Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Today I experienced quite possibly the strangest editorial staff meeting thus far at Westword....and fittingly too, as it was my last one. Not a whole lot happened for the first half, but then one of the writers was explaining his progress on a "sex slave" story that was evolving in the Denver area and that jumped to how the Rocky Mountain News is posting some really, really questionable "adult" ads on their website. Of course, Westword has pages upon pages of escort service and massage parlor ads in the back of our paper, though none of them are for prostitution because that's obviously illegal. But then the conversation jumped to the girls in our ads and just what $50 would buy. So then the editor-in-chief called in the head of the advertising for Westword and we questioned her. She didn't know what 50 bucks would buy, but she did say that she just got done talking to a possible pimp who bought ad spaces for 6 girls that he was "representing." The advertising lady also said that there is a list of words and phrases that those ads cannot use and Westword has a list of "replacement" words. So now that list is going to get sent out to the editorial staff and may actually get published since, ironically, we can publish the list of words that can't be used.....because we can publish anything. Muahahahahaha!
In other news, I only have 4 more days out here in Denver. Tonight I packed a massive box of clothes and misc. stuff. It's going to cost a lot to ship that box. Thankfully the other box I'm packing will mostly be filled by my quilt and pillows and whatnot....as long as it all fits. Yikes! But it should. It kind of sucks, though, because even though I don't really have any more time here, I still have to write an 8 page paper before Friday. Yes, I have been procrastinating....but tonight I did an interview a long ways away from the apartments and then packed when I got home. Tomorrow I plan on typing the paper, plus transcribing a taped interview that I did over the weekend....then Wednesday I'm going to type the story at work....and possibly stay late. Then Thursday hopefully the story will get edited and everything will get figured out....or they'll say it's crap. Either way, I just don't want to be hassling with long-distance editing. And then Friday I do some last little preparations before leaving that evening....and then ride all night long and get into sweet, sweet Iowa. And that's that.