For Baltimore City Paper Readers

It's too bad that those dishonest, slimy bastards at the Baltimore City Paper would let me have only 500 words to reply to their lying attack on me.

First and foremost, I NEVER said to anyone connected to the City Paper that I hated Baltimore. I never said "Fuck You" to anyone connected to the City Paper about Baltimore. These are lies. I will give a big "Fuck You," however, to everyone connected with the City Paper after their smear of me and their misrepresentations of what I said in a two-hour phone interview.

Here's the full letter I had written to them about that dishonest schmuck Dechter and his poorly-written hatchet job:

"I knew I was going to get nailed, but what Gadi Dechter doesn't tell you is that he seriously slanted and cherry-picked the things I told him. He left out the fact that I walk the streets of Portland wearing my Orioles sweatshirt, how I nearly cried when I heard a real Baltimore accent last summer....and there are a lot of other things.Dechter chooses to leave out a lot of positive things in order to set me up as a straw villain.

What else can we expect from an L.A. guy who's aim is to gather as many scalps as he can before he moves on to a larger market. Same as it ever was...Baltimoreans being exploited and victimized by journalists on the way up and who can't wait to get out of town.By the way, my impression, after talking to him for a couple of hours, is that he hates Baltimore much more than I. He agreed with me on many points.Here's an example of how he dishonestly skews things.

He writes, "He remembers one scene in particular. 'I pick up this black woman and her daughter,' he says. “And for some reason the little girl looks through the sliding glass shield and she says, ‘I love you.’ And I busted out crying right there in the cab. It was such a contrast to what I had to face every day.'His conclusion: 'People in Baltimore are angry and mean.'"That story did not make me conclude that people in Baltimore are angry and mean. I think many are, but that was one tender moment in a nightmare of a job.

I told him a lot of things. I told him about the documentary I've just completed on the Oregon Death With Dignity law. I followed a man for two years beginning the day he got the legal lethal dose, through all the twists and turns of the decision-making process as to when to end his life. He died wearing our mic.Dechter could have included that, but it wouldn't have fit his idea of caricaturing me and his scalp-gathering agenda.

Lucky for me, he can't hurt me, he can only piss me off...unlike poor Mike Olesker, who deserved better.

How does he know I am "hustling for even more publicity?" And is there something wrong with promoting your own book? If he writes a book and it's bought by Random House, is he planning to turn down the promotional opportunities his publicist gives him? I doubt it.

While I'm complaining, the photographer who took that picture was here for an hour on Saturday and most of the pictures he took were of me smiling. You chose to run one where I was frowning.

So when the headline says, "Fuck Us," Dechter isn't including himself in the "us." Believe me. I'm more "us" than he'll ever be.

Baltimore....Gadi Dechter is not on your side.

Before he hung up, he said that he'd like to hang out with me and see how I reacted the next time I came back to Baltimore. Uh, no thanks, dude. I'll stick to Jimmy's and people who know who Jerry Turner was.

By the way, I still yell "O" during the national anthem when I drive up to Seattle to see the Orioles.

Here are some of Dechter's blatant mistakes:

1. I was never a news producer at WJZ-TV. I was a news producer at WMAR-TV and a story producer at WJZ-TV's Evening Magazine. Also, I never told him that Evening was new and hiring producers. It had been on the air for a year and was already a hit when I came to work for them.
I also never told him that I regretted coming back to Baltimore to work for Evening, as he claims. I don't regret a moment of my work at Evening.

2. I said "Baltimore's greatest cultural contribution in the past 50 years is Divine eating dog shit off a sidewalk on Read St." Not “Baltimore’s greatest claim to fame is that Divine ate shit on Read Street,”

3. P.J. O'Rourke was editor of HARRY for a brief period of time (a matter of months). In reality, Michael Carliner, HARRY's original publisher was the editor, followed by O'Rourke for a few months when I was publisher, and then I was editor/publisher.

4. I did not tell him I was a "children's party DJ." I was a wedding reception/party DJ. If he had bothered to check the piece I wrote for the City Paper in 1996 on my brief DJ career, he would have discovered that. Notice how sloppy Dechter is? I sent him my resume with the jobs I've had and the dates I had them. Apparently he did not avail himself of that document.

5. He implies that I took "odd jobs to pay the rent on his Mount Vernon apartment. He penned tabloid articles, created screaming car dealership TV ads, produced features stories for a failed “Trucker TV” network, and worked as a children’s party DJ." Actually, other than the tabloid work, I did all those other things from 1986-1996."


That's what you didn't get to read.

When the City Paper's "fact checker" called me, I had to correct her many times. The "facts" that Dechter had in his original piece were obviously very wrong. I corrected at least 6 inaccuracies she presented.

It would have been nice if she had been more thorough. It would have been nice if Dechter had been an honest journalist, instead of a lying sack of shit, but that's his problem.

It also brings up a problem in basic credibility. The Baltimore City paper has none. Andy Markowitz, when he took over that paper, buried the hatchet with me and published three pieces of mine. He's gone and the people in charge now do him a great injustice.

Russ Smith started a bad paper, and his spirit lives on.

Is it any wonder I brought HARRY back to life to compete with this crummy paper? So now they've had their shot at me. If I were a young person in Baltimore right now, I would start up a new paper. Baltimore deserves better than this dishonest piece of shit.

p.s. During an email exchange with Dechter, he actually replied "Word" to an email from me. How quaintly 90s. You should see him dance like Hammer sometime.

Pretty good for a failed screenwriter from L.A. trying to rescue his career, pathetically atempting to rise in his profession by hurting others.

Dude, this isn't over by a long shot. We Baltimoreans have long memories. We're still pissed at the Mets and Jets in 68, and at Irsay when he stole the Colts.

We won't forget what you did to Olesker, and what you failed to do to me.

Addition since the issue with my letter came out:

That schmuck Dechter was also too chickenshit to reply to my letter. Know why? Because he was caught with is journalistic pants down.

I hope this controversy follows him. I hope I find out where his next job is, because his boss will be the first to know what a dishonest cheap-shot media whore he is.

Also, to the writers whose letters got in; you wrote those before you knew the real story. But to Matt Selander who accused me of racism, allow me to tell you Matt...I went to Morgan State College when it was a college. I was one of 3 or 4 whites who were enrolled. I had a column in the school newspaper. I worked in a poverty program. I sat on the front porch of the Black Panther Party one night during the time when Panthers were being killed all over America. I could go on. What have you ever done, Matt, my little white thuggie?

I have to tell you guys who wrote in that I loved the tone of your letters. Pure Baltimore. It didn't make me feel homesick, I only feel that way during the baseball season, but your letters had that kiss my ass Baltimore spirit. Thanks, even though you hate me.

A few words to Blaine Taylor, who wrote a strangely nasty letter about me in last week's edition. I say strange because he seemed ambivalent. I guess all I can say is that I had a lot to be negative about. Of course, he neglects all the happy hippie words and deeds during that period. He also ignores all of the celebratory stories I did about Baltimore for Evening Magazine, and all of the musicians I covered for all those years. He also didn't get a chance to see my reply to Dechter.

I must say, I've always thought Blaine's writing to be stodgy and boring and not in the least creative. But I agree with him on one point, and I thank him for making it, even though he is not a fan....Baltimore's loss truly is Portland's gain. I have been accepted here, both personally and professionally.

Even though the O's will always be in my heart, Baltimore is my past.

Baltimore, you're Fredo. You're dead to me now.

Portland is my home.