[Reg-O-Meter staff memo: With yet another entry this week of the name “Gordon Dillow,” the Reg-O-Meter, after being in operation a mere three weeks, incurred a major, possibly fatal technological malfunction—goddamn Radio Shack parts. Until repairs can be made, the Reg-O-Meter has been shut down. So instead, please enjoy the following slices of bad Reggie behavior from the past week you may have missed, sans highly scientific calculatin’ and shit.]
SUNDAY, MARCH 23
The Weekly’s R. Scott Moxley posts this steamy-hot, leather-clad, ball-gagged POV on Gordon Dillow’s latest I-love-a-man-in-uniform column. Just in case, you know, you missed it…..
MONDAY, MARCH 24
Hey, Marty Wisckol! Look, man—I don’t know what it’s like to work for the Register—oh, wait . . . yes I do!—but it’s gotta be hard coming up with fresh material for your political column there at the Grand Avenue mausoleum.
Today, though, in “The Buzz”—how much market research was done before the Reg mucky-mucks thought that name up, anyway?—your sense of quiet desperation became terribly obvious. We know how you have to make your job there seem as relevant as possible to your bosses, even though it ain’t. Especially when, like today, you start off your column—headlined “Race makes some wary of Obama”—-with the line “If you have any doubt that race remains a significant issue for many voters, check out the OC Political Pulse poll last week on Barack Obama’s ‘race’ speech last week. A quarter of GOP respondents said that Obama had an ‘underlying black agenda.’”
The OC Political Pulse is an online Register poll that’s just as ridiculous and insipid as the Reggie’s old daily telephone polls they used to run in print in an attempt to engage readers—stuff like “Do you like cats? Vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’” (well, maybe not that insipid, but pretty damn close).
But back to that first graf of Marty's story . . . race a significant issue for “many voters?” Based on your cute li’l fuzzy-faced poll, Marty? As much as we suck at it, let's do the math: The total number of Republicans who responded to your loaded Obama question—and I’m writing this a week after the fact—is 42. And, as you say, a full quarter of that number comes out to . . . a whopping 11. But a headline blaring 11 REPUBLICANS THINK OBAMA HAS AN UNDERLYING BLACK AGENDA just ain’t really sexy, is it? About as sexy as the picture of you that stares at me from your column, Marty . . . you with your creepy Manchurian Candidate/Scientologist's gaze and Charlie Manson grin.
So your whole column is based on the results of a completely batshit poll, and then you go and give it an air of legitimacy by printing the equally batshit rantings of one Sharon Bush, who basically thinks that Obama is a slobbering, sword-carrying, blood-drinking, child-eating Muslim who's trying to take over the country and enslave Christians.
Lovely.
TUESDAY, MARCH 25
Some 7 years after the Weekly first scrawls about very, very OC artist Aaron Kraten—
we’ve even put his work on our cover. Twice!—the Reg finally discovers him and runs a piece on Kraten's new iPod skins. Better late than never, though seven years practically is.
