Ty: It's time for another mailbag. Remember our e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Ava and C.I. are doing two TV pieces this week and that means, while they're working, we better have some stuff accomplished. So while they work on their articles and everyone else works on editing, I'm going through the e-mails. Ella e-mailed last week about reality TV and how much she enjoyed Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Siblicide" -- she was one of many who e-mailed about that and voiced their wish for Ava and C.I. to do more reality TV. In all the years we've been up, I would bet that you could find, right now in the archives, at least 8 reality shows they've covered. Reality TV -- or, as they call it, 'reality' TV -- is their least favorite genre. But I bet they've covered it eight times. But, Ella, they're covering it this week and you're mentioned in their piece. Or were. When they finished the first piece -- on Democracy Now! -- Jim read it out loud to us and we all loved it but Jim said the three paragraphs they had in there on a reality show needed its own article. So they're grabbing that, pulling it out and writing about the reality show.
Terry wrote to say we haven't done a magazine roundup in forever.
No, we haven't. We did those a lot more often once upon a time. The story there is that we were doing them and one of our regular readers shipped off to Iraq. It was their favorite feature to get a sort of quick overview of what was going on in the world outside of Iraq. So we did that feature on a regular basis. Now that the reader's back in the US it's not as important to us and we forget about it. But Terry reminded us and we've got a mag round up and a comic book round up for this edition. Those pieces are written and are being edited (and possibly typed) as I write this.
Clarice wants to know how far ahead we plan?
Sometimes never. Sometimes weeks and weeks. For example? We want to review a boxed set. Of DVDs. We'll probably do that shortly. Ava and C.I. still pitch, at least once a month, a feature on Mae West. It's become something of a joke. We all love Mae West films it's just not something we've hopped onto. But it did inspire something that we may work on later this edition. If we do that feature, it'll be much easier to do a a Mae West feature, I think.
But that might not even get done even though Ava, C.I., Mike and Elaine are all strongly behind the proposal (a piece on Marilyn Monroe).
We'll probably do another piece on The Bionic Woman. We did "The Bionic Woman Season Three" and we'd like to note all three seasons so we'll most likely do a piece between now and the end of the year on season one. Time permitting, we'd then do season two.
Ghost89 e-mailed wanting to know what the most popular piece this year "that wasn't an Ava and C.I. piece or an Ava, C.I. and Ann piece was?" So far, the most popular piece fitting that description is "Columbia Journalism Ridiculous." In almost two months, it's had over 15,000 views. On that piece, Kate writes that the Erickya Fry Daddy pieces sound like one person and she wishes that were true of the Greg Maxie pieces as well.
For those who haven't read the feature, it's a parody. And we're parodying CJR and writing as two people -- Erickya and Greg -- with two posts for each of them. What happened there was Ava and C.I. didn't want to participate and didn't. We wrote the piece and went through several drafts. And then they came back and we were sort of depressed that it didn't really work. Ava and C.I. thought of a joke for the first Erickya piece and we begged them to please rewrite it all. Which they did. After they did that, Betty and Wally rewrote Erickya's second piece and tried to use the voice Ava and C.I. created. (Like Kate, I think they succeeded.) With Ava and C.I.'s section and Betty and Wally's section, the piece became strong enough to publish.
That piece also prompted the biggest misunderstanding about me: That I'm a huge Conner Habib fan. I've explained it in e-mails but let me put it up here. Yes, I'm gay. Yes, I've looked at gay porn. But I'm really into Latinos (like my boyfriend). I honestly didn't know who Conner Habib was until Ava and C.I. showed us the picture we were using with the parody -- we hadn't even thought of an illustration. When they rewrote 'Erickya,' the illustration became necessary.
They picked him and they picked him because he's lives in San Francisco and they've bumped into him and thought he was a very sweet guy. They'll also tell you he's good looking and that's something that I and about 400 who e-mailed can agree with.
DJJ wants to know why we always have something on Iraq every edition?
Because our opposition to the Iraq War is why this site started.
We have little use for other websites online because they've forgotten Iraq. It's amazing how many used that war but apparently never gave a damn about it.
WoodyHard11 wants to know why we don't do more to promote other websites "because there are a lot of good websites around."
We try to toss out a link to serious sites that e-mail us. Once upon I would have just said "sites." But in the last year the equivalent of spam mail has been going up at websites. They exist to sell a product usually. And I'm not in the mood for that stuff. So I now say "serious websites."
Before 2008, we had a lot of websites that linked to us. And Ava and C.I. would cover some injustice and Jim would read their article and we'd love it but Jim would also note, "After this goes up, ___ is going to delink from us."
In 2008, it actually became a point of pride for us to be delinked. I'm not joking. We stood for our beliefs while others pawned their own to support Corporatist War Hawk Barack.
We don't worry about delink. I actually asked a site to delink from us when they were promoting an ass. A sexist ass. The sexist was exploiting an actress and C.I. doesn't tolerate that. That site had also gotten on her nerves (and Ava's) with a "slut shaming piece" they did on Barack's speechwriter dating a model. What that woman modeled had nothing to do with the speechwriter or Barack and there was no reason to attack her or imply she was stupid or a whore because of what she modeled (lingerie).
MarsBarsSnicker wants to know why we don't do personal e-mails? Unless you go into the spam folder, your e-mail to this site is read, usually by me.
If you're someone I recognize as a regular reader I try to dash off at least a line. But, as Jim has said from day one, we're not running a pen pal service.
At the end of the week, we're judged by whether or not we came up with new content first and foremost. Then we're judged by whether or not people liked it.
Again, if I recognize you, I do try to dash off at least a line.
I had, in the past, responded to all reporters and tried to do so in a kind and friendly manner. Jim, by contrast, usually just e-mails reporters who are griping about something here, "F**k off." Only he uses all the letters.
But I've given up on that. Three times this year already, I've tried to be nice and all that's happened is a reporter suddenly thinks we're pen pals and I have more and more. And I've been nice. But they can't let it go (like Ross with "We were on a break!"). And at some point, e-mail reply 7 or 8 -- I've had it.
Fred asks why, since we do TESR Test Kitchen features, we don't do recipes? Trina does recipes each Friday at her site Trina's Kitchen. But, Fred, to make you happy, I'll close with a recipe. This is one of my favorite recipes. When I left New York and moved out here to California, I was the first of us to move into C.I.'s place. And she made me a meal the first night (and was back out on the road the second) that I loved. It's still my favorite and she made it late last night when I was hungry.
I'm halfing the ingredients so this should serve four.
1 large white onion
3 large granny smith apples
2 lemons
4 cups of brown rice
12 ounces of ocean perch
4 ounces of mozzarella cheese
In a large skillet, with a small amount of butter substitute, adds slices of apples with the skin on and slices of onion. If you're steaming the fish, place the fish in a steamer, cut lemons, squeeze juice on them and leave lemons with fish. Otherwise, you'll cook them in the skillet with apples and onions. Cover the skillet and cook for approximately 20 minutes on low to medium heat. Cook brown rice according to directions.
Place brown rice on four plates. Top with apple, onion and fish. Top that (while fish and rice are hot) with mozzarella. She and Jess were having an eggplant pizza and I was hungry -- but for something else. So she kindly went into the kitchen and fixed that up. I love that dish. It's got a sweet and tangy taste to it and the brown rice adds a bit of a smoky flavor.