Short-Term Memories

B. Dale Davis, avuncular Grand Gouda over at the
News-Press, contacted for his reaction to our recent happy
wedding, surprised everyone over here with his effusive admiration
for this town’s late weeklies. “You folks have done a very fine
job,” B. Dale told the Poodle, “for the kind of assignment, for the
kind of target you’d set out to shoot for…” In fact, B. Dale told
Poodle, we’re more interesting to read than “most writers I read,
frankly.” We copy that. (From “The Angry Poodle Barbecue” by
Trixie.)

The fight over the Cypress Point development project — slated
for a 70-acre piece of oceanfront land overlooking Hendry’s
Beach — has now shifted to the Santa Barbara City Council after the
Planning Commission shot down a proposal last Thursday to build a
major senior retirement community there. (From “Lost in the Woods”
by Nick Welsh.)

“It was like the Ali-Frazier fight,” said Jim Poett, publisher
of the freshly defunct News & Review, when asked to
comment on the merger of the paper with The Weekly. “Both
papers have their strengths, but the thought of going on and on
like we were … well, it was just very boring.” Boring? Maybe for
those in the business end or those in the news department the
merger seemed to be a nice compromise; positive results from a long
summit. Possibly the arts reporters and critics considered it
poetic justice or the logical climax. But for the sports
departments, it was like having a minute-thirty left in the fourth
quarter with the score tied and suddenly hearing over the
loudspeaker that the game is over — the Raiders and the Cowboys
have merged. (From “Ali-Frazier vs. the Great White Male” by Dana
Brown.)