October 11, 2006
That sound you heard around 6 p.m. Yaoundé time (1 p.m. in New York) was the sound of the Christian Science Monitor dinging my Cameroon music piracy story. They said that there just wasn’t enough there, and I can’t say I disagree with them. They’ve now dinged (dong? dung?) me twice – the other was a story on illegal and legal forestry in Cameroon. They had a similar story on former warlords and European arms dealers raping Liberia’s forests. Liberia wins in a knockout.
At the moment, I’m hitting like A-Rod in the playoffs. Even the Catholics killed a story I sent in. The umbrella group of Muslim organizations left the Cameroonian interfaith dialogue committee over the Pope’s quotations of the 14th Century Byzantine emperor’s thoughts on Islam. Again, I understand why they did it. That was a relatively minor reaction compared to some stuff that went on in Nigeria and the Middle East. No Cameroonians vowed to defeat the Pope and the other agents of Zionism. Africa light, right?
The CNS dinging did introduce me to the beauty of the kill fee. That doesn’t mean I’m a contract killer – although I am willing to negotiate – just a little something for the effort.
This is part of the reason why I’m taking such a long trip. I need to meet editors. I’ve got the stories. I’ve got the contacts. It’s time to find the editors who want them, and that’s much easier to do face to face. I’d like to think that I’m a lot harder to ignore than an e-mail.
So, why do I think I can jump to the New Yorker or the New York Times Magazine from getting whacked around by the CS Monitor, Dallas Morning News and the Catholics? Confidence, baby. Others might say I’m delusional. But that’s what everyone said when I decided I to be the King of Spain.
That sound you heard around 6 p.m. Yaoundé time (1 p.m. in New York) was the sound of the Christian Science Monitor dinging my Cameroon music piracy story. They said that there just wasn’t enough there, and I can’t say I disagree with them. They’ve now dinged (dong? dung?) me twice – the other was a story on illegal and legal forestry in Cameroon. They had a similar story on former warlords and European arms dealers raping Liberia’s forests. Liberia wins in a knockout.
At the moment, I’m hitting like A-Rod in the playoffs. Even the Catholics killed a story I sent in. The umbrella group of Muslim organizations left the Cameroonian interfaith dialogue committee over the Pope’s quotations of the 14th Century Byzantine emperor’s thoughts on Islam. Again, I understand why they did it. That was a relatively minor reaction compared to some stuff that went on in Nigeria and the Middle East. No Cameroonians vowed to defeat the Pope and the other agents of Zionism. Africa light, right?
The CNS dinging did introduce me to the beauty of the kill fee. That doesn’t mean I’m a contract killer – although I am willing to negotiate – just a little something for the effort.
This is part of the reason why I’m taking such a long trip. I need to meet editors. I’ve got the stories. I’ve got the contacts. It’s time to find the editors who want them, and that’s much easier to do face to face. I’d like to think that I’m a lot harder to ignore than an e-mail.
So, why do I think I can jump to the New Yorker or the New York Times Magazine from getting whacked around by the CS Monitor, Dallas Morning News and the Catholics? Confidence, baby. Others might say I’m delusional. But that’s what everyone said when I decided I to be the King of Spain.
posted by Evan Weinberger at 6:00 AM
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