Last week, we did a parody of men's magazines like Maxim for our cover. The cover story was on the Legislature, so we figured: What the hell. We slapped a stock photo of a model on the cover and surrounded her with some tongue-in-cheek teasers.
Well, once the paper hit the streets, the shit hit the fan.
One restaurant owner flat-out refused to have the paper in his restaurant because of the "adult" nature of the cover. Meanwhile, I got a voicemail from one of our older readers, who explained that she likes the Weekly --although she liked it better 10 years ago--and was dismayed we were going in "this direction" with our cover.
A high school teacher sent me a frothing e-mail declaring that she feels like "a dirty pedophile toting your publication around my school," and that she "feel(s) just wrong holding in my hands a paper advertising 'Teen Sex.'"
Of course, the teaser about which she was writing concerned a review of Romeo and Juliet, which is read in pretty much every high school in America. And for those of you needing a refresher, it's safe to say that teen sex plays a major role in the plot.
But I think my favorite e-mail came from someone asking about the cover model (who was showing no cleavage and very little, well, anything). The letter writer said the model looked like a long-lost friend, and wanted the model's contact information.
I told her that I could not help her. Of course, I could have said the same thing to the aforementioned complainers.
