Sips from the Firehose
A blog that seeks to filter the internet into a refreshing, easily-gulped beverage
Nov 09
Posted: under Colombia, Current Affairs, Guerrilla War, Narcotraficantes, Politix, Travel, Web/Tech.
…and no, this is not some forgotten Hope & Crosby "Road" movie, co-starring Ginger Rogers & Betty Grable. This is a "Guest Post" by Janine, and I’m running it here because it’s well-written and also because I’m so frickin’ burned out right now that I would have great difficulty stringing together an account half as [...] [...more]
…and no, this is not some forgotten Hope & Crosby "Road" movie, co-starring Ginger Rogers & Betty Grable.
This is a "Guest Post" by Janine, and I’m running it here because it’s well-written and also because I’m so frickin’ burned out right now that I would have great difficulty stringing together an account half as coherent as this about some of the surprises we’ve encountered here during our "World Tour 2007-8" of Colombia for Andiaros and the government agency SENA. Earlier today, I was able to show the roomful of very young journalists here just how easy it is to use the TypePad software to post something to a blog (BTW – the pic that appears there was take about 2 months ago, in Moscow, at a restraurant located on "Clean Lake" across from the Moscow offices of OLMA.)
Anyway, here’s Janine:
This picture was taken by Dave through the window of a military checkpoint that we hit on the way to Baranquilla, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive from
Cartagena. W
e hit a nasty rainstorm on the way here so it took us
nearly two hours. As we drove, our driver told us about how the road was
impassible only a few years ago because of the Guerillas/Narcotraffickers.
Now there are Colombian military stations every several kilometers along
the way that protect the road and have made it possible for people to make
the drive without fear.
To help us appreciate how things have changed, he told a personal story
about a bus trip he took to Bogota a few years ago. Part way there, the
bus was stopped by guerrillas who boarded the bus and demanded everyone’s
Cedulas (the national ID). They then consulted the laptop they carried
with them, looking up each person’s name in a database to see if they were
related to anyone rich enough or powerful enough to make them worth
kidnapping.(Dave and I noted this was an impressive use technology, albeit
for all the wrong reasons.)
As the Guerrillas checked IDs, they had one of the children on the bus go
around and collect everyone’s shoes, which he explained they did routinely
to make it harder for anyone to run away, especially when they are being
led through the jungle at night and stepping off a path in the dark could
cause serious damage to bare feet.
But what really amazed us about the story, was that apparently the
guerrilla’s radio discussion about the bus was picked up by the
US-supported Colombian army, which then called for a Black Hawk helicopter
to be sent to help them. That radio message was in turn intercepted by the
guerrillas, who took off once they realized they’d been discovered and
that the helicopter was on the way. (An interesting case of spy vs. spy,
and a moment that I think represents well the turning point that led to
these roads being so much safer.)
Unfortunately for the passengers on the bus, the guerrillas had already
poured gasoline all over the inside of the bus, which they planned to set
on fire before they left. They didn’t take the time to burn the bus. but
the passengers had to ride to the next town in a bus full of gas fumes so
strong it made most people sick. Still, I’m sure they all agreed it was
better than being kidnapped and walking barefoot through the jungle.
Today, he said he drives down these roads without fear, happy to see the
Colombian military on the side of the road. And I have to admit, Dave and
I both appreciated the soldiers a bit more after his story.
For my part, I’ve been amazed by how much more peaceful things are here
than they were just 6 years ago the first time I came to Colombia.
Everyone we’ve talked to about security has commented on the improvements,
how President Uribe has made such a difference by cracking down on
corruption and guerrilla activities, and how great it is that they can now
go out at night and travel the roads around the country without fear.
Oct 18
Posted: under Current Affairs, music, Online (Multi)Media, Pop Culture Quirkiness.
Radiohead gives music away for free – kids prefer to pirate it off BitTorrent anyway OK, this has got to have a lot of entertainment execs reaching for the Maalox. TechCrunch reports that even though Radiohead, in a much-ballyhooed move, allowed customers to set their own price point for downloading their new album (and yes, [...] [...more]
Radiohead gives music away for free – kids prefer to pirate it off BitTorrent anyway
OK, this has got to have a lot of entertainment execs reaching for the Maalox. TechCrunch reports that even though Radiohead, in a much-ballyhooed move, allowed customers to set their own price point for downloading their new album (and yes, one of the options was $0.00), within a week
over 240,000 users got the album from peer to peer BitTorrent networks on the first day of release, according
to Forbes. Since then, the album was downloaded about 100,000 more
times each day, totaling more than 500,000. By comparison, Radiohead
pushed 1.2 million sales of the album through their site, including
pre-orders. File sharing networks are expected to surpass legal
downloads in the coming days.
That’s just ugly. Basically, Hollywood, the RIAA and the MPAA have so poisoned the well with the audience that even when they try something innovative to bust through the conventional ripoff business models they have established and are clinging to, the target audience out there is preferring to go to the pirate sites to get the content.
The question that arises is, why? Why would some mook with broadband prefer to navigate to Pirate Bay or TorrentSpy to find the same thing that he could get for free, or for what is absolutely no big amount of cash?
Well, the first thing that occurs to me is that the kids don’t trust the music companies, Hollywood or anything remotely resembling authority anymore. The rootkit shit that Sony pulled a while back is still reverberating, and there’s a lot of "up yours" attitude for the years of overcharging $15 for a CD that had maybe one decent song on it.
The interesting bits come in the comments on the TechCrunch story, where the commenters basically slammed Radiohead’s site for being too crowded to allow downloads for 2-3 days, and complained about the Big Brother feeling of the registration process.
Once again, interface design comes into play – like our recent experience trying to buy a classified ad from the LA Times, which resulted in an entire lost morning (simile alert: "it was like trying to buy something in a store, only the cashier keeps making you go back to the store and fill up your cart and wait in line all over again") and ultimately, no purchase of an ad in the LA Times. They really are stupid over there. When a company makes it difficult for you to give them money, there is nothing but bad news, layoffs and ultimately bankruptcy and extinction in the future for that firm.
The best that can be said from this is that maybe the labels are learning from it, and they might be ready to actually treat their customers like human beings, rather than criminals.
Whoops! Guess NOT.
Sep 12
Posted: under Current Affairs, Politix, Web/Tech, Weblogs.
The Russian Equivalent of Wingnut Welfare More and more, I’m noticing that the news here in Russia (and yes, I do try to watch the news on TV here, despite the language barrier) seems to exist in some strange parallel universe. When I switch back and forth between the BBC World News, CNN International, and [...] [...more]
The Russian Equivalent of Wingnut Welfare
More and more, I’m noticing that the news here in Russia (and yes, I do try to watch the news on TV here, despite the language barrier) seems to exist in some strange parallel universe. When I switch back and forth between the BBC World News, CNN International, and then the Russian news on RBK and Channel First, there is a massive disconnect. Maybe it’s just because we’re in a particularly delicate election year – an editorial that ran in the Moscow Times recently talked about all the simmering uneasiness regarding Putin’s succession (the original ran in Vedomosti, and I can only hope that the editor who wrote it isn’t re-living a Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch right now).
Trying
to guess the identity of President Vladimir Putin’s choice as his
successor and how he or she will come to power is a game that just
continues to grow in popularity. Speculation is also swirling over
whether the next president will use the system Putin has created to
determine national and international policy, ditch the system
altogether, or keep parts of it.
Analysts
at Renaissance Capital, for example, believe the successor will either
follow the “Brezhnev model” and try to maintain the status quo, or will
be a reformer, following what they label the “Peter the Great model.”
These comparisons are a bit surprising, but not because of the nature
of historical parallels.
This issue is becoming particularly urgent because under Putin, a lot of people have amassed staggering wealth. Quite naturally, they’d like to keep it. And now that they have this much money, they can certainly shell out a few bucks here and there to, shall we say, “influence” things to continue going pretty much as they have in that past. Which is why speaking out about the theft, corruption, murder, intimidation and bombings here is becoming quite perilous.
Politics under these conditions is a third rail for established media. But there is still a great deal of interest in what is going on in this country that isn’t being talked about in the media. And as nature abhors a vacuum, so too does the media ecosystem.
Bloggers to the rescue
Here are the nut grafs:
Masha Lipman, a political expert at the Moscow
Carnegie Center, says that web forums like Live Journal provide an
arena for free debate that is no longer available in much of the
conventional media.
“There is indeed a lot of free exchange on
the Internet,” Lipman says. “The question in Russia is not that there
are no outlets where free expression is possible. The question is that
the Kremlin has radically marginalized all outlets that pursue even
reasonably independent editorial lines.
“Russians are the
second-largest group of users of Live Journal, a popular U.S. blogger
site. In Russia, the site currently has more than 1.1 million users and
67,500 interest groups. On September 5 alone, 1,600 new users joined
Live Journal in Russia and almost 500,000 new comments were posted.
Censorship Impossible?
“Actually,
I think the Internet is one of the reasons Russia is still not an
authoritarian regime, because you cannot really shut down the Internet
without very serious measures,” says Yulia Latynina, a political
commentator whose columns are frequently posted on Live Journal.
Just this week, a blogger got thrown in jail for two years for advocating revolution. The Kremlin has, belatedly, realized that they need to try to clamp down on the discussion online – but the tools that they’ve employed to do so have only ensured that more and more ordinary Russians are getting interested in what it is that was said that caused so much of a reaction.
However, the censorship is getting subtler and more insidious. Apparently, the Kremlin is paying bloggers to go into LiveJournal and produce pro-government content. Not out-and-out propaganda – the average Russian has very sensitive antennae that can pick up a bullshit press release a mile away. But apparently, they are getting sophisticated about producing content that subtly reinforces what the government wants you to see, hear and think.
The U.S., of course, has problems along these lines – it has long been an article of faith that bloggers and internet sites that promote the pro-Bush stance have been getting secret payments and support from the government and Bush’s allies. There’s even a phrase for it: “Wingnut Welfare.”
Still, it is inspiring to see that even under these conditions, the ordinary people on the web are brave enough, and inspired enough, to defy the attempts to brainwash them, to suppress them, to intimidate them. In this way, at least, the web is struggling to live up the hype of being the invention that allows freedom to reign … although I fear that the increasing sophistication of the governments to stack the ideological deck are only going to get more insidious.
Technorati Tags: Russia, blogs, blogging, LiveJournal, Putin, mind control
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Sep 10
Posted: under Current Affairs.
It is so strange sometimes, to see the events in the U.S. on foreign TV, through the prism of another culture. I found this particularly surreal – I tried to find the same thing on Russian TV, to see what their reaction to it was, but this is such a non-event here that they aren’t [...] [...more]
It is so strange sometimes, to see the events in the U.S. on foreign TV, through the prism of another culture. I found this particularly surreal – I tried to find the same thing on Russian TV, to see what their reaction to it was, but this is such a non-event here that they aren’t even covering it. Instead, I think there is the equivalent of Star Search on…
May 11
Posted: under Current Affairs, Politix, Travel.
In Russia, they threw a Victory in Europe celebration, and barred the public from attending From time to time, all the shops full of the latest European fashions and giant blazing neon signs trick me into forgetting that Moscow and Russia have some serious and profound differences. And then along comes something like Wednesday, and [...] [...more]
In Russia, they threw a Victory in Europe celebration, and barred the public from attending
From time to time, all the shops full of the latest European fashions and giant blazing neon signs trick me into forgetting that Moscow and Russia have some serious and profound differences. And then along comes something like Wednesday, and I find myself utterly puzzled, back at Square One, trying to figure out the rationale behind what I’ve seen.
Here’s the deal. For the last two weeks, the streets and buildings in Moscow have been growing giant red-orange banners and signs and decorations in preparation for the big May 9 Victory Day festivities. At stoplights all over Moscow, the government hired street people to hand out gaily-color ribbons to motorists and commuters, to be tied around car aerials, pinned to jackets or tied around children’s arms. I shot pictures of these giant Stalin-era 50-story apartment blocks, each with a letter spelling out 9 MAY. The papers were full of stories about whether or not there were going to be tanks and missiles launchers in the streets (how cool is THAT) along with rank after rank of grim-faced goose-stepping Red Army soldiers, and limping, medal-festooned veterans of the march to Berlin and the siege of Leningrad…
The day arrived and the streets were utterly deserted. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. Richard the IT Wizard, Olga and I set off to find the best place to see all the neat stuff go by. We walked to Tverskaya Street, which is a broad avenue, best described as "The Rodeo Drive of Moscow" that leads downhill to Ground Zero and the main gate into Red Square. As we approached the street, we noticed a big crowd crammed into the alley mouth.
It turned out that the Red Army was keeping the public off the sidewalks.
WTF?
Usually when you have a parade, you want the people all lined up on each side of the street, cheering, holding the little kids up to see, waving flags, tossing flowers, etc. I mean, the concept of a victory parade is one that has been around pretty much since Ceasar rode his chariot down the Appian Way and through the throngs of screeching 
Roman citizens with a slave next to him whispering "Remember, you are still mortal" in his ear…
I must have missed something. The Red Army soldiers were adamant. Nobody was allowed out on the street. The view we got from the alley mouth was approximately the same as you would get trying to watch TV from under the old athletic equipment crammed into the hall closet.
So we set off walking, hoping that we’d find some better vantage point. At every turn, we encountered the same thing. Streets blocked off, tense Red Army security saying "Nyet."
We got a great tour of the back alleys of all the old, neo-classical buildings north of the Kremlin. Some of them are quite spectacular. Some of them have curious steel and glass pyramids built in their courtyards.
We finally wound up on a slight hill, under the massive bronze statue of Dostoevsky, with a pretty good view (albeit from about 1/2 mile away) of the parade route. I figured this was as good a place as any to hang out. Then the wind kicked up and it started to rain. From far off, we heard thousands of men shouting – apparently the WWII veterans, when they entered Red Square. And of course, at this point, yet another Red Army officer appeared and gave us the bumrush.
I refused to give up. Richard’s feet were sore from an hour and 1/2′s walking, but I was on a mission. So we walked up to Pushkin Park, and over to Tverskaya again. There were all kinds of big colorful balloons bobbing in the chill breeze, but once again, the barricades were up and the guards were only letting people out, not in. A rather surly mob was starting to collect around the barricades, and people were passing bottles back and forth. I could see where this one was going, so I beat feet back to the hotel, but not before a squadron on MiG-29s and Su-27s flew over at about 300 ft. elevation and 600 mph. Man, that is LOUD. And impressive. Those are some big planes.
Anyway, it turns out that the only place to see the parade is 
to either be invited to Red Square (i.e. to be a veteran, a dignitary, or a current Army officer), or to watch it on TV. Which was a shame, because the soldiers were flawless in their close-order drill and they had all manner of cool equipment. Of course, in St. Petersburg, things were a little more relaxed, and they had video of all the old veterans allowing regular citizens to shoot their old machine guns and throw grenades.
The one saving grace is what you can see in the photos here (I will post more that I shot with the big Canon later) of the fireworks display that I got to watch from out my 7th floor window. They really did it up – from horizon to horizon, there were fireworks for at least 1/2 an hour over the Kremlin and the city center. Most of the shots that I got were somewhat blurry, but I managed to get the mini-tripod in place so that I got a couple of time exposures showing some of the lights over the domes and peaked roofs.
Mar 26
Posted: under Current Affairs, journalism, Online (Multi)Media, Travel, Web/Tech, Weblogs.
After 15 hours of agony on the American Airlines flights back from Buenos Aires, I am back in L.A., and working hard already on trying to arrange for the next big international webmedia trip – this one to Moscow. The forms that the Russian Consulate requires travelers to fill out to get a visa are [...] [...more]
After 15 hours of agony on the American Airlines flights back from Buenos Aires, I am back in L.A., and working hard already on trying to arrange for the next big international webmedia trip – this one to Moscow. The forms that the Russian Consulate requires travelers to fill out to get a visa are absolutely amazing in the amount of detail that they demand. It’s worse than filling out a job application – at least there, you don’t have to mail them your passport, and hope to Christ that they send it back to you before your flight takes off…
Anyway, I have tons of postings and photos that I have to put up in this space, along with links to pages that I’m putting up at the main Hard News site – my PowerPoint presentation is already up there at www.hardnewsinc.com/chile if you want to take a look at it. I will also be posting my list of sites that I think are interesting, and the reasons I think so, along with a list of all the tech toys that I use/recommend.
Tops on my list of new fave technologies has to be Skype. Folks, Skype saved my ass. Free calls of whatever length to anyone else with a Skype account? Man, you just can’t beat it. If you haven’t gotten a Skype account yet, go to www.skype.com and sign up.
Me? I gotta go back to applying for travel health insurance (apparently, the Rooskies won’t let you in the country unless you have some sort of health policy).
Mar 11
Posted: under Current Affairs, journalism, music, Online (Multi)Media, Travel, Web/Tech, Weblogs.
I have arrived in Santiago, Chile to find that it is one of the cleanest big cities I think I’ve ever seen. Especially in South America. I mean, this place couldn’t be MORE different from the Caracas that I remember, where there were massive random holes in the sidewalks that would break your ankles if [...] [...more]
I have arrived in Santiago, Chile to find that it is one of the
cleanest big cities I think I’ve ever seen. Especially in South
America. I mean, this place couldn’t be MORE different from the Caracas
that I remember, where there were massive random holes in the sidewalks
that would break your ankles if you didn’t constantly keep your head
down to watch where you
were walking. Where on Thursday nights on
Avenidas Fuerzas Armadas, the textile shops and restaurants would their
trash out into the streets, and the stinking rotting piles would be
swarming with filthy, slimy sewer rats by the time I got off work and
staggered to the subway.
No, this place reminds me, if anything, of Calgary. There are shiny new
avant-garde looking skyscrapers all over the place, and even more
cranes dotting the landscape, erecting more. The streets are smooth and
well-maintained. The cars are shiny and well-maintained.
The quibbles that I do have are that it was a drag getting into the
airport this morning at 5 a.m., after flying for 15 hours, to find that
after waiting in the long immigration line, I had to get out, walk all
the way across the terminal to get to a window where I had to pay a
$100 "reciprocity" fee to enter the country. The Canucks get slammed
for $167, so I don’t feel so bad.
My guess is that this is close kin to the fees and fingerprinting and
other indignities that the Brazilians have implemented for gringoes -
but only for gringoes – as a result of the parade of stupidity that
Homeland Security has foisted on foreign travelers trying to get into
the U.S. in the last six years.
Anyway, the other thing that blew me away was how much the airport in
Lima has changed. When I was first through there, the whole place
resembled some 3rd tier airport – something that you might find in
Podunk, Texas. These days the floor are spotless shiny marble. There
is a Peruvian flute band playing on the concourse. The stores are all
new and look like gift shops that you find at LACMA or next to Ceasar’s
Palace in Vegas. I almost bought an amazingly soft Alpaca blanket just
because it felt so inviting.
Anyway, here are a couple of shots out the
window of the hotel room,
and of the room itself. The Hotel Novo here is obviously designed for
Japanese visitors – the furnishings, the height of the tables and
toilets and the small space are reminiscent of the small hotels that
starting springing up in the early 90s in Hawaii, specifically to cater
to the Japanese tourist trade.
Now all I have to do is to pull two 90-minute presentations out of my
ass (complete with funny and penetratingly wise slides) by 11 a.m.
tomorrow. Did I mention that I am sick and my back is in agony from 15
hours confined on the flight?
I did want to be challenged more in this new career/life…
Mar 09
Posted: under Current Affairs, journalism, Online (Multi)Media, television, Web/Tech.
Almost unnoticed, the paradigm shifts and the fate of the "ostriches," the media companies that still cling desperately to the notion that the internet is just a fad, is sealed. I’m still preparing for the trip to Chile – and God, I needed this week off just to take care of all the other ticky-tacky [...] [...more]
Almost unnoticed, the paradigm shifts and the fate of the "ostriches," the media companies that still cling desperately to the notion that the internet is just a fad, is sealed.
I’m still preparing for the trip to Chile – and God, I needed this week off just to take care of all the other ticky-tacky stuff before I head down – but I had to jump out of prepping my speech(es) to note this otherwise ignored bit.
According to Hitwise, that low-level grinding noise that you can hear, if you have just the right kind of ears, was the massive entertainment-consumption paradigm ponderously shifting in favor of online entertainment. Remember, this data is for a site that barely existed two years ago, and was created using what was basically the equivalent of the money spent on doughnuts for the Teamsters on your average Jerry Bruckheimer shoot:
During the week of February 3, YouTube’s traffic surged
above the combined traffic to all of the television network websites.* This is
a landmark event in the changing face of web traffic and entertainment
consumption, now that entertainment seekers are now more likely to go to
YouTube than any other television network or gaming website. The custom
category of 56 television cable and broadcast network sites received 0.4865% of
all US Internet traffic for the week ending
2/17/07
, while YouTube received 0.6031%.
Blaaahhh! Head … exploding … moving … too … fast …
[bonks head repeatedly against desk]
(phew!) That’s better.
Way back in ’99 when I started getting involved in streaming video, we all knew that watching and, more to the point, interacting with entertainment media via your computer was the Wave of The Future. Still, the thought was that movie and TV studios and producers would be smart enough and nimble enough to get out in front of this wave, and that in the future, we’d see Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone (remember – this was the late 90s – these people were still relevant) all doing their thing in an interactive streaming video environment.
What we underestimated was the tenacity with which the hidebound bureaucratic studios and production companies would cling to their outmoded business models, when the future could so clearly be seen. To be fair, when Web 1.0 imploded and everyone standing near the impact craters (such as yours truly) lost their shirts, the closets the shirts had been stored in and the houses that contained the closets, it gave the mossbacked reactionaries a perfect "I told you so" moment. Since then, the future has arrived like the swelling of the wave pictured above. The flailing attempts of media companies to kill YouTube have only made it stronger – viz the whole reason it got big in the first place.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens from here on out. It may not be YouTube that winds up the eventual winner – in fact, I don’t think that the strictures of Web 2.0 allow for such thing as an "eventual winner." There will be constant churn. And that’s OK. The reign of the "Big 3" networks and the Sony/Warner/Viacom/Fox megaliths will continue. For a while, at least. If by no other means then by using their enormous cash reserves to buy up New Media properties and attempt to co-opt them into their orbits. Hell, even YouTube is owned by Google.
But these megaliths are all rooted in shifting sands. The fact that a snot-nosed startup can beat them up on the playground and take their lunch money, AFTER said megaliths have spent the last 15 years throwing billions and untold man-hours of labor attempting to encircle and capture the New Media market proves just how incompetent and short-sighted the management structures of these companies are.
Mar 06
Posted: under Books, Current Affairs, journalism, Online (Multi)Media, television, Travel, True Enough - TV Pilot, Weblogs.
There is a valid reason that I have been posting here very infrequently the last month or so. I quit my day job. My last day was Friday. As of this morning, I am working fulltime for myself and the mighty Hard News, Inc. I will be doing multimedia consulting, freelance writing and continuing to [...] [...more]
There is a valid reason that I have been posting here very infrequently the last month or so.
I quit my day job. My last day was Friday.
As of this morning, I am working fulltime for myself and the mighty Hard News, Inc. I will be doing multimedia consulting, freelance writing and continuing to move forward direction, shooting, producing and editing my own (streaming) video projects.
This move is one that is both exciting and terrifying for me, but I keep singing to my self the siren song of the New Age-y types, you know, the one that goes "there is no growth without a little pain" yada yada blah blah. As with most cliches, it is a cliche because it contains a core or truth. I have learned all that I could learn from the day job at the law firm (although the front-row seat on the police misconduct melodramas was constantly amusing), and now it is time to throw myself into an arena where I will be challenged and forced to grow & learn more.
My first big gig is a contract with the U.S. State Department to go to Santiago and Concepcion, Chile, to deliver a series of presentations on the changing nature of the internet, convergence, new media and the art of fostering conversations and innovation. I will be giving these speeches in Spanish (which already makes me sweat – I am fluent, but rusty, shall we say), and the schedule is pretty relentless. I will be talking to a roomful of newspaper publishers, editors and executives, an auditorium full of university students, and a roundtable of new media/website managers.
Watch this space for further news & updates.
Feb 09
Posted: under Current Affairs, journalism, Pop Culture Quirkiness, television.
I first ran into Anna Nicole back in ’92 or so, when she OD’d at the Peninsula Hotel. I was assigned to do the story, and I rushed over to interview what turned out to be some of the most valuable sources I’ve ever had. I got great quotes about how the paramedics nearly dislocated [...] [...more]
I first ran into Anna Nicole back in ’92 or so, when she OD’d at the Peninsula Hotel. I was assigned to do the story, and I rushed over to interview what turned out to be some of the most valuable sources I’ve ever had. I got great quotes about how the paramedics nearly dislocated their shoulders trying to hoist her onto the gurney (she was a big girl), how she had drank about 8 "Sex on the Beach" shots and then got onto the vodka&vicodin regimen when she got back to her room.
She then accused her boyfriend, Daniel Christopher Ross, of trying to kill her by trying to force the pills down her throat. I managed to get her on the phone from Midway Medical Center, where she muzzily denied that anything was wrong with her, until I started reading her direct quotes from the police report. "Naaawwhhh! Thas’ nah whah Ah said!" she slurred, and then started trying to tell me some disjointed story about people trying to kill her until someone grabbed the phone from her hands and slammed it down.
A year or so later, she dumped Ross, and he immediately called because he was trying to flog the tell-all story about his wild nights will Anna Nicole all over town. He was wired-up and jumpy, chainsmoking and claiming Anna Nicole and he used to smoke crack, that crack was the only thing that would keep her thin, and that she would let her son (who was then about 
play with her boobs in the bathtub. He basically trashed her, and told lurid tales about her sex life and how she used to eat gi-normous breakfasts of biscuits&gravy, half a dozen eggs, sausage, pancakes, etc., all topped off with booze and pills.
About a year after that, a shift character who claimed his gang name was "Sweet Pea" and who claimed to be her bodyguard/boyfriend/chauffer called up to tell all. He had nude pictures of Anna Nicole performing various acts. He claimed that she had been pregnant with his baby, and that he had a picture of her in the shower, naked and fried out of her head, sitting down and talking to the baby in her swollen stomach. Sweet Pea said that he was talking because her drug use was getting out of hand, and he feared for his baby’s life. And he also wanted $25,000 for the photos and the videotapes of group sex.
Next was the whole J. Howard Marshall brigade – all the cretins and golddiggers trying to come up with ways to chisel off a chunk of his fortune from either him or her.
Next came the authors of the book "Big Beautiful Doll," who were the photographers who claimed to have discovered Anna Nicole back in the day, and who had written a tell-all book about what she was really like before she got famous, back when she was working the drive-thru chicken window in rural Texas.
Then came a number of parties back in ’99, when a friend and I ran into Anna. The host of the party offered to introduce me to Anna, saying that he thought that we would get along. By this time, I was taking a hiatus from the reporting biz (well, more or less), but curiosity compelled me to go over and sit next to her. During a rather contentious conversation with my friend Steve, she put on a fake-Brooklyn mob guy tough voice and said "Yeah, you gots big balls, huh?" And then she reached over and grabbed his crotch. She then proceeded to get hammered and started calling me "Johnathan." I tried to tell her my name, but she insisted on calling me Johnathan. Finally, a girlfriend of hers intervened, explaining "She just broke up with her boyfriend Johnathan, who looks just like you." So I figured I might as well play along. "All right, yes, I’m Johnathan," I said. "Why haven’t you called me back?" she pouted, and then stuck her hand down my pants. The woman had a grip like a blacksmith, and would not let go until I stood up and made my escape.
There was always weird energy around her.
Finally, Mark Stuplin of E! was assigned to produce her reality-TV show. About two weeks into the show, he called and moaned, "I’m producing a train wreck!" The show debuted with huge ratings and a weekly re-hash on KROQ here in L.A., where fake-morning DJ Laqueesha said things like "I just want to run up and kiss Anna Nicole all over her body! She is so damn stupid! This is the greatest TV show ever about brain-damaged people that I have ever seen!"
I think that it is only a matter of time before someone puts 2 and 2 together and figures out that, like Marilyn and the Kennedy brothers, Anna Nicole and the Bush brothers had something going on. How long until we get the conspiracy theorists to come out and say that Jeb had her iced so that she wouldn’t blow the whistle on her affairs with the two Bush boys?
