The Shredder New Times Refused to Publish

Name the most influential local newspaper column of the last fifteen years and “The Shredder” in New Times wins hands down. No contest. Not even close. Created by Steve Moss and Tom Fulks in the early ’90s, Shred quickly became the must-read item in town every Thursday. Brilliant writing. Scathing humor. Dead-on political analysis. The Shredder had it all and public officials and businesspeople knew better than to run afoul of New Times, or they’d end up in the column. I was “Shredded” a few times myself, so I know the feeling.

Of course, now Steve Moss is dead and Tom Fulks has moved on to Sacramento. And the Shredder? Oh my god. The once mighty Shredder has been neutered, reduced to bland, babbling, pap mixed in with religious feel-good notions about supporting Christian radio stations and the true meaning of Christmas. New editor Ryan Miller is to journalism what Donny Osmond is to music — he has neither the guts nor the inclination to maintain the critical watchdog function that has been the backbone of New Times for 20 years. He avoids controversy, backs down when he gets complaints and wants zip to do with investigative journalism. Why publisher Bob Rucker doesn’t send him packing back to Santa Maria is beyond me.

If you don’t believe me, check this out. This is a “Shredder” column submitted by the co-creator of Shred immediately after Steve’s death. I certainly don’t agree with everything written here, but these words capture the tone and spirit of what the Shredder was supposed to be. But the column was refused and it now makes its public debut on this blog.

So enjoy. And then weep. Because those days are over. Meanwhile, Miller and Rucker should just drop their lame “Shredder” all together and come up with something new. They can’t replicate Steve Moss. Why even try?

One last note before you read on — when I started calling out Rucker and company, I felt like the lone voice in the local media woods. (or as Rucker might (allegedly) say, “You’re the only one who feels that way.”) Thankfully, that is beginning to change as the word drifts around town and old-timers begin to share my alarm for the direction New Times is heading.

Here’s the Shredder submitted in April 2005 — and rejected for publication.

New Times, April 28, 2005
 
Steve Moss has gone and done it. He has left without finishing this
damn column and now it’s up to me to get it in. Once again. On my own.
Figures.
 
He’s always doing stuff like that – dropping the ball, hiding the
salami or whatever you want to call it.
 
That’s his modus operandi (that’s “M.O.” for you cop-aholics out
there). He gets things started and then just flakes out – kind of like
the kid who’s got this bright idea and doesn’t follow through,
expecting someone else to pick up on his natural brilliance and finish
the deed by osmosis while the savant is out goofing off.
 
“Take a memo,” he’d say. “I’ve got this brilliant idea and I want to
make sure it’s on paper so I don’t forget it before I go out to goof
off.”
 
That’s what he’d say. But this is what he’d be thinking: “Once this
brilliant idea is down on paper, and I don’t have to think about it
any more, and I’m on to my next brainstorm because I am a savant, then
you’ll be stuck with the task of actually doing it, and if you don’t
like it then you’re fired, because you’re a lousy writer anyway, and
people like you come fast and cheap around here, and Cal Poly is a
labor factory that keeps my business stocked with people who can pound
out copy, be paid a pittance and replaced on a whim, and I’ve got
plenty of whims, and don’t you ever forget it.”
 
Steve thinks he’s so special because he uses words like “savant” and
then lords it over the rest of us, making like he’s so much smarter
than everybody else. All right already. It’s down on paper. Sheesh.
 
Like the first time he and that pal of his, Tom Fulks, sat down – I
don’t know how many years ago, 12, 13, whatever – and put to paper
this lousy idea to write an anonymous column that would piss off just
about everyone in town, dead or alive. Is that possible? No
responsibility. No standards. No ethics. No nothing but trouble.
 
“Yeah,” Steve says back then, “that’s the idea. Call people pig f’ers
like that guy at Cal Poly, and make ‘em deny being pig f’ers, and
we’ll come back and say, ‘So-and-so isn’t a pig f’er. So sorry. The
other guy is, though.’ Do you think people will read it?”
 
Then Fulks says, “But Steve, everyone’s going to get real mad, and sue
you, and you know, take your newspaper away. Are you sure you want to
do this?”
 
Then Steve says, “If they do that, then they’ve proven my point: They
are pig f’ers. Take a memo.”
 
And so these two clowns end up writing the plans for me, El Shreddo,
on a taco-greasy napkin, all the while drinking and laughing so loud
that the people over at the other table think they’re smoking crack.
Crank, such a low-rent drug, is in now. But crack, much more chi chi,
was the addiction of choice back then.
 
So Steve calls Tom the next day and says, “I’ve got the name. We’ll
call it ‘The Shredder.’ I’m brilliant.”
 
And Fulks says, “I think that’s a really lousy idea, Steve. I’ve been
writing about my cat, Shredder, for years. If you call your sneaky,
underhanded, evil, devilish, immoral, corrupt column ‘The Shredder,’
everyone will think it’s me, and I don’t like that idea at all. Who’s
going to write that piece of sh’t column anyway? You’re an idiot. F
you.”
 
And Steve says, “I knew you’d like it. The logo is all done and we’re
running the first column tomorrow. Don’t worry. No one will think it’s
you. Besides, no one likes you anyway.”
 
And so the Shredder – ce moi – was born. Notice how I, Shred-meister,
carefully avoid using the actual “f” word and “sht” words here so as
to be polite but at the same time accurately portray the true
conversation as it went down at a rear table of the then-Pete’s
Southside Café so many years ago. The reason the Shred shall remain
f-less and sh’t-less is because of Steve’s direct order years ago to
… to …
 
… Hang on a minute, I’ll be right back. Gotta go … .
 
… Ah, feeling better now. Deadline, shmedline. You gotta go, you
gotta go.
 
Where was I? Yes, I don’t use the “f” or “sht” words or other curse
words or juvenile slang in this column as a result of Steve’s direct
order to avoid using bathroom humor to make a point. He said it was
stupid, it made his newspaper look stupid, made it look as if his
writers were too stupid to write something clever. He hates that. Me
too.
 
Rather, I’m to use the more urbane – the more sophisticated – approach
for the Shred zone. As former county Supervisor David Blakely (one of
my favorite targets of old times) used to say, “We can disagree
without being disagreeable.” Whatever.
 
Am I the only one ever to notice that Mike Ryan, Blakely’s
replacement, has an uncanny resemblance to Tom Delay – short, ugly and
mean as a cur dog? Maybe that’s why Ryan got beat by what’s-his-name,
Jim “Clean and Perfect” Patterson. Now there’s a real Mr. Personality.
 
What the Board of Supervisors needs today is a good sex scandal. Hmmm.
Take a memo.
 
I can’t be disagreeable, after all, because I could be anybody you
meet on the street, and no one you meet on the street in this town has
anything nasty to say until you turn your back.
 
For the record, Steve (God bless his soul) has carried to his grave
the secret of who I really am. No one will ever know, that’s the way
Steve wants it, so that’s the way it’s going to be.
 
Think about it. What fun would it be if I were to be outed? The
guessing game would be over and people would have to return to their
boring little lives instead of living vicariously through me, wishing
they had told off this potentate or ratted out that hypocrite or
rubbed elbows with the mavens of high society. You will never know
because you don’t deserve to know. Indeed, the peasants are revolting.
 
Over the years, I could have been Alex Madonna (God bless his soul),
pimping my pig farm right here on these pages. Or Walter Capps (God
bless his soul), mumbling and bumbling my way into Congress. Or Eric
Seastrand (God bless his soul), breathing fire and brimstone in the
Assembly. Or Jeff and Ann Fairbanks (God bless their souls), running
the Tribune by day, Shredding by night. Maybe I was all of them. Maybe
I wasn’t.
 
I can’t deny that I could be Abel Maldonado, unable to make up my mind
whose ass I want to kiss next or to which public office I aspire to
grovel. Then again, I could be Sam Blakeslee, unable to wash the
deer-in-the-headlights from my eyes while aspiring to any office
Abel’s not in. Or I could be Lois Capps, unable to speak to even the
most devoted group of bootlickers without referring to my index cards
cribbed from staff talk points.
 
I won’t deny that I could be Arnold Schwarzenegger, unable to remove
my right hand from society’s left butt cheek while striving to rid the
merchants from the people’s temple of government. Or, I could be
George W. Bush, too smart or too stupid to stop the merchants from
selling the people’s temple of government.
 
Or, I could still be Steve Moss, playing Huck, watching my friends cry
at my funeral.
 
Hmmm. Take a memo. Make it out to Steve.
 
Tell him the Shredder lives, and so does his secret.