Humor Column Leads to Picketing

By: Kathryn Keatley Garvey

A NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST who poked fun at a high school band found himself the target of a picket line and the butt of criticism from another columnist from a competing paper.
What angered the pickets was the satirical column that Brad Stanhope, sports editor of the Daily Republic, Fairfield, Calif., wrote about the results of his newspaper's "Best of Solano" opinion poll.
In that poll, area residents cast their votes on the best restaurants, entertainers, sports teams and the like.
Stanhope jokingly referred to the Fairfield High School Scarlet Brigade Band as "Crotch Rot." Another band in Fairfield is known as "Crotchrot," but it is written as one word.
Some 40 members of the Fairfield High School Scarlet Brigade Band picketed outside the newspaper office for about an hour March 2.
Stanhope's column, headed "Also-rans make 'Best' poll a laughing matter," began: "You take Red Cloud, I'll take the Fairfield High Scarlet Brigade Crotch Rot Brass section."
He turned to other subjects, then 11 paragraphs later he wrote: "One of the most fascinating voting ties was for the best local music group. First place was Red Cloud, followed by a three-way tie for second. Fifth place was a two-way tie between two similar bands, the Fairfield High band and Crotch Rot."
Stanhope quipped: "Isn't Crotch Rot another name for the brass section of the Fairfield High Scarlet Brigade? Shouldn't these votes be combined, making the Fairfield High Scarlet Crotch Rot Brigade the No. 1 band?"
The protesters who picketed the Daily Republic said they were upset that the words "crotch rot" were linked in the column with the band.
"I think it was disgusting," band director Russ Campbell told Daily Republic reporter Aaron Crowe, whose story on the flap, along with a photo of the pickets, appeared the next day. "It was supposed to be satire, but it wasn't satire."
One of the picketers, senior Rachel Bolin, the top female tuba player in the state as ranked by the California Band Directors' Association, said she considered the column harassment.
Two members of the Crotchrot band, bassist Rusty Eltringham and drummer Marc Campano, counterprotested the Fairfield High protest.
"We just think it's funny that they got so upset because they were tied with us," Eltringham told Crowe. The men are graduates of Fairfield High's rival, Armijo High School.
Campbell said he was satisfied with an apology in the Daily Republic's "Correction" column that read: "A column in the 'Best of Solano' special section last Friday contained sentences that members of the Fairfield High School Scarlet Brigade band found offensive. The passages were not meant to affront, and the paper apologizes for the offense."
Stanhope's column also poked fun at the competing Vacaville Reporter.
"For me, the most appalling answer came to the question of who provides the best service. The Vacaville Reporter got one vote.
"The Vacaville Reporter? If you like them so much, why don't you answer their stupid poll! Great service? Fine. Read your poll answer in their stupid rag!
"We got revenge, though, when somebody said the Daily Republic is the most environmentally aware. Hah! Sure, the Reporter provides a good service . . . to the polluters!"
Ted Hoffman, former entertainment columnist for the Daily Republic, who now works for the Vacaville Reporter, leaped into the fray by writing about Stanhope's column.
In a recent column, Hoffman said a joke is not a joke "when it offends a large segment of the audience and when it's just plain not funny.
"Not laughing, members of the Scarlet Brigade Band picketed the building in which the columnist works."
Hoffman declared Stanhope "guilty of little more than bad taste and, as stated, being numbingly unfunny in print. And, of being pathologically jealous of the Reporter, which is understandable, but that's another story."