Hey Tony,

Congratulations on the new gig! Since the Gawker team can't help but feel a little responsible for the events that lead up to your predecessor's dismissal (you know, "all that crap"), we though it might be a nice gesture to write you a little welcome note and help you understand our city. First: the streets run one way, the avenues the other. Also, a handy mnemonic: Even streets run East! We kid! That's not the real sort of advice you need.

In any event, in the less-than-24-hours since your appointment has been announced, you've gone from being a "half-Mexican kid from L.A. without New York experience" to a mohawked "LA punk attending shows at CBGB and the Peppermint Lounge" who went to Columbia. So you've already got the New Yorker's gift for self-reinvention down. Still, here are a couple of things that might help you to deal with your new job and the surly employees you'll be working with.

• Sadly, both CBGB and the, uh, "Pep Lounge" are long gone. Get Tricia Romano to show you around; she'll help you avoid the cameras.
  
• Sex in this city is almost as perverse as what you found in South Florida. Even folks with C.P. get some here. Not married people, though.
  
• There are many different ways to assemble a diverse pool of staff. If you're on a tight budget, there are still options!
  
• Today's intern is tomorrow's media critic. Literally!
  
• Greg Tate? Black guy.
  
• New Yorkers love them some TV from eighty years ago. We want to know what's happening on the set of "King of Queens" these days. Is it still the same rollicking coke-orgy-fuckfest it was during the first season?
  
• Try and get Tristan Taormino's uncle to write a piece. That may go a way towards reestablishing the lit cred the paper lost when it fired the books staff.
  
• Don't stick your hand in those red boxes on the corner; that's where tramps pee!
  
• In case you hadn't heard, a lot of old people were retired a while back. Probably best not to mention it.
  
• Um, yeah.
  
• The L train will seem remarkably familiar to you.
  
• If Kansas City was your Fallujah, make New York your Abu Ghraib! Don't just go "scorched-earth on the place"; take some of the more intransigent staff members and shove glow sticks up their asses. That'll make the rest of them fear and respect you.
  
• There are no lights in the night sky, so don't worry about the UFOs.
  
• Make three envelopes.

  Again, welcome aboard! Let's have a drink in month from now, when they've brought in a transgendered, mixed-race EIC and you're on your way back to Broward!

  Best, etc.,
  Gawker

  Tony Ortega Named Village Voice Editor [VV]
  New Voice Editor Ortega: "Why Would I Hesitate?" [NYO]
  Who's the Boss? [Alt-Weekly Death Watch]
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