[Sca-cooks] SCA media relations

[Jim Fox-Davis]

On Sunday, August 24, 2003, at 01:29 PM, Huette von Ahrens wrote:

> --- Tara Sersen Boroson <tara at kolaviv.com> wrote:
>
>> Have there in fact been bad stories about us?
>
>> -Magdalena
>>
>
> I have heard of two.  Not because of a reporter
> going to an event and dissing us, but because of
> the actions of others, one of whom happened to be
>
> a member of the SCA.
>
> 1) Some years back, Duke Aonghais dubh MacTarbh,
> hereafter known as Duck Fungus, committed a
> murder for hire, killing a woman and her baby.
> During his trial, IIRC, his lawyer tried to blame
> his violent behavior on the SCA. [His Grease's
> heritage is Sicilian.] This was written about in
> the Florida papers.  I would consider this very
> bad press.

For a more complete story of that set of events, check out a book 
entitled _The Wrong Man_, with an author by the last name of Davis (no 
relation).  The hard part of it was that they local sheriff's office 
coerced a confession out of the victim's mentally-challenged next-door 
neighbor, and it was nine years before the right man was caught, by 
which time he was busy being a teacher near Ft. Worth, Texas.  Also, 
the other SCA member, known to us as Hagar the Bear, had confessed, 
implicating Aonghais.

Yes, the attorney tried to implicate the SCA in his behavior, but then 
used people as character references who were -in- the SCA.
>
> 2) Also some years back, in Texas, a man sued the
> SCA and there was some negative press in the
> local Texas papers.
>
> There was another time that we could have had a
> bad showing, but the Caidan Kingdom Seneschal at
> that time managed to suppress it and later turn
> it into a reasonable showing.
>
> Many years ago, some of you might remember a TV
> show called "Real People".  Before the network
> approved the show for the Fall season, they put
> on a few shows during the summer to test their
> audience for this show.  During this time our
> Kingdom seneschal, Duke Armand de Sevigny, who
> mundanely is the Deputy District Attorney for
> Orange County,

Was.  He's now in private practice, I believe.

> was contacted by the show and
> asked if they could come and film us at one of
> our events.  His Grace told the show that they
> could come and film, but that he would not sign
> any releases allowing them to show their footage
> until they showed the footage to him first.  They
> came and filmed and later showed him their take
> on us.
> Apparently, from what Armand has said, they made
> us look like kooks and idiots.  So Armand refused
> to sign the permission form.
>
> Sometime later, after the show was put on the
> regular schedule, a new producer replaced the old
> one.  He came across the footage that had been
> shot and wondered why it had not been shown.
> After being told that permission had not been
> granted, the new producer called Armand and asked
> what it would take to get him to give permission
> to show the footage.  Armand said that they
> needed to reshoot and reedit the piece.  So they
> came to another event, shot more footage,
> reedited everything and gave a more positive take
> on our activities.  Armand liked it better,
> signed the permission forms and the show aired on
> primetime network TV.  I thought it was a tad
> cutesy, but then it wasn't all bad because they
> had a two second shot of me sitting and fanning
> myself supposedly watching the war.  The footage
> of me was shot at the first event and the war
> footage was from the second event which I wasn't
> even at!
> The wonders of editing!

Now -that's interesting to me, Huette.  May I clip it and use if for 
the Caidan History project?

Jared