Monday, February 13, 2006

I am so out of tune with you

Here in Greensboro, you can't get away with blogging unflattering things about people in high places. Especially if you compare them to people in low places. First, it happened to my friend Kevin, then it happened to me.

Kevin recently criticized some dude named Bill Brummell after reading a corny quotation on a Starbucks cup. Turns out, this Brummell dude is a tv producer/documentarian. Remember "Night Tracks" from the '80s? Sure you do! It was a music video show that came on TBS on Saturday nights spanning into Sunday morning. That was his baby. Apparently he works for FOX now. Anyway, this dude has evidently been reading Kevin's blog, and specifically that particular post. Kevin's analogy was that Brummel's poem is like something written by "every 8th grade girl ever".

Over at my other place, I recently wrote something about Ted Leonsis, who is majority owner of the Washington Capitals and vice chairman of AOL. He markets himself as a really approachable and "normal" guy, and he actually does a great job of reaching out to the public. On two occasions that I know of, he's invited Caps bloggers to watch a game from his owner's box. He also extended a really nice gift to all the season ticket holders who stayed on board through the lockout.
My post, though was criticism of his completely absurd "101 goals in life". I called him, among other things, "arrogant", "self-serving" and "decadent". Here's what may have been the one, though:
The whole list, to me, reeks of arrogance. Especially the way he checks them off the way a leathery bar whore adds notches to her lipstick case. Maybe he's a really swell guy, but you lose your "normal guy" cred when one of your goals in life is

15 Net worth of one billion dollars, after taxes


Anyway, Mr. Leonsis caught wind of it, and sent me a short e-mail, telling me that he likes Wilco and "Raising Arizona" and that he grew up in the town where the Hurricanes' minor league team plays (Lowell, Mass), while going to public school. He said he left a comment on the blog, but he must have been foiled by the robot protection, because I never saw the comment. Oh, and yes, it really was him.

Maybe we can make this into a game. See who can get traffic on their blog from the person in the highest position after writing bad stuff about them.

now playing:

Kleenex Girl Wonder Ponyoak

5 comments:

Reid said...

Hans left a comment on my blog after I called him a "makeup-smeared, Hamlet-spouting stage monkey". That's as high as it gets around my place.

Anonymous said...

Ted Leo reads your hockey blog? Like...whoa!!! ;)

Kevin said...

I don't know if these folks are just egomaniacs or what, but apparently they Google themselves all the time. Or maybe just because they've gotten sorta famous, they have minions everywhere Googling them and sending links to what they find. I'd bet on the latter, because my blog gets more hits from people all over searching for "Bill Brummel" than from anything else. (Search Google for "Bill Brummel"--my unflattering article has become the numero uno result.)

Really, though, let's face it--if I got moderately famous, I'd Google myself every freakin' day. The only reason I do it only every week or so now is because I know any more often would be pointless and, moreover, embarrassing. So it's not humility keeping me from doing it--it's actually ego. Not that that should be a big surprise.

d-lee said...

I know by now that it's absolutely pointless for me to google myself unless I include the terms "assface" or "dipshit". If I do a straight up google search with no modifiers, the first ten thousand pages will be about David Lee Roth. The next ten thousand will be about that dude David Lee who played college basketball at Florida and who now plays for the Knicks.

You guys don't know how lucky you are to have names that aren't already famous.

Anonymous said...

Bill Brummel is an independent producer in Los Angeles who makes documentaires mostly for The History Channel and Discovery. His recent films include the Peabody award winning "Rwanda: Do Scars Ever Fade?", "Standing Tall at Auschwitz," and "First to Fight: The Black Tankers of WWII." He is currently producing "Blood Diamonds" for the History Channel. This is a documentary that examines the issue of conflict diamonds specifically in Sierra Leone in the mid 90s.

I know all of this because I've worked with the guy on several shows.