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Rachel A. Pugh
A diehard fan of Shark Week, I have watched the ominous creatures for about eight hours a week every year for God knows how many years. I watched before all the hype and educated myself on sharks and their behavior. Now, Shark Week is bigger than ever with tons of promotional advertising, celebrity hosts and back-to-back episodes to give you even more hours of shark time. Yet when I tuned in last night to see what I thought would be a new episode, I was highly disappointed to see a repeat. A repeat already? The same episode that aired Sunday night aired again last night. I know that redundancy seems to be the new trend with the networks, but I’ve always considered Shark Week to be above the network rage and a more educated hour of television. Et tu, Shark Week? Et tu?
As general manager of the Weekender, I would like to take the time to thank you, our readers and advertisers for another year of success. The first rule of management is to understand that you are only as good as your team. And as our team at the Weekender understands, our jobs as managers of our own specific job duties, relies heavily on you. For we understand that just like a manager of a company, we essentially are only as good as all of you.
Here’s why. Here at the Weekender, we work very hard at exceeding expectations. We work until the job gets done, not when the clock tells us it should be. We try new things and take some risks such as introducing new features like Wingman, Who Is, Fantasy Ref, and Dish. We reinvent ourselves by ways such as a new look to our Model and Man of the Week and the rebirth of the ever popular, Tell Us. We work hard at scoring exclusive interviews with celebrities, interviews you cannot read in any other local weekly paper. And we continue to interact with our audience by creating in-paper contests and attending local events while creating our own community fundraisers and parties. We do these things because it our customers who are priority. Those customers are you.
We receive phone calls and emails from some of you who love our work and others who vehemently hate it. Those accolades fuel us to continue to work. The criticism fuels us to continue to work harder. And it is that feedback, good or bad that lets us know we have your attention. Understand this, you also have ours.
The Weekender is your paper. It is your guide to entertainment. It is your showcase of local talent. It is your bragging rights to NEPA and why you know this is a great place to call home. We strive to erase the “there’s nothing to do in NEPA” mentality because we know, as well as you, that simply remains untrue. Our hometown is rich in arts and culture and has a philanthropic spirit unlike no other area. That message continues to be top of mind among our staff. This is why our readers remain our number one priority. It is you who contribute to our communities. It is you who give us pages upon pages to write about each week. It is you who run local businesses and grace our pages with numerous advertisements week after week. And for all of this, we remain grateful.
The Weekender is only as good as all of you, our loyal readers and business owners. Thanks for making us pretty damn great.
Here’s to you, NEPA for helping to make 2009 and the last decade a success for the Weekender. And here’s to continuing our joined efforts for years of success upon us.
Cheers, Rachel A. Pugh
We're used to the overly intoxicated, uber- arrogant music celebs walking on stage to present an award and barely being able to read the teleprompter. These train wrecks we've become accustomed to witnessing. But we’ve entered a whole new world of obnoxious stunts after experiencing MTV’s latest VMA segment Sunday night.
Forget the Rhapsody commercials plugging a musician directly after the musician receives her award, making us aware that everything is for sale and a shameless plug. Forget the ridiculous staged music performance on a subway, packaged as though it was an organic scenario. Forget the forgettable generic opening speech made by the falsely eloquent Madonna about the King of Pop, no the human being, no the King of Pop…whichever she ultimately decided on and informing us that Michael Jackson’s music made us feel like we could “fly”, a vanilla throw away statement at best. And, if you can, forget the horrible performance by the sexually frustrated host, Russell Brand who couldn’t refrain from talking about his penis and getting lucky hour after hour, or at least that’s what we think he was referring to during his on stage screaming emcee duties.
Even with all the clowns competing for ringleader of the circus, an all time low was definitely hit when the self righteous Kanye West jumped on stage during Taylor Swifts acceptance speech, grabbed the mic from her, and announced that really Beyonce’s video was the best. Poor taste is a sin but a constant allowance of vindictive behavior is a crime. This is too many times MTV. Shut Kanye West up by kicking him off the invite list next year. We’re not impressed. We’re not surprised. We’re disgusted. Enough is enough, Kanye. Hang your false sense of entitlement up. It’s weighing you down to the bottom of the barrel.
Tell me if you’ve seen this, eggs near a convenient store’s register. I’ve seen candy bars, Laffy Taffy, even greeting cards, but I’ve never seen hard boiled eggs. My sister has been working in Long Island and informed me that she keeps seeing hard boiled eggs at convenient stores. I thought she must be seeing things so she sent me this picture to prove it. Have you seen this? If so, would you purchase a hard boiled egg for a quick snack as you paid for your gas? I’m on the fence. I do love eggs.
As I was changing after work one evening, I had my TV on in my bedroom simply as background noise. I was not invested in the TV program but rather turned it on and allowed what ever channel that was on last to play.
As I prepared to get into some comfortable clothes, I found myself frozen, listening to what I thought might be a joke. The channel was on one of those gossip shows, Extra or Entertainment Tonight, who knows, they’re all the same. Regardless, they were flashing photos of celebrities who have gained weight (as if gaining weight isn’t a hurtful experience all in itself) and exclaiming how alarming the now heavy set celebrity has become. A woman from a gossip rag was being interviewed on the show and she was explaining her job at her magazine. She was a weight watcher. No, not like the folks at the national reputable weight loss center, but rather a person who watches celebrities’ weight. If a star suddenly loses weight, she reports it. If a celeb starts to put on a few pounds, she calls that in too. I found this to be one of the most pathetic and disturbing professions I have ever heard of.
I’d like to see this woman’s resume: Objective: “Seeking an editorial position in which I can maintain my deplorable personality while administering superficial tongue-in-cheek catch phrases in hopes to trigger an eating disorder within a young female. Experience: a valueless lifetime of shameful behavior and unethical decision making to hide my insecurities and stomp my journalistic integrity.”
Mam, you’re hired. Soon you’ll be promoted to senior shallow management where you’ll just hand deliver psychological diseases to young women. Congratulations. I hope their parents front you their bills.
About the Author
Rachel A. Pugh, a graduate of Penn State University with a B.A. in communications and a minor in theatre, came to the Weekender in 2000 as a Marketing/Promotions Associate. She was then made an Advertising Sales Account Executive and went on later to become Senior Advertising Sales Account Executive, Advertising Sales Team Leader, Sales and Marketing Manager, and the position she holds currently, Weekender General Manager and fashion columnist.
Rachel also serves as the Vice President of Marketing for the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company, overseeing the marketing of company initiatives and events.
A graduate of Leadership Lackawanna, class of 2005, some of her community involvement includes: Board for the Greater Wilkes-Barre Association for the Blind, Executive Board for the Domestic Violence Service Center, committee member for The American Cancer Society’s Endure for a Cure, a board member of the Wilkes-Barre YMCA and a member of the Board of Directors for the United Way of Wyoming Valley.