Inside Track Interview

As everybody who reads the Stool knows, it’s rare that we get the opportunity to conduct a real interview.   Therefore, I’m excited to announce that I had the chance to sit down with the lovely ladies of the Inside Track last week.    Yup, El Presidente visited with Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa to find out what life is like for the authors of Boston’s most popular gossip column. They’re my personal favorite writers in the city.

Barstool - Ok, first of all ladies, thanks for sitting down with me.  I guess my first question is do you get a lot of interview requests?

Track - No, not really.   If we do we usually get them from BU students.  They have a good journalism school over there and they all want to do what we do.  Plus, we’re both alums.

Barstool – So it’s us and BU kids.  Nice! How long have you guys been doing the Inside Track for?

Track - We took it over in 1992.   It started as a half page and we just focused on local people in the beginning.   Boston was a much more exciting place back when we started it.  We had Bill Weld as Governor who was crazy.   We had guys like Cam Neely.    Now we have to cover more national celebrities because we have less to work with in Boston.  There are fewer characters.   We have Ernie Boch Jr. and that’s pretty much it.

(At this point I found out that my tape recorder wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work so we took a 10 minute break while Laura was kind enough to fix it for me.  As a side note, nothing screams “big time” like not being able to figure out your own tape recorder)

Barstool – I love Ernie Boch Jr.   If you’re reading this Ernie, we’d love for you to advertise with us.   Ok, so where do you get all your national stories?

Track - We search the different blogs probably a lot like you do.    You’ve got to be careful because some blogs like PerezHilton.com are usually wrong.   We check all the big ones like Drudge Report, Gawker, Defamer and sites like that.  We have an assistant (Erin) who does that for us.  That’s her job.

Barstool - So are you interested in the people your covering?  For example, my girlfriend reads every single thing about Paris Hilton.   She just can’t get enough of her.  It’s like she’s addicted to it.   Are you guys the same way?

Track – Not really.  We prefer the local stuff.   We actually had a sit down strike to stop writing about Angelina Jolie.  You definitely get sick of writing about the same people over and over. You begin to hate them.  But at the same time you’ve got to give the people what you want.   Although truth be told when the last Vanity Fair came out you can be damn sure we were looking at pictures of Suri.

Barstool - I heard that Suri was really Chris Klein’s baby.

Track – Really, we hadn’t heard that one.

Barstool – Yeah, that’s the rumor on the gossip black market. By the way did I hear you correctly when you said you only have one assistant?   How many people total do you have working for you?

Track - Just three.  It’s all smoke and mirrors.  

Barstool – Wow.   That reminds me a lot of us.  Make ‘em think you’re strong where you’re weak.  Have you guys ever thought of doing your own blog?

Track - Eventually we’ll probably end up doing that but right now we just don’t have the time because it’s a ton of work just to do the two pages for the paper.  If we did the blog all day it would pretty much kill us.  People don’t realize how hard it is to constantly update a blog.

Barstool - Oh, trust me, I believe you.  We have our own blog and it takes forever to keep it updated.  And people still have the balls to complain when we don’t have like a million blogs posted every ten seconds.   I still can’t believe you guys only have 3 people!  How is that possible? I’ve heard rumors that the Inside Track is the most popular part of the Herald.   Is this true?

Track - Oh, that’s absolutely true! (laughing)   No, seriously it’s us and it’s sports that sells the paper.   If you look everyday at the Herald website you can see what people are reading the most and I assume what people are reading on the website is what they’re reading in the paper and it’s always us and sports.    It’s us and sports driving circulation and selling papers.

Barstool – Ok, so how many calls and emails do you get for people dropping tips and dirt stuff like that?

Track - We get a fair amount, but we’d always like more.   We get almost a dozen or so good ones a day, but we always want people to send more.  I mean we have people who are eating dinner at Mistral text messaging us that they see David Ortiz and his wife.  We love that type of stuff.   That’s terrific.   

Barstool – Speaking of text messaging and emails here is an example of a real email that was sent to us.  I’m curious what you guys would have done with it had it been sent to you;

“My buddy DJ Tanno spins at Saint.  A week ago Friday Coco (Crisp) came in.  He ended up leaving with one of Tanno’s girlfriend’s friends.  A girl who a month earlier took Josh Beckett home.   Saturday the Sox game was moved up from 7pm to 1pm because of forecasted rain.  The girl dropped Coco of at the park before the game and swears the two of them were up all night having sex and he did not sleep at all.  He went 0-4.”

Track - I love it!  Why didn’t you use it?  The only way we’d use that with Coco’s name is if the girl who claimed to have sex with Coco would give us her name and go on the record saying she had sex with Coco Crisp last night.   Then we’d call the Red Sox and say Jane Doe claims she was having sex with Coco last night and he went 0-4.  What does he have to say about that?  Now if we couldn’t get the girl to go on the record we’d use it in the Naked City.  Regardless, you should send those emails right over to us!  

Barstool - The only reason we didn’t print that email was because of the timing of it.   We got it late on Friday and we don’t write anything during the weekend so we just forgot about it.  But we’d never try to confirm a story like that with the girl.   People just accept that we have no credibility to begin with so it doesn’t matter what we write.  At least that’s what I tell myself.   Anyway, speaking of the Naked City that’s the one thing that you guys do that drives me nuts because I have no idea who you guys are talking about.   What is the deal with that?

Track - Yup, the stories from the Naked City are unconfirmable stories. But at the same time we do get them from sources that we trust.   If we get a wacky story from somebody who we don’t know who just calls out of the blue we won’t use that at all.   But if we get a call from somebody we trust or somebody like DJ Tanno who gives a detailed message saying “I saw Coco Crisp making out in the corner of so and so bar,” we’ll use it.   The tricky part with stuff like that is Coco is married so if we’re wrong he can sue us for a lot of money.    So that enters the picture too.  The more scandalous the story the more vague we’ll try and be.  If somebody calls us and says Josh Beckett is making out in the corner, fine, he’s single but if somebody calls for Coco it’s a different story.  Also, we’d rather talk to our tipsters than just get emails.  I mean if you talk to somebody and there is somebody giggling in the background it’s usually false. 

Barstool - So have you guys been sued then?

Track - No.

Barstool - Really?  How’s that possible?   We’ve been sued for all sorts of things already.  

Track – Well, that’s because you admit you’re not credible!

Barstool - Ya, I guess so. What about grudges?  Do people hold grudges against you guys?  Any threats?

Track – Yes.  But we try to do things in a funny way and give people a fair shake.   I mean if we’re going to go out and really toast somebody, we call them and say “Hey, look this is what we got, what do you want to say about it?” So we try to be fair about it so I don’t think the grudges people have against us our as nasty as some of the other grudges against other media members.  

Barstool – Personally, I think it’s a joke that people hold grudges against media kingpins like you guys and us.  Take for instance the John Dennis voicemail thing.    WEEI got so mad at us for putting that on our website, but you know that if it was anybody else they would have been playing that voicemail over and over and over again.

Track –Well, we loved the John Dennis thing!

Barstool - How would you rank that on a scale of 1-10 on things that you guys get sent to you?

Track - I’d give it about an 8.  It had all the qualities you look for in great gossip.  It was somebody well known in an embarrassing situation with taped evidence. Did you guys get that from Rutillo, Rudillo, Russillo?

Barstool – Actually, no. One of our readers sent it to us.  Nobody believes that but that’s really how it happened.  Ok, if you could get great gossip on anybody in Boston who would it be?

Track - Tom Brady but he gives his nothing.  We give him agita.

Barstool - Do you guys ever get frustrated doing the gossip bit in Boston as opposed to cities like NY or LA where there are tons of celebrities and more to write about?

Track - I really wouldn’t want to do it in NY or LA.   It’s kind of fun here.  I mean if we were in NY or LA what would do?   Follow Paris Hilton around to the bars?  I don’t want to do that. I’d rather come up with our own bizarre take or twist on what’s going on in this city which is a hell of a lot more fun than watching skinny girls go by in the rope line.   Another thing is when celebrities come to town like The Rock we’ll be on him like white on rice or Ben for Gone Baby Gone.  

Barstool – What do you guys think about reality TV stars?  I feel like Boston is the capital of reality TV?  Where do you rank them on the pantheon of Boston celebrities?

Track - Low.  D list, no that’s the E list!  I’m sure they’re nice guys and they are like Brian Worth and Gilligan (Shawn Manning), but as far as celebrities go, they don’t rank at all.

Barstool – Ok, let me try and wrap this up with a few last questions.  Is there anything totally off limits that you won’t write about or is anything fair game?

Track - We’ll pretty much put anything in the Naked City. And we’ll use names whenever there is public record of an incident taking place (police report, restraining orders, divorce papers, etc).

Barstool – So in cases like the Derek Lowe divorce you guys have no problem mentioning his name, obviously.  Do you guys ever feel guilty about anything you write?

Track - My feeling on this is if they don’t feel guilty, should I feel guilty?   If Derek Lowe cheated on his wife am supposed to feel bad about writing about it?   I do kind of feel bad if kids are involved, but again if there is public record and divorce papers and his wife is suing him like Derek Lowe then you got to do what you got to do.

Barstool - Do you guys love doing what you do?

Track- Of course we do.  Like you said earlier, it beats a real job.   We’re just going to enjoy the ride because you never know how long it’s going to last.

Barstool – Well, I think you guys do a great job.  And I appreciate you sitting down with me today.   Hopefully we’ll be involved in a scandal soon that you guys can write about.