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| POSTED FEBRUARY 17, 1998-- SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY is the happiest holiday on the calendar for your humble servant (Budd Rugg). There simply aren’t enough Hallmark stores in the world as far as Budd Rugg is concerned, and if I somehow could I would personally deliver a Valentine’s card to every one of the hard-working handsome men and beautiful women of the local media. That, of course, isn’t possible on a part-time dance instructor’s wages, not to mention that I am terrified of ever again being branded a "stalker" or a "creep" (the latter a word a former local sportswriter –a sartorially splendid slacker prototype—once called me when I tried to take an innocent snapshot of him with his dates at the old Pacific Club). I fully recognize that I probably love too much, and that sometimes scares people. A lot of these media hotshots clearly have unresolved childhood issues and seem unwilling to let anyone get too close, particularly Budd Rugg. A restraining order is a petty and humiliating thing, believe me. At any rate, I also fully recognize that the term "parasite" has plenty of unavoidable negative connotations, but I love the etymology (from the Greek, parasitos: ‘one who eats at another’s table’) –if that isn’t Budd Rugg’s dream, or at least a tiny part of it, I don’t know what is. I have spent my entire life fantasizing of sitting down to drinks, dinner, and conversation with my local media dream friends. My obsession goes way back; even as a child, while the other kids in the neighborhood were playing house or baseball or kick the can, little Budd Rugg was sitting all alone at his tiny Beatrice Potter tea table, pretending he was playing bridge with Dave and Shirley Moore. I was also fascinated from a very early age with ventriloquist’s dummies, those perfect little archetypal anchormen, and I would sit with my little Danny O’Danny doll, delivering the weather in front of a National Geographic map I had tacked to my bedroom wall. My goodness, what a prescient little fellow Budd Rugg was –today virtually every weather and anchor man on the local airwaves is straight out of a 1950 puppeteer’s workshop, with a hairdo by Madame Tussaud and a jaw by Geppetto. Take a good look at Dave Dahl sometime and tell me he wouldn’t look right at home on Paul Winchell’s lap.
IT SEEMS MY dear friend, David Chanen is no longer working the dead beat at the Strib. Chaney’s moved along to the cops and robbers desk, and Budd Rugg is absolutely mortified to learn that it’s been years since Dave’s done obits! There’s egg on my face! My apologies to Dave –let’s keep in touch. I still remember the old days when I’d be hovering around a bunch of press types at the Little Wagon and Chaney’s beeper would go off and he’d grab his coat and announce, "Looks like I gotta go spread a little manure in the graveyard, fellas." And then he’d throw back the last of his beer and disappear into the night with a cigarette clenched in his teeth.
I WAS IN one of the local Davanni’s restaurants recently, just sort of hanging out hoping to catch a glimpse of that loveable local Forrest Gump, DARK STAR, when who should appear but the Dark Man himself! Oh my God, I have been dying to run into Dark for months and months, and suddenly there he was, dressed exactly like an Eastern European gymnastics coach. I collapsed on a bench by the front door and just stared, and then, as the Dark Man was fishing in his pockets for his cash or his keys or something, a pack of Marlboro Light cigarettes fell out on to the floor. I had two options as I saw it, both of them delicious; I could point out to the Darkster that he had dropped his cigarettes, thus ensuring a little personal interaction for the scrapbook. Or I could wait until the Dark Man left and then snatch his cigarettes for a souvenir. I opted for the latter, and the second I was in the Gremlin out in the parking lot I had one of those cigarettes in my mouth. I don’t even smoke! All that night I sat there in the dark in my awful basement apartment, staring at myself in the mirror as I smoked one cigarette after another. I called everyone I could think of, and I’d try to get them to guess what I was doing. When they eventually gave up (and no one guessed correctly) I would shriek, "I’m smoking the Dark Man’s cigarettes!" It was one of the most thrilling nights of my sad little life. WELL, IT’S OFFICIAL, every major television network has now rejected my
proposed new series, Tony Kennedy, Airlines Reporter….MY FRIENDS HAVE
been giving me a hard time lately about my habit of pasting Kristin Tillotson’s mug
shot over Betty Crocker’s face on every box of brownie and frosting mix in my
cupboards. I don’t care! It just makes me so happy to open those doors every day and
see Ms. Tillotson’s fac Send all media-related gossip, sightings, encounters, rumors, fantasies, crushes, and opinions to BuddRugg@Cursor.org, or regular mail at: Budd Rugg |
The
truth, then, is that my relationship with the local media is actually perfectly symbiotic,
but "Budd Rugg, Media Symbiont" just doesn’t have the same ring to it. The
bottom line, however, is this: you’re nobody in this town until Budd Rugg is mumbling
your name in his sleep and killing himself trying to find out where you live, what you
like to eat, and whether you sleep in pajamas or in the buff (Pajamas? Jim King
–and isn’t he just the most adorable class president you’ve ever seen? The
buff? Rusty Gatenby, I’d bet the ranch. Jeremy Iggers? I don’t
want to know.) The sad truth is that if you want to be a big star in this town you have to
go through Budd Rugg. How do you like them apples?
e staring out at me. She’s
just so adorable, so absolutely cocktail!…WHENEVER THE CONVERSATION turns to
those sort of empty and silly desert island speculations or the sorts of nonsense you find
in the Book of Questions, Budd Rugg always likes to drop his fantasy question bomb
into the discussion: Let’s say you’re going to open the door of the sauna at the
gym one day and there, sprawled on the benches before you, would be a collection of talent
from some one of the local television or radio stations –or newspapers, I guess, if
your dreams are even more pathetic than mine. Totally nude. Which "team"
or "crew" would most totally blow your mind? The sweaty good neighbors at WCCO?
The adorable KARE bears, with Ricky Schroeder look-a-like Pat Miles? Those coarse
fatties from the KQ Morning Crew (imagine that queasy spectacle –more chins than the
Hong Kong phonebook packed in a tiny little sweatbox)? The hard-rocking hot potatoes of
Channel Nine? Don’t ask Budd Rugg to choose! Impossible!…BUDD RUGG HIGH
homecoming court, Class of 1984 (or thereabouts): Heather Tesch, Jim King, Deborah
Sherman, Garvin Snell, Angela Hampton, Chad Hartman, Frederika Freyberg, and Eric
Perkins….VOTED MOST LIKELY to still be reporting live from the scene of a
hit-and-run accident long after the victim has already been embalmed and buried (drum
roll, please): Esme Murphy! I adore Esme! She looks fabulous a million different
ways! I live for Esme in the rain!…THE KING IS a Fink(el): the inside word is
that new City Pages overlord Tom Finkel has recommended ties for reporters out on
assignment, the better to put those thorny contacts at ease. Look for Britt Robson
at the press table at Target Center –he’ll be the guy with the clip-on tie and
the fedora with the press card in the brim….YOU HAVEN’T LIVED until
you’ve seen Bill Carlson tear into a free buffet!…TRISH VAN PILSUM
–What a lovely Amish name!…FINALLY, UNTIL NEXT time I’ll be waiting
by the phone for your hot tips, gossip, and media fantasies, and I’ll still be
dreaming of that tennis match with C.J.