Month: March 1996

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State was a plucky upstart alternative newspaper (not that kind of “alternative”) that challenged the editorial might of the stodgy Richmond Times-Dispatch beginning in 1994. It folded in 1997 and left so little of a legacy that there is a grand total of one search result for it in all of the Googles, which is a link to the Library of Congress where you can find which libraries have copies on microfiche. At the time, Paul Caputo and I thought this was our ticket to comedy stardom. We were exceptionally stupid.

Yell-O. We are Jeff and Paul. Aren’t you excited? Well, you DAMN well should be.

Once again, we, Jeff and Paul, investigative journalists, Defenders of Truth, Writers of Crap, Users of Many Commas, are dipping into our ever-brimming Loyal Reader Mail Sack™, if you know what we mean. We sure as Hell don’t. Furthermore, also. Therefore, we are answering a letter from a lucky reader, who is almost certainly not you, because you didn’t write in.

Dear Messrs. Carl and Caputo,

Your payments on the Deluxe Model Foosball Table are now four months overdue. Please kindly pay immediately or a sales representative named “Torg” will visit you soon, and shove a lamp up your asses. Thank you for your prompt attention…

Whoops! Wrong mailbag! That seems to have been the Loyal Angry Creditor Mailbag®. We have found our Loyal Reader Mailbag or Whatever©, and will now answer a letter.

Dear “Jeff” and/or “Paul,”

Remember that column you wrote? The one about the thing? You know? Well, what’s up with that? You know?

Q: Is there any over-the-counter medication I can take which will give me fresh, minty breath and improve my gas mileage?

A: That’s a fine question. Here’s what you do: You walk up to your boss and say, “It was me who stocked the company water cooler with goldfish!” Then stomp on his foot, kick him in the shins and staple his eyelids to his forehead.

He won’t be pinching your ass again. And that’s one to grow on.

Q: Is it true that research has been found, in clinical studies, to cause cancer in laboratory animals?

A: Let’s face it. Even to suggest that Denny’s “Moons Over My Hammy” breakfast meal is even a little bit offensive is just a bit over the top. Even if you are a Ukrop.

Q: Is there any reason that the people responsible for ‘Mentos: the Freshmaker!’ commercials should be allowed to live?

A: Hmm… We’re not sure. Try Pongo Twistleton’s column. By the way, there were no contest winners from last week, so please be sure to mail your entries with the postage stamp on the outside.

Q: Which is worse: Hitler, or people who say ‘nucular’ instead of ‘nuclear?’

A: Our favorite country is Norway. The people there are so short, and yet somehow so large. It might have something to do with all those pastries.

Q: Does Søren Kierkegaard’s existentialist dogma (positing, for the æsthete, that ennui is the demonic pantheism) properly encapsulate man’s will to exist? Or is it all just a bunch of crapola?

A: A little warm milk and a lot of penicillin, and everything will be just fine.

Q: Would you agree that advancements in computer technology have gone straight downhill ever since “Super Challenge Baseball” for Atari 2600?

A: The worst thing is wrong numbers. For example, Jeff’s phone number is very similar to that of the Poison Control Center, so he always gets calls from people whining about “Ohhh, I just drank a quart of Draño!” or whatever. He tells them to: 1. “Have some ‘Wheaties’ and you’ll be all right,” or 2. “Watch ‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective’ to induce vomiting,” then hangs up.

Q: Oh my God! What is that thing on your face?

A: The trick is to hold the ferret firmly in the palm of your hand before jamming into slot 4, as shown in the diagram.

Q: If you had a million dollars to give to any charity organization in the world, would you?

A: Well, it’s your fault for not having a Macintosh in the first place. That’s what we say.

Q: Doesn’t ‘Newt Gingrich’ sound like a name for a Klingon or something?

A: If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a bajillion times: Swallowing tiny bits of Nerf will not cure scurvy or the Clap.

Q: Is there a restroom here I can use?

A: The mighty sequoia, which grows to over three hundred feet in height.

Q: Did you know that if you held your breath for a long time, then someone unexpectedly punched you in the gut, you would either black out or start thinking just like Rush Limbaugh?

A: In 1995 alone, more than 400 cats died in accidents directly related to Dust Busters.

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

This column was a combination of our unpaid shilling for Fan restaurant ‘Gumbo Ya-Ya’ with our righteous distaste for Disney’s planned “American History and Indian Massacre Gift Shop.” So we came up with a projected Richmond Disney theme park. We were really hoping that ‘Gumbo Ya-Ya’ would give us free food, but they never did, because they, like the rest of Richmond didn’t read The Richmond State.

Howdy. We are Jeff “Gumbo” Carl and Paul Ca-“Ya-Ya”-puto. We should point out that we would never compromise our journalistic impartiality by endorsing any sort of cajun-style restaurants.

Recently or whatever, the Disney Corporation (motto: “We’d Like You to Forget About ‘Escape From Witch Mountain’”) planned to build a “History-Land” theme-park in Northern Virginia. This would have combined all the creepiness of people dancing around frantically in animal costumes with the skull-crunching dullness of Eighth-Grade American History. 

Many Virginians (motto: “Yee-haw! NASCAR!!!!”) objected vehemently, sometimes in complete sentences, complaining that attractions like the “Thomas Jefferson Mausoleum and Putt-Putt Golf Course” (motto: “Score a hole in one and Tom spins in his grave!”) or the “Jamestown Indian Massacre and Driftwood Sculpture Gift Shop” did not respect history, or crunch skulls with its dullness. Furthermore, it completely ignored the delicious, low-priced lunch entrees at Gumbo Ya-Ya.

Eventually Disney gave up on Northern Virginia and just went and bought Zaire (motto: “Where the Hell are we?”). But they secretly never abandoned their plans for the park, and finally purchased the tract of underdeveloped rural land they needed.

You guessed it. They bought the City of Richmond, (motto: “We’ll Tow Any Car for $49.95!”) and they’re turning the whole city into an amusement park (motto: “Crawfish Are Back!”), which will combine all the excitement of the city’s historical attractions (motto: “We DARE you to visit the Valentine Riverside”) with all the surliness of the wait staff at Euro-Disney (motto: “Içi, ce sucks beaucoup”). 

So who do you think is designing this park?

You guessed it even more. We, Jeff and Paul, are supplementing our meager paychecks from the State (motto: “In exchange for your articles, we will give you many shiny beads and trinkets”) by designing the new Disney Richmond Historical Fun Land.

The park, which will be inexplicably named “Six Flags Over Gumbo Ya-Ya,” will be divided into five parts, all easily accessible by the space-age Powhite Monorail™. It will be free to ride, but will require passengers to pay 35 cents in exact change every half mile. Furthermore, the monorail will occasionally burst into flames for no particular reason. But you don’t need to wait for a monorail to go to Gumbo Ya-Ya, conveniently located on Main Street in the historic Fan district!

The staff, complete with guys walking around in enormous cartoon Leonidas Young costumes, will comprise City of Richmond public school teachers, which means the park will be closed on days when there’s a good game on.

Admission to the park will be free, but city employees will post “Street Cleaning Right Now!” signs in the parking lot and tow everybody’s car and charge them $50. That’s much more than you would pay for some hot ‘n’ spicy shrimp at Gumbo Ya-Ya!

The park’s main attractions are the secret biological experiments in Jurassic Copyright Infringement Land, in which disturbed scientists will genetically engineer radioactive clones of L. Shirley Harvey. Also, we are planning an enormous Tyrannosaurus Rex designed specifically to eat Joynes and Bieber.

The restof the park breaks down (no pun intended) like this:

HISTORY LAND

Like-Real-History-But-If-There-Were-Cartoon-Characters-There Land: This would include some things almost like Actual History, but with their own special Virginian/Disney twist. For instance, in the Civil War re-enactments, the Southerners (the 3rd Artillery Mousketeers Division) win all the battles (their battle cry: “Winn, Dixie!”) and beat up Abraham Lincoln (motto: “My GOD! I just realized how creepy I look!”) and take his lunch money, winning the War of Northern Aggression.

Hall of City Council Members: Full of creepy androids like the Hall of Presidents, but instead of reciting historical speeches, the characters recite where they bought it and who else uses the stuff. If you’re talking about nutritious, hearty food, we bought it at Gumbo Ya-Ya!

Walt Disney’s Wussy Dancing World on Ice: Staffed by the ex-Richmond Renegades, this part of the park will feature figure-skating in frillly skirts and cartoon animals cross-checking each other. It will make heterosexuals, including us, who are not gay — unlike some columnists we could name — extremely uncomfortable.

ADVENTURE LAND

Haunted VCU Freak Show and Body-Piercing Hut: Guaranteed to scare the bejeezus out of youngsters, with lifelike “students” who wear whimsical black costumes and say things like “My band does Frank Zappa covers on kazoo. We’re still waiting for our first gig, but I hear Jonathan Fox wrote a great article about us in the State.” Kids can meet the new VCU mascot, Rolf, the angst-ridden Doberman.

Hookers of Broad Street: Like the “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but with cheap hookers and colorful non-tropical diseases. Coincidentally, Louisiana, which is where Gumbo Ya-Ya food is from, is very near the Caribbean.

Epcot Center: This will feature one lone booth, with Bell Atlantic (motto: “Mr. Carl, Your Bill is Now Three Months Overdue”) demonstrating a futuristic but highly unbelievable reasonably-priced residential phone service.

The James River Log Flume Ride: Joyful flume-riders (motto: “What the Hell is a flume?”) will laugh and play in the water of the mighty James River, which should not be ingested internally and bonds skin instantly.

“FUN” LAND

Richmond Snow Removal Crew Bumper Cars: Children can experience the thrill of their misbegotten lives, riding a two-mile-per-hour snow plow bumper car as it playfully crashes into simulated snowed-in cars in The Fan.

Electrical Parade on Main Street: At the end of each evening, visitors gather on Main Street (motto: “It is On Our Mighty Sidewalks Where You Will Find Gumbo Ya-Ya!”), where Disney puts on its daily whimsical parade, designed by Nazi Psychiatrists™ and Chinese torture specialists to be the single-most annoying event in the history of the universe. All parade floats will be towed if parked between 4 and 6 p.m., and will be made out of delicious jambalaya rice from Gumbo Ya-Ya. Mm-Mmmm Good!

“It’s a NASCAR World”: Modeled after the wildly unpopular “It’s a Small World” feature at Disney World or Land or Whatever™, passengers will sit in miniature NASCAR cars and crash into each other, bursting into flames as they whip around a track surrounded by automated hillbilly pit stop mechanic dolls singing:           

            It’s a world of grease, It’s a world of dirt/

            Our intellect’s in a world of hurt/

            Our cars tend to roll, when we spit out our Skoal/

            We’re in NASCAR after all

Times-Dispatch Office Pavilion: Every day a different five-year-old visitor would be the “Editorial Page Editor For A Day.” Anyone who notices the difference will win $1,000,000, but they will be placed on the payroll of The Richmond State, and should expect to receive their check in late February 2015.

PAUL DiPASQUALE LAND 

Monument Avenue: Automated statues of Arthur Ashe and “Goofy” will play tennis against each other on horseback and only occasionally have disastrous mechanical malfunctions that make them go berzerk and kill everyone in the park. Not to be missed is the mouse-eared Stonewall Jackson, singing “Zippity Doo-Dah,” three times daily.

GUMBO YA-YA VILLAGE

Gumbo Ya-Ya: This will be the best part of the park, if for no other reason that if we keep mentioning their name, they might give us free food.

© Puff Carpluto 1996

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

Our predictions for the 1996 Presidential election, including Lamar Alexander’s blaming of unemployment on “Space Aliens.” While we weren’t technically correct in our prediction that the 1996 election would be won by the cast of “Friends,” we still think they would have won if Chandler hadn’t gone into rehab.

Hello (note change). We are Jeff and Paul. We put the “ech” back in “election.”

In recent weeks, there has been much serious discussion of the big issues facing the nation’s presidential hopefuls. Frankly, that is the kind of claptrap you might read in boring newspapers (like The Richmond Times-Dispatch) or fundamentalist extremist pamphlets (like The Richmond Times-Dispatch).Well, there’s none of that crapola in The Richmond State. Nosiree Bob.

Why?

Because we just got our Crystal (“Magic 8”) Ball out again to predict what was going to happen in the election. This saves you valuable time reading newspapers, when you could have been watching “Punky Brewster.” So go ahead and cancel your subscription to the Times-Dispatch, and send us the money instead. You’ll thank us later. 

Decision ‘96: A Look Ahead

March 14: President Clinton hits the campaign trail for the state primaries. He promises to “tax you bastards back to the Stone Age.” He adds, “Hey! You don’t like it? Vote for someone else. Oops! I’m the only one on the ticket!”

March 18: Lamar Alexander gets back in the race, claiming that “the tiny flowers told me to.”

March 19: Republican Richard Lugar drops out of the race, sparking headlines around the country of “Weather to Remain Cloudy Through Weekend.”

April 4: Bob Dole opts not to attend a debate among Republican hopefuls because he “always chokes during Double Jeopardy.”

April 16: Richard Lugar drops back in the race. An opinion poll reveals that 99% of Americans believe that he is not a real person, but a joke candidate with a silly name, like “Hugh G. Rection.”

May 4: Clinton arrives in Utah for the Democratic primary there and promises “I’ll personally kick the ass of everybody who votes for me. I dare you.”

May 20: Lamar Alexander’s campaign stalls when, in a televised debate, he blames unemployment on “Space Aliens.”

June 1: Malcolm “Steve” Forbes spends an unprecedented $400 gazillion on advertising to annouce that Richard Lugar is dropping out of the race.

June 18: Pat Buchanan, fighting allegations of racism, claims that he has met several black people, and tipped them all very well.

July 2: Clinton, campaigning for the Wyoming state primary, places a random phone call to a Wyoming resident and asks him to “let people know I’m running, okay?”

July 7: Dole’s approval rating slips into negative numbers when he changes his campaign slogan from “The Choice of an Old Rich White Generation” to “Soon I’ll Be Dead.”

July 22: Dole fails to show for yet another Republican debate, saying, “I had to wash my hair.”

August 6: President Clinton takes his campaign to Delaware. “Nice quote-unquote ‘state’ you got here,” he says, adding, “I hope all 12 of you voted for me in your primary last month. But you know what? I really don’t give a dead rat’s ass.”

August 12: In a speech at the Republican national convention in San Diego, Malcom “Steve” Forbes admits that there is just no way for “Steve” to be short for “Malcolm.” Furthermore, he says, “I’m not wearing any pants right now.”

August 13: At the convention, Bob Dole wins the GOP nomination, barely edging out surprise contenders Elizabeth Dole and “Pongo Twistleton.” Dole introduces the GOP’s election slogan: “Dole: Because I’m older and meaner.”

August 14: Buchanan, spurned by the party’s voters but still a good sport about it, announces that “everybody can go bite me.”

August 15: Lamar Alexander, desperate for publicity, announces that “everybody can bite me, too, if they want.” 

August 19: Richard Lugar announces that he may drop out of the race, adding, “and then you’d be sorry!”

August 21: Republican leaders search long and hard for a Vice Presidential candidate to perfectly complement Bob Dole. Unfortunately, Ray Charles turns down the invitation.

August 23: Buchanan is frustrated when, searching for a name for his own new political party, an aide informs him that “Nazi” was taken already.

August 26: At the Democratic convention, Clinton accepts the party’s nomination. His entire acceptance speech: “Oh, big surprise. Yeah, whatever.” Clinton and Gore capture all but three Democratic delegates, who remain steadfast in their support for Jimmy “J. J.” Walker and “Pongo Twistleton.”

September 1: Buchanan, still searching for a party name, rejects “The Cranky White Party;” “It’s My Party and I’ll Run if I Want To;” and “The Citizens for Better Broadcasting.” He eventually settles on the “I Hate People Party.”

September 9: Clinton, realizing that he has an opponent now, attacks Dole’s war record, saying that Dole was wounded in World War II “because he just wasn’t trying hard enough.”

September 15: Dole is hurt when congressional Republicans announce that they are holding out on the “Contract With America” until they receive a signing bonus and a 10% cut in healthcare for the elderly if they bat over .300.

September 16: After Tony Danza, Colin Powell and “Hamburgler” turn down the VP nomination, Republicans announce that they will give it to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promises to “attend state funerals and kick ass.” 

September 19: Pat Buchanan announces that his running mate will be T-D editor Ross MacKenzie.

September 26: Clinton defends his own war record, saying that he “saw more action at an Arkansas cheerleader convention than Dole did in all of World War II.” Clinton adds that people have been shooting at him a lot lately, but he can still use both his arms, so what’s the big deal?

September 28: A Gallup Poll finds that the biggest concern of voters is the Budget Deficit. However, due to a typo, it appears in reports as the “Budgie Deficit.”

September 29: Clinton calls Robert Gallup and asks, “Budgie?! You mean like a parakeet?!” Gallup, in a further typo, says “Yes.”

September 30: Clinton announces that he will place three parakeets in his cabinet, and appoint a talking parrot as his press chief. However, its only answers to the press will be “Squawk!” and “Polly loves a Sailor.” Later, Dole counterattacks, mentioning that he lost a parakeet in World War II. 

October 3: Al Gore scores big points when he appears on “Seinfeld” as Kramer’s long-lost, more normal twin, “Warren.”

October 10: Reader’s Digest names Clinton advisor James Carville “The Scariest-Looking Sonovabitch in the World.”

October 11: Dole is haunted by his past when it is revealed that he played the evil white guy “Mr. Big” in the movie Shaft. When asked about it, he says “Hush yo’ mouth! I’m talkin’ ‘bout Shaft.”

October 15: Clinton’s polls drop when, in an unguarded moment, he sucks an entire quart of “Miracle Whip” through a straw on national TV.

October 17: Dole is again hurt by his past when it is revealed that he, as a young Senator, played an improper role in the Louisiana Purchase of 1815.

October 24: “Whitewater” comes back to haunt Clinton, as it is revealed that he owned stock in the White Water Company, the largest maker of racially-segregated drinking fountains in the South.

October 28: Hoping that publicity lightning will strike twice, Clinton plays the saxophone on national TV. Unfortunately, it is on a particularly depressing episode of “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” and no one is amused.

November 2: Ross Perot enters the race, saying “Hell, I’m older, meaner and whiter than any of these guys.”

November 3: Dole is hurt when reporters discover that Dole, just out of high school, was an intern for the Spanish Inquisition.

November 4: Clinton is hurt when reporters discover that he really is basically just a big hillbilly.

November 5 (Election Day): In a surprise move, disgruntled voters elect as president the entire cast of “Friends.”

November 9: Richard Lugar drops out of the race.

By Paul Caputo and Jeffrey Carl

The Richmond State was a plucky upstart alternative newspaper (not that kind of “alternative”) that challenged the editorial might of the stodgy Richmond Times-Dispatch beginning in 1994. It folded in 1997 and left so little of a legacy that there is a grand total of one search result for it in all of the Googles, which is a link to the Library of Congress where you can find which libraries have copies on microfiche. At the time, Paul Caputo and I thought this was our ticket to comedy stardom. We were exceptionally stupid.

Hiya. We are Jeff and Paul. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Have you ever heard Pat Buchanan,  a member of the Christian Coalition, or any of the winos on 7th Street talk about their press coverage? They all say that they are portrayed inaccurately (respectively, as a jingoistic extremist, a society of pious bigots, and winos who talk to their bottles of “Richard’s Wild Irish Rose”) in the press. And they all blame one villain: No, not “That sweet, sweet booze that done me wrong.” We mean: “THE LIBERAL MEDIA ÉLITE.”

According to Pat and other God-fearing, right-thinking Americans with no sense of humor, The Liberal Media Élite is a secret cabal of reporters who dress up in robes and conspire to defeat him, at wild nude-Twister parties in Georgetown hosted by Bob Woodward every Thursday night. Pat naturally assumes that if members of a profession are, –with some notable exceptions, like USA Today (“We cost 50 cents just like a real newspaper!”) – generally  well-educated, intelligent and well-informed and they SOMEHOW still don’t all love him, there MUST be some kind of conspiracy.

And he’s exactly right.

Here, for the first time, exclusive for readers of The Richmond State – yes, both of you – is the truth about the Secret Brotherhood of the Richmond Liberal Media Élite. Do we have any questions from the audience?

Q: Who is the leader of the Richmond Media Élite?

A: Archwarlock Jason Roop, our Exalted Master Reporter-Dude.

Q: Do you have a secret agenda?

A: Yes. We would all like to get paid more.

Q: What is your secret password?

A: Our secret password, which has been used for hundreds of years, is “Nixon Sucks.”

Q: Who is in this so-called “Richmond Media Élite?” Can you describe them in roughly 900 words?

A: We’re glad you asked.

The Richmond Media Élite:

DIVISION 1: TELEVISION

WTVR “NewsChannel 6”

Motto: “Coverage You Can Dwell On”

Format: News at 6, 11, and “The Young and the Restless.”

Staff: Hard-working, God-fearing people like X.

Worst Feature: Watching Angie Miles fidget nervously because she’s sitting so close to Charles “Burning Fish” Fishburne.

Best Feature: Vague hope that Angie Miles could, at any moment,  slap Charles Fishburne.

WRIC Channel 8

Motto: “Richmond’s Last-in-the-Ratings People”

Format: News at 6and 11 p.m.; Morning show indistinguishable from a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

Staff: Numerous clever trained seals.

Worst Feature: Knowledge that Lisa Schaffner would never, never go out with you.

Best Feature: Richard Real’s dance numbers during slow parts of the show.

WWBT Channel 12

Motto: “Virginia’s Best News Organization, According to Some Wino We Found on 7th Street”

Format: News from 5 – 7 p.m., because you just couldn’t fit all those stories about surfing kittens into one hour.

Staff: Several people plus Gene Lepley, who (True Fact!) looks just like “Jon” from “Garfield.”

Worst Feature: Lingering doubts over whether Gene Cox is wearing pants at any given moment.

Best Feature: Campbell Brown – she puts the “Hot” in “Remote Live Shot.”

WRHL Fox-35

Motto: “The Nightly  Psychic Space Alien Report”

Format: 10 p.m., cleverly scheduled to be when nobody is watching, so nobody notices the screw-ups.

Staff: Three people, if you count Curt Autry’s forehead as a separate person.

Worst Feature: The way they always try to make stories sound like a case from “The X-Files.”

Best Feature: Curt Aurtry says “Beam me up!” and teleports out of seat at the end of each newscast.

DIVISION 2: RADIO

WRVA 1140 AM

Motto: “All the News, Plus Static”

Format: Intermittent news radio between commercials on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” Bills itself as “Richmond’s 24-Hour News Service,” as if all the other reporters go to bed at 4 p.m.

Staff: One guy who watches CNN

Worst Feature: Static-y reception of station causes news bulletins like “Authorities say ‘For God’s sake, whatever you do, PLEASE DO NOT (bzzzzzzz) or your eyeballs will explode! … Let’s take another caller.”

Best Feature: Nobody there looks like Charles Fishburne, and even if they did you couldn’t tell.

Richmond Times-Dispatch Broadcast News Service

Motto: “Unfortunately, We Can’t Jut Read You the ‘Comics’ Section”

Format: Morning news broadcasts between playing “Love in an Elevator” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive” on XL102; complementing the soothing nasal tones of Bill Bevins on Lite 98; and other assorted radio stations.

Staff: One guy who comes in at 5 a.m., reads that morning’s Times-Dispatch, condenses it, laughs at it and then just makes up the news he thinks would be interesting.

Worst Feature: One of the fill-in anchors sounds like Jeff.

Best Feature: The full one-minute  WLEE “Morning NASCAR Report” keeps you prepared for current events discussions all day

Robin on “The Howard Stern Show”

Motto: “All the News That’s Fit to Make ‘Penis’ Jokes About”

Format: The last 15 minutes of the show, which could be anywhere from 9:45 to 4:00 in the afternoon. Not technically part of the Richmond media, but Pat Buchanan hates them, and they irritate Bob Ukrop, so we made them honorary members.

Staff: Robin, who reads the news; and “Jackie the Joke Man,” who laughs whenever a story involves a busload of crippled orphans plunging off a cliff or something.

Worst Feature: 15-minute commercials seldom feature the soothing voice of “Mad Dog.”

Best Feature: Vital information about how the day’s current events relate to Howard’s penis.

DIVISION 3: PRINT

The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Motto: (tie) “Housebreak Your Pets Economically” or “All the News That’s Fit to Print on Page B3” or “Copy Editing? Why?”

Format: A daily newspaper, although you only need to actually read it on Sunday, when Dave Barry is in it.

Staff: One guy transcribing the AP wire, two blind copy editors and 400 people who write stories for the Henrico Plus Section.

Worst Feature: Ross MacKenzie editorials where he keeps referring to his “Hard Time in the Big House” after the infamous “Motorized Squirrels” incident.

Best Feature: Excellent for composting.

Style Weekly

Motto: “Look … At Least It’s Free”

Format: A weekly color ad supplement.

Staff: Two reporters and 600 people in the ad department.

Worst Feature: Reading Style can cause herpes.

Best Feature: Guilty pleasure of reading the 30 pages of gay and lesbian personal ads.

Richmond Magazine

Motto: “We Promise We’re an Acutal News Organization”

Format: As far as we can tell, it’s just one issue per year with the “Best and Worst” restaurants in it.

Staff: One guy who spends the whole year eating.

Worst Feature: Blatant disregard for Taco Bell in its ratings.

Best Feature: Entire magazine is in “Scratch-and-Sniff” format.

The Richmond State

Motto: “Your #1 Source for Crap”

Format: Weekly, except during Christmas, Halloween, snow breaks, Islamic holy days or whenever they feel like it.

Staff: Six or seven killer androids, plus “Mad Dog.”

Worst Feature: (tie) 1. Jonathan Fox’s weekly profiles of bands like “Buttsteak”/2. Your  keg parties never seem to show up in the “Society” section.

Best Feature: Jeff and Paul might get fired at any moment.

If anyone is interested in Official Media Élite™ T-Shirts or baseball caps, please write us in care of this newspaper.

©1996 Puff Carpluto