MEDIA FARM WAS FAST ASLEEP last night, dreaming about what Rupert Murdoch looks like naked, when an unearthly sound roused us from our slumber. We pushed back the covers and padded to the window, where we saw a vision we’d only dreamed (very, very frequently) about: Improper Bostonian editrix Veronica Chao, standing outside in the moonlight, holding a boom box above her magnificent head, blasting that Peter Gabriel song. You know the one. That was quite a night …
Chao, the city’s sultriest sultry editress, has been conspicuously absent from this column for the past nine months. We had a torrid obsession with her (oh, that ebony hair; that porcelain skin; that chilling, testes-freezing stare), and the pangs of unrequited love had eaten away at our souls. We’d pace impatiently in front of those big blue newsboxes every other week, fretting away the seconds until we could gaze again upon her stunning visage, and sop up the journalistic pearls she’d dribble our way. “Sincerely, Veronica Chao.” Even now, the phrase sends a crippling, albeit reluctant, shudder through our loins.
The love affair ended rather badly, with Chao refusing to acknowledge our existence, and us sitting on the floor in a dark room for several weeks afterward, eating corned beef hash out of a can, pausing occasionally to jab ourselves to make sure we could still feel. You remember this, don’t you, Veronica?
Through it all, Veronica’s photo, perched on the shoulder of her editress note, never softened, no matter how much we yelled and wanted to hate it. Finally, however much it killed us, we hardened our hearts, drank until the weeping ceased, and gave up on ever laying a finger on her sweet, sweet cheek.
Then we saw this memo from the Globe‘s regional metro editor, David Dahl. And all those feelings-those bad, bad feelings-came flooding back.
Great news for fans of City Weekly: we have a new editor. She is Veronica Chao, currently the editor [editrix-Ed.] of Improper Bostonian, which has thrived under her leadership. Veronica promises to “reflect the uniqueness of Boston,” as she put it recently, in what has become one of the Globe’s most distinctive sections. She wants to connect with Boston’s neighborhoods, reflect the vibrant diversity of the city and make the section a must read for people who want to know the buzz in Boston, Somerville, Cambridge and Brookline. A resident of Boston, she’s a big fan of public transportation-she does not own a car, folks-and is further connected to the city via her work and through mentoring and volunteer groups. She grew up in Alexandria, Va., and lived and worked in Washington before coming to Boston. She will start Oct. 12.
We. Cannot. Deal.
To what do we owe this move? It certainly can’t be sadomasochism; we tried that line of advance with her several times, and we were coldly rebuffed each and every time. And the Globe‘s brass can trot out as many empty buzzwords as they want, but we see through them.
There’s only one reason Chao would pull her skull out from Jonathan Soroff‘s fuzzy undercarriage and leave the Improper-which is really quite impressive these days, as long as you’re not actually trying to read it-and decamp to a two-bit weekend edition: It’s a ploy for our attention. She’s trying to make us jealous.
IT IS SOOOO NOT WORKING.
Our passion for you has expired, Veronica. Your attempts to “reflect the uniqueness of Boston” at the Globe won’t give us heart palpitations. Watching you reshape City Weekly into a groveling ad-vehicle won’t move us. We don’t care how beautiful your hair looks, flying out behind you when you stand in the Globe‘s cafeteria, ruthlessly demolishing the barriers between fluffy nightlife propaganda and legitimate third-rate community journalism. No. No …
OH GOD. Fine. FINE! We still love you, ok Veronica! Are you happy now? The new design, the glossy cover-it was all to impress you!
Several months ago, in a bid to win the sassy editrix’s attention, we composed this original poem and dedicated it to the only woman we’ll ever truly love. We reprint it now, hoping and praying that a dead-sexy fox and a belligerent media column can still find love in this crazy mixed-up world:
Veronica’s eyes are nothing like the sun / Coral is far more red than her lips’ red / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head / I have seen roses damask’d, red and white / But no such roses see I in her cheeks / And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from Veronica reeks / I love to hear her speak, yet well I know / That music hath a far more pleasing sound / I grant I never saw a goddess go / Veronica, when she walks, treads on the ground / And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare.
Veronica, come on home, baby. It’s not too late.
