Movie break: Two appalling films: Freaks (1932) and Pink Flamingos (1972)

[Edits done 4/26/13.]

These films I’ve each seen only once, but they contain elements that allow you to blog on them with only a single—if quite eye-opening—viewing.

Quick Vu: Freaks, a “horror” film in strikingly questionable taste, yet a curio today

On the night of Saturday, April 20, Turner Classic Movies ran—in its “The Essentials” series, hosted by Robert Osborne and actress Drew Barrymore—the short film Freaks (1932). I originally wasn’t going to watch it all, then did, though it was a bit punishing to do so; what helped was that the film was only about an hour long.

I’ve heard of this film before, and in fact it has been referred to in early film-studies venues such as Robert Sklar’s Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Vintage Books, 1975). I think it more broadly gets mentioned as a notoriously bad or anomalous film, but—according to Osborne last Saturday—its unexpected producing studio, MGM, became embarrassed enough by it after its release to disown it, or such; and according to Leonard Maltin’s yearly review compendium (as well as the Wikipedia bio on its director, Tod Browning), it was banned in Britain for decades.

Apparently, in the early trough of the Great Depression, the movie studios—which over the longer term were rather new to what they could or dared do, just a few years after talkies had started—saw that if horror films were a lucrative genre, just milk the genre for what it was worth. Tod Browning had directed the now-classic Dracula (1931) for Universal, which was the main studio turning out horror at that time. Dracula was a success, so Tod Browning was seen as the man to tap when Irving Thalberg of MGM, according to Sklar (p. 179), opted to depart from MGM’s usual “upper-bourgeois tone and taste” and had Freaks made. The film was such a box-office disaster that, according to Osborne last Saturday (and according to Browning’s Wikipedia bio), it destroyed Browning’s directorial career.

Yet as Drew Barrymore noted last Saturday, the film became a cult hit in the 1970s and ’80s. I’ll return to her reactions to it in a moment.

Freaks is in very strange taste for a number of reasons, yet it isn’t completely unwatchable. In fact, it has redeeming features that allow Barrymore to enthuse over it, though I should note that a viewer new to it should be aware what he or she is in for. It features a number of people who either suffer the results of genetic anomalies or are missing limbs, or are Siamese (conjoined) twins, who in fact were actual performers in the “freaks” exhibits of circuses in that day. (There is also a character depicted as a “half-man, half woman,” though this may have been purely a matter of makeup—the physical appearance, literally a male–female divided down the middle, looks ludicrously fantastic; and there is a supposed bearded woman…and there is even one man who stutters badly, though how much this is an act for the film is unclear.)

The film, in fact, depicts the groups of them as a community in a traveling circus. There are some plot elements that “shape” this set of people and situation into a supposed “horror story.” One aspect of this may have been, for audiences of the time, the sheer awe of seeing some of the “freaks,” some of whom we would call disabled or the results of genetic anomaly today. But there is a soap opera-ish plot involving a couple of dwarfs, a male and female who seem to be a couple, the male of whom strays into being lulled into forming a relationship with a full-sized female circus performer who, after a while, only wants to marry him then kill him because he has inherited a lot of money. All the while, the man’s former female-dwarf girlfriend looks on sadly and in dismay.

The full-sized woman, in cahoots with a loutish male and, I think, some other full-sized male, goes about her attempt to poison the male dwarf, and other members of the disabled community catch wise…and eventually, in a stock-horror moment, on a rainy night, when the circus has gotten on the move, a group of them, creeping menacingly into position, weapons at the ready, go after the guilty conspirators and give them the business, so to speak. This aspect of making the “climactic horror moment” be some vengefulness on the part of the disabled circus performers, including some quadriplegic male barely able to move along the ground with a weapon in his mouth (I think), seems like an especially appalling way to make a horror film—suggesting (or symbolizing), by their very, obvious physical anomalies, that these disabled people are, or capable of being, monsters. [Clarification: I think the film handled this on two levels: the freaks were not meant, within the story, to be monsters on a par with Frankenstein's monster, but in some low-level sense were presented in their superficial strangeness; but when the time came for them to seek justice against the conniving woman, they had a temporary appearance as monsters. Still, the way this was combined with the unapologetic appearance of the more genetically unfortunate performers was pretty exploitative at best.]

Then what happens to the conniving full-sized female, played by an Olga Baclanova, of being given her comeuppance by being made into a disabled half-bird woman, seems too farcical as a plot element. The whole story suggests the screenwriter(s) was/were “disabled” in terms of human decency to spin such a story around these people as a means to capitalize on the early-’30s horror craze.

The fact that these people were, in real life, “circus freaks” shows the lowbrow-show-biz slot they were consigned to in life, which is not favorably reflective on some of the paying public of the time. This aspect you could write off to being a superseded social matter of 81 years ago; but in one regard, while we may be horrified of this use of disabled people today, it seems the film strayed beyond the bounds of decency even then, for it to bomb at the box office and then to be an embarrassment to MGM for some years.

Another layer of the alarming quality of this work is in how various individuals are photo’d—fairly enough, often showing them laughing in watching something or someone—as if we are just gawking at these people (yet from another angle we can say these shots are inadvertently clinical). I recall from psychology classes in the area of developmental psychology (as well as maybe abnormal psych) some of the names of genetic anomalies: “fragile X [-chromosome] syndrome,” Klinefelter’s syndrome, and others; there is also microcephaly, which means having an abnormally small head (and mental retardation). Down’s syndrome is the most famous birth-defect condition (and this doesn't appear to be represented in the film), and we can often see Down’s sufferers working as grocery baggers or otherwise out in the community; they are known for generally being of good disposition, along with appearing innocuously childlike, so their being in public is not normally shocking to others. Some of these other conditions not only render the sufferers disabled but quite odd in appearance. I forget which name may go with which of the actors who were arrayed in this movie, but I generally knew there was a category some fell into.

So what was rather shocking to me in viewing the film was that these people—often displayed with a smile as he or she looked at something off-camera—were enlisted to be “monsters” of sorts in a horror film.

Added to this were the lame attempts at humor in the film—such as with a set of conjoined female twins, with one of whom a man with a bad stutter has a sort of romantic relationship. As if it wasn’t bad enough to hear it once, a joke is worked out twice where the twins have to beg off and go somewhere else—by the one saying she had to go, hence her sister, who was the man’s girl, had to leave too—and this when he was wearing on their patience, or such. The man responded, “Oh, that’s always your exc—exc—exc—alibi.” This is a cleaned-up version of his stuttering way to criticize her for making excuses or using an “alibi.”

Also rather strange to see are a couple men missing limbs. One man, missing his body below his waste, moves around very adeptly on his hands, either wearing odd shoes on his hands, or having unusually large hands. He walks around nimbly, or climbs stairs without a hitch. A little more appalling is a Black man with no limbs at all, whose torso almost looks like a big worm, and we see him on a table at one point, going the entire distance in lighting a cigarette with match and cigarette in his mouth. When he speaks, he has a normal voice.

We can look at this today, and know what (technically) we are looking at with these people. We can be moved by their dignity, while being (on a different level) rather in awe of how they are used in a film whose story is childishly simple and whose overall premise, as exploiting them, seems beyond bad taste.

What help redeem this film are the sense of community and caring relationships between the “freaks,” which are on ample display. Barrymore remarks on this as a big plus that makes the film worth a slot in the “Essentials” series, though I thought her application of her usually intuitive, enthusiastic talk and Osborne’s employment of his more encyclopedic comments seemed a little shy of what was needed to help “buffer” this film for average viewers. I would say the “Essentials” series didn’t engage in exploitation of this film nearly as much as did the studio when originally making it, though I thought helpful commentary in the TCM showing could have been added, such as to give the names of some of the conditions, or to maybe give some further background on the individual disabled performers shown. (Maybe a lot of their bios are lost today.)

Driving home how almost-morbidly juvenile this film is in a way is the dwarf couple at the center of the story. They seem at least in their thirties, and have Germanic accents, while they have childlike high-pitched voices. They rather remind you of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (1939). You almost might think they are kids playing dwarfs, but then something about the dignity and nuances of the voices and faces tells you they are older. There is something rather cute, sadly so, about them. An added layer of maudlin-ness is added with the goofy story, where the male is taken in by the overture-making normal-sized woman, and he tries to reassure his dwarf female friend, who seems unable to do anything but helplessly look on, including at a cacophonous wedding party.

If the film sounds like a garishly amateurish Ed Wood mess, actually Freaks’ costumes, scenes, and cinematography all seem first-rate for its time. The print TCM used has jump-cuts (as from frames lost); and a “coda” sequence at the end, where the dwarf couple seem “home” and reconciled in some way, is such bad condition that it seems to have been developed from a deteriorated negative. (Supposedly, according to Maltin, prints of this film have circulated without the coda; so for this one, maybe a coda-less print was appended with a new print of the coda made from a crappy old negative.) If the total print TCM showed is the best that can be managed, it goes to show that, efforts such as Martin Scorsese’s aside, some old films are lost to full preservation; but this film is enough of a historical curio that, if you want to view it, there is still a flea-market-cruddy version you can view. The sound, also, makes some of the talk a little hard to follow—but the script is dumb, so that doesn’t really matter.

As Barrymore says, the positive relationships among the “freaks’” subculture are what make this film worth viewing (and these displays of love aren’t only a function of the pedestrian script, but also apparently a function of the real affection the actors had for one another, plus maybe a result of the director’s instructions to “smile a lot” to add some sugar for the “great unwashed,” who were seeking value for their dollars on going to view this film).

But Freaks also is interesting to ponder, with a bit of keep-your-patience awe at what seems on some levels to be the epitome of poor taste. It also shows how people years ago felt about their fellows who had birth defects—the sufferers weren’t cut out for much else than the “freak show” at a circus. But this didn’t stop these people from living with some level of dignity.

Quick Vu: John Waters’ comic-sensationalism products, reaching their height in Pink Flamingos

John Waters gets notice in the media now and then. There was something about him in a long interview-type piece in New Jersey’s Star-Ledger two or three months back. Now he looks old, and with his thin moutache and dapper clothing, he seems like an “elder statesman” of a fairly-obvious homosexual cultural pillar, but then you might ask, “What is he a pillar of? Must be something, but what?”

He was the king of what might be called shock cinema, with his defining films released in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. He started with self-financed, really-cheapo films that were as scrounged together as they were “affronting” in subject matter. He very slowly inched toward his version of “respectability” so that, by 1988, he released his most commercial film, Hairspray. Now you might hear a bell ringing.

Hairspray had the same weird “odyssey of dramatic properties” that also befell another edgy-comedy work, Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1968). That latter film, a classic in its own right (and made by the same studio that made the much more mainstream The Graduate [1967]), about two sleazy Broadway producers-cum-losers who concoct a scheme to mount a show they feel will be sure to fail, leaving them with the money, anchored Mel Brooks as a director, and has been considered by some to be his best film, or if not, up there with another great by him, Young Frankenstein (1974). Years later, The Producers was famously made into a Broadway production that became a huge hit, featuring the defining performances of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Then a film was made of the Broadway show, directed by Susan Stroman (who had directed the Broadway show previously), with Mel Brooks advising behind the scenes.

The same basic thing happened with Hairspray. Many years after its 1988 film release, it was made into a Broadway play, seemingly on the same premise as The Producers—make a play out of an old, black-humorous movie, and cash in. Hairspray also did well on Broadway, though I think not nearly as well as The Producers—and it, too, was made, following at least some of the play’s particular parameters, into a movie-of-the-play. The movie featured John Travolta in drag playing the mother of the girl who wants to win a dance contest, a centerpiece of the plot.

I remember, when out on one of my jaunts, hearing someone—maybe in her thirties—asking quite innocently, at a movie-DVD kiosk or such, why was John Travolta playing the mother?

Well, now you’re bumping unknowingly into a key feature of the John Waters approach to filmmaking.

One of Waters’ key collaborators through many of his films was Divine, a transvestite who played roles in many of his films. It’s hard to say how this came to define this film auteur’s body of work, but that’s about what John Waters was about, and I don’t mean this dismissively: films rich in poor-taste, if not deeply shocking, humor, with a transvestite playing a lead role. Divine played the mother in Waters’ film of Hairspray. Hence Harvey Fierstein played the mother on Broadway. And John Travolta donned the fake breasts and so on for the movie-of-the-play.

Does this all seem to say, “Only in America”?

In the early 1980s, there was a Waters film retrospective, probably at the Circle Theater on 21^st Street just outside the GWU campus in Washington, D.C. I saw a few of his films there (in 1983, if not also some other year). He even appeared at an event in a theater on one end of Georgetown. I had never heard of him before, but I guess it was after I saw one or more of his works that I wondered what this man was like. He was slight of build, fastidiously dressed, with a pencil-thin moustache—he seemed too effete or frail to be a fount of shockingly bad taste. And I remember that when someone asked him what his upcoming film (not Hairspray, I think) was about, he said that his Roman Catholic faith made him superstitious about talking about something like that, as if he would be counting his chickens before they hatched, and he didn’t want to jinx the project, or such. In short, he was an understandable kind of sensitive artist.

I saw Pink Flamingos (1972) in summer 1983, my first big summer in D.C., and I’ve always recalled it as I noted it in my journal—as being in amazingly shocking taste. (Not my exact words.) I probably laughed with it several times then, and some images are so memorable, you don’t need to see it again. I mean, one feature is a body part singing that doesn’t ordinarily sing. ’Nough said.

The film is about two trashy families (these words aren’t out of place, I think) who are vying for the “title” (wherever that may come from) of the trashiest family around.

I don’t recommend that any of my blog readers see it—certainly none who would be forbidden to see an “NC-17” film. And if you do opt to see it, you’re probably young and the type who would go on a killer roller-coaster and don’t care if you risk throwing up your guts. But Pink Flamingos will probably strike you as the most daringly shocking film—not because it’s like the horror films today that show (with CGI liberally applied) how you can set off geysers of blood with a chain saw, but because Waters was a sort of comic interested in shocking you, with the simplest means possible (on a tiny budget), with jokes (often visual) that make you laugh despite yourself, and then say, “I can’t believe they did that for a laugh.”

Pentimento pause 2: Some files viewable to supplement my January 2012 blog info on the Bauer v. Glatzer case

[This relates to a January 28, 2012, blog entry of mine on this lawsuit, with “Sturm und Drang” in the heading, but you may not need to see it to appreciate what is included below. This statement is also not meant to convey that I have expertise as a lawyer, as I am not a lawyer, but I am presenting this information in line with what I did as a pro se defendant, whose motions were granted by the relevant court in 2008. Edits done 4/25/13. More edits done 4/26/13 for important clarity. One important correction is between asterisks. My apologies for any confusion; I am clear on the facts and meaning of my entire role in the case, helped not least by at least three document boxes of records from this case.]

It seems this should go without saying, but statements on The Write Agenda blog (see End note) that seem to suggest that the Bauer v. Glatzer case, which was dismissed against remaining defendants in November 2010, could be re-filed against all defendants (named in the January 2008 Second Amended Complaint) except for the Wikimedia Foundation—are false and irresponsible.

The fact that I was one among several people who were released from the lawsuit in 2008 is solidly supported (regarding me in particular) by documents of which I now have pdfs. I will first explain what each pdf file contains, then tell in what order you may read these to make the most sense of them.

First set of documents

My own motion for summary judgment I wrote myself, as I was pro se. Here is the first of three pdfs made in 2013 including part of my MSJ, which I was not able to provide in January 2012.

The first file (beware: 5+ MB!!) contains a few documents: the main thing is the brief (the substantive written argument) including “points and authorities.” (Exhibits are not included.) Before the brief in this first 2013 pdf are a selection of the cover pages comprising forms that the state provides for legal motions. I include only the “A” forms, which are (1) an initial cover sheet and (2) a so-called “Certification Regarding Attempts to Resolve [the Dispute].” One interesting thing about these, on the second page, is a brief note that I included to meet the requirement to indicate whether “settlement” efforts went anywhere (of course, in my case, they didn’t, and per Bauer’s methods, they couldn’t).

The other initial sheets that are typically included with an MSJ (following the state’s forms), which are quite routine, are not included in this first 2013 pdf: the “B” ones (which include a sort of cover sheet introducing a “certification” of presented facts and arguments for the motion, and a certification of service to all parties) and the “C” one (the “form of order” that the judge ordinarily would use to record his or her decision; mine wasn’t used by the judge, but Bauer’s [from her opposition] was used instead, for the decision granting the motion in my favor).

Also included, at the end of this first 2013 pdf package, is a copy of the judge’s order (using Bauer’s attorney’s form of order) that granted my MSJ. (While showing the court stamp, the copy is somewhat lacking, with parts cut off; the pdf was made from a second- or third-generation copy, but the original copy from the court also has edges cut off a bit.)

Second (and third) set of documents

The second 2013 pdf (a manageable 455 KB) includes a “Statement of Material Facts” supporting my MSJ—in New Jersey at least, MSJs require both this (simply listing facts) and a brief (giving argument). This document may seem to you to read drily, but actually (in accordance with my own situation, which involved referring to a large set of relevant facts) it interleaves pretty neatly with my brief.

Next on the second 2013 pdf is Bauer’s own “Statement of Material Facts in Dispute,” which her attorney provided with their own “opposition” to my motion. Their opposition also (as filed with the court) included Bauer’s personal certification (viewable here, not part of the 2013 pdf at hand), and Bauer’s attorney’s brief (argument), which is provided in a third 2013 pdf, referred to in the next paragraph. (I think Bauer’s “Statement of Material Facts” and certification provide about all you need to know in terms of how little ground she and her attorney had to argue on.) [Note, updated 4/25/13: I provide a link to a pdf of Bauer’s attorney’s brief supporting her opposition, on which see next paragraph.]

Court rules also allow the moving party to file an answer to such an opposition. This I did, and... [Update 4/25/13: Here is a link to a pdf of my answer (this is the third 2013 pdf). This same pdf--watch out, ~7 MB file--also has Bauer's attorney's opposition brief after my answer; total file is 27 pages. So, you read his opposition brief, along with her "Statement of Material Facts" and her personal certification; then, you read my answer (earlier in the 7 MB file) in response to their opposition. Be aware: At a local Staples, I dealt with a new guy regarding whom I had some complex but friendly dealings to get the scan done right--low-res, for one thing; and for some reason, the pages came out in the pdf upside-down; even when I pointed this out, and he ended up doing three feedings into the scanner, still it ended up upside-down.... The guy was new (first week), and I don't want his head, but--here's what you can do. If you save this file to your computer (assuming you have a high-speed hookup or don't mind waiting 10 minutes for a download if you have dial-up), and it's then a pdf, you apparently can rotate the file in your Adobe reader. I was able to do this at home, even with relatively old software. Or you can print out the doc. Or you can turn your monitor or viewer upside-down. Or you can stand on your head to read the doc (but don't do this immediately after lunch). Sorry for the inconvenience.]

Also included in my second newly-made 2013 pdf is a copy of an online court record (with date at the bottom 12/31/2008) showing that my motion for Bauer’s covering my costs was granted (a motion I filed after my second MSJ was granted); and a copy of another online record (dated 11/9/2010) that shows that Bauer’s suit against the remaining defendants was dismissed in November 2010 “for fail[ure] to follow court rules.” Though the record says this motion was sought with prejudice (meaning her suit could not be re-filed), the status was changed to “without prejudice” by December 2010, and this status was reaffirmed following a motion made in early 2011 by one of the codefendants, as the motion was denied by the court in (I believe) March 2011. Thus, in essence, the case remained dismissed, was still dismissed *without prejudice*, which technically meant it could have been re-filed.

Important to remember: This is not to indicate the culpability of what codefendants were remaining in the case when it was dismissed in November 2010. Further, any factual representations in my 2008 moving papers concerning a defendant, which were dignified by the court when my motions were granted by the court, do not necessarily indicate the culpability of the defendant regarding any of Bauer’s original lawsuit allegations. It is important to realize my dismissal was won on a set of facts and argument that were tied closely, as I felt was appropriate and practically necessary, to a factual nexus that could easily be proven with hard evidence.

Order in which to read the documents

Though I don’t have pdfs of all interesting parts of my first MSJ, you can start with what happened to my first MSJ, which was filed in April 2008 and denied in May 2008. Here is my answer to Bauer’s opposition to my first MSJ (watch out! Big 22 MB file!), and here is a sequence of court orders first granting my motion, then vacating the granting (following Bauer’s attorney’s contacting the court because the judge had granted my motion “on the papers” on the erroneous assumption the “return date” [hearing date] had already passed).

Keep in mind that the judge didn’t deny my first MSJ on any explicit substantive point in Bauer’s opposition, and in fact the judge's order denying my first MSJ indicates that Bauer’s opposition was merely “received” and not “filed” (this reflects, indirectly, whether the judge found the opposition acceptable in some formal aspect). Further, my second MSJ in large part, at least with its initial brief and statement of facts, repeated the points of the first MSJ, with more subtlety and legal buttressing. (My answer to Bauer’s opposition to this second MSJ went further than did my MSJ brief to address certain legal questions than either the first or second MSJ did.)

Now you can read my second MSJ. (1) Some of the cover sheets (including indicating “settlement attempts”) are in the first 2013 pdf, and (2) the “Statement of Material Facts” is in the second 2013 pdf. This would refer to a host of exhibits I supplied, which are not included in any pdf, partly due to their volume. Then (3) you read the brief, which is in the first 2013 pdf. This supplies argument that relates somewhat point-for-point to the statement of material facts.

(4) Bauer’s attempt to get my second MSJ denied is shown in her attorney’s statement of facts in dispute (in the second 2013 pdf); (5) her certification is offered in a 2011 pdf. (6) Her brief is in the third 2013 pdf.

(7) My answer to her opposition is in the third 2013 pdf.

(8) The judge’s decision is shown in the first several pages of this attorney-produced pdf.

(9) The judge’s order granting my MSJ is in the first 2013 pdf; the second 2013 pdf has (10) an order showing that my costs were covered (which usually indicates a lawsuit against the party who wins the coverage of costs was frivolous). The second 2013 pdf also shows—quite a different matter from what my second MSJ had anything to do with, and more than two years after my second MSJ was granted—that (11) Bauer’s suit was dismissed against remaining codefendants.

My answer to Bauer’s opposition to my second MSJ, along with Bauer’s attorney’s brief that was part of her opposition. My answer to her opposition—which I am proud of, but which is obviously a legal layman’s attempt—actually touches on more legal-type considerations than does my brief enclosed with the second MSJ. Ironically, in the judge’s granting of my motion, I get the impression the judge, Bette Uhrmacher, relied mainly on my second MSJ’s brief—I was surprised she didn’t include a nod to any of the points in my later answer to Bauer’s opposition. Judge Uhrmacher’s decision seems almost to follow point for point my second MSJ’s brief.

If you’re tired of hearing about this case, I’m a little tired of rolling out this argument almost five years after it was made in a court of law, where the judge granted my motion, with the dismissal of me from the suit being with prejudice.

End note.

For instance, in this Write Agenda entry, there is “…Victoria Strauss was a non-vindicated [sic] defendant (only Wikipedia was vindicated [sic]. . . the judge left the door open to re-litigate with the remaining defendants) in the Bauer vs. Glatzer case….”

Movie break: A teen slang/manners confection gleaning fun from an upscale hothouse: Clueless (1995)

At a time (mid-April 2013) when cowards score a big terror message at an innocuous city marathon, this fun film can be enjoyed (for its evocation of optimism past, from the Clinton era), while you overlook its potentially embarrassing shallowness

It shows how much U.S. culture has changed in the past 10 or so years—in terms of difficulties we face, in terms of how pop culture tries to square with this (responsibly or not), and in terms of what “pabulum” the movie industry is willing to put out there—that we view this film and are struck by how much it seems from a different time. It is well-tooled in an “analog” way—with color-schemed set design, editing, blocking of actors in shots, and so on—and it has a generally fun feel, in an MTV-inflected sort of way. And satires on high school life (or more celebratory looks at it) are a dime a dozen in movie history; Heathers (1989) is one tart example, on which see my review on this blog from April 10, 2012.

In my review of Heathers, I discuss the issue of “scars” (that film’s stars’ term) from high school as were germane to that film’s satiric approach, but Clueless seems to embrace a quite different approach. It is not so much bitter about the excesses of high school pretensions, arrogance, etc., as it is jovial in taking them for granted in making an overall pleasantly humorous look at manners among more upscale kids.

A smooth satire marries the LA scene and Austen’s Emma

This film is about a high school in Beverly Hills, Calif., and so the main character, Cher Horowitz—played by Alicia Silverstone, in this her most notable role, I believe—and her best friend Dionne, played by a model-like actress Stacey Dash—are two princesses who, the narration makes clear, have what some would consider an arrogant attitude in taking their popularity and privileged-kid’s attitude for granted, and doing things with others accordingly (on the plus side, being helpful; or on the negative side in certain passing instances, expressing a bratty distaste or the like).

The film—written and directed by Amy Heckerling, who did Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)—was meant to be inspired (or informed) by Jane Austen’s novel Emma, but I don’t think you need to know that book as you watch this story of a young woman (1) aiming to work her wonders on getting two teachers romantically involved, then (2) helping a new student, played by neophyte Brittany Murphy, fit in more as a contender for being popular and a catch for a school hunk. In short, Cher is whimsically playing matchmaker (and meddler of sorts)—and then (3) after a lot is said and done, she ends up in a crisis of conscience where she suddenly seems to lose her touch as a popular “do-gooder” and doesn’t even quite know who will be her mate until….

A jaundiced eye is foregone for a fun revue, but may not click with today’s viewers

The plot is a little less interesting than just the parade of humorous moments and the roundly-surveying take on manners, not least the argot of American teens in certain privileged environments. So, instead of citing a lot of examples of “quotable lines” and the like, I’ll say this is a film to watch for its little pleasures.

The funny thing is, I’ve watched this several times recently, aiming to write a review that fits in with my general themes on this blog. Though this film is fun, there’s something perpetually shallow about it—not simply with regard to my own usual themes, but even regarding how it might be seen by American audiences today. This film immediately spawned a TV show of the same name in the 1990s, but I wonder if this film would be a hit (in theaters) at all today. Probably your more carefree high school students with eat it up with relish (not hotdog relish, of course).

But the idea of satirizing high school life, yet aiming to have light fun with it rather than to be a little angrier (even if not as angry as writer Daniel Waters was with Heathers), seems out of step today. It’s almost like thinking that, for adults, a Pillow Talk–type romp with George Clooney actually playing, seriously, a Carey Grant type (at his more innocuous), and someone else doing an earnest Doris Day, and an older male playing a spry Tony Randall type, would fly today. From another angle, you could almost say that Clueless isn’t snarkily meta enough for today’s young viewers.

A few little notes suited to an episodic film

* Dan Hedaya is amusing as Cher’s gruff litigator father, Mel Horowitz. He’s like the dour (yet joke-capable) uncle who has to pay the bills, and so he stomps his foot occasionally to restore a quiet of sanity amid the ongoing hubbub of kiddie commotion.

* Paul Rudd (looking quite young here—and still turning up today in notable movies) plays Cher’s earnest college student half-brother, who is in the household for a periodic family visit. The plot development between him and Cher by movie’s end may startle some. (His Wikipedia article notes this role as his career’s breakout performance.)

* Brittany Murphy, who sadly died in 2009, almost seems in this film not entirely promising (at least in appearance) as the actress she would later become (including in films like Girl, Interrupted [1999] and 8 Mile [2002]), looking here somewhat funky and a little lacking in star power. Here, with cute face but (for the character) protruding New York City area accent, she is the “new girl in town,” Tai Frazier. Seeing a golden opportunity, Cher and Dionne make Tai over and coach her to become a hot property, so to speak, among the most popular boys. I mean, Murphy rises well enough to the role, but Tai seems an inauspicious start for Murphy, given her later roles, even if, through her career, she wasn’t a grandly marquis actress. (She was a good second banana who was guaranteed to add some spice.)

* Cher as a character is a mix of ingenuousness, vanity, wiles, possible career promise, and the more global quality of a simple spoiled brat who willingly enough does excursions into altruistic behavior. Cannily mixing a surface “blonde airhead” flavor with a wisdom to work her will (if not quite a distasteful manipulativeness), Silverstone adds charm to this mixed character. Cher uses her “powers of persuasion” to get better grades with surprisingly gullible teachers, and so on; her rhetorical flair, as shown in the narration that combines semi-satire and fun slang-imitation, suggests that (if, we could interpolate hypothetically, she could do well on the LSAT) Cher might have a career as a lawyer (if this means a lawyer less nasty than her father’s corporate-law armadillo).

But we don’t know how serious Cher is as lawyer material (not that this means much to the story); her performance in debate class is entertaining, but she leavens up her work with flakiness. (Silverstone is attractive enough, but I guess her acting range isn’t terribly broad, hence her limited film career. After a critically panned turn in a Batman installment in the 1990s, she apparently hasn’t appeared in anything of great note. Also, a minor quibble: notices how she does a funny rumple with her lips in Clueless, which sometimes suits the character and sometimes just seems an odd mannerism.)

* Even moments that display amusing enough satire (like Cher’s blithe “love is everywhere” narrated while we see a boy puking up in a pool at a “Val party” [“Val” = San Fernando Valley, I presume]) seem to slide by as if they don’t want to be taken as what the movie generally is about (tone-wise or ultimate-message-wise). (Daniel Waters would have mined this sort of moment conspicuously for heightened, centered pitch-black humor.) The one character who regularly issues one-liners that fit a darker satire is Cher’s father; an example is his warning to a hip, somewhat smarmy young man, Christian, who has come to take Cher on a date: “Anything happens to my daughter, I’ve got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you.” Indicative of the film’s mood, the boy gives a forgiving goodbye gesture with his stylish hat, as he heads off with Cher.

* Of course, what would a movie about high school life be without the requisite stoner(s). There’s a Travis Birkenstock, played by Breckin Meyer, who is king of the “tardies” (i.e., instances of being late) to debate class. At one point, when he sees his grade for the class, he leaps up as if to jump out the window, and the ever-patient teacher (played by the well-cast Wallace Shawn) grabs him as he beseeches with forbearance (in a more general advisory), “Would the suicides please wait until…”

Tai Frazier, arriving at school as a self-revealing druggie, first takes a liking to Travis (as if valuing that they are druggies of a feather), but Cher and Dionne steer her to a more honorable/“self-disciplined” circle of kids. Late in the movie, Travis has turned a new leaf (no pun intended) and given up on drugs—he is in a 12-step program—and his new obsession is skateboarding. It is also at this time that Tai really starts a healthy (drug-free, one assumes) relationship with him.

It’s that kind of movie. The focused-on stoners give up drugs, and love becomes the main guideline for their lives. This is a different matter from the apparent key concerns of a swath of today’s high schoolers.

Scott Rudin is one of the producers. His career would be quite prolific in later years.

Fraud in the Caymans (1970s), News-Editor Bias (1989), Part 2 of 2, subpart C

Also reflecting an overlapping theme:

Let’s be edifying about lesser female media workers—taking a sour song and making it sweeter

[This entry covers so much ground, as to facts and ethical principles, that a future “Appendix” may be in order. See also “Special Note” with “Defamation Check” after the “End notes,” as to whether this entry may pose a danger to the real person pseudonymed Skoder. For Part 1 to this entry’s Part 2, see here. Subpart A for this entry’s subpart C is here. Edits done 4/17/13, including link fixed between asterisks. Another edit, 5/1/13, with important link, between plus-signs. Another edit 5/4/13.]

Subsections below:

8. What (on August 18) set up my resigning (in September) (cont’d)

9. The effect of Skoder’s notorious tenure on the prospects of VN

10. Notable points in Skoder’s “career” after the VN

11. A thumbnail sketch of how Skoder did her slanted reporting: giving sides black and white hats

8. What (on August 18) set up my resigning (in September) (cont’d)

What is strange about how Skoder imposed “consequences,” after she had the August 18 phone exchange with me, is that she didn’t even do anything decisive—or anything at all. I think that after she took some board meetings out of my hands, there was some remaining meeting I was to cover, and suddenly she called and left a message that she would take that meeting, too. In effect, I had no work. But I wasn’t officially fired. Skoder was incommunicado for days and days.

I hung in a sort of limbo for about two weeks. Was I getting no more work? What was it my place to do? After all her bluster, of course, you felt as if you were backed into a kind of weird corner. As I was desperate for income, this situation was all the more morally and emotionally troubling. So it should come as no surprise that I eventually wrote a letter to Skoder’s superior, Jeanne Straus, c.c.’ing Stan Martin, announcing I was resigning, and I took the opportunity to criticize Skoder directly, and roundly, as I didn’t do when having on an earlier, August day spoken with Stan Martin (and, though I’m not sure, with Straus). (In the earlier dealings, I was more practical, sticking to narrower issues, and with an eye to getting a different kind of work with the company.)

I think, all things considered, and since I was new to dealing with Skoder’s kind of “professionalism,” my letter about her was well-done on a troubling topic. As I’d learned to do, when dealing with such high-handedness and emotional instability as posed by Skoder (or any other such overweening superior), you took the most measured approach you could in writing a criticism amid a resignation, or the like, even if you did opt to be incisive about (some of) the person’s faults. (On her education, see End note 1.)

Well, the powers that be at Straus Communications forwarded the letter to Skoder, and she fired back at me with her five-page, single-spaced rant that ended with a threat to sue. (Coworker Jan also elected, probably after consulting her conscience as I had done mine, to send a similar letter to mine to Skoder’s superiors, and Jan also got a single-spaced rant from Skoder as a result, this one only three pages.)

Anyone who thinks I spill an awful lot of beans about these work messes should realize that even with this blog I hold some information in reserve, to be decent or just not overload a story with too many gory details. I still have the September 1989 letter from Skoder—it is a marvel of injudicious “response to me from a work superior.” If anyone was still doubtful about whether Skoder had a screw loose, a direct copy of this letter posted online would remove all doubt (though I don’t intend to post it). I haven’t, actually, read the letter in some years. But it’s the sort of thing that, when you review it again, you don’t know which you’re struck by more: (1) the awful way it is composed, with errors, crazily expansive sentences suggestive of limited education, emotional bluster—really, signs of frank instability; (2) the fact that someone could think they could handle a professional issue this way; or (3) the sheer personal aspect of being subjected to such a letter (which you tend to get over with age and experience).

It was sometime after I’d sent my letter, and maybe after Jan had sent hers, that the two of us spoke on the phone, trading notes on Skoder like two who had just witnessed something half paranormal. We were both in agreement, she as a licensed psychologist (who had before and/or would again work for the state) and I as a recent graduate with one major in psychology (and taking a more literary route with psychology), that Skoder showed signs of clinical paranoia. (I would be in touch with Jan again in 1999, in the wake of Skoder’s 1998 gross intrusion on my rights regarding the Vernon Township Environmental Commission.)

9. The effect of Skoder’s notorious tenure on the prospects of VN

To get back a bit to Skoder’s career arc at VN, she was editor there for about two years. She was fired in June 1991. I never knew what set this off, though there were claims she made about the situation in a lawsuit she filed concerning the firing in 1993 (though she alleged some defendants included a number of businesspeople and one or more town government representatives, and even Eugene Mulvihill was named as a codefendant; in Skoder’s weirdly amateurish legal papers, one page of which I have a copy of, Mulvihill is listed and his participation is described in the larger set of allegations she makes, though someone crossed his information out, maybe on Skoder’s sudden decision not to name him).

So here you had a situation where both Jan and I complained about Skoder in 1989, on matters that suggested Skoder was rather grossly out of bounds in how she was editing the paper. Now consider that when Straus Communications bought the paper (see my thumbnail sketch of the Straus businesses and public service in subpart A), the only way VN had any reputation and substance was due to the sensational radium-soil issue in Vernon Township of 1986. Skoder was at first only a photographer there, or not much more, in 1987. Even if Skoder did a lot of reporting for the paper in 1988, she was made editor in 1989 with limited education and even not very extensive news writing experience. Then it seemed to take a number of underworkers (as well as outsiders such as town officials who had objected to her reporting style) complaining about her—I don’t know if Chris Rohde also complained—before Skoder was fired in 1991.

After Jan and I had left in late summer 1989, I think Skoder had a hard time getting new reporters. I recall that the paper often looked as if Skoder was the only one writing it—though it would eventually have a policy where if only one writer did all the articles on a page, only one or two of the articles on the page would have bylines, and the rest wouldn’t, presumably to dispel the suggestion the paper was written by one person. But as I recall, when Skoder was its editor, she usually didn’t hesitate to have her byline on every article she did.

In the meantime, the paper (understandably) got a bad reputation in town, for slanted reporting. Skoder’s style of favoring one clique of Republicans over another was so recognizable (see subsection 11 below on Skoder’s methods), and shaped her reporting so “reliably,” that this style was clearly evident when she worked for a paper called the Highland Times in 1994, and for the Argus edition of The Suburban Trends from about 1996 until late 2000. (One of my entries on a 1998 set of incidents on my other blog suggests Skoder started at the Argus in 1992, but I’m not sure about that.)

Meanwhile, I think the reputation of The Vernon News was so damaged by Skoder’s tenure in 1989-91 that it never really recovered. It had a succession of different editors from 1991 on (see End note 2)—and finally it was closed down by Straus, essentially folded into a more regional newspaper (which had already existed) called The Advertiser News. Today there are two editions of this latter paper, one “North” (covering Vernon Township and other nearby municipalities) and one “South” (covering southern Sussex County areas and nearby parts of Morris County). This is the typical kind of “community newspaper” that is largely an advertising vehicle but also contains news items—some by bylined stringer reporters and some merely reproductions of press releases. It is a beefier “community newspaper” than some of North Jersey Newspapers’ equivalents that serve nearby areas, which have a formulaic approach and talk of whose character I will defer here. Suffice it to say the NJN local papers are less substantial (certainly in number of pages) than is The Advertiser News.

I should also add that Vernon Township would be a hard municipality to have its own newspaper—even if it was capably edited—simply due to economics: it takes a lot, in terms of advertising mostly, to financially float such a paper. I think the fact that the multi-municipality Advertiser News, with its heavy reliance on ads, has lasted much longer than did The Vernon News helps convey this simple economical fact.

Anyway, Skoder was lucky to get the chance to do news reporting that she did early in her time at VN, given her limited education and news-writing experience. And her having some of us writers work there for a brief (and sometimes rather stormy) time did give us some career-helping opportunity of a kind (though, as I said, two things that stand out from this engagement were the memory-informing blowup I had with Skoder and the fact of virtually unusable writing samples).

10. Notable points in Skoder’s “career” after the VN

One could point out that Skoder showed some initiative and hard work, and even some talent, in not only getting her college degree (in 1996, I believe), but in teaching (as an adjunct professor) at one or two local community colleges, and in teaching at public schools and even doing editorial work for a nationally distributing publisher of educational materials. But what remains striking, which goes far beyond my little story of the 1989 mess, is the cost: in her dealings with others, whether this involved her uncomplimentary news reporting on those she didn’t politically favor, or her head-butting or the like with some people more directly (I heard she was dreaded by school staff when it was parent-teacher–conference time at the public schools where her children went), she exacted a cost in terms of aspects of others’ careers, or at least in their ill will as a natural result of her inordinately contentious behavior. This is in a way that inevitably makes you wonder (at very least) whether her career couldn’t have been pursued more peaceably and with more common-sense respect for others’ rights.

Every young woman I’ve worked with closely at publishers (let’s just take the 1990s, when by and large my most honest publishing work was)—“Lori” at AAC, Lauren at CPG, Maria at North Jersey Newspapers, Frances T. at Prentice Hall School (an educational publisher), and others—whether there were times that I butted heads with them (not with all), were hurt by them, or whatever else—stood head and shoulders above Skoder along a simple dimension: they pursued their careers, finishing high school and college on time, and working their hearts out at early jobs, on the basis of their achievements, their show of talent, and their working generally quite capably with others, not on how “well” they could ding the next guy with “investigative reporting,” or how ferociously they could act on some view that another person had done them irreparably wrong and thus had to pay stiff consequences, whether in a lawsuit or a non-legalistic vindictive move against the person’s career.

When summing the longer-range “career” of a person as slovenly and manic in her exploits as is Skoder, it’s a little hard to be succinct, but a few tastes will be illustrative.

* [Suing Straus et al.]  She filed a lawsuit against The Vernon News and/or Straus Communications, local businessman Mark Nelson (who had been a Vernon councilman and mayor), and others—originally including Gene Mulvihill, while he was later crossed off the list of her defendants in her weirdly formatted, pro se lawsuit. She alleged loss of her job, defamation, conspiracy, and a host of other things all tied to her loss of the VN job in 1991. (One sentence in the lawsuit complaint starts with “Me, and…” as a compound subject; it talks about her and a “representative” of The Star-Ledger going to the municipal building to check a quote of hers against a tape of a meeting, and “The comments [of another] were verbatim as I had quoted them in the paper.” Another sentence refers to a defendant this way: “He was formerly employed by me [as if she owned the company?] as a freelance reporter [i.e., a grossly underpaid stringer] but I let him go when I discovered he was a close personal friend of then Mayor [name dedacted] and was becoming too biased and irrational in his news reporting.”) This lawsuit was eventually dismissed, I believe in 1994, apparently due to Skoder’s failure to prosecute it.

* [Working for a short-lived startup.]  She worked for an upstart newspaper, The Highland Times, in 1994, including as letters to the editor letters from her circle of friends at the time. Some of these, I was told, were forged by her. In any event, her biased/opinionated reporting style was clear.

* [Using a pseudonym for letters to the editor.]  She used a fake name to write letters to the New Jersey Herald, using a version of her sister’s name—an exploit that seems cited by Internet commenters on her even today. The Herald in December 1995 included an editorial note, by the associate editor who was in charge of the editorial page, on the issue of Skoder’s using a fake name, when the paper’s suspicions were aroused. (I showed this item to my boss NR in 1998, as I recounted on my other blog in this entry from November 21—see long indented note toward the end.) +[Update: Here (512 KB file) is a link to a pdf of the December 1995 Herald editorial note, with Skoder's and her family members' names and address/phone information blacked out (redacting has accidentally covered some periods in the last paragraph of the first column, hence it may read slightly oddly). This is probably my favorite piece of evidence of Skoder's less-than-professional moves over the years. I don't know whether, at this time in 1995, she was doing stringer-reporting work for a newspaper--whether The Star-Ledger (as surely she would do later)--or the Argus (which definitely seems to have been underway within 1996).]+

* [Her surreptitiously tape-recording phone interviews even offended a charismatic local community leader.]  Skoder used to be a big one (I assume she used to do this, i.e., she no longer does this) for recording interviews she had with someone else on the phone, without the person’s knowledge/permission. One person she did this with—because I heard about it from him—was Howard Burrell, a longtime Vernon Township resident who served for years on the Board of Education, and ran for township committee (or council) three times and won in 1995 and 1997 (I was part of the many-individual group that helped get him elected in 1995); this made him the first Black man to be elected to Vernon Township’s committee/council in its history. He was also elected to the county Board of Chosen Freeholders in 1999—the first Black man to sit there. He has been a church elder/trustee or such. He has long had charisma in town and respect as an unusual, exemplary man, not simply as an advocate of a particular ethnic group (this is not a slap; it partly reflects that Sussex County, for better or worse, is about 95 percent white). Once Skoder tried to tape-record him on the phone, and he caught wise to it, and upbraided her about it in confident terms.

* [She sues a raft of former friends.]  Skoder filed another lawsuit, in 1996, against six former friends, including GD whom I mentioned above. This suit dragged on for four years, and was finally dismissed in 2000, after a proof hearing in which, apparently, Skoder tried to have something misrepresented about her current (2000) work status, I believe her stringer work with The Star-Ledger (see subsection 11).

(It was around this time I was in my alienated, tortured relations with North Jersey Newspapers, sending communications of various sorts…with this whole “lost-soul” thing primarily set up by my boss’s mishandling of Skoder’s assault at the February 1998 Environmental Commission meeting. And it was after Skoder was dropped from the Argus in about late 2000 that she saw fit to glower at my mother at the post office [see subpart A].)

* [Her taking over an esteemed community group chases away earnest young potential members who had been with the group before, but are well familiarized with Skoder.]  In about 2006, she inveighed to become the head of a township volunteer group, not really a governmental body, that has a particular, significant role in town. Two young women I knew, who had been involved with the group in the past, abruptly decided no longer to be involved with the group—they were in their early twenties or so—because they knew what Skoder was about and decided to leave it before even crossing paths with Skoder, feeling the group would be tainted by her running it. (A similar situation, of young being scared off from involvement in an idealistic, volunteer group by the unprofessional behavior of an elder, I have seen elsewhere, not involving Skoder.)

* [Skoder’s journalistic crocodile jaws are active even in 2010.]  In an opinion column in a February 12, 2010, newspaper—a small, mostly-advertising thing, produced by North Jersey Newspapers—that Skoder was able to work for, her crocodile jaws were wrapped around, among others, one Austin Carew. Mr. Carew had been a fellow Board of Health member with me in 1997, so it was especially disturbing to me when he sided very staunchly against me in early 1998 on the official newspaper issue when we were all trying to get the township Environmental Commission going, and he was new to that body (see this blog entry recounting some of this situation). He couldn’t disagree more with how I handled the matter of Skoder’s newspaper improperly being an official newspaper of the commission. While I was offended by his attitude on this, I felt on some level that he would see the light about Skoder.

As it happened, always a cordial enough sort, in years after 1998 he would greet me in a chipper way when we met in town. He is a local businessman who looks a little like an elf. So imagine how ridiculous it would be for Skoder to eventually paint him as some kind of gross reprobate when, after he had been elected mayor in town, he had fallen grievously in her estimation and was subject to her poisoned journalistic pen.

Skoder’s 2010 newspaper pillorying of him (the particular one I’m considering, among what were numerous others; I just found there was some similar incident in 2002!) related to an issue she raised about an e-mail, from then Environmental Commission chair Craig Williams (whom I’ve also known sketchily) to numerous other officials, which was posted to an Internet site: she remarks, “That [Gary] Gray [a former councilman] and [Austin] Carew [former mayor at the time] would respond to everyone copied on the e-mail distribution list by stating the information is factual and accurate is pretty shocking, and one could easily perceive it as politically motivated or even allegedly [!] intended to intimidate and mislead. That Carew would do such a thing amid charges of alleged RICO activity against him by a fellow councilman is disturbing.” There were no “charges” against Carew, if this is to suggest a criminal sense; Carew was named in a RICO-referencing lawsuit, filed by Richard Carson, a township councilman, which was a civil matter. This suit was eventually settled, with an anticlimactic outcome; the January 14, 2011, New Jersey Herald reported that the township settled with plaintiff Carson to the tune of $45,000, but with the stipulation that "no sides admit to any wrongdoing" (p. A-1). Carew, who was a former mayor in 2011, is quoted in the article as saying of the settlement "It's a travesty" and "It is so ridiculously bogus" (p. A-1). Suffice it to say that Carew, who had sided against me when Skoder wrapped her crocodile jaws around me in 1998, had his turn in the crocodile jaws by 2010. I felt rather badly for him at this point, with my offense at him over 1998 basically past. (A possible future “Appendix” to this set of entries on the 1989 mess may talk a bit about some 2002 matters involving Carew and Skoder, very interesting in the overall context here.)

* [Skoder has extensive and ill-advised e-mailing relationship with an ally, a township mayor.]  In early 2011, the New Jersey Herald did a big exposé story about how Skoder and the mayor at the time, Sally R., were trading e-mails on a host of township business—Skoder was only on the Land Use Board (the successor to both the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment); Skoder was not an elected official (as was Sally R.), and Skoder sure as hell wasn’t an attorney. Skoder’s e-mails in responding to things Sally informed her on included her trademark opinionatedness, and such advice as “Tell her this…” and spouting (not on the same issue) “This is fraud and we will sue!” One had a hard time telling which was worse—the way Skoder was insinuated into township business like a spectacularly ill-chosen (and presumptuous) “counselor,” or the coarseness of her opinions she gave in e-mails. Sally R. was not reelected mayor later that year; this story about her cozy relationship with Skoder appears to have been one reason why. (This 2011 situation was referred to in *this blog entry from late last November*, in the subsection headed “The township attorney drops the ball.”)

11. A thumbnail sketch of how Skoder did her slanted reporting: giving sides black and white hats

Skoder had two phases in her newspaper career—when she was an editor at The Vernon News (which was 1989-91; her previous work there did not mean she was an editor), and her stringer-reporting work, which started around 1993 and went, with maybe some breaks, until the mid-2000s. In her news reporting work, she worked, most voluminously, for small papers—the Highland Times, a startup that quickly went out of business (her tenure there was mainly 1994, I think); the Argus edition of The Suburban Trends (her tenure from about 1996 to about 2000 [strangely, my draft of the 1998 matters detailed on my other blog suggests she started with the Argus in 1992]); and AIM Vernon (from about 2009 to about 2011—I could be off in dates, but she didn’t write for AIM too long, and her work was largely writing an opinion column). The latter two papers were owned by North Jersey Newspapers; that company wanted marketing inroads into Sussex County, and tried to do this with the Argus, but this effort failed about 13 years ago (the Argus was eventually discontinued in about 2003, after Skoder had been released from it in late 2000, though of course The Suburban Trends, covering a much larger—and mainly Passaic County—area, remains).

How did AIM Vernon start? There were originally one or two AIM newspapers, largely an advertising vehicle for exurban areas, that served a few municipalities in the Passaic County/Morris County area abutting watershed and such lands. They were owned by a small businessman; eventually, as it had apparently done with other small local papers over the years, NJN bought up the AIM titles, adding it to their huge stable of multi-county municipality-serving papers, and they added a few editions serving other local areas. One edition was AIM Vernon, which is freely distributed by mail, and this was the only local paper Skoder ended up writing for after some hiatus from local news reporting.

Notably, Skoder also did un-bylined stringer reporting for The Star-Ledger (just as even I had done briefly in spring 1989); she did this for quite a few years, starting in about 1996, ending (I’m not sure) in about 2003—but this almost always meant covering municipal meetings and wasn’t too much different in some broad ways from the bylined municipal-meeting stories done for small local papers. With such a “gig,” you didn’t have the profile that a byline would confer (and this also reflected, in some sense, your status or background as a reporter), but one good thing about it, as I recall from 1989, is that it paid more per story than did writing for the small local papers. (The Star-Ledger basically doesn’t do this stringer thing now, as far as I can see, because of post-2008 economics and the Internet’s eroding newspaper readership.)

Even if I am off as to some details here, I think this is a fair accounting of Skoder’s tracks in the local-newspaper arena over about 20 years. It should be noted that a reporter can take this kind of career route and not necessarily be a bad reporter. It may be a matter of choice why one would pursue a reporting career this way; for some women, for example, it may be a good way to work while also raising a young family at home.

But Skoder—who was complained about regarding her reporting even while, as far as I know, she wrote for The Star-Ledger—had a certain general tendency in how she reported, which I’ll sketch here.

Skoder would defend herself—as she certainly did one time with me, in the 1998 Environmental Commission fracas—to the effect that she could get accurate quotes. But this wasn’t the main problem when her reporting was slanted. A lot of the problem was simple judgment, and being complete enough to be fair in a story.

Let’s take a schematic, hypothetical example (actual examples can be offered, but if I did that, I might be revealing who Skoder is, and I’m doing her the courtesy of not revealing her identity, beyond Sussex County). Say a developer, whom some believe to be “too cozy” with some township officials, wants to build an apartment building of sorts—fitting in with local architecture—to meet guidelines of what in this state is called “Mount Laurel housing,” or housing, following a decades-old court case, that is to meet a need determined by the case for each municipality to provide a certain amount of local-income housing. (This case in itself is complicated—I first heard about it in 1987—and I won’t go into its complexities and nuances here.)

Say the developer appears before the township Zoning Board because it needs a variance for, I don’t know, building height in the zone in which the apartment building is planned for. Say some citizens—aligned with one or two local board members, like the chair, Arlene H. (to take what would today be a fictional example), who don’t particularly warm to the developer’s overall intentions and/or track record in town—want to have the project’s variance denied. Say their issue generally is that the apartment building would block the view of a local hillside/gorge people like to see.

Now, say a lawyer for the developer speaks in a hearing before the Zoning Board. I will put some words in boldface for a reason; will explain soon.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the attorney says, “my client appreciates the need to provide low-income housing for people in Vernon according to the Mount Laurel guidelines, and we have acknowledged that, as a large developer in town, we are well positioned to accept the tradeoff [there is a system of credits, or such, involved with private developers’ squaring with Mount Laurel guidelines; leave an explanation of that aside] of building this housing amid our other projects. But we also have to do what is economically feasible for us, and the height of this building, while obscuring the gorge, is more economical for us than building many lower buildings on the same lot.”

An opponent, “Mary Lou Joslin” (a fictional person for our purposes), in turn says: “Board, I understand the issue about Mount Laurel housing too, but we feel it would be a tragedy to have this building obscure the viewshed of the gorge, which has been an asset in town so long.”

Skoder would report the boldface stuff, making the developer look less agreeable to the public (she was usually against what could be called the “business Republican” policies in Vernon Township), and making the opponent look more like a white knight:

“The developer’s attorney said, ‘We have to do what is economically feasible for us, and the height of this building, while obscuring the gorge, is more economical for us than building many lower buildings on the same lot.’

“Mary Lou Joslin [fictional person] of the [fictional] Save Our Vernon group said, ‘We feel it would be a tragedy to have this building obscure the viewshed of the gorge, which has been an asset in town so long.’”

Subtlety would be left out. The two sides would look as if they had black and white hats. (And if Skoder was contested on how she reported the meeting, she could fire back that her quotes were accurate.)

Patty Paugh, a local reporter for The Star-Ledger for some years, who had earlier worked for Sussex County’s New Jersey Herald, might seem to favor the side against the developer too (especially if, in real life, the developer was Great American Recreation), but she also very typically reported more of the original quotes, to give some sense of complexity on both sides, and to show both sides had a brain.

Skoder’s way of making one side (which she would favor, which became clear in her opinion pieces done over the years) look virtuous far above the other side not only was, to me, so obvious in her reporting, but it’s amazing how little this method changed over the years.

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As they say, it takes all kinds to make a world, but some kinds make you want to run for your bunker, or carry brass knuckles.

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End note 1. It becomes darkly funny when you see by what facts you start to nail down some of the specifics of this story, such as when Skoder got her GED. It is important to be precise here, while realizing two things: (1) Skoder was not always so careful with representing the complete set of relevant facts about an individual she reported on, so she’s getting more consideration here than she often gave others in her paid reporter work; and (2) if I’m a little off on something, even giving a fact blog-style “soft focus” to help shield Skoder from identification along with the pseudonym for her, that may not be a bad thing, practically speaking, for the sake of preventing her from having a basis for claiming this entry defames her.

But anyway: my facts on Skoder’s life history prior to her work at The Vernon News came from a few sources: two, I know, were (1) court papers I saw related to her 1993 lawsuit and possibly something from her 1996 lawsuit complaint, and (2) the verbal representations of GD, a former friend of hers with whom I had a long conversation in 1998. I don’t have all my written records at hand as I write this blog entry, but I find a passage from a novel draft where I listed facts that, I believe, directly echoed Skoder’s facts, but they surprise me in one or two regards. They say she moved to Vernon Township from Bergen County in 1984 (which seems accurate), but then that she got her GED in 1986, when she would have been about 34. (But whether she got her GED at age 30 or 34, that still doesn’t speak especially creditably of her.) But what’s even more remarkable: if she got her GED in 1986, this was the year before she started working for The Vernon News, which I know was in 1987 (so she had the nerve to present herself to the paper as qualified to work there despite just having gotten her GED, though working only as a photographer at first—her news writing started in 1988). Moreover, her LinkedIn page says she started doing “news writ[ing]” in 1986—which would be prior to, or about, the time she got her GED! This rather takes the potential for women to be pretentious about themselves in the work world to such an extreme that it is really too extreme to be a good reflector of women in general, even if you wanted to be a bit sardonic with the generalization.

My novel passage also says she was born in 1952, though I’ve been confused about whether she was born in 1953 or 1954. Suffice it to say it’s around there.

End note 2. I think that, in a way, the conditions in 1989-92 for producing The Vernon News were so draconian that it was difficult for just about any editor, though Skoder foundered as she did largely due to her own lack of qualifications. A Tina Halsted took the reins from about July 1991 to December 1991, and did not seem to have the upper management’s full support. Then a Cass Vanzi, who had had experience at a major New York newspaper as well as other venues, took over in January 1992. Cass lasted at least a year or so. I worked for different times under both women; one way to measure how things went is that the percentages of articles with minor or major editing problems, followed by the percentages of OK-edited articles, piece out this way: Skoder, 77%, 22%; Tina, 50%, 50%; Cass (who didn’t know a lot of presuppositions about Vernon life to handle editing of the stories well), 60%, 40%. I thought Tina was the best, for me, but she tended not to cut down longer stories, as I expected her to do.

And in Skoder fashion, when I returned to The Vernon News in September 1991 to supplement my work at All American Crafts, Skoder (fired from the VN months before) went into action and tried to have her ally Arlene Holbert raise issues about the quality of my articles, which machinations Tina caught wise to to some extent, though she felt more annoyance at Holbert (as to her pushiness/tone) than she did to Skoder—she didn’t fully have the picture on Skoder yet. (See this entry, “The place of Skoder in my war stories, Part 1 of 2, ” in the subsection titled “A taste of the 1998 assault-phase stuff, including telling exhibits,” toward the end—referencing Tina Halsted—on the 1991 Vernon News situation, where the editor, Tina, defended me.)

Special Note. As you’ve read this entry, you may have wondered if I would try to have Skoder ousted from her current job, which appears to be with a nationally distributing publisher. I have no interest in doing that. Nor would I encourage anyone else to try to do that, based solely on my blog entry here. What I am interested in is having known the disservice Skoder has done to Vernon Township over about two decades, and in some sense I hope she is satisfied enough with her current job that she doesn’t lose it and thus have the itch to be a reporter in Vernon Township again. In my opinion, no single person has caused more damage to civic life in Vernon Township, over so long a period, as has Skoder.

Might someone else—who has been “screwed” by Skoder in a set of affairs wholly apart from anything I was ever in—be inspired by this blog entry to get Skoder ousted from her current job? (Is such an ouster realistic? Not to many of us, but to Skoder, quite possibly: it is not rare for her to make such remarks as, in an opinion column of February 12, 2010, in a local newspaper, “On the same public Internet forum, [X person] attacks this writer with potentially defamatory statements that are allegedly [sic] aimed at interfering with this writer’s integrity and livelihood.” This in a supposedly credible newspaper column.)

I do not expressly invite anyone who has read this, and who knows who Skoder is, to try to get her removed from her current job, which in any event is with a publisher that has nothing to do with local politics such as Vernon Township’s. But I do want to add to discussion about Skoder, to the extent it has existed (on informal levels); and I am sure there are people who don’t need me to have encouragement to try, if they dared, to exact some “comeuppance” for Skoder.

And I should add that, with all I report here, there are probably many other colorful stories of her that I’ve never had the opportunity to hear about. Moreover, not all the stories people have about her may jibe, but that is somewhat beside the point; a lot of situations people have been in with Skoder have been a matter of being personally assaulted by her, and in these one-on-one situations, the victims’ having consensus with other people on the matter is not integral (in fact) or necessary (in principle) to wanting, and even having legal means, to get some proper retribution against her.

Defamation Check. Writing on someone like Skoder, who has threatened lawsuits for defamation for so many years (even in the more complex, defamation-wise, years of the Internet) can obviously make you leery of being sued by her. But though no plan in this regard is ever airtight, I think the way I do these entries is OK, along these lines:

* Only people in Vernon Township and neighboring areas, who’ve known about Skoder, will know whom I’m talking about. And what I have to say would square well enough, I think, with what many numerous local people have said about her, many of whom I’ve never met.

* If she sued me for defamation, then as a matter of course, her name would come out, as I offer evidence to back up my statements, such as bylined items of hers, or local news items about her, some going back to 1993 or thereabouts.

* Defamation law requires, among other things, a determination of whether a statement is factually correct. On many of my significant points, I have hard-copy evidence. On points where I have only statements by others to back me up, I could either (a) say that, instead of hearsay, it’s a matter of direct testimony from me about a conversation I had with another, or (b) omit the offending “heard from another” statement, and it still wouldn’t invalidate the bulk of my entries falling under “Fraud in the Caymans…Part 2.”