift, but I will certainly tenor shift, right now) newspaper in Columbus did a hatchet job on Tim, messing up quotes, using quotes out of context, and basically butchering him up. I'm thinking, what motivation would an "alternative" newspaper have for thrashing the liberal alternative to Bob Taft, a buttoned up R right out of central GOP casting.

But it made me realize something. For the most part, these "alternative" papers aren't that alternative at all. I travel all the time for work, and they all look the same. Like almost exactly. They're owned by the same corporations. They employ the same type of writer/reporter/editor, this is now clear to me. An "alt" reporter operates with a press pass, giving the illusion that they actually respect principles of journalism. But when they write, they are (collectively) so traumatized by their 1) rejections from real papers- the ones with real editors- the ones that at least pay lip service to the value of objectivity, and their 2) inability to gain any traction with their words, because nobody buys (they're almost always free anyway) or picks up an "alt" for the articles. "Alts" make money from ads, and are getting hammered by Craigslist, and have literally only hookers and phone-sex advertisements to thank for their survival. People picking up alts are either looking for a band or a bar, or looking for Eliot Spitzer's girl.

So they are a defeated group, and I get that.

Enter Frank Lewis and Dan Harkins, two "leading" contributor-editor-reporter dudes at the Cleveland Scene. Leading the Scene, I feel, at this point, has about as much responsibility and importance as leading an overmatched softball team in Euclid in 2003. (Still Coach Nate, you did a great job.)

They both went hard after my uncle on the Med Mart deal. That, truly, is fine. I'm totally OK with that. If these weeklies did have a purpose, that would be it. Challenge the political leadership in a smart, objective, and measured fashion- and if they have to use humor to catch a few more readers, so be it.

Unfortunately, both forgot about the smart, measured, and objective part. They tried humor, but I don't know how funny shaping a winding metaphor of an article around my uncle's health problems are. I certainly know that offering a dig about marrying up twice is nothing less than vitriolic. Judge for yourself- this is the Dan Harkins article. http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/how-we-got-screwed/Content?oid=1565381

Frank Lewis, well he made it his duty to go to name-calling (which I reciprocated, no doubt, in my emails to him) and to call Tim a criminal. This, I still feel, is libelous. Puss Lewis claims it's not, and IMMEDIATELY published some of the more incidieary passages of the emails I sent to him. He, of course, never published his condescending blasts to me via email about my misuse of words or my failure to understand what libel means. That wouldn't fit in with his mode de vie, which is to lampoon Tim Hagan for failing to give him an interview, even if it means being a complete and total puss-ball. Here's the select passages that he choose to publish and editorialize on in his Scene Blog forum. If he meant to throw me under a bus, it would work better if the bus was in motion, as it is very clear that NOBODY reads his shit. But here is his excerpted and editorialized take on our correspondence;
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2009/04/29/fan-mail-from-hagan-not-that-hagan-updated

So I call you out, Mr. Frank Lewis. You have a much larger forum to go rogue than I do, even if it's a tree falling in the woods when no one is around kind of large forum. You fancy yourself as a hockey player, I have deduced. You are quick to call someone an arrogant prick, you are quick to pick and choose which portions of our email correspondence to publish (like the cowardly hack you are). And yes, I really would like to kick your ass. That's illegal though. So, I offer you this challenge; Let's have a charity boxing match, proceeds go to the winner's favorite charity. Mine will go to the county's general fund. Yours will probably go to the Scene's creditors, as I'm guessing you'll be looking for work soon. Maybe this publicity will stave off the Chapter 11 reaper for a week or two, huh?

I will close with a direct quote from Mike Tyson, but instead of the earstwhile British champ, let's sub the name "Frank" for "Lennox," and here we are: “Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"