simpleton

March 9, 1999
New ones Monday through Friday

Shorefront Gay Butt-Naked News

Measuring the Garden State's news dynamos

Every New Jerseyan can take pride in the Garden State's fine assortment of newspapers. From the Bergen Record to the Asbury Park Press, and down the coastline to the little-known Cape May County Herald, New Jersey's dailies consistently lead the nation in quality and innovation.

Fans of tabloidese might go in for the consistently entertaining Trentonian, which manages in a sleepy state capitol to squeeze out New York Post-y front page screamers on a daily basis (I also envy the paper's deft combination letters-to-the-editor and advice column). Fans of dull civic wallpaper might prefer Middlesex County's Home News. And anyone looking to get maximum bang for the buck will fall in love with the Newark Star Ledger, whose 35-cent cost per issue (raised from a quarter only very recently, and very grudgingly) makes it the best words-per-penny deal in American journalism.

[spinning the press online]
The Atlantic City Press
gets the story every time.

The Star Ledger may be America's best newspaper - still admirably hostile to the web, still so vast and content-rich that its Saturday edition is bigger than most papers' Sunday editions. No story is too minor for the Star Ledger's vast news-gathering dynamo. Police-blotter reports of drunk driving arrests are routinely given bylined, multisourced coverage. When children in the town of Somerset are frightened by a man in a clown suit, the Star Ledger dispatches two reporters to produce a two-page report. If George WS Trow ignores the Star Ledger in his windy dissertations on the context of newspapers, it may be due less to cross-Hudson snobbery than to the fact that the paper would exhaust the gaseous energies of even the most devoted pontificator.

In fact the Star Ledger, and the great credit it reflects on New Jersey newspapering, reminds me of a proud moment from my own youth, when I worked as a paperboy for the Atlantic City Daily Tribune, a startup paper that closed just 10 days after it began publishing. At the time, the Trib's short life allowed me to have what I thought was a worldly laugh at the absurdity of adults and their business schemes. Now, more familiar with the hardships of publishing, I marvel that within my lifetime even humble Atlantic City was considered worthy of status as a two-paper town. I almost believe being able to remember such a time qualifies me for status as a beloved national treasure.

It is, however, that other Atlantic City paper, the once and future Atlantic City Press, that causes me such concern. With the exception of "The Old Malarkey," a defunct sports and old-timers column ("Area fans will recall the brothers Mawhinney sports-stars trio which also included elder brother Bob, Atlantic County's top schoolboy athlete in 1932") by the defunct Ed Nichterlein - which once seemed to me to be a direct pipeline to a prewar era peopled by hard-working athletes who never smiled for photographs - the Press has long functioned as an embarassment to the proud traditions of New Jersey journalism.

Let's take a look at a recent story:

[dressed in leather and leaning against his Cruiser, officer Ely discusses the
eternal hunt for naked gay men]
Dressed in form-fitting leather and leaning
against his "cruiser," Officer Doug Ely
discusses the importance of chasing nude gay men.

A major story in Monday's paper, "Increasing arrests raise concern about lewdness at Higbee Beach," details how conservation officer Doug Ely, an employee of the state Fish, Game and Wildlife Division, has found a new mission apart from his usual assignment of stopping out-of-season hunting. Instead, as reported in the story (archived for your approval here), Ely is knocking himself out to find gay men going at it in the bushes of the Higbee Beach wildlife preserve, near Cape May.

Ely in action:

Finally, Ely arrives at a small clearing from a trail that seemingly went nowhere. These are the types of trails where he usually finds what he is looking for.

"Two new prophylactics," Ely says.

Condoms, a pair of men's underwear, soiled tissue paper and pictures of semi-nude men from a magazine for those practicing "an alternative lifestyle" is Ely's evidence.

The problem here isn't that Press reporter Richard Degener is reporting on male-male hijinx in the dunes. Indeed, as the article notes, arrests for lewd behavior have increased 400% since 1996 (from one arrest to four). The problem is that Degener seems to have entirely missed the real story.

[local authorities were first perplexed, then concerned, by the discovery of a
condom in the area]
Forensic testing on this condom wrapper
revealed that its contents may have
been used as an accessory to a lewd act.

To wit: Just why is this cop going to such great lengths to track down his gay prey? A quote early in the story gives a hint:

"Sometimes when I'm chasing nude men through the dunes, it's hard to remember what I went to school for," Ely said.

Then I remember that this is what I went to school for!

Later in the article it's revealed that Ely has been accused of enticing the men he arrests, but that "he says he has to do almost nothing to draw attention." That's easy to believe, since - even through the low quality, scanned fax photo shown above - it's pretty clear Officer Ely is a pure-grain Hunk. But this bad lieutenant takes his butch/femme relationship with the game-park pervs a step further. The story is replete with instances of hapless arrestees begging Officer Ely to let them off with a warning - to no avail, as the iron-hard cop slaps the cuffs on one and all. A cruelly handsome top, born to make men swoon and comply.

Ely has been propositioned in both his street clothes and in a conservation officer uniform with a holstered gun by his side.

Not to mention when he's dressed in his Indian chief, construction worker or leather biker outfits. The story really begins to take a turn for the odd when Ely begins describing the complications involved in these propositions (the article's five and a half columns contain four separate incidents of gay men propositioning shocked straights).

A Feb. 12 report from Ely details an encounter with an elderly artist from the Villas. Ely said the man was looking at pages from a discarded pornographic magazine. Ely simply said to him, "That's a spicy one isn't it?"

Ely then walked 15 feet away and turned around.

The man had allegedly unzipped his pants and was doing something lewd enough to be arrested. He has pleaded not guilty and is set to appear in court on March 23.

Now I know that police officer training generally includes some instruction in proper pat phrases to use in given situations: "Step out of the car, please," "Could I see your license and registration, ma'am," "You have the right to remain silent." But somehow, I suspect "That's a spicy one isn't it?" is not one of the standard lines in the cop handbook.

This does, however sound like a somewhat squarer version (he is a uniformed officer, after all) of the kind of pick-up lines Al Pacino might have used in Cruisin'. What's amazing is that the Press takes the usual geeky credulity reporters show to cops, and uses it to miss what is arguably a case of entrapment, and intriguingly, a sly indication that this Officer Ely may not be fighting the lewdness epidemic so much as playing a covert role in it, adding excitement, and a crucial element of danger, to what could be a humdrum role in the hay.

What is certain is that other New Jersey papers would know how to handle this story. The Trentonian would have turned up a front pager: "Leather cop spanks naughty gays!" The Star Ledger would have opened up an entire bureau to get to the bottom of the story.

[satellite mapping techniques have allowed officers to pinpoint the
location of homosexual activities with state-of-the-art accuracy]
Satellite mapping techniques allow
for pin-point location of
homosexual activities

But the thumbsucker story is all in a day's work for the Press. When the paper really gets the scoop ("Japan Surrenders," say, or "Americans fed up with HMOs"), it's as a specimen of just the sort of ball-dropping that New Jersey's journals generally avoid. In fact, the Press is something of an exception that proves the rule, an anomalous error, a comical Puck figure in the crowded pantheon of newspapers that serve America's most densely populated state.

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Previously in simpleton:

March 8, 1999: Return of the Answer Man
We advise the misfits
March 4, 1999: Scared quotes
The complete awfulness of the Bafflermission statement
March 3, 1999: Reader Mail
Volume 29: Writing in the toilet, Germans on booze, Pratt on Abby,
a poem, a TV commercial, and several classic simpletons.
March 1, 1999: Prezzy beat
An Australian care package
February 25, 1999: Tough Questions
Your advice requested
February 24, 1999: Reader Mail
Volume 28: Booze, Rye and George Washington

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