Sometimes publicists won’t take “unsubscribe” for an answer. Washington Post music critic Tim Page was so eager to get off the email list for former crack user and current DC Mayor Marion Barry that he wrote an email to a Barry aide that may have verged on the inappropriate:

Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding? I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose.

To be fair to Page, Marion Barry overdosing on crack has very little to do with his opera beat.

Page, who had requested to be taken off Barry's email list before, has apologized for the email, calling it “the stupidest thing I've done in 30 years in journalism." The Washington Post has taken “appropriate internal action” for the email. Page is taking a previously scheduled four-month leave from the Post beginning January 1.

Barry said that private email to his aide amounted to “character assassination,” and then followed up with "around the nation, it's almost open season on black people."

So by Barry's conflation, Page referencing his former crack habit is just like leaving a noose on the steps of City Hall.