ask lloyd grove
A hearty thank you to Gawker guest editor
Lloyd Grove, who has somehow managed to keep from being incapacitated by envy during his brief tenure. Lloyd, who today filled a position once held by such luminaries as Greg Lindsay and Andrew Krucoff, has succeeded by any measure, and we'll happily welcome him back if his new gig at
James Truman's media company doesn't work out.
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lloyd grove
Submit your questions to
asklloyd@gawker.com.
What's the biggest mistake you made in an article during your tenure at the NYDN?
I've blocked most of them out of my memory. I do remember printing once that Stephen Sondheim wrote "A Chorus Line."
Why were you such a dick about the New York Press when they did that stupid Pope issue?
I was feeling the need to be outraged about something, and the "humor piece" concerning the funniest things about John Paul II's impending death was a perfect target. I didn't for a minute believe that the editor would be fired. Oh well.
I was wondering about the glamour factor. How much tail does the job description "gossip columnist" net these days, especially when some young starlet wannabe recognizes you at, say, Plumm?
I have never been to Plumm, and I can only stay for a few minutes at most of the other clubs before the primal scream inside my skull becomes louder than I can bear. As for the question of "how much tail," I like to think I'm too much of a gentleman to answer that. Why don't you pose it to A.J. Benza?
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lloyd grove
Submit your questions to
asklloyd@gawker.com.
What's your next step? And why didn't Mort re-up with you — what's the backstory?
I'll be in a position to tell you very soon about the next gig. As for Mr. Zuckerman, I knew when I took the job that not being re-upped was not only a possible but a likely outcome. Mort is obviously a brilliant businessman, and God bless him for keeping the
New York Daily News afloat, but he is not a "media baron" in the sense that Rupert Murdoch is. I was an impulse buy. Mort, whom I've known for years, spotted me at a party and decided he wanted me. He was a very persuasive suitor. But, if I can take the analogy to its gag-inducing conclusion, he's not a constant spouse. In my relatively short time at the
NYDN, I served under three editors in chief, three features managing editors, three different deputy publishers, etc. That's very high turnover at the top, in case my point isn't clear, and makes for a lot of abrupt strategic and tactical switches. In the end, with declining circulation and ad revenue — the bane of the newspaper business — Mort was looking to save money and I was a big-ticket item that could easily be dropped from the budget without too much disruption.
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lloyd grove
Submit your questions to
asklloyd@gawker.com. Continuing:
Who's the scariest motherfucker you've ever dealt with?
Well, it's not the unnamed studio head I mentioned in the
Los Angeles Times piece, telling me: "I'm the scariest motherfucker you'll ever have as an enemy in this town." And it's not Marty Singer, the celebrity lawyer who's always writing demand letters on behalf of Lindsay Lohan and the Olsen twins when not calling up and threatening to sue. I must say, if you scare easy, you should be writing obits, not doing a gossip column.
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lloyd grove
Let us begin.
Joining the ranks of the ghastly blogosphere, if even for a short time? I never thought I'd see the day.
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lloyd grove
Before we get started, I ran across
this amazing article about the gossip game in the
Los Angeles Times — blinding in its brilliance, profound in its insights, and yet richly textured and quite moving in its way.
Let me know what you think.
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lloyd grove
This past Monday saw the final
departure of
Lloyd Grove from his "Lowdown" gossip column at the
New York Daily news. But don't fret — the man's not dead, he's merely resting. And where better to rest than by way of a guest column on Gawker? One could certainly allow that we are "multimedia, with components of Internet and television and print media," which is how Grove described his next secret gig. We got all kinds of components. One of those components will be next week's very special episode, where Grove will answer questions regarding everything you ever wanted to know about the gossip business. How does one trudge through all this filth, day after day? When is it permissible to sleep with a source? What color is Mort Zuckerman's rainbow? Send your own queries to
asklloyd@gawker.com. He'll pick his favorites and respond on Monday. So be nice, and try not to stare.
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