6437 Making vids, prez quiz, Farewell Eddie Clontz

Making Danny a DVD of Lost In Translation today, my first real test of WinMPG Video convert on a large file. (I’ve fiddled with little movies of Alligators and other stuff I’ve captured with my camera, but never some 700 meg gargantuan.) If it works out, I’ll try a VCD of Time Bandits for him, to. I’ll give it to him when he takes me out to dinner on Monday. (Handy burning hints are at DVDRhelp.com… even handier is just using Nero)


Just got an email update – Federal return 1/31/2004 6:07:59 AM Accepted – That’s that!

Also got my first in the wave of PIF virus-attached emails. I knew to look for it, but my web interface is nice enough to scan before downloading, too.


I don’t know why, but Newt is interested in taking bites out of the line of my left bicep this morning.


I wonder which of the RenFaeries will be at the show this year?


Via President Match (via argumentplease )

1 Kerry Score: 100%
2 Edwards Score: 95%
3 Clark Score: 93%
4 Kucinich Score: 91%
5 Dean Score: 90%
6 Lieberman Score: 88%
7 Sharpton Score: 85%
8 Bush Score: 31%

These scores are a little misleading, but overall, it seems fairly accurate.


A history of Early Motive / Pop-up books. The Illustrations on some are great.


Friends will miss editor – as will Bat Boy

Eddie Clontz died early Monday in Salt Springs, near Ocala. Complications from diabetes. Only 56, he was one of the most creative guys in the business, although you won’t find his brand of journalism in a daily newspaper. Until three years ago, Eddie edited the Weekly World News.

For two decades under his watch, the black-and-white irreverent stepsister of the National Enquirer kept Elvis alive, then one day announced, “Elvis Dead at 56.” It discovered missing World War II bombers on the moon. Its space alien endorsed Bill Clinton for president. After it revealed the existence of baby ghosts, some 1,000 readers wrote in, wanting to adopt.

“It was such a creative atmosphere, and it showed,” said Sal Ivone, former managing editor and active participant in many of the conspiracies that made WWN so preposterous and so entertaining. “The brainstorming was incredible. Everybody took such delight in each other’s work.”

“A guy called from north Florida and claimed Bigfoot had kidnapped his wife,” Ivone recalled. “His local newspaper wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

Clontz’s mantra: Let the source tell the story. As for being a reliable source, well, that was for the readers to decide.

On his desk Clontz kept a rubber dog mask and in a drawer his “reporter-waker-upper,” a giant squirt gun. But before you envision some frat party gone wild, consider that Clontz, a North Carolinian by birth, moved to WWN, then in Lantana, from the prestigious St. Petersburg Times.

His staff came from London’s Fleet Street and from Harvard, Penn, Bryn Mawr, major publishing houses, even The New York Times. They were paid well, often twice the going rate for work at major newspapers.

“We have to pay them a lot,” Clontz once said, “because we are, in effect, asking them to end their careers…. We’re the French Foreign Legion of journalism.”

Some had no experience in journalism. Bob Lind had a hit song in the ’60s — The Elusive Butterfly of Love — and dabbled in screenplays before joining the News.

“Eddie thought he would add an interesting perspective,” Ivone said. “He was a great judge of talent.”

Clontz knew his place and that of the News. “Everybody else is trying to demystify everything,” he told the Columbia Journalism Review in 1992. “We’re trying to do the opposite, to mystify again. We’re in a constant struggle against medicine, science and religion. In religion they’re telling people more and more, ‘Miracles don’t really happen.’ So I have to keep coming back with BLIND MOM CAN SEE AFTER BABY GIVES HER A HUG.”

“We talked last week, and he knew he didn’t have long,” said Billy Burt of Atlantis, a former rival as editor of The National Examiner. “He asked me if he would be remembered as a tabloid legend.

“I said, ‘Eddie, you’re bound to be a super legend. You’re almost mythological.’ “Site Meter

Related Posts

  • July 14, 2002 Oh, I forgot... this was on the eraser-board at the shop where I got my bike yesterday […]
  • July 29, 2017 at 05:43PMJuly 29, 2017 July 29, 2017 at 05:43PM Today's mood. via Instagram http://bit.ly/2tN4BsX
  • 8129 –January 20, 2006 8129 –
  • March 18, 2001 Rock-solid, never-fail advice for Scooby and Shaggy: Never agree to split up. Never. I […]
  • The last two days at work.September 28, 2000 The last two days at work. Actually, Monday through Wednesday at about 6pm. Monday. We get data that takes […]

Leave a Reply