DAZED AND CONFUSED, ALL RIGHT

"Dazed and Confused" actor (and blogger) Wiley Wiggins has a comment on the suit against Universal Pictures and Richard Linklater two posts down that's worth expanding on:

These guys are really wrapped up in believing that the characters in the movie are "them", and not that Rick just used a couple of last names that stuck in his head from childhood. Seems like they're actually kind of secretly thrilled by the idea.

I was really dismayed about that quote of mine that they used. I didn't "tell" the Daily Texan anything. They scraped my blog for a story. When the Washington Post uses a college newspaper that is using Google to get info for a story, it's time to write the whole thing off. I just hope these lunatics don't try to subpoena me for making fun of them.

Obviously Wiggins isn't a disinterested party, but his take sounds very plausible. I'm sure Slater, Wooderson and "Pink" Floyd are having a great time with the attention they're getting. In that Post article, their thrill doesn't sound all that secretive.

He's also right on the second point -- about UT-Austin's Daily Texan misrepresenting his communication with them -- and it relates to a point I recently made about journalistic laziness. But it's worse than that. I found the original Daily Texan article, which claims the quotes from Wiggins were in an "e-mail" to them. But all the quotes attributed to him are to be found right here on his blog. Way to go Daily Texan, and way to go Andrew Tran, writer of the story in question. One can forgive the Washington Post's Peter Carlson for not digging deeper, but Tran should know the difference between a "blog" and an "e-mail."

You know, this is how Jayson Blair started. I look forward to Mr. Tran's future misrepresentations.

P.S. -- Via Wiggins' blog, this is one of the most inspired concept blogs I've ever seen. I think it's worth a bookmark.