"When I think about leaving, about people going, I think about the day of the trucks. The Day of the Trucks was when everything changed and I think even my hair turned into a new blonde and none of my clothes fit. Because everything was different. The Day of the Trucks was when a bunch of men with fat bellies and smelly skin walked up into my house and into my maidfriend Guadalupe's room and started taking all of her stuff. They had boxes and belts and weird little cupboards on wheels and they took everything away. Guadalupe's red lady lamp. Guadalupe's little beady rugs. Guadalupe's sad purple clothes. I was very confused and, because I was running around in my socks, I slipped and fell down. So I lay on the kitchen floor and made cries and whimpers until finally, hours and maybe days later, Guadalupe appeared in front of my eyes and said 'Meez Teenz, ju haff to gait up. Is no good to be lying on de floor like dat.' And my face was pink and puffy I think and I couldn't hear my favorite pigeons cooing on the window ledge and I told Guadalupe about the men with the trucks and she smiled or frowned or maybe something in between, a look like Mama gets when she talks about the 1970s and her friend Dill, and she said 'Oh Meez Teenzlee. I wanted to wait to tell ju mahself. Ju see... My daughter, she has baby now. So I move home. Back to my house in the yungle.'

And suddenly I was warm and cold, all at the same time. And I said No, No, Guadalupe. You can't go. Who will iron my dresses in the morningtime so they're warm when I'm eating my cereal? Who will take me in taxicabs to my clothes appointments and the handbags meetings? Who will test my perfume and braid my hair and sing her back home songs while we sit on the deck and watch the city be the city, the way we like to do? Who will do all those things? And Guadalupe's eyes started to look like rainy puddles and she said 'Meez Tinsley, ju can do all those things, for ju self!' And then she smiled and patted my head and made me some oatmeal. And for the next few days things were regular again. We went to see the ducks in the morning and looked at pretty pictures in the big stony building by the park in the afternoons and on the underground choo-choo which Guadalupe liked to ride she would sit with her ankles crossed and her purse in her lap and she would hum a song I knew I'd heard before but couldn't quite remember and she smelled like fruit and soap, but not fruity soap, like two different things, together on one Guadalupe.

The day before she left, Guadalupe was humming and doing her dusting and polishing and I was going to go to a party. And suddenly I had an idea that I'd never had before! Guadalupe!, I yelled in her ear. And she seemed scared but then she smiled and she said 'What ees it, Meez Teenz?' And I said I am going to a party and would you like to come. And then she got that smile/frown face again and her eyes were puddly and finally she said, like a frog was ribbiting in her throat, 'Jais. Jais, I would like that very much. But I mus get dressed.' After a while she came out of her little room that was mostly empty and she was wearing a long blue dress with sequins and little jewels hanging off it and her hair was big and sprayed and sort of purple but she looked very pretty in her Guadalupe way. I told her she looked nice and she smiled and said, quiet like a little breeze that comes in through the window, 'I haff been saving it.'

When we left we walked and walked and walked down the street with the cars beeping and the kids and the people in the street saying 'excuse me excuse me excuse me' over and over and over again. When we got tired of walking we got in a taxicab and told the driverman to keep going and going. Finally we got to a boat and we got on the boat and it went 'hoooo Hoooooooooo' and it splashed out into the water and then the captain said 'Gubbernors Island, everyone! Gubbernors Island.' So we got off to go talk to the gubbernor, but he wasn't there. Instead there was a concert. We were supposed to be at a party but the concert seemed nice and Guadalupe was clapping to the music so we decided to stay. And we watched the band play by the water until it got dark and above our heads there was a thicket of starlight and it was very pretty.

At the end there were fireworks, and everyone oohed and ahhed. Guadalupe was there in her nice blue dress smiling and clapping and she turned to me and she grabbed my hand and she said 'It ees a wonnerful thing, Meez Teenz. To be a person. It ees the mos wonnerful thing.' And even though sometimes I don't understand what she says because her accent is funny or she just says weird things, that night I knew exactly what she meant.

And the next day I woke up and the house was quiet and there was no smell of cakes or candies or warm dresses on the ironing board and I wore my slippers with the rubber bottoms into the kitchen so I wouldn't fall like Guadalupe had told me and on the counter there was a little envelope. I picked it up and it was addressed to me! My first mail! It said in big letters on the front 'For Miss Tinsley.' And when I opened it, a little locket fell out and there was a note. It was from Guadalupe. It said some nice things that are special and private and I won't tell you, but mostly it said goodbye and I Love You. And, I Will Miss You. And inside the locket was a picture of me and Guadalupe, smiling and waving, from the Day of the Zoo, when I'd met some gorillas and she'd told me about all the different kinds of animals they have where she is from. So I put the locket on and I thought about "I Will Miss You." And that morning I thought that maybe I'd never miss anyone so much.

But maybe you don't really need to miss anyone, hardly ever. Because I think about Guadalupe and I look at her locket, now that she has been gone for so long, and it is almost like she is here.

There aren't her smells and there aren't her little songs, but there is still my memory. Still my mind's pictures of a nice lady I knew once. A lady who was warm and kind. And that is a good thing to know. To know that you knew. This feeling of Guadalupe.

It is mine to know, forever."

Well, OK, I guess I have a few things to say, mostly by way of thanks and so longs. And what better way to end a Gawker career but with a listicle!

• Thanks to Chris Batty and the rest of the crack sales team who graciously invited me to the Gawker party way back in April of 2007, and didn't get mad when I eventually left them to sit at the editors' table. Special thanks to sales associate Nell Lawson, who happens to be my sister.
• Thanks to Alex and Hamilton and Sheila and Moe and Brett and Foster and Ian and Richard and Mike and Owen and John and Ryan and Anna and Dodai and Seth (and everyone else! the fleet of interns!) for being such capable and helpful colleagues. The amount of times I IMed Pareene alone when I first started, saying "I have no idea what I'm doing, please help," qualifies him for a teaching certificate, I'm fairly certain.
• Thanks to commenters! Omigosh, commenters! So fun, so smart, so annoying, so angry, so everything. Clearly my short time here has been shaped and defined by the commentariat, and I'll always wear that badge of dishonor proudly. A grateful individual nod to erstwhile KarenUhOh, who was an early advocate.
• Grazies to Emily Gould and Choire Sicha, who helped nudge me out of the commenter closet and into STARDOM.
• Gabriel Snyder is a great boss and editor—supportive and wise, quick with proper edits and just as quick to let 4,000 word television recaps actually get posted, untouched.
• And, yes, thanks to Nick Denton. For taking a chance on an unknown kid one rainy February day. Quite dramatically, but truthfully, he handed me a new life. So, thanks is maybe too small a word for that.

I love everyone else, too. Absolutely everyone! (Except you, you know who you are.) Fortunately I don't really have anything big or sweeping or conclusive to say about What Gawker Is or How We Blog Now. Really it's just been a fantastic (and fantastically weird) experience. To end it is the height of bittersweet. But, as Tony Kushner might say, the world only spins forward.

If you are still interested in reading what I have to say, specifically about television, you can find me on the gradually-revamping TV.com starting next Monday. Hope you'll come check it out when you're bored at work.

Thanks, sincerely, for spending some time with me. It's been a treat.

xo

Graden, who gave up his MTV Networks Music Group president title on Monday, in steering the network through its intense changeover from a music-based format to a platform for young adult reality programming, has been one of the major faces of the unscripted TV boom. So we have him to curse for Heidi and Spencer, but to thank for True Life. Graden also shepherded the creation of Logo, the country's first LGBT-themed television station, and was instrumental in helping Trey Parker and Matt Stone get South Park off the ground.

Variety reports that his position will not be filled as Viacom has become "top heavy" with executive positions.

Graden and Van Toffler, who's the president of all MTV Networks, co-wrote the departure memo which is cute and full of fun little pop shout-outs, including Britney Spears, Kanye, and the Jonas Brothers.

Subject: Message from Van and Brian

For more than a dozen years now, Brian and I have been each other's work spouses. That's a longer partnership than most unions, so it's only natural that this comes from both of us. Let me now step aside for a moment and let him go first. Brian….

If you look at the shows we have all created together – especially lately – you can feel a tangible fascination with people on the brink of their next great adventure in life. We have called it aspirational
television – capturing people at the moment of transformation into a bold new iteration of themselves. Well, over the last year, I woke up to the fact that I'm a character in my own personal reality show and
this is my time for that next transformation.

Last year, Trey Parker convinced me I could afford to replace my beat up, 20 year old "rental" piano, and helped me pick out an amazing Yamaha Grand. Last Saturday night in Los Angeles, I played 10 original songs on that piano, while a full cast of actor/singers brought Limbo – a musical I'm writing with friends – to life for 100 guests (I have a big living room).

I know you're shocked: a gay man who loves musicals.

Truth is, I'd never written a song in my life until a few years ago, and now, I'm arranging on Logic Pro almost every night when I should be sleeping. The point isn't that I think I'm the next Diane Warren – I'm not. The point is: no matter what any of us have done in life, there's always some new passion waiting to show us how to keep evolving — if we honor that call when we hear it.

I've had a very unusual ride. Though I've been in one place, MTV Networks, for 12 years, I've been afforded a series of sequential chapters, each completely unique — like getting a new "calling" every couple of years. First serving the TRL generation at MTV. Later loving up the 80's at VH1. Working then with CMT and various international channels, and 4 years ago, a personal triumph, launching LOGO. All of which says a lot about the dynamic nature of MTV Networks and Viacom.

For me, it's time to complement my television ambitions with some new passions already in motion - the writing of two books, making music, creating theater, speaking on subjects that matter to me, raising alpacas…okay, perhaps not all calls will be heeded right away. I have no idea if I possess any of these talents, but my friends who know me well know that these new adventures have been tapping my shoulder for a few years.

Television however remains my first love, and I'm already deep in conversations with MTV Networks about shaping a situation that would allow me to still play with you guys in new ways for years to come. At MTV, it's necessary to think like a 19 year old girl every day, which wasn't much of a reach for me (yes, I have a favorite Jonas); in my next chapter however, the dream is to pursue a wider array of ideas that intrigue me, borne more from the heart than a need to serve any particular demographic or brand.

Van says I have a somewhat freakish ability to toggle between business and creative, kinda like Parent Trap – only my Haley Mills are internal, and can run networks. As the portfolio of responsibilities broadened and the businesses got more complex, the creative left side of my brain started to feel like Hilary at the democratic convention — left out.

That said, let me be clear: for 12 years this has been the greatest job in the world, and I've loved every minute of it. The good times through the hard times; from Britney mesmerizing in Catholic school
girl uniform through Britney stupefying in her "Gimme More" performance to Britney yet again dominating the 2008 VMA's. Yes, I measure my career in "Britney's", don't we all?

Seriously, it's been a rush to not know where "job" ends and "Real World" begins. Nowhere else in the programming universe is the unexpected quite as routine as it's been here.

I'll spare you further recounting of years gone by, but let's just say: I have worked at a company brave enough to shut down MTV for 17 hours and run the names of hate crime victims; brave enough to launch an LGBT channel when others said it couldn't be done; even brave enough to cross Kanye West… but then smart enough to make up…fast. I know more brave things are ahead, certainly for the rest of this year, and most definitely beyond.

But I won't spare you this admission: I love all of you. Really, genuinely, you've created the most special culture and brands in the world. Fortunately, I won't even be saying farewell for a while, as Judy and Van have asked me to stay through 2009 and help facilitate a great transition, which I'm happy to do — but we felt it was right to let people know now that this next evolution was beginning to occur. Until then I still get to launch a few more shows, watch a few more VMA's get handed out, witness a millennial brand makeover at MTV, and watch Diva's return on VH1.

When I speak to college kids, they often ask me if I had a detailed career plan – as if that's possible in entertainment – but the truth is: I just get up every day and do things that make me happy. I work with people I love, I trust in my heart as much as my head and everything else follows.

My fondest wish is that you're able to do the same in the years to come.

Image via Getty

Yes, Heidi and Fleshbeard finally, for realsies, tied the knot. But first there was much sloshing and murmuring and yelling to be done. Because that's what this show has become (and maybe always was): stretched and tired looking blonde people yelling in echoing rooms, their lives piles of gum and sawdust, fine bits of gems, like glittery mist, strewn across the top. Has an American family lurched toward ruination with as much ferocious celerity as the Montag clan, now that they're all on camera, all saying wretched things at the same time? What the ma's and pa's of Crested Butte, CO must think of these once-normalish folks. Went to Hollywood and got all fancy and ugly. Went to Hollywood and got all sad.

It all began with Heidi talking to Fleshbeard's terrible sister Handbags, her hair sticking up in odd places. She's like Salacious Crumb, old Handbags is, and I wish someone would come and zap her so she'll stop gnawing on our eyes. But no one has, yet. Though, when Handbags balefully asked Heidi who her bridesmaid would be, her face fell a bit, and maybe she did kinda get zapped, right in the feelings, when she heard the answer. It would not be Handbags, instead it would be Holly. Because, as Heidi put it, "You know... Holly's been my sister my whole life." Oh really? She's been your sister for your entire life? That's fucking amazing. My sister and I have been siblings for about, what is it Nel, six months? A year, tops. It's great, but I wish it could have been this way my whole life. Oh well. Heidi's so lucky. Heidi also wants a swan wedding full of actual swans and "dripping with diamonds." Handbags said "That sounds really nice." Yes, it does. If you're getting married inside of a Russian debutante's jewelry box.

For his part, Fleshbeard continued on his Good Will tour. He had lunch with Brody, who outright laughed in Fleshbeard's fleshy, bearded face. He thinks his turnaround is all fake. Which it probably is. But Spencer pressed on, arranging a little date with Belinda, Heidi's terrible mother, who has really settled with eerie ease into her new role in front of the cameras. She's learned terms like "hitting your mark" and "call time" and now she feels ready to get some real meaty roles in the future. Like Doting Mom of Pregnant Heidi or Consoling Mom of Divorcing Heidi. Or best yet, because it's such a juicy part, Grieving Mom of Dead Heidi. So she and Fleshbeard made a rickety peace with one another, their LED hearts flashing on and off, on and off, on and off forever. All was ready for the big day, they just needed to get one final dress rehearsal in. And what do you do after the rehearsal? Why, you go to the rehearsal dinner.

There they all were—Holly and Mommy and Heidi and Fleshy and Handbags and Sky, the Brother Montag who is fresh-faced and seemed nice, what a shame that he'll probably soon be ruined as well—at some white restaurant for white people, and then Holly exploded. Holly caught herself up in some netting or she found a nick in the fabric of space time and began scratching at it like a scab or suddenly the magic of the Four Winds all struck her at the same time and she became sort of broken god. Whatever happened, she was slurry and drunk-seeming and decided to throw a potato at her poor brother Sky but instead she hit Heidi's brand new handbag and stained and ruined it forever. So there was much shrieking and hooting and braying and whining and Holly burst into tears while her mother Belinda comforted her and looked at the camera and tried to cheat out and she embraced this creature who had once come out of her body and was now basically a tall, weeping near-empty ATM machine. At the table Handbags shook her head, because she'd wanted to be maid of honor, because she hadn't been late to the thrown-together bridal shower that involved huge expensive champagne bottles and the soul-wrecking claim made by Heidi that she wanted four boys and no girls because she always wanted to be the "queen of the throne" and didn't want some little girl threatening her primacy. (Belinda just looked at her strangely, hungry suddenly with a curling familiarity. I know that feeling, she thought bitterly. I am that feeling.) But regardless of poor performance, Holly will always be MOH. Sorry, Handsy.

Anyway. There's always shrieking and crying at rehearsal dinners, right? There's always potato throwing. And someone named Holly always accidentally summons the Handbag Stain demon and someone named Sky always sneaks out behind the restaurant and lights a cigarette and cries a little. That's just wedding tradition, I'm pretty sure, so it's nothing to worry about.

Then the wedding day came. All of our friends were there, from Jayde Scorpion to Justin Bobby, in their stupid mini dresses, doing their stupid preening walks, on the grandest set ever built for The Hills. This was the big wham-bang close of Act V when we find out who the killer is and maybe the young ingenues fall in love. Or get married. Or whatever. Everyone was wondering what happened to Lauren. Would she show up? No one knew.

Meanwhile Lauren had been lost and confused in that giddy sort of way. That feeling of pull and tide, that the world is expanding and yawning and your feet are itchy to explore it. Basically, it's just time to move on. Unsure what to do, she talked to her mentor Kelly Cutrone. Kelly didn't have much to say to her, other than that maybe she should just be a jellyfish for a while, float aimlessly, see what sticks. Good advice for people who have the money to be jellyfish. The rest of us have to be sharks, never stopping lest we disappear forever into the murky depths.

She and Lo were moving out of their Beverly Hills manse, and so they had one last cookout party, where everyone was sentimental and said sweet things, and Handbags made up with Brody, and Handbags urged Lauren to come to the wedding, and Handbags felt as though some great weight was both lifting and settling. Would this be the end of her run on the show? What else is there for the unwed spinster sister of reality's royal couple to do? But Lauren just smiled at her and seemed sad and complete. The world is ending, and isn't it wonderful.

And, yes, of course Lauren showed up to the wedding and took a private audience with Heidi and they sniffled at each other and as long as Heidi was happy, that's all that ever really mattered. Were her jewels and enormous pancake dress too much? Yes, of course. But also, who cares. And yes, of course, Kristin Cavallari showed up, wearing basically the same dress as Lauren. Everyone pretended to be surprised and MTV began the oh-so-subtle (not subtle at all) work of giving us visual cues that the guard was changing. Spencer and Heidi exchanged their sad little vows and then the wedding was over and everyone clapped and spilled outside where they threw flower petals and Heidi threw the bouquet and—oop!—Kristin Cavallari caught it and it was as if Adam DiVello looked up to the stars and said "No... there is another."

And Lauren. Lauren off in the background, got into her black town car and disappeared into the afternoon. The last we saw of her, the last anyone saw of that old gal, was a Mona Lisa smile in the back of a car. Was she happy that she'd been her own Ben Braddock and saved herself at this wedding? Was she unsure of all that awaited her? Who knows.

I like to think that now she'll disappear from the spotlight and begin living her own real life. Because, you know, there's a whole lot in real life that can be swishy and swoony. There's a whole lot to be discussed in bars and beauty salons, in walks on the beach, in cars speeding on highways. There's a whole lot in looks, in expressions, in little huffs that no one notices, in blinks and smiles, in kisses and hellos. There's a whole lot to do in this short spin, and I think it's done better when it's honest and off-camera. When it is, finally finally finally, the way it's always supposed to have been:

Unscripted. Unplanned. Unfilmed. Unsold.

And, most of all, unwritten.

Oh these elimination shows... What's worse? The turgid opening with all the grim, clashing music? The trotting out of some tired old person to sing a song? The insanely awful group numbers? The horrid Ford commercials? It's all a misery.

This week the opening reminded us that this was a singing competition. Which is good to remember. It's easy to forget that when you have Danny Gokey using his mouth as a meat grinder and Adam blowing dark, glittery smoke up the judges' asses. So yes. It's about sing-sangin'!

The old person that they trotted out was essentially a means to an end to make an extended joke about Simon's age. The year that Simon was born Frankie Avalon had a song called "Venus". They showed a clip of the dude singing it and then—!!!—Avalon himself crawled out of the TV and was there in person. The audience pretended to know who he was, and Simon made some joke about actually being born in 1969, not 1959. So Simon is 50 years old. There you have it.

Then it was time for the group number, which was that "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and shiver me timbers was that thing a fucking unmitigated disaster. See, the kids have been getting shit for a few weeks because they've been lip syncing on the group numbers. So, this week they actually sang. Lil Rounds just peeled off at one point and started doing Tuvan throat singing. Poor Scott wandered around aimlessly, while Anoop danced awkwardly, Matt Giraud preened like an asshole, and everyone sang the wrong words and the wrong notes and somewhere in Thailand, because of the butterfly effect, everyone died.

After that they did one of those behind-the-scenes at the Ford Commercial bits, which was more of Matt Giraud thinking he is some sort of dynamic person. He tried to do a funny voice and then laughed, fakely, and said "I can't do it without laughing [fakely]." Because bloopers are so fun! They mean you are light-hearted and oh, isn't my job great. So that was annoying.

Back in the swirling hope den that is the Idol theater, it was time to announce the bottom three. Predictably Adam and Gokey and Matt were safe. Surprise, DialIdol, but Krissy was also safe too. As was, glory be!, dear old Allison. Which meant that for once America got all three people in the bottom right. 'Noops, Scott, and Lil. Perfect. Simon said there was "one person especially we'd really consider saving," obviously meaning Anoop. I kid. Of course he meant Lil. But you wouldn't know it from the performance that all four judges put on when Scott was announced as the loser and sang his sad little "rescue me" song. Simon said that the vote was split, they spent more time forcing Scott to beg, they hemmed and they hawed, the whole thing went on for minutes, and then finally Simon said "No!" Which, of course, was always going to happen. But blind people can't see, so they can't take being treated like an adult. Ryan strapped Scott into a harness and they flew him up into the rigging where he'll be kept until the finale.

So there we have it. Seven remain, none of them dwarves. Based on the applause-o-meter, Adam seems to be pulling pretty far ahead of the Gokster, thank god. Might we actually get a Kris/Adam finale? Might, also, we get a Kris/Adam... somethin' else? Hah, doubtful. No one sees Adam without his skinsuit on, except maybe that fetching, fey little blonde character they keep cutting to and describing as Adam's "friend." I did some very very sad and shameful inter-research, and evidently he's a show queen named John. So there you have it once more.

OK! Goodbye Scott! I won't wave, I'll just yell at you and treat you like a baby and recite Paula's awkward tribute tone poem over and over again because you are like a gift from singing to America's dreams of people overcoming hopes in themselves when singing is talented and you are blind.

In a nutshell, it is OK to like things. It's really, really important to like things. Let's forget for a moment how elementary and maybe even stupid that sounds, and instead defer to our obituary by from reliably hatey Fox gossip Roger Friedman:

As for snarkiness-well, there's always a place for it. A little bit goes a long way. But in the last four or five years, that's all it's been. And the snarkers-the people who live off the crumbs of the ones who take the creative leap-simply got out of hand. They've crossed a line. Now it's time to go get a real job, and pay the bills that have been piling up. A little cynicism is always a good thing. But it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. It's one thing to comment and observe-just be careful you don't destroy the object of your snarkiness. Like Defamer, you can put yourself out of business.

This from a man who last year eviscerated Valkyrie without even having seen it, purely for evisceration's sake. But in a way, that's a kind of intellectual dishonesty I relate to. Sure there's a value and, if I've done my job right, a necessity to clawing at unspeakable behavior, be it Alan Ball's, Harvey Weinstein's, George Lucas's, Sarah Jessica Parker's, Sam Mendes's, Ben Lyons's, and that of who knows how many more hundreds among Hollywood's elite, all feeling unduly "snarked" within an inch of their vanity. And showing your work while deconstructing some of the industry's ugliest calculus won't make you any friends anyway. Which is fine, of course, because nobody wants to be the runner-up to Roger Friedman in a blow-job contest.

Still, look at what just happened. I didn't really get any elevation from pushing Friedman down. The only thing left to do is acknowledge his skill at accurately reporting what we already announced last weekend: Defamer is indeed going out of business. Well, sort of. The brand is folded into Gawker, which, too, apparently thought we had crossed a line — one of the bottom variety, far below where our sister blogs' own irreverence has found and sustained viability. There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is their ability to corner niche markets on wit, cynicism, insight and disdain.

Behind Mark Lisanti and Seth Abramovitch, Defamer had also refined most of those qualities as elementally as it could long before Mark Graham, Molly Friedman, Kyle Buchanan and I showed up in 2008. But speaking for myself, I think I brought kind of a dumb moral entitlement with me to a job that was like getting to play with one of my favorite bands. Coming out of three years of film reporting, the chance to write critically about Miley Cyrus or Josh Groban was liberating, even exhilarating. (What? I'm serious.)

It also made me lazy. "If I talk to you," John Cusack began an interview last May, "will you stop writing nasty shit about me?" I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, but I learned soon enough, rediscovering some tossed-off, machine-feeding item about his upcoming film 2012. Just stupid. And there were others like it — maybe even hundreds of them, too embarrassing to exhume now, but apparently not too awful to stop, you know, doing. They continued unabated, in fact, until a couple weeks ago, when one of the less egregious examples prompted a commenter to ask sincerely, "Do you like anything?"

My first instinct was to impugn this person's readership. No question that facile could withstand a closer, more loyal scrutiny of the published record, and I still believe that. Nevertheless, the heat gave way, and I simmered over another question: What is the published record? What do I like? That any answer at all took longer than a few seconds to conjure was my first clue that I might require some adjustment. I don't know if I made them in time, or if the last year of my career will be remembered for staffing a tollbooth on the path of least resistance. Probably something in between, and I guess that's fair.

The same can be said of Defamer's actual legacy, hovering on the spectrum between Roger Friedman's dank opprobrium and Mark and Seth's wry, singular equilibrium, the latter of which I so cherish and which influences me to this day. Yet: "Do you like anything?" Holy Christ, yes. Yes. I like Synecdoche, New York. I like An Education. Actually, the whole Sundance Film Festival was pretty great this year. I like Man on Wire. I like Tyler Perry. I like Iron Man. I like Harvey Weinstein, even if he'll never believe me. I like Manoj, even if he'll really never believe me.

I like Clint Eastwood and Mickey Rourke. I like The Spirit — in a backhanded sort of way, but still. I like Josh Groban, at least for one performance. I like Hunger. The Dark Knight was pretty good. Frozen River was solid. Did you ever hear of Able Danger or Toots? They were impressive. And surprisingly — happily, even, after all that digging — I could go on.

And I hope to do exactly that over in the new Movieline digs I'll soon share with Seth and Kyle. Here, meanwhile, I hope our successors like things as well, even while continuing to creatively defuse this town's loudest, loosest cannons. Thanks to them for upholding the good fight, and thanks to you for making Defamer the dynamic, essential resource I've been lucky and proud to call home for these 365 days. It was a good year — I liked it a lot.

The week before I began my first guest-blogging stint at Defamer, I spent an entire day competing in the Big Brother house. CBS had invited several entertainment journalists there to challenge each other in an untelevised, "speed round" version of a typical Big Brother week, and I was sent by The Advocate to take part. The time-dependent article never ended up running (sorry, CBS!), but it was an interesting trip through the looking glass, to say the least.

Except for a two-second reaction shot on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List that flooded me with emails and phone calls from friends as far back as high school, I was a reality TV novice. Which is not to say that I didn't watch it or have the typical Los Angeles links to it (when even the guy who cuts your hair is in negotiations for a one-hour special on Bravo, you get used to its ubiquity). It just wasn't something I wanted any part of; after all, if there's one thing my subsequent stint at Defamer would drive home, it's that a minor on-camera misstep can haunt a reality TV star for the rest of his lifetime.

But participating in a well-produced reality show that would never see the air? That just felt like a fun novelty gag—and it was, until things got all Stanford Prison Experiment-y.

At first, it was a blast. As soon as we were let into the house, the eight of us immediately laughed at how reality-ready we were as a cast; for journalists, we were a vaguely telegenic group, and each one of us fulfilled an important reality TV cliche. People's Reagan Alexander was the leather jacket-clad bad boy, while Jenn McBride of CBS/KCAL was the beautiful, blond Christian who met her husband while making milkshakes at Bible camp. Secretly, I thrilled to my designation as "the token gay," an invaluable participant that no good reality show can be without.

Those introductions and the initial flurry of ridiculously-costumed competitions carried us until nearly halfway through the day, and it's at that point that the most insidious element of reality TV—the allure of the cameras—sunk its tenterhooks into us. The stakes for the day were awfully low (only one person would be voted out, and it would happen just before we all left), yet we began to conspire like they were all-important. In a house that lacked a deck of cards, television, or music, playing the camera game was the sole entertainment, and the only way you could win was to give those whirring, wall-set cameras a reason to follow you. It didn't matter that all we would eventually get for our troubles was a fifteen-minute, cut-together "episode" of our day. The battle to be the untelevised breakout star was on.

The camera addiction even affected our gameplay. After winning the title of Head of Household, Entertainment Tonight's Kevin Frazier was ordered to put half the house on "slop" (a gross, green, oatmeal-like substance) for the rest of the day. As he asked for us to plead our cases, I said, "I will actually take slop if you promise not to nominate me for eviction," which prompted impressed "oooohs" from my housemates. To me, though, it was a no-brainer—I wasn't expecting a nomination, so I might as well do something daring to earn camera time.

Still, I needed more: a shtick. Increasingly bored at one point in the afternoon, I donned a coonskin cap left on the dresser by a thoughtful set decorator. My housemates looked at me dubiously, but now the cameras began to follow me whether I was plotting or not. Encouraged, I also donned boxing gloves and fashioned a bedspread into a makeshift cape. Ridiculous? Yes, but who goes on reality television to preserve their dignity? "This guy..." said Kevin, shaking his head. Exactly: I was now somebody.

As votes were cast to nominate two of the players for eviction, things became even more mad. Formerly normal contestants became increasingly paranoid and prone to outbursts. At the beginning of the day, we had enacted play-fights just for fun, but the line had become oddly blurred. Not that I was helping matters; when one of the eviction nominees, Yahoo's Brian Gianelli, was canvassing the house for support, he came to me. "What can I do to win your vote to stay?" he asked. "You can wear this ridiculous poodle bedspread I found as a cape," I said, now certifiably insane. He did, I held my word, and my vote was the only vote to keep Brian in the house—he got evicted at 8:55pm, five minutes before the game ended for us all.

A week and a half later, a courier arrived on my doorstep and handed me a DVD. "This is from CBS," he said. I grabbed it, excited: Would it feature all my plotting? Would my cap-and-cape adventures merit a humorous subplot? My camera-hogging impulses, which had gone dormant since I left the house, were suddenly revived.

Though the episode started out strong in a vanity-assuaging way (I was featured so often in the confessionals that I began to wonder if the DVD was specifically tailored to me), my scheming and cavorting received nary a second of camera time. Like so many reality TV veterans before me, I had become a victim of editing.

Did the experience make me more sympathetic to the people I would eventually cover at Defamer? In some ways. The machinations of Hollywood and reality TV are insane and tireless, and once one becomes fully caught in them, it can be hard to untangle. Ordinary people become narcissists, clever comics become too enamored by their own voices, and wallflowers suddenly feel worthless without a camera pushed into their faces at every moment. The machine demands our merciless satire, and even its most tiresome participants deserve our empathy.

Still, Brooke Hogan? You kind of had this coming.

That's it! See you at Movieline. Jai ho, motherfuckers!

Such modesty! To a point, anyway: If and/or when his Reliance Big Entertainment honeymoon ever tapers off, Spielberg and DreamWorks president Stacey Snider really won't have the Geffen touch to help woo another international conglomerate into bed. But by then Spielberg, 62, will probably be ready to scale back anyway, and survival will be less about braintrust than brand (and the library it manages to develop with its new distribution partners at Universal). He shouldn't even be there now, if one of his more illuminating disclosures today is to be believed:

In describing Mr. Geffen’s role at DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg likened it to a family relationship. “Jeffrey and I were like the kids,” he said, while Mr. Geffen built the house and saw that the bills were paid. [...]

By his own recollection, Mr. Spielberg was initially reluctant to join in creating the original DreamWorks studio, which was conceived by Mr. Katzenberg shortly after he was fired as chairman of the Walt Disney Company’s studio operation in 1994. But Mr. Katzenberg begged for a meeting, and asked to bring a friend. The friend was Mr. Geffen, who not only did all the talking, but insisted to Mr. Spielberg: “I am representing your best interests.”

That assurance was to become the theme of Mr. Geffen’s dealings with Mr. Spielberg, who describes Mr. Geffen’s efforts for him over the years as a kind of “altruism.”

Aww! That shouldn't imply Spielberg was in a hurry to race out the door at Paramount, though, where Geffen reportedly had a short stay in mind even before he clashed with Brad Grey in 2006 over credit for Dreamgirls; "I do not like change," the director told the NY Times. And even if we have Tom Freston's firing and other, seemingly circumstantial evidence to vouch for that philosophy, everyone knows the bottom line: The sex just isn't the same off the Paramount lot. Wait and see — he'll be back.

• David Geffen Makes a Sudden Exit [NYT]

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

[Portfolio via EatReadPlay]

For this reason the Downsized Employee felt somewhat foolish considering the many hours her mind had spent re-enacting the flashpoints and foreshadowings in what had been, really, an utterly unremarkably bad relationship with her boss. The Downsized Employee's Boss was not reconsidering his decision to Downsize the Downsized Employee. The Downsized Employee's Boss had downsized some 18 employees along with her, some of whom had been re-hired in different capacities. Did the fact that Downsized Employee received no such opportunity have to do with the fact that "The" Downsized Employee had been an unusually vociferous voice of dissent? It was possible. When the Downsized Employee had started at the company to co-launch a new website her boss decreed should position itself to compete with a supremely inane website for celebrity photos and gossip overseen by a dogmatically shallow celebrity tabloid reporter, the Downsized Employee filled with righteous indignation and said she would rather quit or hell, die than do any such thing. The Downsized Employee proceeded to co-produce a website she saw as being the precise opposite of that and co-usher said new website to prominence and widespread popularity by offering to the public what she saw as an antidote to the easy, sloppy superficial bullshit. Oh sure, it was easy for the Downsized Employee's Boss to say, "Come on, it is not like you are offering the Paris Review," but it was far harder, she felt, to actually show up every day and bother trying to reconcile the dumbed-down, image-based internet habits of the American public with what she knew — okay, she did not know, but for sanity's sake she had to believe — to be a deeper, harder-to-satisfy longer-term hunger for content that would be more challenging, more nourishing, more unique or in any case actually funny.

The Downsized Employee's Boss generally only ever exhibited contempt for employees who made concerted attempts to reconcile those things. But the Downsized Employee understood this. She had watched previously Downsized Employees stubbornly cling to some rituals and pieties and time-consuming traditions that she personally appreciated but knew had sadly prevented their intellectual gifts from reaching their well-deserved wider audience. The Downsized Employee's Boss had taught her a few things in that regard: don't get clever with a headline, numbers and photos are more important than words, etc. etc. the important thing was always to strive for balance. But there remained a fundamental difference of opinion as to where that balance was. The Downsized Employee felt that the Downsized Employee's Boss's customers craved — and deserved — a slightly smarter, more skeptical product than her boss desired to give them. The Downsized Employee felt silly bringing it up again, but the Downsized Employee had been notably instructed by her boss to write a post about an "exclusive" on the Drudge Report claiming that the staff of the Oprah Winfrey show was "bitterly divided" over whether to have Sarah Palin on her show, even as Winfrey had a year earlier publicly decided to host no political candidates on her show until the election as a consequence of her endorsement of Barack Obama. The Downsized Employee had felt this "exclusive" to be a fabrication concocted by cynical Republican operatives eager to paint all liberal females as craven elitist hypocrites whose intolerant sorority of Accepted Feminists coldly dismiss any woman who tries to embrace True Christian American Values. The Downsized Employee's Boss felt that the Downsized Employee was wrong, that the takeaway of the story ought to be that "Sarah Palin Sells," period, and the Downsized Employee felt that sure, of course, she sells, but could "She Sells" be the end of the story?

Because she SELLS. 40 million people watched her give that pitbull eBay plane speech! She's on all the magazine covers! She's even been getting you guys to click! Barack Obama isn't the only "rock star" in this campaign, the AP declared this morning. No, because this little hockey mama who knows how to get things done (like book banning!) is like the Carrie Underwood meets Kelly Clarkson meets Amy Grant meets Kid Rock of politics!

But here's the real question: is America tuning in because, for Chrissakes, it's all working? Or is America tuning in because so many Americans are sitting staring mouths agape at the television sets they are too stunned to turn off, phrases like "fuzzy math" and "soft bigotry of low expectations" ringing in ears, thinking to themselves, Oh my holy community organizer in Heaven above, what if this is working???

This was a "tangent," the Downsized Employee's boss told her via IM*, an irrelevant and unnecessary overthought. Of course, within a matter of hours the Downsized Employee's contention that the whole basis for the post was bullshit would be proven correct, and within a matter of weeks the Downsized Employee's suggestion that some Americans might have found themselves betrayed by the cynical market-tested phony populism of the Right since they fell for the President with whom they'd feel most comfortable grabbing a beer eight year ago would be acknowledged by none other than said phony populism's old progenitor Peggy Noonan, who wrote Friday of Palin:

I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America—small towns, sound values. "It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it's possible they are—but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party types" (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

The Downsized Employee might say the same of all short-term sales-driven market-tested business decisions, but The Downsized Employee had done that numerous times before, most recently in a rather involved, tangent-filled 1500 word post on the Coming Depression she was sure her boss did not expect would get more than seventy thousand page views. The Downsized Employee certainly did not, which is why she had so vociferously complained when the Boss had installed a compensation system by which she would be awarded a bonus tied to her page view growth that the Boss had offered her a fixed non-adjustable-rate salary just to silence her whining.

The Downsized Employee felt bad (and sheepish) bringing this up on a day the aggregate consequence of the aggregate of all that foolhardy short-term decision-making would be so awe-inspiringly apparent. The Downsized Employee does not want to give her old customers the sense she thinks she is so important. The Downsized Employee just wanted one final chance to remind them that she thinks some things are important, and it is much more than "what sells right now," but that she blames the "What Sells Right Now" mentality for her Downsizing, because the Downsized Employee would have gladly taken a pay cut, but she does not believe the Boss who Downsized her realized that, and she could no more expect the Boss who downsized her to realize that than she could herself start a multimillion dollar 150-employee media company.

Minghella's first film, Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

Having the foresight to cast a young Mary-Louise Parker in Mr. Wonderful (1993)

The beginning of the end of The English Patient (1996)

A brutal, beautiful scene from Mr. Ripley (1999)

Reunion scene in Cold Mountain (2003)

Trailer for Breaking & Entering (2006)

(Highly recommend seeing. Even if you don't end up loving it, it's still beautifully composed.)

OK! So that's that. I'd love to talk at length about what a truly amazing experience this has been (and it has been pretty amazing), but I've promised to save all the weeping, gnashing of teeth, and goodbyes until Friday, when I've scheduled a spectacular emotional breakdown; suffice it to say that the ambulance to Cedars Sinai has already been reserved. And, of course, the rest of our Defamer team isn't going anywhere—in fact, we're still trying to grow the family; expect a post shortly from Fearless Managing Editor Mark Graham with the details.
—-Mark Lisanti, Editor

From: Gavin McInnes
Date: Jan 23, 2008 9:42 AM
Subject: new email
To: Gavin McInnes

Dear children of my corn,

I no longer have anything to do with Vice or VBS or DOs & DON'Ts or any of that. It's a long story but we've all agreed to leave it at "creative differences," so please don't ask me about it.

I'm going to continue to make fun of people's pants and offend as many of you as possible, but I'll be doing it at streetcarnage.com, a new company I started with Big Pinky.

There's a ton of other projects in the works, including books, a movie, comics, TV shit, etc and I'll announce them on the site as they blossom into fruition like a hundred humid vaginas in the presence of God's boner.

My new email is gavin@streetcarnage.com.

This is not good economics and it isn't good marketing. It is the ravings of a brilliant, talented and apparently completely delusional man. He tried this with the Mac, and thankfully failed. Unfortunately there was no one there to tell him how short sighted he was being this time.

Right from the start, Doree showed that she was willing to learn, but that she had an indomitable spirit and could respectfully disagree with issues not to her liking.

Lockhart Steele Thu, Nov 9, 2006 at 4:00 PM
To: Doree Shafrir , Emily Gould
Cc: Chris Mohney , Alex Balk

Good talk today. As a reminder (print and post next to you), my thoughts on Gawker:

1) Stories. Need to be our own. They're out there; let's go get them. Tidbits from parties, new words entering the lexicon, the hot new bar, the new Gawker-created celebrity. One Thing will help — let's
not be afraid to be servicey.

2) Grossout. No need to be abrasive for the sake of being abrasive. For instance, random black dildo pic excessive. Wait until there's a reason, or the joke is terrific.

Lock

Doree Shafrir Thu, Nov 9, 2006 at 4:17 PM
To: Lockhart Steele , Doree Shafrir , Chris Mohney Alex Balk

Oooh, poor little WASPy trust-funder can't handle a little black dildo! Oh no! Listen here, Fuckface, I don't know how it worked before, but from now on I'm posting whatever the fuck I want whenever the fuck I want and I don't expect to hear jack shit from you except the occasional "Excellent work, Doree." Got it? Don't make me do something worse to you than whoever gave you that terrible haircut. Thanks for your attention.

XOXOXO,
Doree

Lockhart Steele
To: Doree Shafrir , Emily Gould
Cc: Chris Mohney , Alex Balk

Understood. I appreciate your candor.

Lock

When a new Managing Editor came aboard, Doree did her best to make sure he felt comfortable and respected, and helped him get up to speed with procedures.

Choire Sicha Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:35 PM
To: alex@gawker.com, doree@gawker.com, emily@gawker.com

Our style is all over the place and it's time to unify! Whee! It's easy and painless, I promise, but you'll each just have to change a few little habits. Do not be alarmed!

Here are the basics. There's tons of stuff I've forgotten or left out. But if we get 90% there with all of this stuff, I'll just be so delighted that I won't care about anything else!
[Ed. Note: Letter continues on interminably with a bunch of Choire's wisdom on punctuation. Seriously. We'll spare you.]

Doree Shafrir Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:39 PM
To: choire@gawker.com, alex@gawker.com, emily@gawker.com

Guess what, Chicken Choker? You're not Strunk and you're not White and I wouldn't give a fuck if you were both of them. Your job here is to look at our posts and then pick a time for them to go live. I doubt that even that falls within the scope of your limited abilities, but why don't you just focus on that and shut the fuck up about punctuation before I slice you open and feed your entrails to my dog, who has no compunction about eating off-brand meat. We clear?
XOXOXO,
Doree

Choire Sicha Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:41 PM
Reply-To: choire@gawker.com
To: alex@gawker.com, doree@gawker.com, emily@gawker.com

Very, very clear. My apologies for even bringing it up.

To the very last, Doree has remained true to herself. She's a good friend with a great amount of spirit, and she definitely knows how to make her colleagues feel appreciated.

Alex Balk Fri, Sep 7, 2007 at 8:35 AM
To: doree@gawker.com

Last day! Are you so excited? We're going to miss you, but I'm really thrilled for you, it's a great opportunity!

Doree Shafrir Fri, Sep 7, 2007 at 8:38 AM
To: alex@gawker.com

It is a great opportunity! A great opportunity not to have to see your stupid fucking face every day or listen to the idiot ramblings that come out of your jackass mouth every goddamn minute. Also, guess what? The smell of bourbon and puke on your breath? Not attractive! Brush your fucking teeth, you endlessly complaining whiner. And, seriously, what's with all the bitching about your job? Sack up and get another one or shut the fuck up about it, okay? There are a number of reasons I'm leaving, but one of the most important ones is that it means I NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU AGAIN, you stupid cuntrag. Thanks for making the last ten months a living hell!

XOXOXO,
Doree

In the end, we'll never forget how she was always ready to crack wise on IM during the workday, filling us all with goodwill and team spirit.

Goodbye, Doree, we'll miss you! Thanks for not cutting any of us, except for that one time you slashed Josh when he bumped into you by accident! Good luck at the new gig!