From: Wayne Werning [redacted]
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 4:03 PM
Subject: subscription
To: —--@gawker.com

Hello,

Please advise how our school can cancel its subscription to US
MAGAZINE so that we do not receive any more copies. Your publication
has become offensive.

Thanking you in advance,

Orange Center Elementary School
3530 S. Cherry Ave.
Fresno, Ca 93706

my friends and i went to the NY Mag sponsored highbrown backyard bbq today.
and it was a total failure. first of all it was in some gross parking lot on the east river, so there goes the "highbrow" part of it. second, i dont think they actually bbq'd anything. it was supposed to be a bbq with some sort of tacos, fruit salad, mexican corn, peach cobbler, and beer—tickets were $25 and sold out a few days ago, so you think they would know how many people were there. it was from 1-5pm, we got there just before 3 they were out of: beer, corn, peach cobbler, utensils. so essentially we paid 25 bucks for a stupid cold taco and a couple cubes of watermelon. CJ (from top chef) was there—drinking bourbon and apologizing, "they didn't tell us there were going to be 600 people here" and attempted to give my friend an impromptu soup out of some taco sauce (gross, but they didn't have spoons anyway). i dont even know if that band played either, they were blasting some sort of awful dance music through blown speakers. now i'm stuck with a year subscription of ny mag that i dont want, ugh.

The actors at work (Tucker character in white t-shirt):

Tucker and a rapt crowd:

Drew Curtis' experience:

I spent three days on set, here's my take on things.

Tucker is completely out of control. As he explained it to me, he's
spent so much of his life not having to report to anyone that it's
killing him having to work with other people. Judging from the
agitation I'm seeing, that's an understatement. The first day I was
there, Tucker and Nils (the other screenwriter guy, who's really the
brains behind the operation) were in a heated argument in the corner. I
asked Nils what it was about, he tried to downplay it. But from what I
saw personally, this is a normal occurrence for Tucker.

Nils tells me that the actor playing Tucker, Matt, who really seems to
have his shit together, is the complete opposite of Tucker (super nice
guy, etc etc). I've spoken with Matt a few times and he really couldn't
be nicer to a guy who's only got about 3 lines. Bob Gosse, the director,
is the brains behind it and seems to butt heads with Tucker pretty much
constantly.

Tucker apparently thinks that the actor playing him has to actually be
him in real life. Or something. I have no idea what the deal is. To
me it looks like Matt's doing a fantastic job. I think Tucker's just a
control freak. He interferes constantly with the acting, the directing,
even sometimes the lighting. He doesn't know shit about any of this
stuff.

The sad thing is apart from him this is a really good group, who all
seem to have their shit together. My previous experience with filming
is limited to a few episodes of FarkTV that I was in. That was pretty
much 6 guys and a handicam. There's a full film crew out here, easily
100 folks working just on logistics. I was kinda surprised, I figured I
was gonna see 6 guys and a handicam. It's a full blown production.

The actors are doing a great job with the material. And speaking of
which, I read the previous articles about the movie on Gawker. The
script does read pretty lame, but the main actors are delivering it
extremely well. It all sounds very natural. I think also that this
pretty much isn't a movie the Gawker demo is going to like anyhow.
NASCAR-loving fart-joking middle America will eat this stuff up. If
this succeeds it will be in spite of Tucker and not because of him.

[Previous Tucker Max coverage. Please note the relative balance of this post.]

...he ... approaches women on the street and lays what he must assume is an irresistible line on them: I'm a director! I will put you in my next movie! I will make you a star!

...today I was returning from a yoga class in my neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights. I was heavily laden with grocery bags and a yoga mat when a schlubby, sweaty guy fell in step with me. It was him! He even had what I'm sure was a rather musty copy of Interview with him [in which he was featured]...

...this was the SECOND time I have been approached by him. (The first time was about three years ago on the Upper West Side.)

Surely, this signals some sort of a tipping point for Mr. Tobak. Could he have finally exhausted the inventory of gullible women in Manhattan necessitating a foray across the river to Brooklyn? Where will he go next? Queens? New Jersey?

OK but so maybe, tipster, you're just Toback's type, and he has a bad memory, and that's why he's hit on you a couple of times? And what happened during this grocery walk that was so awful? Who is to say how many women, exactly, Toback is hitting on?

Our tipster is certainly under the impression it is MANY.

Are there other instances out there, or is this woman's case isolated? Our ears are open: tips@gawker.com.

In the meantime, ladies, if you see this guy, remember: He might be able to cast you alongside Robert Downey Junior. Or at least, uh, Mike Tyson (yay?).

UPDATE: Tipster: "He came onto my ex at a bodega with the same line described, although that must have been about five years ago."

(Added mention of the Spy article to the top.)

UPDATE: "JT tried to pick me up about 5 years ago on the Upper West Side with exactly the same lines. He said he was making a movie about tennis players with Matt Damon and I would be perfect for it. He asked me to come to his edit room. He even showed me a dog-eared picture of himself on a magazine. He showed me an excerpt from a book that claimed he was one of the great Lotharios of all time. He said that he was the real writer of Bugsy and Warren Beatty didn't give him enough credit. He told me about all his wild drug use and claimed he wanted me to see him have an orgasm by just looking into his eyes."

1. The Case Of The Clean Scissors

[The following is an email sent out to employees at a library]:

Hello [library],

I just wanted to pass along a little reminder – not that anyone needs it – regarding our policy on offering the use of library scissors to the public (based on a little experience I had yesterday).

In short, our poicy is: if a patron asks to use scissors, please tell them that they may use them only at the (Ref. or Circ.) Desk. Never, ever, ever let them take the scissors away from the Ref. or Circ. Desk.

The importance of this policy came home to me yesterday: a man (one of our “regulars” – the fellow whom we’ve had to call the ambulance for several times recently) asked me if he could use the scissors, and I said he could use them only at the Desk. He asked me several times if he could take them for a few minutes, even offered to leave I.D., and I continued to say no.

Finally, I asked him why he needed to take them with him, and it turned out that he wanted to go to the Men’s room and cut the tip of a catheter bag that he was wearing so he could drain it.

I told him no, we can’t let him use our scissors for something that involves bodily functions, but that I would call the rescue squad to help him if he liked. He declined.

I don’t know what he did about his catheter bag.

And, yes, in over 20 years of library work, this is a first for me.

Thanks.

2. The Case Of The Non-Hobo

Just a couple of months ago this happened:

I have Hodgkins Lymphoma and am undergoing chemotherapy treatments. I've been holding up really well and still work full time. However, a medication given to me in addition to chemo made me very suddenly ill out of nowhere. I held it together enough to call my brother to pick me up, since I knew I would throw up all over the el or a taxicab (I work at Michigan & Wacker in downtown Chicago.) My boss caught me leaving and in a very trying-to-be-helpful way insisted on waiting with me on the corner for my brother to drive up.

So, I'm standing there, with my very well-intentioned boss, trying to make conversation, until I said, "Excuse me" turned away, and vomited all over the sidewalk, right next to the entrance where tourists go for boat tours on the river. A boatload of tourists was coming up the stairs and were completely disgusted, naturally. I shouted, 'I'm not drunk, I have cancer! Repeat, I am not a hobo!" and continued to vomit. Then I had to stand next to my puddle with my boss, who was too embarassed/shocked to say anything or move, until my brother FINALLY pulled up and I jumped into his car.

When I went back to work a couple of days later, my boss accidentally spilled some coffee on my desk, and I said, "don't worry, I've spilled worse in front of you!"

3. The Case Of The Unfair Race

i was an intern at a nonprofit art space in houston many, many years ago. during a fundraiser all the staff were wearing shirts with the name of the space, and an artist i barely knew came up to me and asked me where he could buy one. i told him they were not for sale, that you had to work at the place to get one, so he jokingly said "then i'm going to take yours." i blurted out "try and catch me!" which was when i remembered he had a prosthetic leg and walked on crutches. i immediately apologized. he was cool about it, but he was clearly not amused. i can still feel my face heat up when i remember the story.

[From commenter unutterable]

4. The Case Of The Xanax Fantasy

This is my favorite work story EVER. So, my friend gets a new job and on his first week has to fly from NY to Minneapolis for a mtg - and this guy hates to fly. So, he squeezes into his middle seat, pops a xanax and passes out. Next thing he knows he wakes himself up in a bit of a contorted position, almost moaning, and realizes he either had a wet dream at the age of 31, or indeed was jerking off in his sleep. His suit pants are a mess, his seat mates won't look at him and the flight attendants are hysterical. He can only surmise that his actions were, uh, obvious. One more hour in the flight, with turbulence, so no getting out of his seat to clean up. They land, and by this time his pants have dried, and we all know what that looks/feels like. He has to spend the rest of the day in crunchy stained pants with his briefcase in front of him. This happened 4 years ago - I cannot get on a plane without imagining this happening to every sleeping person I see.

[From commenter trustynails]

5. The Case Of The A-List Genitalia:

I used to work as the assistant to a very famous, award-winning A-list actor and his family. During my brief, but relatively long tenure (a marathon run in the celebrity assistant world), I experienced a number of awkward incidents. Some involved bodily fluids (delicious), some involved confusing his actor friends with other actors, which of course is a huge no-no (oh well, they were old)... But, I'll save those stories for my book. The most awkward experience I had while at the job, however, involved my fingers, the tits of my boss's mom, a towel, and a camera. Sound sexy and scandalous? It wasn't. It was as awkward as fucking shit, dude.

It all happened one summer day, the last day of camp for my boss's boys. The actor in question wanted me to take some pictures of the boys to add to the warehouse of manufactured memories this busy dad keeps of his family. I obliged (duh). So, as I was waiting to go get the boys from camp, I heard my boss shout at me from his office. He needed to get me his precious camera and also wanted to be sure I understood how to use it.

While waiting outside of his office, the door to which was slightly ajar, I decided to take a closer look at one of the paintings in the hall. One that hung right outside the door to his office. It was a gestural painting, line-based, of a woman. Think: Caveman-like. It was painted by my boss's deceased father, and the woman is presumably my boss's mother. Having been an art student, I was fascinated by the composition of the piece. I could easily tell by the strokes (heh, strokes) of the brush used that the artist began the image at the nipple of each breast. From that point, a line swirled around and created the breast and then went on to finish each side of the body, respectively. I was fascinated that the artist chose the breasts as the starting point, because artists usually draw people by beginning with the feature they find most important to the rendering an accurate image. Most will start with the head or the eyes if drawing a human, or will sketch the outline of a body or form. This guy started with the boobs. "What a fucking perv! How interesting!" I thought as I began to trace one of the breasts with my finger tips, just to get a sense of the artist's process (no really, I swear).

And just as I was doing that, the door swung open, and there was my boss. He must have just been in the shower, because he was only in a towel. My fingers became paralyzed, hovering over the left teet of my boss's mom. Completely stunned, my boss dropped his camera, and as he reacted, his towel dropped as well. Being the genius that I naturally am, I decided to try and catch the towel, but I caught a lot more than that.

And there I stood: My boss's junk in one hand and the painted breast of his mother at my fingertips. Mortifying.

Highlights from PlumTV's interview are above, the full video is here. Note that the presence of the photos on one of the women's cameras is treated as evidence the picture was not Photoshopped. In fact, with proper formatting it's likely possibly to copy any image to a memory card and load it onto a phone. Just saying!

Here's the NEW PHOTO of the creature shown in the segment:

From the mailbag:

One corespondent believes the creature to be a model created by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini to promote "some company or movie or whatever." A sample of her work:

More evidence for the raccoon theory from an anonymous emailer! Not sure why the text cuts off so abruptly.

Also, it's still not a sea turtle.

And this thing has been haunting people for YEARS, in the demon shadows of wooded night:

My friend Sachit, Alex and myself can swear that we saw this creature one night around 1 o’clock in the morning during the summer. At first we thought it was just two people making out, then possibly a empty trash bin rolling in the wind on it’s side but then we saw a shadow of a creature that immediately jetted away from us up the shoreline. It was fast and couldn’t of been anything simple like a dog or a deer. We told this story to a lot of our friends and family over the past two years and every time they see our serious faces and feel our concerns everybody listened to our story and tells us how the hair on the back of their necks stand up every time. My friend Sachit was the first one to email this picture to me with the subject of the email saying “they found our monster”. I forwarded it to my brother and father and my brother told me to email someone about it. Well, here I am emailing you. Damn, I’m glad I could get that off my chest. Now my story can only be interesting to the people that heard it before this picture came about. Very cool.

More Photoshops! From an email tipster:

From Pope John Peeps II in the comments:

Be careful out there everyone. This monster had to come from somewhere — or SOME THING!

[Plum TV via Guest of a Guest]

UPDATE: From Newsday, a new photo of apparently the same carcass:

The picture-taker, Ryan O'Shea of Brooklyn, told the paper:

"Everybody I showed her pictures to said it looks like a dead dog," O'Shea said.

"But looking at the claws, and at the teeth in the front, it looked like it could be something else, something vicious."

It was relatively small, roughly 2 1/2 to 3 feet long, he said.

"I kept thinking, 'Boy, I hope its mother isn't around."

The mystery only deepens!

Maybe, though, you could have summarized all of your tips by using the very sage advice that kid gave you in 2nd grade, when the teacher had you guys write an advice column. Each of you wrote one letter asking for advice and each of you answered one letter. You had a sad letter about basically how you were too hip for 2nd grade, you were telling all sorts of funny jokes and nobody got them. And you wanted to know how to make those kids understand.

And the kid who answered your letter wrote:

Alex,
you should tell funnier jokes.

To this day, I laugh and laugh and laugh when I think of that, and how mad you were about it.

And I never made bad jokes again.

I've become accustomed to Gawker's racism [really? -ed] — from articles tagging black rappers with "HNIC" [that's the name of Prodigy's album! From an item about Prodigy! -ed] to videos of kids playing and adults having conversations with each other in Chicago accompanied by the headlines "Gun Warfare!" and "Drug Dealing." [Well, those were maybe a bit more questionable. We're charitable today! -ed] Sadly, I continue to return for the occasionally funny, entertaining and/or informative posts (which are becoming fewer and farther between).

We're so sorry for your inability to stop reading our site.

However, your coverage of the New Yorker Obama cover has been nothing short of appalling. The bloggers who put up the posts killed themselves trying to argue that no matter how offensive the images, artistic and editorial freedom justified any offense to the public or to the Obamas themselves. They even went so far as to add a third post lamenting the imprisonment of a Dutch cartoonist for posting sickening and degrading images of Muslims that lacked any political value and served no purpose other than to nauseate the viewer. When your bloggers are bending over backwards to defend someone whose images clearly demonstrate that he barely sees Muslim people as human, it is clear that Gawker has missed the entire point of the outrage over the Obama cover. This isn't about the New Yorker's right to print anything or the cartoonist's right to draw anything. It's about whether the New Yorker cover adds anything meaningful to the ongoing conversation about the Presidential candidates. It doesn't.

Let's call the images what they are: cookie cutter racist stereotypes pasted together onto a page. In the endless round of commentary, the Gawker bloggers and commenters debated back and forth on whether the images should be withheld simply out of fear that they would be misinterpreted by "dumb" red-state Americans who don't subscribe to the New Yorker. Aside from a single commenter (American Dreamer) not a singe individual recognized that the images themselves — a caricature of black and muslim people as armed, be-afroed and anti-American — are offensive and insulting. Whether intentionally or not, the cartoon mocks blacks and muslims just as much as it does right-wingers. Why not face the fact that the cover is not cutting edge or avant-garde, but actually reproduces the same old, tired stereotypes that have been around for decades? Taking a racist image and putting it on liberal magazine does not suddenly make it not racist. It's sad that Gawker isn't willing to acknowledge that fact in any way. It's even more sad that only one person in the Gawker "community" is aware enough to see this.

The absurdity of this is demonstrated by how different the blog posts and comments are on Gawker, as compared with Racialicious, Daily Kos, Jezebel and the Huffington Post, among others. Take a look and quit your snarky self-congratulatory statements about editorial freedom. When you've sunk so low that you have to justify your position by defending an image of Jesus sodomizing Mohammed, it's just embarassing. That is all.

This is the kind of condescending bullshit that does actually encourage us to agree with the idiots who think the covers are a problem because everyone else in America won't get them. The rightness of our position—that if people refuse to understand obvious satire because they don't trust anyone else to understand obvious satire then we might as well all pack it up and go home because there's no intelligent way to contribute to the National Conversation anymore, at all—is demonstrated by how different the blog posts and comments are on Gawker, as compared with Racialicious, Daily Kos, Jezebel and the Huffington Post, among others. No offense to those sites (well, no offense to Racialicious and Jezebel), but yes, we have a different position, which is that there is somewhere out there still a nation of adults. Adults who understand how irony, absurdity, and, yes, context work.

The entire point is that while we don't find anything edifying or amusing about an image of Jesus sodomizing Mohammed (except inasmuch as an image of Jesus sodomizing anyone is inherently hilarious), we shouldn't be throwing crackpots who draw such an image in jail. And furthermore anyone who'd equate said cartoon (provocation with no point other than provocation) with the New Yorker's cover (provocation in the name of getting you to think about your response to the image) in a blanket condemnation of both is dense and dangerous.

If the image is offensive, it's because the smears and whispers the image illustrates are offensive, and that is the point of illustrating all of them at one—both to call attention to these "dark imaginings," in Remnick's nice little phrase, and, by exaggerating them, to defang them, slightly. And the commentariat's outright refusal to get it is disingenuous and utterly unsurprising.

But in the interests of mending fences or building bridges or whatever, we've commissioned this totally inoffensive and not at all racist photoshop of Barack Obama, in a library, wearing a Harvard shirt, that we will use from now on. We wanted him maybe playing polo, waving a French flag (Happy Bastille Day!), and drinking a latte with his pinkie extended, but this will have to do, for now.

Photoshop Credit: Steven Dressler

> Dear xxxx,

>

> ABC News wants YOU to report from the future

>

> In an unprecedented television and internet event,

> ABC News is you asking you to help create a story

> that has yet to unfold. What will our world look

> like in one hundred years if we don't save our

> troubled planet?

>

> This fall, in a dramatic 2-hour television special,

> the world's brightest minds will take us on a

> journey through the next century to reveal how the

> "perfect storm" of population growth, resource

> depletion and climate change could destabilize our

> world.

>

> As part of the broadcast, we are launching a massive

> online event inviting creative minds across the

> globe to create short video reports that depict the

> future. Using predictions from top experts, we will

> feed detailed briefings from the years 2015, 2050

> and 2100 – and we're asking you to imagine your

> future world!

>

> We will choose submissions to include in an evolving

> web-based story, and we will also select some of the

> most compelling videos to appear in our prime time

> ABC News special: Earth 2100, airing this fall.

> This is a unique chance to join others around the

> world in shedding light on issues facing our future.

> FOR MORE ABOUT HOW TO GET INVOLVED VISIT

>

http://redir.targetx.com/cgi-bin/email/redir.cgi?id=0000519798-66616232

>

> NOTE: Please note that the Earth Institute is not a

> sponsor of this event. The posting of events by the

> Earth Institute does not constitute an endorsement

> of the event.

>

>

> Contact: Columbia Univ. School of Int'l & Public

> Affairs, 420 West 118th Street, New York, NY 10027

Brilliant: Unbound by the constraints of actual events or verifiable data, or the costs of having to travel or fact check or whatever, ABC's "reporters" will be able to deliver the sorts of cheap emotional thrills normally reserved for fearmongering video propagandaists. Which, come to think of it, is sort of what they'll become. By design.

I think I'll skip the actual broadcast (scheduled for this fall) and just watch the inevitable takedowns on Daily Show, Fox News, etc.

[Earth 2100]

From an associate of Rupert Murdoch:

Smeared Timesman Tim Arango is a "class act." News Corp. has no animus towards him; in fact, Murdoch likes him. What Fox News did to Arango was "pretty reprehensible."

Some with firsthand experience working alongside Briganti weighed in:

[Even] though Irena is the she-devil, try [her boss] Brian Lewis. Irena is his hatchet woman...Brian trained Irena. She started as his media relations coordinator and after 10 years of hatchet woman work has managed to land the VP position. Either way, their offices are right across eachother and whatever goes on, Brian is right behind it.

I can confirm that she is crazier than a bitch on crack...As you may have noticed, Fox will always— always— use the "disgruntled employee" defense when a former staffer comes out against the company. It's predictable. They work hard to build a trail of disgruntlement...
[For a good example of an ex-Fox New PR staffer being slammed, look up what happened to former Fox News publicist Paul Schur after he left the network—he paid the price for speaking out, rightfully or not]

More on the Ailes- Briganti quote pipeline:

many, most or all of the witty zingers that pour out of the Fox News disinformation operation come from Roger himself. Look at all the zingers over the years: they're all stylistically of a piece, whether Brian gave them before his promotion, whether they come from Irina, or anybody else over there permitted to speak with outsiders. No coincidence. They're all Ailesisms, right from his mouth. The "PR" team doesn't free lance. They follow directives.

Members of the media who have experienced the trademark Briganti charm:

Let me give you some information about that cunt. She would give us a few tips. If you didn't you use the story, she'd call up and yell. Why the fuck didn't you use the story? She badmouthed Keith Kelly to everyone. Called him decrepit, an asshole. Why? She's disturbingly insane, out of whack. I can't be attached to this in any shape or form. Or she'll get me.

she has this really offputtingly sweet little-girl voice. from hearing it alone, I'd think she'd be a cute, petite sorority-looking girl of about 23...I haven't heard her really lose her cool. that's part of her style — her way is more to act exasperated with you, like "I could care less about you and your stupid blog, but just so you know, if you write that story, everyone's going to see what a dipshit you are."

We deal with many many publicists as you can imagine, and her behavior still stands out as one of the absolute craziest...her name is always preceded by crazy as in it's "crazy irena briganti" again.

From a prominent business journalist:

[You're] completely right about irena thing at fox. mad, hostile, aggressive, always tries to go above the heads of reporters etc. an unexplored angle is how much the news corp people such as gary ginsberg hate her too. but because she comes under roger ailes she is inviolable

We also heard that Fox News had its own vendetta against a New York tabloid: "Apparently [Briganti] and/or brian lewis froze out the Daily News for like three years. wouldn't return a call from anyone there." A source at the Daily News confirms it:

Yes, we were on their shit list for a while. Not certain of the details. But I remember they basically wouldn't send us any of their "scoops" to hype, not that we did a lot of that to begin with.

I've had some run ins with them in the past. Bill O'Reilly's flak tried to make my life hell because I did something dastardly like refer to him as a "conservative." Apparently he prefers to be known as an "independent."

Even juicier, though, we hear that the Daily News is not the only tabloid Briganti has gone up against. One would think that the New York Post would have a News Corp-mandated friendship with Fox News, but it's not necessarily so. Earlier this year, the Post ran a small item about Bill O'Reilly's cameras ambushing Rosie O'Donnell at a book signing event. When the piece ran, the whole room overheard Briganti making call after call to Post gossip writers and editors, "screaming" about the negative O'Reilly coverage and demanding that someone be fired (no one was). So Briganti's bad reputation now extends even into the corridor's of the single friendliest newspaper in America towards Fox News.

THE BRIGANTI DEFENDERS:

I was Brian Lewis' assistant in the Fox News Media Relations department for a full year. While I was there I witnessed an aggressive, exciting, and successful public relations strategy that kept Fox News on top despite all of its crises, "talent," and attacks. Throughout my time there, my direct supervisors were Brian, Irena, and Erica. Since all of this has dealt mainly with Irena, I will simply say that she is by far one of the best bosses I have ever had. Not only is Irena great at what she does (and who doesn't want their boss to be competent?) but she is efficient, smart, and funny.

I went to Columbia with Irena Briganti (MS in Strategic Communications). I did at least one class project with her and always found her to be polite, professional and with none of the snarkiness you attribute to her. I am guessing she is just reflecting the wishes of her bosses and is doing it exceptionally well. Good for her.

You Don't Understand PR
An ad-hominem attack against anyone* who truthfully reports bad things about you is never inappropriate nor unprofessional.
* beat that accidental alliteration, bitch**
** like, in the nice way of saying "bitch"
Fox News Rocks!!!

Why I want to be the next President of the United States.

I believe in the people of this country and in their desire to see us the smartest and the leading nation to the world when it comes to education, protecting our environment and natural resources.

I want to stand on the steps of the Capitol Building and yell into it "Hey, Get To Work You Lazy Do Nothings" every day till they finally get to serving those that put them into those offices. I want to raise some hell in every branch of our government, and I have a very loud voice, let me put it to work for you.

I guaranty I will fix every government agency within the fist 3 months of taking office and recover hundreds of millions of dollars they have been wasting and stealing from all of us. I'll push through a 35% raise for our teachers and change our public schools from 12 grades to 16, every child/person will get a 4 year degree through our public school system from now on.

I love to give orders, I hate to be given orders, that's why I left the Army "Signal Core" in 1982. I have worked in almost every field except Air Conditioning. I self taught myself computer programming for a project I was working on for protecting children on-line.

I have always been a leader never a follower, I enjoy budgeting and locating dollars that are being wasted and re-allocating them. I follow a principle of doing the job right the first time and never having to re-do it.

I strongly believe in ones rights to bear arms and agree those that use them to commit crimes deserve maximum sentences. I feel every state must have the same laws and the same punishments for the same type of crime, no more example punishments to make a point.

I feel all women should be able to decide to have a child aborted, but feel it would be better, to have someone pay their expenses, and adopt the child. Preserving life is one of gods commandments I'd like to see everyone think about it before aborting that child.

I have had 3 children aborted by women I dated. It does hurt. I have a son I haven't seen nor paid child support for in 17 years.

I love to fix things, lucky for me there are millions of things here that need fixing, I'm ready to get started on them now.

I want to let everyone in our government know this, be warned, im not one of the guys, I will investigate everyone and I will find all wrong doings for the American people and I will throw you out on your ass. We will have a new government that 100% serves the citizens of the United States of America with respect and dignity and those around the world that are abused and starving. We will again be the greatest country the world has ever known, but first, we have lots of fixing to do here and I will see all of it gets done now.

I've got the guts to run, do you have the guts to let me try to fix what needs done? Yes or No?

If you would like to know more about me give me a call and lets talk. I would love to have your vote for President.

Leonard F. Grundy

The ranks of Glamour dating bloggers are nothing if not distinguished. There was tardblogger Alyssa Shelasky, whose dim-witted adventures in wannabe social climbing were amply documented here. Then there was dudeblogger Mike Cherico, fired for being a womanizing jerk who sparked an insurrection in the Glamour.com comments. Now there's Erin Meanley, pictured, who just debuted with a post about being 29 and not having a husband, already. Sigh. An even more ominous sign: In an email to friends, reproduced after the jump, Meanley explains that, now that she's a dating blogger, "I need some help with pimpage. Set me up!" Well, at least she's being honest, somewhere, about the transactional aspect of her "dating." We've redacted Meanley's email address, but no doubt she'll be combing the comments here for top-shelf prospective mates, so feel free to make like a pimp there.

(Photo via Mediabistro/Steve Burke.)

Obviously you know by now that yes, it's true, our little weekly that could has folded. I was part of the editorial staff, one of maybe 30, not counting advertising, production, photo, art, and other assorted staffers. Sorry I didn't email earlier but I've been having a pity party with my friends and a few bottles of wine and a big dose of "this economy sucks, sorry you have no job now." It's basically awesome. This morning I was worried about there being enough ice in the machine for an iced coffee and by 4:30 I was wondering how much unemployment actually pays out. The only good thing to be said is that Hearst is a great place to work for because as of now they seem to actually care about our fates. Cathie Black, the indomitable example of a woman, came to tell us the news herself. I just want to say that this isn't a magazine that had been counting the tolls until the final death knell, we have dedicated readers, an amazing staff and inspiring EIC in Susan Toepfer, and I actually enjoyed coming to work every day. It all sounds corny and too good to be true but in a world jaded and morally bankrupt, I felt good about doing my shit every day. Anyway, I'm rambling, but that's what you do I guess when you have no job and you like wine. Anyway Hearst is apparently going to try their best to get us situated. Good luck to all of us out there in the magazine world, it's a shit place to live and some of us happen to be in the toilet. Keep me anonymous just for the fun of it, and in case I do win the lottery and end up back at Hearst. Oh yeah and got a job for me? I'm pretty cute and I like words.

[Not sent by Cathie Black or Susan Toepfer, surprisingly!]

I wanted to contact you today and see if Gawker would be able to run a story about a hate crime that occurred early Wednesday morning at the trendy NYC nightclub 1 Oak which is owned by Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano (dated Ashley Olsen, and Jamie Lynn Siegler) -

Early Wednesday morning (June 18th, 2008) at approximately 2:30AM - two individuals were attacked by a man inside 1 OAK. and were called "faggots" - victim number 1 had to be rushed to the hospital due to massive blood loss. Victim number 2 had no visible wounds at the time.

Victim number 1's friend wanted to call 911, however the two owners of the nightclub, Sartiano and Akiva, told the friend NOT TO. 911 was called regardless. The club owners then wanted to rush the victim into a car when they knew the ambulance was coming. A minute goes by and the attacker was able to walk right out of the club, without security questioning or anyone's interference, even after the victim's friend screamed out "that's the guy!"

The attacker turns out to be someone that frequents the club often and knew the doorman and the staff, since he was able to walk right into the club and said hello to the doorman in the beginning of the night. When questioned, the owners claimed to not know who the attacker was, and provided no information.

Victim number 1 ended up with 5 stitches, a broken nose, busted upper and lower lips, and lacerations around the face. Victim number 2 suffered from acute migraines due to an attack to the back of the head. A police report was filed the next day. However the club owners did not seem concerned, and did not supply the name of the attacker and did not phone the victim to follow up on the progress or the status.

The owners of the club did not seem to care for what happened within their club, and only was concerned that the police was not informed and no press comes out of this, they wanted to retain their public image.

From 1 Oak's PR firm, Shadow PR:

Unfortunately, the situation that occurred at 1OAK was out of the establishment's control. 1OAK is cooperating fully with the necessary parties and hope the matter is resolved immediately. This inappropriate behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

[Interior pic via Men.Style.com]

Helmut Kohl clone staff 100% controlling all their clones spreading around the world, they are very accurate with that, some of them are still NAZI type disciplined and mind controlled clones, so be careful get close with clones you will be controlled as well. Think wise..

Apparently those clones are very actively shown on your website. This is just a warning, because original person is not happy about those images and video, rumors and etc., in that way it would be really nice if you try slow down that ''actress'' career development on your website, original Scarlett's parents will really appreciated that. Please do that, do not wait until FBI agent give you a call with questions. Please remember that original family did not authorize any activity with stolen biological materials, no matter what form it was created, it all need to be return back to original family control to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Original Scarlett is not engage!
Her close friend Serg G.

P.S.
H.R. 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on February 5, 2003. After discussion, it was passed on February 27 by a vote of 241-155. It now moves on to the Senate for consideration. This bill makes it unlawful for any person or entity to perform or participate in human cloning, or to ship or receive embryos produced by human cloning. The penalties are imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines of $1 million or more.
These now join other nations as diverse as Norway, Australia, and Germany, which had already added cloning for any purpose to their criminal code. And in Germany where it carries a penalty of five years imprisonment they know a thing or two about unethical science.

Celebrity gynecologist and stand-up comic has been hired by GAWKER to blog about everything from vaginas to videos. Pinks review of spoiled lobster knuckles at Marys Fish Camp had far more credibility than Frank Bruni. Dr Pink has been examing "fish" at his Hollywood gynecological practice for 26 years. He knows who's been packed in ice and who is covering up their freshness with Vera Wang perfume. This doctors uncanny search for the truth is appealing to most readers. They are simply falling asleep with most verbiage and want to read something that has no direction and no purpose. His column is cotton candy, pure retarded thought. As noted in his column he writes without a formula ,without any journalistic background he just ejaculates copy. This train wreck style makes readers wonder where will the next sentence take them. Its like watching a 30 minute show and its over too quick. Its like a quick fuck. Dr Pink takes nothing seriously so Nick Denton is considering making the column into a pop culture comic strip. There has been talk of it being syndicated which would create even more revenue for the Gawker Group. Again this is a fluid story there has been interest in Pink at Vanity Fair, Playboy and FHM. He has been working with Howard Stern and writing jokes for Joan Rivers since 1994. His penis has made many cameos in movies about race horses. He's sick of being a doctor. He's tired of comics getting laughs at the bits he came up with even he has been compensated tremendously. Dr Pink wants to sit in his bathrobe and tell stories. They are all crazy and they are all true. His one man play "you remind me of my mom because you taste like brisket" and CUTTERS THE MUSICAL have gotten positive reviews by critics with Downs Syndrome Start spreading the news. Start spreading your legs. Let PINK continue to keep GAWKER in the RED. Dr Rand Pink. Stand-Up Comic. Gynecologist.

Wake up at Gansevoort breakfast includes water, cereal and fresh fruit. Simply perfect. Everyone that served had something that I call sunshine...a nice smile. Lunch at Four Seasons was a small filet and I asked for a small salad but add a ton of shrimp on it. No problem. Perfect lunch and perfect service. For dinner I took my $2500 " date" from Zurich to Papaya King. We brought the food back to the hotel and I watched Marta stick it up her Swiss twat.The only thing Bruni would review would be the hot dog not how Marta prepared it and served it to herself. No this isn't a Playboy or Forum story its my life. ANYWAYS. Enough with dancing mushrooms and asparagus parfaits. I like fine food and great presentation but if you travel all the time meat loaf,potato salad or a good BLT hits the spot. Momofuku can blow me. If I can get an appointment for my daughter to see possibly one of the top brain cancer doctors in the world but I can't get into this noodle joint they should change their name to Momofuku kaka.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

So at last night's New Yorker's For Children: A Fool's Fete ball at the Mandarin Oriental, there was a silent auction as there usually is at these kinds of things. One of the items being bid on was a gym membership to Equinox which started at $450. The first bid was by a guy named Bronson Van Wyck. You can read about him here and here.

After that PR lady Susan Shin and a guy named Stuart Sussman also bid on the membership but they had crossed out their bids for some reason. The mystery was easy to solve. It was Van Wyck's doing. According to another bidder who was about to outbid Van Wyck, as he was putting down his bid, Van Wyck came up to him and whispered, "Hey, why don't we just cross out all these bids and then we'll just get the membership on the cheap." The counter bidder looked at him with disgust and said, "No, you've got to be kidding me. This is for charity." and refused. So the price went up and Van Wyck, perhaps to mask his crumminess, eventually won it, for $1050.

[pic via Patrick McMullan/ Fashion Week Daily]

Gawker,

A woman standing in line in front of me at Hale & Hearty salads just ordered the single most disgusting combination of ingredients imaginable: peas, beets, hard boiled egg, chicken (egg & chicken together! horror!), goat cheese, raisins, garbanzo beans.

Please let your readers and fellow salad eaters know that certain combinations of ingredients are inherently gross and will NOT be tolerated.

She was way younger than I was and I'd normally cruise for chicks my own age at the Ft. Myer Officer's Club, but one night I'd been eating raw clams and doing shooters in a bar on M Street with a Navy buddy back from the Gulf and there she was, wearing a blue polka dot top, khaki skirt and little ballet flats, with her hair pulled back in one of those headbands all the girls were wearing back then. I was almost old enough to be her father, but lucky enough not to be and I bought her a drink as I chatted her up.

It was a very scary time back then, less than a year after 9/11, with anthrax in mailboxes and rumors galore. Girls like her on the make usually went for the political types; newly minted PhD White House Fellows, congressional staffers, or assistant deputy secretaries of whatever. But, we had just finished pounding the crap out of Afghanistan, the Taliban were on the run, and military types like me had a temporary edge over the power-wonk monkeys, at least for awhile.

She had wanted to go home with me that night, but I was forecasting ammunition requirements for the upcoming invasion and had to give a 6am briefing in Crystal City the next morning so I put her off. Those were serious times. We traded numbers though and I told her I'd call her for Friday. I figured she was probably dating some guy on the Hoya football squad and I'd never see her again, but I was wrong.

At first I felt a little creepy with somebody that young, but you only live once and given where I might end up it might not be for that long, so I figured what the hell as long as I didn't get her pregnant. No wife for me, especially a college student child-bride, so I made sure to be careful. I was making good money, but not like those beltway bandits and Internet gurus, and I didn't want to screw it all up. Still, she was hot, if kind of flighty, and my buddies were envious, especially the married ones. Not that I brought her around much.

One weekend, right before I was due to ship out overseas to my next assignment, the weather was nice and we headed out to Mount Vernon, the plantation home of our first president, George Washington. It's a 500 acre estate and National Historic Landmark right on the Potomac, with the mansion house, four different gardens, forest trail and working farm, and is a very pleasant place to spend the afternoon. Julia enjoyed touring the house and gardens, but didn't want to spend much time in the museum.

As we strolled outside, I spotted the tomb of our first president and his wife Martha and we wandered over to pay our respects before heading back to DC. This was the "new" brick tomb built in 1831 to replace the original burial vault, but the old vault was still there with large iron doors sealing the entrance. Sort of as a joke I tried to open the doors and was quite surprised when I found the latch moved easily and the door swung outwards!

There was nothing inside, just a dirt floor and the air was a trifle musty, but there were no bugs or spider webs and we quickly stepped inside. Julia was reluctant at first, but I started kissing her and soon she responded. I knew this might be our last weekend together and since I might never return this time I didn't use a condom. She was too excited to notice and if fate would have me leave this earth, I wanted to leave my child behind.

I shipped out the next Monday and we kept in touch with email and traded a few actual letters. Julia didn't get pregnant as far as I know, and eventually the letters and email stopped coming. When I got back to the States I found she had moved on to somebody far more important and we didn't stay in touch. Later, I heard she had moved to New York and a buddy said he saw her on TV once, but I never did. I'll never forget that time in the Tomb though.

This is a true story, I swear.

Barack sort of frowned as I looked at him and I arched one eyebrow with the unspoken question, trying hard to channel John Belushi. He started to shake his head no, but then shrugged and said, "Ah, what the hell," and I shook out enough for a couple more. Neither of us had credit cards and back then a driver's license was too thin and flimsy, so I took a ruler and started chopping it up with the sharp metal edge. It was pretty clean shit and there were some pure chunks I had to crush with the flat side of the ruler, but finally I had four fat rails set up in parallel lines, like some quantum double-slit experiment gone horribly wrong.

I took a five dollar bill from my wallet and showed it to him, Lincoln-side up, saying "Emancipation, baby," as I rolled it into a tooter and handed it over. He rolled his eyes in disgust, but took the tooter nonetheless, and snorted up the two nearest lines. Barack banged the end of the tooter on the table, picked up the remaining dust with the tip of his finger, rubbed it on his gums, and handed the tooter over to me with a smile.

I tooted up my share and unfurled the bill, cleaned the edges on my jeans and put it back in my wallet. If you want to know what it smells like, just take out your money and sniff. About half of all US currency in circulation is contaminated like this, with an average of 16 micrograms per bill. Not enough to get you high, but enough to smell for sure. Just like Coca-Cola from a fresh bottle of syrup. But, I digress.

"So, give me a smoke," I said to him and he handed me the pack. He lit another one too and we sat back and drew deep while we waited for the stuff to kick in. I could feel the shit burn the back of my throat as it crawled down like the drip-drip-drip of super delegates and the world started to look pretty crisp. Barack, who was usually quiet until he had something of substance to say, started to quickly speak in that earnest and well-intentioned way that all too often deteriorates into babble.

He kept talking about this chick named Michelle that he'd met in Chicago, about how hot she was, how smart and tight, and how she wanted to change the world. The words were coming from him like bullets. You know how it is when people get going like this, and I couldn't get a word in edgewise. I was about to tell him to shut the fuck up already, but finally he got this strange look on his face and said, "Hey, can we cut out a couple more?"

"Sure," I replied, and took out the little baggie. I was on scholarship and though I had no credit I had few money worries, so again I laid out four fat ones, took the same bill from my wallet, and handed him the freshly rolled tooter. He hoovered his down, handed me the bill and I did the same. I wiped the table clean, put away the bill and said, "Let's blow this place and get a drink."

As we walked to the bar, I thought to myself that it was a good thing Barack was focused on this chick. Just a few days ago, we'd crashed the Hasty Pudding Theatrical where Kevin Costner was getting an award. Not that we gave a shit. Normally we wouldn't screw with that undergrad crap, but there was free food and Barack got the idea to dress up like Whitney Houston so people would think he was one of the performers. That tool Mo Rocca was the writer that year and he sneaked us in.

We actually got to meet Costner and even though there were plenty of guys in drag singing, he was pretty taken with Barack. It turned out Costner was about to make The Bodyguard and Barack was pretty flattered with all the attention. It made me wonder that he liked it too much, so as we approached the bar I was relieved when Barack couldn't stop talking about Michelle. But after awhile I just wanted him to shut up.

This is a true story, I swear.

"As a newly minted officer fresh from OCS, I was first in the door of the C-130 and stood in the freezing blast of the turboprops for a full minute as I waited for the light to turn green and the Go command from the Jumpmaster. A partial moon allowed me to see the drop zone approaching about 1000 feet below and the lights of Columbus, Georgia, fade into the distance beyond. The chute, reserve, weapons and kit bags made a heavy burden, but my heart lightened as I remembered this would be the last jump before graduation and the beginning of a long awaited leave and trip home to see my girl.

"I saw the green light and heard a faint 'Go!' from the Jumpmaster over the roar of the engines, and tucked my head down, grabbed my reserve, and leaped into the darkness. "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand," I yelled to myself as I waited for the opening shock of the chute. The shock came, but as I looked up to check the canopy all I could see were stars and I was being pummeled with hurricane-force winds. My chute had caught on the tail and instead of floating gently to the ground I was being dragged through the air at more than a hundred and twenty miles an hour! I tried to cut away and deploy my reserve, but the capewells were frozen somehow and I was stuck. I swayed through the air back and forth behind the aircraft, coming perilously close to the fuselage. Unless I could cut away clean, I faced certain death.

"Then, in one of the most distinguishing acts of valor I have ever witnessed, Hillary Clinton emerged from the jump door and crawled feet first down the fuselage toward the tail with no regard whatever for her own safety. She wore a chute, but even still, one slip and she would hurtle into the tail and almost certainly buy the farm. She reached the vertical stabilizer at the rear of the aircraft, took the knife strapped to her web gear, and starting sawing away at the tangled shroud lines of my chute. One by one, they snapped as she cut them and I finally fell away from the aircraft. I pulled the D-handle on my reserve and was rewarded with a satisfying jolt and pop that signaled the blessed opening of the canopy. Half a minute later, I kissed the sweet earth and said a silent prayer for the brave woman who had saved me. I wondered what had happened to her?

"Instead of crawling back to the door of the plane, Hillary had leaped after me and landed a few feet away seconds later. I popped out of my harness and ran to her, held her in my arms in a bearhug, and gave her the biggest kiss of her life. It was her courage and quick thinking that had saved both my life and the other men aboard the plane. I knew then that she was someone special. It was this selfless courage and unwavering strength of purpose that years later would pay off for her under enemy fire.

"This is a true story, I swear."

Morale has always been low here, but it's never been
lower, and the downcline (to quote our Treasury
secretary) is steepening.

The only reason there's been no mass exodus is because
the pay is good, nobody else is hiring, and the
economy is at the abyss.

Many magazines develop into factions. At Portfolio,
the factions are quite lopsided. It's every last
person at the magazine versus Joanne Lipman, Amy
Stevens, and Kyle Pope. (With new managing editor
Jacob Lewis, who came over from The New Yorker,
bewildered and privately neutral, but loyal to Joanne
because that's his job.)

There's nothing new about Joanne's infuriations.
What's troublesome is that Conde Nast allows them go
on and on and on. The only thing predictable about
Joanne Lipman is that nobody has a frigging clue what
she wants. She orders up one thing and condemns the
editors for delivering it. She can't explain her story
judgment, and no one knows whether that's because she
has none, or because her mind is so internally
confused that even she doesn't know what she is
thinking from day to day or hour to hour.

Worst of all: outside of finance and advertising, she
knows squat about business, and maybe finance and
advertising too. The result is a mess of a magazine.
What's it supposed to be? If the readers don't know,
and the advertisers don't know, it's because the staff
doesn't know, and if Joanne knows she's not doing a
very good job of explaining it.

It's all too bad because Portfolio could have been so
good. "The Vanity Fair of business magazines" is an
idea that sounded great to most of us who joined up
here. But the opportunity is being pissed away.

Joanne gave a speech a week or so ago in which she
revealed that after she left her first meeting with Si
Newhouse, before she was hired, she was so happy she
could have been hit by a truck. This was interpreted
here as a plea to Si not to throw her in front of that
truck now. (Her kids must have been pleased to hear
that she regards a lunch with Si as the highlight of
her life.)

People tell me that calls for Joanne's head will
ensure her continued tenure, because Si will dig in
his heels.

But Si, you're a smart business person. She's wrecking
your magazine. Talk to the staff, they'll tell you.
You need to do something about it, before it's too
late for everybody.