"I'm not leaving The Stranger, and I'm still in charge of The Stranger's editorial content," says Dan Savage in a blog post, adding some detail to Wednesday's item in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announcing Christopher Frizzelle's promotion to editor. "So Frizzelle is taking over the day-to-day management of the editorial department as well as overseeing more to most of The Stranger's features," Savage says. "I am still going to be sitting in my coveted corner office, watching helmetless hipsters ride by on their brand-new fixies, posting obsessively to Slog, working with Christopher -- and the rest of the editorial staff -- to create, shape, and direct our editorial content online and in print."
Christopher Frizzelle is replacing Dan Savage as editor of the Seattle alt-weekly, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. The 27-year-old Frizzelle has also worked at crosstown rival the Seattle Weekly, where "he was fired for leaking internal tidbits to the Stranger and trying to get a job there," according to the P-I. His time at the Stranger has thus far included stints as books editor, and most recently, as arts editor. "I'll report to Dan, who is now editorial director, and everybody else reports to me," he says. Asked what changes he wants to make, he said none. "The paper's really good right now. I work with 20 of the most talented people I know."
At the Stranger's annual Valentine's Day Bash, the alt-weekly's editor and nationally-syndicated sex columnist destroyed sentimental artifacts from relationships gone awry, employing some unusual tools, including fire and urine. A video from the event was posted on the The Stranger's blog, where Savage recounts his favorite moments of destruction: "Melting down a wedding ring and chucking the little blob of melted gold into the street -- right up there with taking a hammer to a diamond engagement ring."
The addition of the widely syndicated sex-advice column to the Eugene Weekly is "stirring up controversy," according to KEZI-TV 9 News. The local ABC affiliate, which led with the story on Friday evening, took to the streets to get reactions; two of the three locals interviewed didn't have a problem with the column, with one woman offering, "I lived in New York City for many years. I'm way beyond ever being offended by anything." KEZI also talked to Eugene Weekly editor Ted Taylor (pictured), who wondered: "What's the big deal? They are just words about sex. Why not be outraged by what I consider the real moral issues?" Director of Advertising and Marketing Bill Shreve tells AAN News the paper picked up Savage Love in October, and e-mails and calls to the Weekly have been split about evenly between supporters and opponents of the column. He also notes that the whole thing has "been good for business."
PW performs a public service for local citizens this week by distinguishing between the editor of The Stranger and Philadelphia's "newly installed" city councilman Dan Savage. The former is the guy who writes Savage Love and thinks drugs and prostitution should be legalized. The latter is a judge's son who has never been asked for advice on strap-ons, vaginal farts or uncircumcised penises. "What's he look like?" asks our Dan about the politician with an identical name. "Does he have a gut? He's out there representing me. I don't want him to have a big gut. He's got to do his crunches."
Dan Savage, editor of Seattle's The Stranger and writer of the syndicated column Savage Love, continues to moonlight as a political activist, according to the Chicago Reader. (See second item.) His current efforts are focused on unseating arch-nemesis Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn. But in an interview with Stephen Morse, a reporter for the Daily Pennsylvanian, a University of Pennsylvania student newspaper, Savage reserves much of his invective for Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli, a potential spoiler who could siphon off votes from Democratic candidate Bob Casey Jr. In a video clip of the session, Savage says, among other things, "Carl Romanelli should be dragged behind a pickup truck until there's nothing left but the rope." Savage later apologized for the remark on the Stranger's blog.
Following revelations that the alt-weekly's coordinator for club advertising secretly contributed to the Stranger's music blog and newspaper under the pseudonym "Keenan Bowen," both she and the editor who solicited the articles resigned. In an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Editor Dan Savage calls Music Editor David Segal's arrangement with staffer Bailee Martin "a lapse in editorial judgment, and a serious one." But Savage also said the potential for conflict appears to have been untapped, and the weekly will repost all of Martin's stories upon review.
Ever since Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., publicly equated homosexuality and bestiality, Dan Savage has been turning up the heat on his homophobic nemesis. First, he organized a contest to name a sex act after the Republican senator. Now Savage, the editor of Seattle's The Stranger and one of altdom's most popular columnists, is taking the fight to Santorum's home turf. He recently followed the warpath to Philadelphia, where he talked to Philadelphia Weekly about efforts to defeat Santorum's midterm re-election bid. When questioned about his take-no-prisoners crusade, Savage says, "I really feel that it's an all-hands-on-deck sort of fucking moment."
To make a point about proposed club regulations, The Stranger's editor, Dan Savage, walked into Seattle's City Hall carrying pot cookies and a fake gun. Seattle Weekly Staff Writer Philip Dawdy argues that Savage went too far because he used his press credentials to take the illicit materials into restricted areas of the building. In a post on The Daily Weekly, SW's blog, Dawdy notes that the Seattle press, including The Stranger, has fought to maintain access to offices in City Hall in the past; now, Savage's actions could "make the security folks at City Hall rethink who gets to go where and under what circumstances," he writes.
Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, disagrees with proposed Seattle regulations that would require club owners to prevent patrons from entering the premises while carrying drugs. Naturally, he chose to demonstrate the difficulty of enforcing such a ban by tucking a fake gun into his waistband, packing his bag full of pot cookies, and heading to City Hall. As he describes in the Aug. 31 issue of The Stranger, he not only got in the door and consumed the cookies while on city property, he also offered pot cookies to several mayoral staffers without repurcussions. Photos of the cookies, the gun and Savage can be found on Slog, The Stranger's blog.
