11.03.2006

How Do You Boycott a Free Newspaper?

The Washington City Paper has always walked the fine line between relevant news and asinine observation. I'll miss that line. Yesterday's print edition took that line and absolutely destroyed it.

The City Paper's cover story, "Your Unfinished Basement or Mine?," by Franklin Schneider, is one healthy dose of stupid and one totally inappropriate dose of misogyny. It's more embarrassing than "Dear Penthouse" letters. The disrespect thrown towards women is mind-altering. I have no choice other than to copy-and-paste the Hell out of it to illustrate how beyond the pale this piece of crap article is.

Last summer, I found myself coming off a crippling breakup. Somehow, things had gone horribly wrong between me and the love of my life. There was a time we'd talked seriously about "together forever," but by the end of our two-year run I was scared to use the shampoo in the bathroom for fear she'd spiked it with Nair...

Oh man, that sucks. No, wait. It doesn't suck. You know why it doesn't suck, Franklin? Because almost every single person reading The Washington City Paper has been through a terrible break-up. Every. Single. Person. Franklin Schneider, you are not unique.

By the way, every paragraph of this "story" makes it clearer and clearer that Franklin's ex-girlfriend was 100% not at fault for this failed relationship.

We were both aggressive people, and at the end it was all-out emotional terrorism. She made a concerted effort during our protracted breakup to undermine me in the most vicious way. I wasn't a man, she informed me, which was why we hadn't had sex for months. I have to admit, it got to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought she might be right. After all, I'd spy a sweaty woman with a cleft palate on the Metro and go into a reverie of lust, while my hot, naked girlfriend at home left me cold and flaccid. Perhaps I really was less than a man.

If only there were some medium of communication that could express Franklin's feelings without inconveniencing the many City Paper readers who just don't give a shit. Oh, I know! Get a blog, Franklin. That way, you will only bother people who volunteer to give a shit about your pathetic love life.

This crisis simmered for a few months after our split until I lost my job. With a decent financial cushion, a steady flow of unemployment checks, and no obligations whatsoever, my life essentially became a stage on which I had unlimited license to work out all of my ego crises and psychodramas. I immediately plunged into what all my friends assured me was just the Darwinian social cauldron I needed - the D.C. bar scene. This turned out to be less therapeutic than it sounds.

You motherfucker. Woe is me! The government is paying my way and all I have to do is to go to bars and hit on women every single night. Of course it isn't therapeutic. You're a pile of shit for a human being. Work on that first. Ladies come second. Or in your case, not at all. *Rimshot*

She asked me for a light - this was at the Black Cat. She was beautiful and scathingly intelligent, the very reason I'd started sitting in bars every night. It was her birthday, she explained, and she was looking to have fun. At the end of the night, we drove to her apartment in Glover Park. Her roommate was home, so we went to my place instead.

At the time, I was staying in a friend's unheated, unfinished basement. My ex-girlfriend had recently kicked me out of our apartment. My new, temporary room had a 6-foot ceiling, no electricity, and such a bad infestation of silverfish that I had to sleep under head-to-toe mosquito netting. My bed was foam padding on a sheet of plywood laid out on concrete blocks, and the only light came from a naked, yellowed bulb hanging overhead. Lucky for me, she found the whole setup transgressive and, thus, arousing. Or at least exotic...

I would love to hear from ladies on the romanticism of silverfish and mosquito netting. Please tell me this Glover Park lady is some kind of horrible exception to the rule that women find bugs gross.

When we were about to get down to it, she stopped and said she had a confession to make. "It's that time of month," she told me. Did I mind? No, I did not mind.

As I showered in the morning, careful to breathe through my mouth as the red water swirled around the drain, I realized with equal parts relief and trepidation that there was nothing I wouldn't do in service to my libido...

The Washington City Paper, ladies and gentlemen. Telling the best "crime scene sex" stories that DC has to offer.

I admit to not having very much experience in this matter, but I don't think having the intercourse with a menustrating woman would cover you in enough (or any) blood to warrant red shower water. Maybe a little, teeny bit. But Franklin is making it sound like he was swimming in the stuff. I sense some dishonesty here.

The "do anything to service my libido" philosophy is also horrible. That's right, women. You are nothing but a warm place to come for some jackass with ex-girlfriend issues. And people wonder why the DC bar scene isn't therapeutic.

Franklin goes on to talk about his partner-in-crime; his, dare I say it, "wingman." His name is John. John, according to the author, is a good guy. Here's a typical exchange between John and Frank:

John had his blind spots, though. Every once in a while, when it was a slow night at the bar, I'd turn to John and ask, "Why are you out here all the time, prowling around? I mean, I know why I'm out here, but what's your purpose?"

I knew exactly what he was going to say. His answer was always the same and always delivered with the same straight-faced gravity. "I guess I'm looking for that special someone. I'm looking for a wife."

This never failed to make me laugh...

Yeah, John, you sucker. Trying to create a long term relationship? What are you, stupid? Man, girls at bars are for one thing only: penis-in-vagina. Oh yeah.

Wander U Street and Adams Morgan long enough, and you'll realize that what your mother told you is true: You can't judge a book by its cover. People who appear to be cool turn out to be lame, and people who appear to be merely lame turn out to be downright despicable...

Ok, I appear merely lame. Does that make me "downright despicable"? What about people who appear lame but are actually smart, funny, attractive people. I'm not even saying I belong in that category. But that category exists, right? Franklin, it seems, refuses to be pleasantly surprised by people. I'm amazed he hasn't killed himself yet. I mean, what's the point of interacting with people if they're only going to let you down? To John, the point appears to be ejaculating in them or on them.

Another night at the same bar, three giggling girls burst into the crowded men's restroom. "There's a long line for the girls' room - y'all mind if we use yours?" As they noisily piled into a stall and closed the door, most of the guys were grinning in dumb delight - "look, real live gurls!" - but I saw one guy staring after them with unalloyed hate on his face. I imagine he'd just been rejected by one of the girls in the stall, or one like them, or a series of them. To a sexually frustrated man in a bar, female behavior like this - can you imagine three guys piling into a women's stall? - might seem constructed specifically to rub your face in your own inadequacies. I was trying to think of some comment that might defuse the guy's anger when he noticed me looking at him...

It's bad enough that our faithful narrator has all but admitted that he uses women as sex toys. Now he takes it a step further by accusing women of rubbing his face in his own inadequacies. His point regarding women jumping into a men's room bathroom giggling isn't necessarily wrong. But I certainly wouldn't let it bother me. Franklin, on the other hand, seems to genuinely despise women. That's why this article is so offensive to me.

Going out was like a job; John and I would punch in and punch out, whether we felt like it or not. Eventually, we gained momentum. It became clear that if you had decent hygiene, passable banter, and the endurance and nerve to make the rounds on a consistent basis, you'd be fine. You'd be better than fine. John developed some near-foolproof techniques; one, a nonverbal trick that I'd rather not disclose, was so effective that it induced women to pick him up.

Yeah, women are easy. They'll sleep with any dude that brushes their teeth! You can trick them into bed without even talking to them. Jesus Christ, Franklin Schneider is an asshole.

We were soon mingling with all kinds of women. We met older single mothers. (When they get a sitter, they're determined to take full advantage.) We met government contractors. (Their nighttime personae were the polar opposite of their buttoned-up daytime ones.) And we met 18-year-olds. (Each had told her parents that she was spending the night at the other's house.)

Sluts, all of them. Right, Frank?

But as we met more and more women, we realized that we couldn't fucking stand at least 95 percent of them. Maybe 99 percent. This was fine with me. In fact, when I did meet one of the elusive 1 percenters that I actually liked and respected and had something in common with, I did everything I could to piss all over our chemistry. I'd been down the relationship path, and it had ended in a blood bath. Now, all I wanted were disposable encounters. After my 35th consecutive conversation about American Idol, though, I realized this probably worked better in theory than in practice.

Wow.

The author is at least honest enough to admit that he hates 99% of women. Even better, he can do without the other 1%. Relationships just end in misery, man. That leaves him hating 100% of women and being proud enough to flaunt it to all of Washington, DC. I'm torn between truly hating this man with every fiber of my being or just feeling sorry for him. He's clearly miserable and needs help.

So many nights I'dd be standing there on autopilot, drink in hand, inwardly aghast. What in God's name is she talking about? I haven't the slightest idea, but worst of all - what is this fucking nonsense coming out of my mouth? Yes, I, too, love the Stars: They're Just Like Us! feature in Us Weekly!" What is wrong with me? I'm sitting here nodding and smiling like a fucking bobblehead doll. Have I no integrity? Must I demean myself for even the tiniest measure of relief?

Hating on women is one thing, but how dare you defame "Stars: They're Just Like Us!" Reese Witherspoon pumps her own gas! Kate Winslett double-fists her coffee!

I'm not being funny, I genuinely enjoy "Stars: They're Just Like Us!"

As John put it once, during the course of an especially discouraging night, "It's depressing when every girl you talk to is dumb or obsessed with money or has no sense of humor or won't shut up about herself or prattles on about some stupid TV show. It's depressing when you find out that everyone is dull and stupid, but it's even worse when you realize - so are you."

Bingo, John.

Franklin spends the next few paragraphs talking about some bizarre sexual experience in Seattle that featured handguns. Since the main point of the article seems to be that flirting in DC bars sucks, I have no idea why the author wasted valuable space on hooking up with a girl 2,769 miles away.

Last fall, a girl I had briefly worked with in the past suddenly took an inexplicable interest in me. She had a luscious, pert ass, and she knew that I liked it. We met up for drinks at the Black Cat, and afterwards, we went to her house in Georgetown.

During the walk there, she casually mentioned that she had a chronic back problem and that she needed frequent massages. In fact, her back was acting up at that very moment. Taking my cue, I offered to give her a massage as soon as we got to her house. She hesitated; actually, she had a very specific and somewhat unusual back condition. The only thing that gave her relief was direct stimulation of the sciatic nerve. Did Ididn'tw where the sciatic nerve was? Of course I did, I said. I didn't have the slightest idea.

So far, so good. Still a dumb hook-up story that belongs in a blog or in Laura Sessions Stepp's nightmares, but you haven't abused or embarassed her yet, so, job well done, Franklin!

When I went to her room, I found her lying on the bed. She was face down, wearing lacy underwear, with pillows stacked underneath her stomach. Her ass protruded into the air. When she heard me enter the room, she reached around behind her to grasp her ass with both hands. "So the nerve runs down through here; you'll have to really press down hard."

I sat behind her on the bed and started to knead her ass. Lust descended on me like a sickness; I almost felt like vomiting. As the massage went on, though, I began to appreciate it on its own merits. I'd never been able to admire a girl's ass without the simultaneous distraction of being hilt-deep in it. On a purely aesthetic level, it was spectacular. Before long, my erection had gotten so painfully intense that it felt like it was going to explode.

But as I was about to ease her underwear down, she turned and said, "Lie down here and let"s just talk for a while"

I was shocked. Talk? We'd been talking all night. The only thing I wanted to do even less than talk was to pretend that I wanted to talk. Her request was almost certainly one of token resistance - perhaps something to make her feel like she hadn't given it all up at once - but it was one hoop too many.

Well, it didn't take long for the other shoe to drop in this weirdly pornographic tale. How dare some girl not have sex with you, Franklin? I don't get it either.

Granted, there is some cockteasiness here. The girl set herself up to be in a situation where there is an expectation for sex. That's not necessarily fair and can be dangerous if some guy decides he doesn't want to take "no" for an answer. Still, any guy worth his weight would understand that this girl still likes him and that maybe they can go out again in the future. In other words, handle the situation maturely.

So, what does Franklin do?

I refused. There was a moment of silence, and then she asked, "What?"

"I don't want to talk. I have no interest in talking right now."

She seemed to consider this. "Then you can't stay in bed with me," she said.

I rolled off the bed and lay on the floor. It was childish and petty, but I didn't see any alternative. What was I supposed to do, lie there and talk about the weather until she deigned to open the gates? I suppose the hard-boiled thing to do would have been to put my shoes on and walk out. But it was late, I was tired and drunk, and I'm ashamed to admit that I still clung to some shred of hope that she'd drop her bluff.

No such luck. I lay on the floor as she lay on the bed. She gave me a couple more chances to repent, but I refused.

Finally, she got up in a huff, brushed her teeth, gargled, and took her contacts out, signaling an end to the night. As I watched her pad barefoot around the room in her underwear, her ass jiggling with each step, I genuinely felt like weeping...

Can you imagine this actually happening? My jaw dropped when I read this. Franklin is clearly a 13-year-old.

At some point, I realized: It always costs a little more than it's worth. I was always feigning interest, fake-laughing, or pretending I didn't hate some shitty band. And after a short while, I hated myself for it. I - the essential I, the I whose interests extended beyond sodomy - had relinquished control.

It's cute how Franklin thinks the "essential I" hasn't merged with the "sodomy I." There is no "essential I." Franklin doesn't have a job, lives off the government, and spends all of his time lying to women in exchange for 10 minutes of physcial pleasure. His soul is dead.

I figured I was marked for karmic payback. I became convinced I was going to die of AIDS. When the test came back negative, I settled on cancer. I stopped leaving the house altogether, cut off human contact, and spent most of my hours on the sofa reading Dostoevski, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

NOW YOU GET THE AIDS TEST!?!? AFTER ALL OF THIS!?

That paragraph made me sick to my stomach. This man is a monster.

As it turned out, it dropped on John. A girl he'd been intermittently sleeping with for a while started calling him. He didn't take her calls or call her back, even though she left messages saying she needed to talk to him. Finally, after a week of stonewalling, she e-mailed him - she was pregnant. He called me and asked what to do.

"Abort it," I said.

She was rabidly Catholic, he said. She'd never go for that. Besides, it was already too far along.

I thought about it. "I guess you could always pull a Scott Peterson..."

This is incredibly sad because John was presented as the nice guy. He got corrupted and ended up in a no-win situation. Some friend Franklin is.

And killing your one-night-stand and her fetus? HILARIOUS! Humor gold mine, that Scott Peterson is.

A few months later, she had the baby, and they gave it up for adoption. In person, John is now distant and slightly punch-drunk, perpetually preoccupied. I don't ask with what.

I keep telling him he needs to get back out there with a vengeance - hair of the dog that bit you, that type of thing - but he refuses.

That's the end of the article. Doesn't matter that your lives are ruined, keep plugging away, John. I'm glad John sees through Franklin's bullshit.

So, honestly, have you ever seen anything so aggrsssively anti-woman? I certainly hadn't.

So, this is the last time I am going to write about the City Paper. They don't deserve the attention until they publicly apologize to every woman who was subjected to this garbage. I have one copy in my attache. I'm going to write down a bunch of their sponsors and contact them asking for their thoughts on this article. I am a silly powerless blogger, but I will do everything I can to make sure the Paper takes a hit in the pocketbook for this trash.

Just commenting on this trash makes me want to take a hot shower.

56 comments:

  1. Wow, Rusty, what a great fucking entry. Franklin is officially the Biggest Douchebag in all of DC! And what a great Sessions Stepp shoutout, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If THAT doesn't get Franklin into the Late Night Shots, nothing will!

    His article is written with so much sexual frustration and latent self-loathing, it's unbelieavble.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Franklin Schneider is a pile of dog shit.

    What's up with the City Paper, lately? That photo article about Adams Morgan two months was over the top as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh Lordy! I just read the article this morning, and was appalled, of course. Thanks for tearing it apart. Truly garbage....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rusty, this was mind-blowingly great.
    I look forward to your blog always, but we all have ups and downs, and this one is up up up up up up up.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow. All I can say is, thanks for doing all women in DC a favor, Franklin, for outing yourself as the biggest fucking douchebag in the world.

    I stopped reading CP a few months ago - the articles were just moronic. The only reason for reading was Savage Love, which I can get online.

    ReplyDelete
  7. He gave a terrible massage. I just wanted to talk. He wouldn't even talk to me. What a jerk!

    ReplyDelete
  8. The guy wrote an article last year about dealing with different cornball jobs, which I found funny because all of us can relate to the pain in the butt "Office Space" job.

    When reading his piece in yesterday's WCP, I was extremely disturbed. I didn't even bother to finish reading it.

    This guy really needs to quit this "journalism" day job, and stick to keeping this mess private through "journaling." He never knows the line between stating his opinion and just giving too much information.

    ReplyDelete
  9. And as to your title,

    "How Do You Boycott a Free Newspaper?"...

    Women from the anti-street harassment coalition picketed outside WCP's office for a few days because they felt WCP mocked their cause.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fantastic critique. The original is appalling. What is going on over at WCP?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Amen Rusty. Amen.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can't believe this article exists. I don't know whether to thank you for pointing it out, as the commentary was sharp and amusing, or be annoyed that I had to sicken my day a bit by reading it. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  13. this sounds like someone i'd end up with at the end of the night...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Well done, Rusty. I hope people complain to the WCP about this.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ew. As a former congressional staffer interested in working for another member in DC.... I can say that this is totally frightening! I mean... shatter-my-illusions... I always sort of had the impression that DC newspapers, even the free ones, might try to keep up an air of respectability... you know, being the free paper of the nation's capitol and what not... Just... EW

    ReplyDelete
  16. yuck!

    seriously, the man's a menace. there should be flyers with his picture on it distributed through georgetown and adams morgan.

    what a waste of unemployment.

    ReplyDelete
  17. On the plus side, his article virtually guarantees he won't ever get laid in DC again. Not without a pseudonymn anyway.

    Brilliant skewering!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Rusty…one word: Excellent. Franklin is a contrite piece of shit. As another blogger pointed out....what a sickening waste of unemployment $$. I wonder how this story played with the single mom struggling to keep her children fed and warm on minimum wage after her baby’s daddy blew the rent money on meth. Whoa is me, poor Franklin. The WCP is a piece of crap filled with the musings of suburban pseudo poets’ bent on non conformity while demonstrating to us all their utter lack of individuality or basis in the real world. It’s like reading about poor old Silvia Plath sticking her perfectly coifed ivy leagued hair in a 400 degree oven while her professor husband played chess and drank tea. Boo-hoo. In a perfect world, old Franklin would catch some archaic venereal disease like the clap, the greater meaning of which would be entirely lost on his vapid soul and we, unfortunately enough, would be subjected to yet another chapter of his terrible saga for weeks to come.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Way to go, Rusty. Although I found that article kind of entertaining, it was in a "wow, am I glad not to be this guy" kind of way. What a bag of douche.

    While reading it on the metro on my way home from work, I couldn't help but have people leaning over my shoulder to read along. Don't you hate it when people do that?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Il ratto...the only people leaning on your shoulder to read this piece of shit would be trolls jettisoning their way to the xburbs. Entertaining, Ha, Ha... if you're twenty six years old and you don't have to pay rent because mommy and daddy bought you a beamer, an education and an excuse to cry over such self absorbed loathing or unemployment checks. Very deep, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  21. ...One is not a "bag of douche" rather the term is 'douche bag'...two entirely different concepts. Figure it out for yourself, go into mommy's bathroom, look in the medicine cabinet....well you know the rest. I think Il Ratto is Franklin, just a guess, but who elso would write that the story was entertaining and people were trying to look over his shoulder?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Outstanding! Thank you for your beautiful evisceration.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I actually think Franklin's biggest crime is literary. He doesn't tell us anything about how he met "the love of his life," with whom he spoke about making it permanent. And I think an even bigger criminal is the WCP for publishing the piece. The most just punishment for these crimes would be to find this mysterious woman and persuade her to tell her side of the story. I just read, Paper Losses, Lorrie Moore's short story in the latest New Yorker. For anyone angered by the crap in the WCP, I recommend it as well written, humorous, and therapeutic in the sense that it describes the end of a 20 year marriage from the wife's point of view. Suffice it to say that the husband doesn't come off very well. The beauty of the story is that the wife is very candid about her flaws. I think the story could serve as a way to begin an interesting, if not necessarily productive, debate about the way men and women may look at relationships differently. I'm tempted to provide my favorite excerpts here, but I don't want to spoil the experience for those who haven't yet read it.

    ReplyDelete
  24. rusty, what happened to the guy? you know -- the one who held the gun to your head and forced you to read this article.

    you are such a fucking idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous, your argument doesn't make sense. Should the NAACP not protest Sambo books because no one is forcing them to read? Should the Anti-Defamation League not protest anti-Semetic Passion plays because no one is forcing them to watch?

    I may not be a woman, but I can tell from the feedback I've been getting that I'm right; this article was a slap in the face to DC women. I have an obligation to show those who don't normally read the WCP just how horrifying this cover story is.

    I don't get it, are you defending the piece? I have yet to see a spirited defense of the article, so if you want to tell me it belonged in the City Paper, I'd love to read all about it.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Franklin Schneider is so getting in to Smith Point this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I think I love you.

    I only just moved here. I thought I was the only one.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Rusty-

    Good post. I hardly ever read WCP anymore and this kind of shows why. Every viewpoint is given a platform - whether or not they deserve it.

    However, so many mosts of local media criticism are gettign boring. Same with the frat-hole mockery. Occasional posts are fine, but it's a little much.

    You need more stuff like the crossing-guard post: random and unique to DC. Even if the point of that post was arguably flawed, the subject matter was spot-on.

    ReplyDelete
  29. I escaped from DC. It took a while for the nightmares - about the shitty journalism, dismal cultural and nightlife, and the appalling pseuds I met at bars and parties - to subside. This brings it ALL back. Great evisceration on your part. If I ever met that guy, Franklin, I'd spit in his face and knee him in the balls. Meanwhile the WCP has apparently reached new lows, something I wouldn't have thought possible. Pathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  30. After all, I'd spy a sweaty woman with a cleft palate on the Metro and go into a reverie of lust, while my hot, naked girlfriend at home left me cold and flaccid. Perhaps I really was less than a man.

    I could not even begin to identify w/ that crap. Wow. She left ALL THAT?!

    ReplyDelete
  31. If people like you just stop picking it up off the stands someone will eventually do a subscription audit and advertising rates will go down and then it'll be a cycle until that newspaper finally dies and is replaced by something better.

    Stop patronizing their business.

    ReplyDelete
  32. you have sex with a woman on the peak of her period, and it can truly look like you murdered someone with your wang. That is not over the top

    ReplyDelete
  33. copyright laws only allows you to reprint a couple of sentences without permission.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I'm pretty sure I'm covered by the First Amendment here.

    ReplyDelete
  35. It's the day of an election, I dunno, maybe you should update your blog or something.

    ReplyDelete
  36. he's waiting unil George Allan wins so he can comment on how racist Virginians are

    ReplyDelete
  37. The article has to be fiction. it has kind of an American Psycho quality to it.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Johnny, hating 99% of women and knocking girls up is not a "game." It's sick sociopathic behavior.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Hey, I do indeed have a picture of the ole douche bag :-) Should I post???

    ReplyDelete
  40. E-mail me the pic...I would need someway of verifying it as real too.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Let's see the picture!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  42. "sick, sociopathic behavior"?

    as bad as a cynical, selfish womanizer is (and truth be told, that's not really all that bad), a shrill, patronizing, politically correct moralizer is much worse.

    ReplyDelete
  43. the above comment is totally franklin.

    ReplyDelete
  44. First, the article read like shit.
    Second, the confessional tone was completely transparent: Franklin knew he had to start off with some crap about the love of his life so that he could appear to be an actual human being, thereby establishing credibility with the reader. "I'm only saying these things because I'm such a sensitive person! And I've been deeply wounded... Now please, just keep reading..." Third, this has nothing to do with misogyny. Franklin is not interested in honest social commentary. He is interested in getting published. He's a smart guy, and he knows that he has to ratchet up his thoughts and opinions and mythologize his life experiences in order to do so. The more writing there is out there - blogs, opinion journalism, etc. - the more people have to push an extreme position in order to be listened to. It's gonzo journalism. Affected, pseudo-intellectual, Bukowski wannabe crap. It's entertainment. And it's fucking free.

    ReplyDelete
  45. As an addendum and to clarify, the "Xtreme viewpoint" set forth here has less to do with misogyny and more to do with despair. And in that sense, he might be on to something. If he wasn't trying so damn hard to get a rise out of people (the literary equivalent of throwing paper airplanes in the back of class), he probably could have written something that didn't sound so jejune. He's clearly capable of it. As it stands, we don't come away with an understanding about the way the writer sees the world, as much as a clear understanding of how the writer, himself, desperately wishes to be seen. A lost opportunity.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Anonymous above is clearly getting a lot of mileage out of his thesaurus.

    ReplyDelete
  47. I agree! Women in DC are not flaky and they all return your calls and emails.

    Sig Hail! Sig Hail!

    You people sound like a bunch of crybaby nazi's. It's a free fucking paper! Take off the velvet jack boots and fucking relax.

    It probably used to print run away slave notices and I doubt your great grandpappies complained about it at the time. You bunch of whining puritanistic repressed cocks.

    I expect this type of review from uptight, undersexed political wonkette women but the feedback from the guys is so transparent that it is laughable. I hate guys that will sell out their own manhood just to show the ladies how sensitive you are. I hope you get syphilus when you finally lose your virginity. You guys should turn in your soft little ball pellets and take up knitting.

    We all know that most women in the DC bar scene are flaky and 90% of the time you are wasting your time talking to them.

    But I am not defending the article either.
    I actually chide the author for not actually being able to get laid given the numberous chances to do so. How can you screw up butt massages? How can you turn down a chick telling you to bite her tit?

    I think Franklin needs to grow a pair too.

    The rest of you can die of a heart attack at your daughters wedding. fucking crybabies.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Please, Rusty, show us some mercy! Your relentless campaign against our advertisers has completely choked off our funds. The first round of layoffs is coming up this week, and we will probably have to close our doors within ninety days. All because of one brave, morally outraged blogger. And his "attache."

    You are such a fucking TOOL.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Nice find! With the quotes you pulled out I thought it would for sure devolve into a gay porn between Franklin and John. All the women hating and the "I can't talk to them," all the while talking to John and sharing his feelings... It seemed like a no-brainer.

    Maybe that will happen in part two.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Pick up people in a library, you probably get readers.
    Pick up people in a bar, and you probably get drunks.
    I'd say everyone in this guy's stupid story got what they deserve.

    ReplyDelete
  51. I found this blog randomly. I just wanted to say that I thought "Your basement or mine?" was a good story. I don't know why anyone would commit as much time as "Rusty" did to dissecting it, if you hated it, and if you hate Franklin Schneider. Also, the bottom line is that Schneider got paid for that story. This hate-mongering blog is a waste of time. That's the biggest thing that rubs me the wrong way about bloggers: they're not real journalists. They're posers and self-aggrandizers who post their opinions as if they matter. Meanwhile, they pet their own egos and fancy themselves as journalists or at the very least, intellectuals. When the fact is that they are neither. Furthermore, what is the point of a blog about hating DC? If you don't like it here, then move. Quit wasting your time. Abandon your vain efforts to boycott a free newspaper, or theorizing about it, and leave. You're the kind of people that make this city shitty. And lastly, I hope your low self-esteem can feel nourished off this post and you have a great session of intellectual masturbation while you dissect it.

    ReplyDelete
  52. I know it's been awhile since this story was written, but as a respected feminist in the DC community and also as a friend of both John and Frank, let me take a minute to defend Frank. So he acted like a dick and he recognizes that. I think the story was packed with more self-hatred than hatred of women, and I actually find Frank to genuinely love women (especially the independent and intelligent ones who speak their mind). City Paper is meant for a specific demographic anyway. If you don't fit into that demographic and are easily offended, don't read it. As for Frank, soon after his dating debacle he found a nice girlfriend and stayed faithful to her.

    So stick to the Express they hand out on the metro and stop talking shit about my friend. I think you have just proved yourself as more than merely lame.

    ReplyDelete
  53. AnonymousJuly 12, 2007

    Robin --

    You are a respected feminist in the DC community? Respected by whom? Feminist how?

    Just because the article was filled with self-hate in addition to woman-hating doesn't change the fact that it is sexist, misogynistic crap that no true feminist would ever defend.

    What feminist honestly believes that sexism is okay as long as it is targeted to a "specific demographic"?

    Frank is a pathetic sack of shit. And you are a fucking joke.

    ReplyDelete
  54. I thought it was only a joke.

    ReplyDelete
  55. AnonymousJune 06, 2009

    To the cunt who wrote this original blog post three years ago. I just read it today. You're just jealous you didn't get to get skull fucked by the guy. You're a pathetic whore, like all modern american women, and we will continue to skull fuck you until you vomit.

    ReplyDelete