Jacob Grier

The last Slant published under the successful and puppy-filled reign of Meredith Gray came out today. I got the lead with this report about left-wing internal conflict, “Green Power Initiative Countered with Black Power Initiative.” This one has the most “WTF?” ending of anything I’ve ever written. It may be a little too out there.

Behind the scenes story: During this weekend’s Slant production we were interrupted by a guy coming into the office to talk about some business. I didn’t have any idea who the guy was. In fact, my first thought was that he was there to fix the phone (which wasn’t even broken, but never mind). As it turned out, he was sort of a VIP of the student body. It took me awhile to figure this out though, and by the time I did his obvious sense of self-importance and political way of talking had put him on my bad side.

Well, after the business was taken care of he decided to introduce himself to the entire office, that being the political thing to do. He began with “You all obviously know who I am. So, who are you?” That was too much. I responded in a friendly voice, “Actually, no. I have no idea who you are.” And hell, it was true for most of the time he was in there. When he finally realized I wasn’t joking, he introduced himself to me and I introduced myself to him as Jacob and it was a good moment.

Then our managing editor did a round of introductions. “This is Colin, our editor for next year. This is Tim, he writes for us and does a British column for The Hustler. This is Jacob, he was editor of The Torch last year…” At which point Mr. VIP interrupts with, “Oh, you’re Jacob Grier. I read The Torch all the time.”

And suddenly I felt like an ass.