Wednesday, September 15, 2004

ripped off again

To say that I haven't accomplished anything today would be an understatement; the fact that I even put on clothes and went out (for the twenty minutes it took to go home and pick up some files and come back to AX's, where I am, once again, using his computer because my own is down) is astonishing. I've cancelled a modeling gig next week so I could keep a commitment to the troupe, I've bailed on Rosh Hashanah dinner with my cousins, I've gone back and read the archives of all my friends' blogs and despaired that everyone writes better than I do, I've written, um, 232 of the 1300 words I have due to my editor and a few rather licentious e-mails to someone else, I've eaten most of AX's Triscuits and eyed the tuna, and I've taken a nap.

Does it sound like I have a cold? Because I'm working on it, or it's working on me. One of those slow ones at which I seem to excel. Some coughing, some wooziness, some goop, but nothing dramatic. Doesn't help that I was out with Thread, dancing and talking, until 3 am. Today I am a good example of what Darwinism does not favor. If I had to run from a saber-tooth tiger or something like that I'd probably just lie down and let it eat me. Luckily (perhaps) for me there are no saber-tooth tigers in the Tenderloin.

Something that is eating me, however, is the discovery that I've been plaigirized again, this time by the director of a Colorado production of a show I covered here in Walnut Creek. Every now and again I do a vanity search to make sure my name's not being taken in vain, particularly when I have something better I could be doing, and today was one of those days. Which is how I found that this woman has taken something I published, edited it down a little, and is passing it off as her director's notes. She does say that "some of the facts" came from me, but heck, that's not good enough. This is writing she's using to entice people to see her play, and conceivably what's going to be printed in the program.

So I dropped a note. We'll see what happens. I hate being the heavy, but there are certain standards which need to be upheld. I sweat blood over these things, and I really don't appreciate other people just picking them up and using them inappropriately.