The gadabout letters
Download 2 Mb.
|
|
necessary details concerning benefits, payroll etc.
-----Original Message----- From: Leonard Treadway [mailto:go@www.radio-qmx.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 5:15 PM To: Tom Kurdy Cc: editor@bigforkeagle.com; crisfriar@yahoo.com Subject: Eagle Concerns Dear Tom Kurdy, Over the past several months I have had some mounting concerns with the way the Eagle office is run. These concerns stem mainly from one source: the editor, Laurie Dillard. Since the beginning I have been shocked at her inconsistencies and incompetence at running a paper, due, mainly I imagine, to her lack of professional experience, technical knowledge, leadership skills, communication skills and abilities (I apologize for my bluntness) to stop talking and listen. This becomes a major liability when coworkers are attempting to educate and instruct her on the small but important factors that go into putting out a newspaper, especially with the pressure of a deadline. One thing in particular that has held up progress at the Eagle is Laurie's lack of ability to complete even the simplest of steps on her computer. Time after time I have laid out much more than my share of pages each week, only to come back in early on Tuesday morning and literally have to redesign the very same pages I spent up to 10 hours on the day before. (If needed, I'm sure Chris Friar you will find in agreance with these points of concern.) As a solution to these and other problems, I personally have tried many times to sit down with Laurie and teach her some simple Quark XPress items to lessen her strain. Judging based on recent performances, I don't believe she has retained a single lesson, and week after week, continues to harp and brood over the same exact obstacles. This is the reason the Eagle was not laid out until midnight some weeks, causing everyone involved to experience a lot of unnecessary stress.
to be the leader--who seems timid, scared, and unable to communicate with her staff. I am aware that I am of a higher skill level in many elements of newspaper, technical processes, layout, design, communications, etc. than Laurie ever will be. I understand this situation and use it to the newspapers advantage. I have never held this against our staff. However, it seems to me Laurie is mentally unable to accept this situation and allow it to work to everyone's benefit. There are other concerns of mine, but I feel I am starting to make myself clear. I know other editorial staff members have left the Eagle because even "after 2 years of trying to make things work, Laurie has not improved." Sales associates have had the same problem. If you would like, I will supply you with a current list of professional references with whom I have worked in the past. I encourage you to use these references just to sort of base my character and level of professionalism on. I have not had any personal time talking with you, and I don't expect you to fully understand these judgments of mine and realize, just from this letter, how much of a serious liability Mrs. Dillard is to your companies well being. But I would expect you will want to look more closely into just exactly what she is and is not capable of handling. I am sure after careful consideration, you will realize the latter far exceeds the former.
days like a high school cafeteria. Frankly I am shocked at the way the staff there conducts themselves from time to time and also with the lack of professionalism. But, this is really not one of my concerns. The purpose of this letter is mainly to inform you of the current situation at the Eagle, and also to ask your professional opinion and advice on what you would do in such a situation.
Sincerely, Leonard Treadway Eagle Photographer JO: i guess dan was confused but i dont know by what. the only girlie ive been hanging out with is Silvia Midtown and she's still coming to the deed in october. its been a bit stressful lately with little nilla because she gets all hyped up like three year olds do and makes it very difficult to do things in a three room house like work on the novel that i plan to finish before starting a new full time job...if that can even happen here. and where Silvia Midtown goes nilla goes so i had to just say something like this: "ahh...well, the cabins really small, as you know, and i am using this new stint of unemployment to continue on with my book..." and so she understands and all that, but is still a bit touchy on the whole situation. touchy mostly not because i told her to not come over so often, but because she's not real content living where she is right now i guess. probably a mix of both. ive been scouring the papers to find some cheap wood heated kazinsky cabin somewhere where no one can hassle me till the book is complete. something better turn up soon, it snowed today. From: "Joe O'Toole" Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 16:35:49 -0500 To: Hey I heard that you might not be bringing the new lady. Dan mentioned something about a drunk email in which you referred to another girl being in the cabin. Was dan confused? LD: hello.
i got a lecture last night from linda and david ensign about finding the lord and how everyone else is wrong. i dont think ill be talking to them much more about that. maybe ill recommend they go to the dharma center to see wangdon and sit sunday morning meditations. it would open their minds, but i dont think they'd like that. that whole family seems very concieted, too bad. narrow-minded-ness must breed in the woods. i cant wait to get to chicago. i saw a guy fly fishing today under the bridge as I ran across the swan river. Big sky Journal emailed me and said they need a story about fly fishing for the winter issue. maybe i should work something up, but it was so brief today. i want to see more fly-fisherpeople. I have many freelance writing and photo oportunities for montana magazines (some poems too) so im thinking of fronting the cash for a new D1X. cant make money unless you spend money i heard someone once say. i think maybe it was emerson, or that chrysler guy. im going to see 20 acres for sale up near trego (south of eureka) tomorrow. old "bill" wants $1400/acre, he said, and "if a guy has cash, I can make a deal yet." he's had the land for eight years and him and his brother used to go up there and "have all kinds of fun, but then (his) brother got killed last year and (he just has) to sell it... too many memories." i imagined for a moment maybe how his brother was killed, then said this to him over the phone: "oh." old bill sounds like a really nice guy and i hope he's not too sad about his brother. but, but the sounds of it, he is. i hope everything is good down there. LT ***
rhythm mountain studios www.radio-qmx.org "Good people, you know how to create poems in the minds of saints and maybe you've never even picked up a pen." OUTLAW: american poems on the run by Leonard Treadway Available spring 2003. http://ninearts.org KP: KP-
Outlaw It's near impossible to get a good black and white photograph of Jack Micheline, Jim Carroll, Alan Kaufman or Abie Hoffman. The FBI did recon into the wooded tenement shacks of Northern California and raided the cold water flats of the lower east side where minority and pueirle prose was born, hatched into this strange and capitalistic world spitting two-syllable machine gun verbs, dropping commas where commas don't belong, turning on the young vulnerable intellectuals in housing projects or Universities, and robbing everyday people of their monotony. The CIA came down on the cussing and perverted adjectives swilling around smokey speak-easys and secret-knock-down vodka stills in their very own towns.
bouncing around the elevated inner-city trains from Times Square, Union Station Chicago to San Francisco dancing on rooftops in the moonlight dawns mixing icecube cocktails with female Japanese Haiku in sheer silk indian sorongs sparking a new years revolution from barstool headquarters and leaky alleyways howling in the night. The KGB sent punctuation away, doin' twenty years hard time in San QuentinÑfor parol there's no hope. Pronoun started gang-bangin' when he was nine, Conjunctions sellin' dope. I wont even mention rap lyrics. The SSU knows the lyrics of Waylon Jennings, Scott Nearing, Willie Nelson, Beck, and Sinead OÕConnor, pulled tight the reigns on the new American outlaw.
the outlaws are the heroes. And I'm sittin here hoping to get fired, turn this back pocket-poetry-notebook back into what notebooks are made forÑ grocery lists, hero novels and influential prose.
my brother and his big-ten campus whiskey crew, my sisters gunna maybe someday both have new, pink infants to dedicate a book of child-rhymes to. Robin Williams, Arlyn Tratt, Jackson Pollock, David Lerner. Sammy's in there too, like Chet Voulliard in his swingin single nineteen-seventy-five big brown econoline van. Rolling across the country, he too is an outlaw against the proper grammar enigma militia. Neo-classical propaganda in the schools say capitalize your names, dates. Unless your a poem, I say, and speak like you talkÑAre there upper-case consonants in your literary gun rack? Do lower-case lay-words roll off your tongue and stand straight up in the air of your everyday rhythmic conversations? Check the history books or watch old films you just might get a glimpse of the moment metered verse got hitched to rambling fictional stanzas and rode off, wedded as prose to the newly American literary dawn when poetry becomes outlawed, only outlaws will write poems. 10/04/02 MT LD:
after taking a shower and thinking about what you told me, im more suprised than i was before. and at the same time, im not. you are living in an old trailor (something you always told me you never would do again in even a nice one, let alone a dirty one) that you had to clean out the drug stuff before moving into, and getting free rent and already sleeping with someone...what does that make you? why do you think arlo was going to the bathroom on the floor inside? if this is the type of person you are and your morals allow you to sleep with someone so easily--just after storming out of our house--then you had me seriously fooled for 23 months. how can you let these people touch you? it makes me want to vomit in shock and horror because i know about your decent heart-- something these guys dont even care to see because they'd have to think more than enough than it takes to get into your pants. give me a break, lauren-- you are allowing yourself to become just another human statistic? let me ask you this: what does "nick" do? now i still wonder again about the rumors and the shit i saw you doing at the Well. the fact that you brought that stoned whore into our bedroom is no mystery to me now. dont ever tell me again that you never lied to me. i wonder what nikki and the rest of your family would think about what you are doing. because i have a feeling they are truely not aware. you make me sad. you have a brain, lauren. use it. get out of the trailor. go to school. stay out of the bar. and dont take another fucking JOB at the bar. i still feel like im your dad and we arent even talking much anymore. i was very hurt when i realized what is going on there--that is why i had to get off the phone with you. twice. you guys are always talking about how your mom needs to get out of her damaging situation. maybe you should take your own advice. you could be living in a nice house with your family until you get things going again. el paso is not a bad place. your family has unconditional love for you. think about it--im sure "nick" thinks he's got a good thing going, getting laid so easily. if i can help you, let me know. but if you are going to keep lying to yourself and arent going to help yourself, dont ever call me again. JO:
Mr. October, that write up rocked, i like the "favorites" part the best. is the season over then? i got an early morning call from lauren phoning from a payphone in durango. the conversation was going ok, we dont talk much at all anymore, until she let some stuff leak out that she was keeping from me until today. i hung up on her out of anger and frustration. she called back. i hung up on her again. i wont spell it all out for you right now, that would take too much typing and waste too much time. but here is the email i responded to her which covers a lot of it. after taking a shower and thinking about what you told me, im more suprised than i was before. and at the same time, im not. you are living in an old trailor (something you always told me you never would do again in even a nice one, let alone a dirty one) that you had to clean out the drug stuff before moving into, and getting free rent and already sleeping with someone...what does that make you? why do you think arlo was going to the bathroom on the floor inside? if this is the type of person you are and your morals allow you to sleep with someone so easily--just after storming out of our house--then you had me seriously fooled for 23 months. how can you let these people touch you? it makes me want to vomit in shock and horror because i know about your decent heart-- something these guys dont even care to see because they'd have to think more than enough than it takes to get into your pants. give me a break, lauren-- you are allowing yourself to become just another human statistic? let me ask you this: what does "nick" do? now i still wonder again about the rumors and the shit i saw you doing at the Well. the fact that you brought that stoned whore into our bedroom is no mystery to me now. dont ever tell me again that you never lied to me. i wonder what nikki and the rest of your family would think about what you are doing. because i have a feeling they are truely not aware. you make me sad. you have a brain, lauren. use it. get out of the trailor. go to school. stay out of the bar. and dont take another fucking JOB at the bar. i still feel like im your dad and we arent even talking much anymore. i was very hurt when i realized what is going on there-that is why i had to get off the phone with you. twice. you guys are always talking about how your mom needs to get out of her damaging situation. maybe you should take your own advice. you could be living in a nice house with your family until you get things going again. el paso is not a bad place. your family has unconditional love for you. think about it--im sure "nick" thinks he's got a good thing going, getting laid so easily. if i can help you, let me know. but if you are going to keep lying to yourself and arent going to help yourself, dont ever call me again. KP:
as always, i've been building and stretching all of my canvases, only i have to pay s/h because i have to have it all mail ordered up here into the montana wilderness. however, it really isnt much more than buying them at a good outlet store in chicago, but buying paints and supplies in kalispell (largest town around here) is a joke. anyway, what im getting at is that i could probably get it to you for the "family rate". which is basically materials, shipping, and maybe enough to cover the electric bill. ill paint, frame (natural lattuce wood), and ship an 18x24 african grey elephant to you for $200. is that fair? i hope, because honestly id love to do it. let me know, and dont waste your time in computer lab. (lab assistants know all.) g *** Leonard Treadway rhythm mountain studios www.radio-qmx.org "If we live alone, it means living like madmen or criminals, in appearance at any rate, and a little bit in reality as well." OUTLAW: american poems on the run by Leonard Treadway Available spring 2003. http://ninearts.org KP: i could have it done in about a week (i think). also, tell me which sopris painting you have and ill mark that its 'property of'. ahhh, lets see....i guess thats about it. let me know about the painting. im finishing today a very classic still life bottle/roses/peach slices and long shadows for my brother and jennifers wedding gift, only in mine, behind the flowers hanging on the wall is an old framed montana landscape painting. im going to take it to the shop this week and get it framed. soon.
LD: did you know when you got on the plane for el paso so long ago that things between us would never be the same? i think now that i did, maybe a little somewhere inside. i was feeling really good about all this distance until you called saturday morning. that is when i realized what you are doing there. now im sick and my stomach hurts all over again. im assuming now because you couldnt be honest with me again on the phone that you are sleeping with that person you are living with. you have read many things i've written and it seems i have way of expressing myself through words. but i cant even begin to tell you how sad, sick and disappointed i am in you for doing this. i dont know what i thought was going to happen between us and i was being by myself through all this so far, then i find out you have been doing what you are doing. you are no longer the person i thought i knew. you are no longer a person i want to know. i will never again think of you in the same good way. i imagine its time i be with someone else now. AT:
heyyyyyo. we'll be leaving whitefish on the morning of the 22nd on amtrak. the ride takes about 36 hrs total so then ill be heading most likely to my moms place with Silvia Midtown and nilla (girlfriend and her 3 year old daughter). im planning on staying for about two weeks at least so definitely after the wedding we should hang out--notify robbie m if you talk to him, i have no way of getting in touch with him lately. i still havent seen your place and Silvia Midtown's never been to chicago, so this trip should be cool. i need a couple weeks of galleries, museums, the art institute, good restaurants, thrifty villages, busy streets, the el, difficult to non-exhistant parking, etc. see you soon. arumphf say diddley boom. g
From: lauren deharde and my family does know exactly what is going on here. so you actually did tell them you got down there and jumped into the sack with the next available customer? maybe you can answer me this lauren: you said you were going to be alone for a while. a few days after storming out of our house you are living with a new boyfriend. can you say "rebound". either you have a wonderful turnaround time, or you just have an incredibly low amount of regard for anything you have in your life. you havent NOT had a boyfriend for 4 years, now you are starting in on another? why dont you EVER do what you say you are going to do? you obviously have ZERO respect for your relationships to be doing what you are doing. and since i was one of them, that makes me feel like shit for actually believing in you. for once, why dont you fucking THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING. From: lauren deharde you are a very judgemental person who thinks he is better than everyone else. you know in your heart this statement couldnt be further from the truth. (or, if for some twisted reason you hadnt retained any insight on me or about my ego - or id - or lack there of over the past 23 months thats ok too, because i know its not true. in times of emotional stress and duress, people are known to try and fool themselves as a means of healing. i understand you are upset at the things i wrote. they serve as a mirror of sorts.) let me clarify that: the truth - when you tell someone (especially when they ask) what is going on in all reality and NOT hide certain aspects. (this is what you have always had trouble tapping into, and the more i realize this even now, the more hurt i get. so im going to stop thinking about it now.) i dont think im "better than everyone else." i know im more thoughtful, mindful, and honest than most people because i know my own heart and understand my own mind. that is rare and you know this to be true. i dont feel bad about it. in fact most days it makes me feel rather high knowing i can do anything in the world that i can imagine. i dont think your last letter would have been written with such an angry tone if i hadnt hit a nerve with my letter prior...think about that. i dont think your last letter would have been written with such an angry tone if i hadnt hit a nerve with my letter prior...think about that. going back to the first paragraph: it must be nice to heal your wounds behind some fabricated and made-up idea of me having bad qualities. "you are a very judgemental person who thinks he is better than everyone else." filling up your head and "memory" with ideas like this would very possibly ease the healing process. i imagine that is what you are doing, that is what the average person does. you know the story of mike and how hurt he got when things were strange between us a few years ago. he used to say things just like you are saying now. he laughs at how foolish he sounded back then and assures me (as if i didnt already know) he was just lashing out aimlessly and mindlessly. on the other hand, i have always remembered the good aspects of the past. im not sure why. and sometimes it doesnt make things very easy when i wonder about certain decisions ive made. but, when im old and crazy writing poems on some parkbench or ocean camp ill be quite convinced i had the best life i could. on another note, i remembered you saying while gritting your teeth on the phone something like this: " i cant believe you are taking her to meet your family." well, i am. she helped pick out clothes for shannons baby and my mom knows all about her. in fact, they have talked on the phone. so believe it. you also said something like this: "i cant believe you are with a girl who has a child and you freaked out when i was going to have one." Download 2 Mb. Share with your friends:
|