Chalk up WHLD, the homegrown liberal talk radio station and Air America Radio affiliate at 1270 AM, as yet another left wing Buffalo media outlet which has determined The BEAST to be unfit for public consumption.

The story goes like this: we were at the 'Peace has no Borders event at Kleinhan's Music Hall, whose only saving grace was a bar in the lobby. I was on my second Cuba Libre already and the thing hadn't even started yet. I was standing in the back of the auditorium watching people file in when my BEAST cohorts Ian Murphy and Nick Sorrenti ran up, visibly excited. They had an idea. They were going to accost channel 2 anchor Ron Plants and ask him a rapid burst of five comically arbitrary questions, bolting a quickly as they came. Nick ran the questions he had written down by me while Murphy ran to the front row and nabbed BEAST photographer Lukia Costello.

The questions were suitably ridiculous: 'Are you Ron Plants? What do you like best about being Ron Plants? If you weren't Ron Plants, who would you be? Have you ever killed a man?

'I need one more, Sorrenti said. 'What do you think?I smiled. 'Sounds funny. Who's Ron Plants?
But they were already off. I watched as they buzzed Plants, snapping pictures and generally abusing the unprepared local newsman's innocence. It looked funny to me.

As Ian later told me, Plants had asked, pre-interview, what media outlet he was with. On the spot, knowing better than to answer truthfully, he had fibbed that he worked for WHLD, even producing a WHLD bumper sticker he had been handed in the lobby as his credentials (never mind that Nick was writing Plants' responses down in a notepad, or that Lukia was taking pictures; the sticker, identical to scores of others being doled out for free not a hundred feet away, was enough for Plants to believe they were radio correspondents). Upon gathering himself after the bizarre interview, Plants found Murphy and demanded to be told 'what context the interview would be placed in, and Ian told him the truth: he had been the victim of a BEAST hit-and-run.

Plants was not amused. He scolded Murphy about journalistic ethics and misrepresentation. He kept shouting 'You can quote me on that! Murphy wasn't exactly apologetic. Incensed, Plants sought out a valid WHLD employee and exposed our subterfuge to him. His name was Jerome.