My Trip Up Shit Creek: Part Deux

I learned a funny thing yesterday. A “friend” will invite you on a boat ride of Newtown Creek. He will later even laud the photographs and the footage you shot. That is, until some person at Channel 13 (who hired said boat and seems to think all the intellectual/creative property gathered from it is his) raises a stink:

Hey Heather,

I’m glad you enjoyed the trip on Newtown Creek the other day. I’m not sure if we officially met but I know you talked to my associate Daniel. I’m writing because I was checking out your blog and I noticed you’d posted several videos of the trip. I don’t mean to be any sort of stickler but it makes me a little uncomfortable to have other people reporting on the same thing which I hired a boat to capture. I don’t have any problem with you posting photos or stories about the trip but the video just happens to be exactly why we were there and sort of crosses lines of exclusivity. So, let me profusely apologize for having to ask but I would really appreciate it if you would take the videos down.

So, my other question would be how you knew about the trip. I didn’t have any problem with people coming out with us as long as they were out of the way but no one told me we should be expecting guests so I don’t really know how that came about.

Anyway, sorry again. If you’d like to chat about it, feel free to give me a call or email back.

Thanks much,
-t

I’m not a chatty kind of gal. Just ask my parents. I rarely answer the phone, much less pick it up and call some condescending chap who wants to “chat” about why my seven minutes of film footage does not undermine his “vision”.

Dear old dad taught me a few things about anger management, albeit accidentally. One of them was I can channel anger in a constructive manner whose effect, in turn, is actually quite the opposite: destructive. Call what I am about to do passive/aggressive or one of life’s little ethical loopholes and/or gray areas. Call it whatever you want. Sure, I yanked the “video” showcasing said “exclusive material” —and I replaced it with another one. This. Now I am bringing back the original.

Pa Heather, this one goes out to you. You know better than anyone that no one can make me shut up.

Miss Heather

P.S.: I’m not taking this one down. If the peeps at Channel 13 have some special interest in publicly humiliating my husband (or training him to recycle correctly) I want a piece of the action. Simple as that.

Comments

One Comment on My Trip Up Shit Creek: Part Deux

  1. nbenford on Wed, 20th Aug 2008 6:45 pm
  2. Are they afraid you’ll put PBS out of business? I think it’s a good and positive thing to get the word out on the pollution in Newtown Creek any way, any how. But I can understand his point of view a little bit though. If I were hired to record a band for an album and someone tagged along and recorded the band his or herself and released it on their website, I’d feel a bit slighted. but this is not a band, it’s a bloody polluted creek, and no money or art is being made here, so keep doing what you’re doing.

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