“How am I supposed to tell one Washington state fort from another? I live in Vegas!!”
We’re going to have to call this one a loss for the road team.
For the past year, Steve Schorr, a fixture in Las Vegas for decades, has hoped we here on Whidbey Island would believe his shot-in-Sin-City “newscast” The Whidbey Buzz had any real local connection.
It doesn’t, and he doesn’t.
Well, I mean, he is buddies with Vegas transplant Scott Thompson, a builder who has been trying, and repeatedly failing, to force Oak Harbor to accept his dead-on-arrival housing project, Wright’s Crossing.
Schorr and Thompson met in Vegas, bonded over show dogs, and, lo and behold, The Buzz hit our airwaves just in time to try and slip some positive PR Mr. T’s way, in between a hail of rehashed press releases and anti-homeless digs dropped in to appeal to a small, crusty band of water carriers.
But the danger of making a web series about a place which sits 1,200 miles from your Sin City home is how many chances there are to stumble over things you have no real knowledge about.
Take today’s broadcast, and begin at the 2:47 mark.
The official transcript from The Buzz (produced exactly as they posted it on their website, so it doesn’t 100% match with what is on video) reads:
There is a new effort underway to save and refurbish one of the most historic lighthouses in Washington State. A group called the Keepers of Admiralty Head Lighthouse had announced their effort to help restore and preserve the Lighthouse that is part of historic Fort Whitman, the old Coastal Artillery Fort from WWII.
The Keeper was first started by a group of Whidbey Island residents back in 1995 as a non- profit to promote the Lighthouse awareness and its importance to the historic nature of Whidbey Island.
Each year some 55,000 people visit the Lighthouse at Fort Whitman.
The current restoration project for the Lighthouse is the first one since the 1970s. Those interesting in supporting the effort, and the Historic Lighthouse can send an email to Keepers of AHLH@gmail.com
Now, if you’re wearing a fluffy robe, sipping mai-tai’s poolside in the 102-degree hellhole that is Vegas right now, cooling down after being bathed by the sizzlin’ lights of the digital studio, probably sounds like you aced it.
Oh lord, where to begin?
MAYBE WITH THE FACT THERE IS NO LIGHTHOUSE AT FORT WHITMAN.
I’ve lived on Whidbey for 31 years, and had never even heard of the fort. So off to the internet with me!
Where we discover said fort, or what remains of it, is located on Goat Island, over in Skagit County, closer to La Conner than any of us living here on Whidbey, in Island County.
It also is far more likely to have five visitors a year than 55,000…
Now, it’s true, the Admiralty Head Lighthouse itself, which is located at Fort Casey, just a stone’s throw from Coupeville Sports world headquarters, here on Whidbey Island, is undergoing a major renovation.
If you visit the Keepers of Admiralty Head Lighthouse Facebook page, the top post is about the work on our lighthouse.
That post also includes a photo of a field trip to Goat Island, where the keepers visited Fort Whitman.
If you’re 1,200 miles away, trolling Facebook for “local Whidbey” news nuggets you can pluck and then pretend you’re reporting on, it would be easy — if you’re skimming while mai-tai’ing, say — to get mixed up and think one thing is connected to the other.
Mr. Schorr hates it when I point out 98.2% of the Buzz is regurgitated press releases, hastily-rewritten Facebook posts, and baseless rumors spewed by homeless-hatin’ nutballs.
And then he offers us up such a juicy display of exactly that.
Now, there may be some who will say I’m being too hard on Mr. Schorr, whacking the big city slickster like a piñata, waitin’ for the candy to pop out of his well-tailored suit.
Possibly.
I didn’t go to college.
I went to the hard knocks school of journalism, getting a job in the Whidbey News-Times press room at 18, hustling to earn freelances stories, before working my way into the newsroom, where I sat next to Mary Kay Doody, the ultimate bulldog investigative reporter.
This was a woman who never let a double-speak politician slide away from her, a titanic terror who crawled through the woods on her hands and knees to report first-hand the day the feds shot it out with the Neo-Nazi’s in Freeland.
Mary Kay would look at The Buzz, with gives us less transparency than Al-Jazeera, and she would seethe.
When Schorr slips in positive PR for Thompson, and never acknowledges their real-world connections, she would pace.
When the Buzz, claiming to be a “non-profit,” responds to a request for its federal ID number by sending out a number not registered with the IRS, then threatens to call the police on the person requesting the number, Mary Kay would lower her head and come out a’swingin.
She’s not here to do that anymore, but I am.
When I swing the piñata stick, Mr. Schorr, I do it for her.
Steve Schorr likes some people. He doesn’t like me, though.
Well, I hit the big time.
Sort of.
I got namechecked Wednesday on The Whidbey Buzz, called out as Public Enemy #1 by anchor Steve Schorr, a longtime Vegas resident who has pumped out a twice-weekly web show which has tried (largely in vain) to pass itself off as a local production.
And Mr. Schorr, if you truly believe what I have documented are lies, why do you, once again, dodge a chance to address the issues raised and the questions asked?
I’ll give the dapper one credit – with his old school suits and his hair tinted purple by the digital set he shoots on – he pronounced my last name virtually flawlessly.
Which is noticeable, since it’s not an easy name, and Schorr has a long history of mangling pronunciations of things, people, and places located on Whidbey.
In today’s video he calls up all the gravitas from a 40-year career of reading a teleprompter in Sin City to chastise me for not fully believing in his faded act.
To which I would respond, if my grandfather, the otherwise quite despicable Elmer Svien, ever taught me anything, it’s this:
If it looks like a con artist, and sounds like a con artist, it’s probably a con artist.
Allegedly.
As much as I hate to post a Buzz video, thereby helping their numbers — at the time I’m posting this, the video below has … one view on YouTube — here you go.
I get chastised beginning at the 4:43 mark of the video.
Let’s be clear. I have no problem with Mr. Schorr choosing to vent at me.
His anger at being called out, and possibly his sadness at frittering away the tail end of his career in this manner, are understandable.
I do have a problem with two sentences in this video, however.
Schorr claims I have made “vile threats” against him, and that my “friends” have threatened him physically.
My first response, “Bull.”
My second response, “Prove it.”
You say you want only the truth. So, speak truth, sir.
I am operating alone in this matter, as the newspapers and TV stations in the area have not chosen to shine a spotlight on The Buzz.
Yet.
I’m not sure what “friends” you speak of in this matter, sir.
Might help if you were forthcoming with names so we could tell if I actually know these possible ruffians.
You and I have never spoken on the phone, Mr. Schorr.
We spoke in person once, in front of a group of people, during your depressing meet and greet in the bowels of the Oak Harbor Best Western almost a year ago.
No one had to separate us, sir, though you did get visibly annoyed when I asked you questions you didn’t want to answer – such as those about your lack of transparency.
Below, to remind you of our conversations online, I am posting them complete, lifted from our Facebook exchanges.
Please review and point out any “vile threats” depicted in those speech bubbles, sir.
I can’t learn if you’re not willing to be my teacher here, Mr. Schorr.
Respectfully yours,
Someone who doesn’t “feel threatened” by you.
The phrase you’re looking for, Mr. Schorr, is “someone who feels saddened” by you.
Chelsea Prescott is killin’ it in “home school.” Come with us as she replaces toilets and much more. (Photos courtesy Josie Prescott)
Attention to detail, always.
Power washing the house after lunch.
Got a car issue? Prescott also worked on the brakes after this.
Swinging by home ec to show off her cake skills.
If we end up in an apocalyptic wasteland, all hail our new leader!
Apparently Chelsea Prescott can do it all.
As an athlete, the Coupeville High School junior has been at the forefront every step of the way.
Back in her middle school days, she once accidentally smashed a volleyball off a rival’s face with so much fury, school Athletic Director WillieSmith had to bring out the really big towel to deal with all the blood on the floor.
In little league, she passed on softball, chose baseball, and said “Give me the dang ball, coach!” and was her team’s best pitcher.
Through three years of high school, nothing has changed, as Prescott has been a stellar star on Wolf volleyball, basketball, and softball squads, helping take the spikers and diamond queens to state.
Now, with schools shut down and sports put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone has had to scramble to adjust.
When it comes to the new homeschooling, few have made the transition with as much flair as Prescott.
Instead of just doing a little math here, and some history there, she’s jumped feet-first into hands-on learning, from changing brakes to removing and replacing a toilet.
If this is the start of the apocalypse, you all might want to get on Chelsea’s good side now before you have to wander the wastelands.
Cause it’s pretty dang obvious which one of us in this town is built to survive the longest.
School is out of session, but “Mr. Freeze” is taking his education to the garage.
Coupeville Middle School soccer star William Davidson, who’s also been known to respond to the nickname “The Cornish Game Hen,” fulfills two assignments sent out by teacher Chad Felgar in the paparazzi pics seen above.
Assignment one – how to measure using a tape measure.
Assignment two — how to cut a straight line with a handsaw.
Extra credit — Have a dad willing to send me photos fresh out of the camera, so Coupeville Sports can pick up some sweet, sweet page hits thanks to featuring the urban legend who can’t be contained by one nickname alone.
Coupeville Sports 