I got an email from someone who found this site that knows me from a gig I did for awhile for a local rag. He asks:
Why aren't you working there anymore? I miss your columns.
That question in itself could take me a week to answer, so I'll give you the short, well relatively short version.
I wrote a column and did the website for an entertainment rock n roll type magazine for about 5 years. It was one of those local rags, and only had about 40,000 readers. We are not talking Rolling Stone.
When I first met the slimeball owner, he was wanting to take the mag into the new millenium. They had a website, but it sucked. I had a job that didn't fullfill my creative side, and I liked the idea of filling my portfolio with a lot of published articles.
This man may well be one of the most hypnotic people I have ever met. I say that because he could sell a freakin' generator to an Omish person. If you haven't noticed, I am a very strong willed individual.
He talked me into being the "babe of the month" during my column's debut month. This is totally out of character for me, but he had all these plans about me being the "webmistress" and all that junk. Hell, it was a rock n roll mag, so I said what the hell?
I'll admit a small part of my ego loved seeing myself in that centerfold position. What girl wouldn't? Even though it went against everything that I was, I have to be honest and admit at the time that it was kind of flattering to be 27 and holding a position that most 19 year old wanna be models usually held.
No, I wasn't nekkid. He had already whipped up this "image" of me being the sexy, hard core webmistress without me even realizing it. Wearing this little leather top and mini with boots that went up to there, I looked every bit the part.
It went in a downward spiral from there. Whenever they had events for the mag, I was supposed to make appearances. Not as myself, but as the "webmistress". The whole image thing got really out of hand, and I do not for the life of me understand how people that create a character of theirself live with this on a daily basis.
Even though it was a small mag, a 40,000 person readership is nothing to sneeze at. It was mostly testosterone filled boys/men, and being the "webmistress" got real old, real fast. The one thing that I took out of this experience is that I would never, ever want to be a celebrity. Ever.
The main reason I like writing is because what you look like is of no consequence to what is put down on the page. In the position I was in, it did. My column was about the Internet, and chief slimeball in charge always wanted me to write about "sexy" things.
The last straw for me was when he edited my column and recommended a couple of pornographic sites. When the mag came out that month I was horrified. He had asked me to include them because a friend of his had started them. I outright refused because this was not something I would recommend to anyone, anytime.
I called and quit on the spot. The next month a big ad appeared in the magazine for a new web person. I, it seems, had gone on to bigger and better webmistress things, and I was very grateful for this rag giving me my start. Whatever.
It was a year ago that I quit, and every once in awhile I still get the random guy stopping me and asking about the "webmistress". Hell, an email asking me about it to this blog is what started this long, rambling mess of a post.
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