OH YES. Nick's new neighbor is Samuel Motherfucking Jackson. You know there was a movie made about this, right? [See above. It was not the one where Samuel Jackson gets EATEN by a MOTHERFUCKING SHARK.] Like, they gave this to me, on a Sunday. Holy shit, I'm never asking for anything ever again.

I mean guys, I don't know, all I see is "sitcom" potential written all over this. Wait, the item, the fucking Page Six item is so classic, I'm dying here. Breathe, Foster. Okay, okay. Let's handle this like adults. Look:

We hear the seller, Wall Street dude Eric Gross, got such a kick out of Jackson buying his pad, he may have accepted the bid, despite it being a tad lower than a nonceleb offer of about $4.1 million. Let's hope Jackson doesn't have any secrets, though. It'll be hard to keep them from the only other neighbor on his floor — Gawker guru Nick Denton.

BAHAHA. Oh, come on. You think that glee was because it was Sam Jackson, or did he get a "kick" out of this because it was Sam Jackson living next to Nick? [Former Gawker Intern Turned Page Six Reporter] Neel Shah, PLEASE tell me you wrote this. This is going to be a beautiful wellspring of material. Sam! We have a tips line. If Nick puts his motherfucking recycling in the motherfucking trash, you know exactly who to call.

If you want to show up at a party wearing something totally unique—unlike the hordes of Balloon Boys, Gosselins, and zombies—here are a few inspirations for you. Not everyone may get it, but if you have to explain it, that's a great way to meet people. See, we're here to make sure you look good and get laid. How servicey is that!

All but one of these ideas came right from you, the readers, and we just stole them from the comments of our last two Halloween posts and fleshed them out a bit. Thanks for the effort, and sorry if we ruined your concept by putting it out there for the world to copy.

Think you can do better? The comments are open!

Costume: McKinsey Executive
What You'll Need: A power suit, covered in fake blood. Old copies of Gourmet, Cookie, and Domino with a knife through them.
Works Best For: Media Insiders, those collecting severance from Conde.
Recommended By: Former English Major

Costume: Ernie Anastos the Fox New York anchor who coined the phrase "Keep Fucking that Chicken."
What You'll Need: A suit, and a whole raw chicken, attached to the crotch of your pants. To go that extra mile, get some bad face work done.
Works Best For: Carnivores, men.
Recommended By: HamburgerHotdog

Costume: Glee's Sue Motherfucking Sylvester
What You'll Need: A short blond wig, a track suit, a whistle, a protein shake, no uterus, and a ton of bitch quips.
Works Best For: Lesbians, gay guys, theater dorks, Gleeks.
Recommended By: NotSewFast

Costume: John Fitzgerald Page, the worst person in the world
What You'll Need: Just like BettyCrocker said, "'80s prepwear (yellow suspenders, cufflinks shaped like $$) and a total lack of self-awareness."
Works Best For: Gawker diehards, frat boys.
Recommended By: BettyCrocker

Costume: Mary Murphy, the exuberant judge on So You Think You Can Dance
What You'll Need: Fake tan, a brunette wig, a tacky outfit, a loud scream, and a miniture "hot tamale train" to circle your head.
Works Best For: Reality show fiends.
Recommended By: Spirit Fingers

Costume: Anna Wintour in line to see the The September Issue
What You'll Need: Tight jeans, loafers, Fashion's Night Out T-shirt, sunglasses, bob wig. Bonus points for a snake coat or bringing a friend dressed as Grace Coddington to laugh at you.
Works Best For: PR girls, skinny people, those with a mean glint in their eye.
Recommended By: Brian Moylan

[Image via Getty]

Mind you: this is the same guy who breathlessly reminded the American legal system that Eric Dane is on the Emmy Award-winning Grey's Anatomy in his lawsuit against us for posting a tape of Eric Dane trying to spice up his marriage in a threesome with his now-preggers wife and a madam. Heh. It was awesome. It's here. You should watch it.

But now Marty's ready to make a mess out of more people's lives by dragging them through prolonged legal engagements that aggressively create rifts between people with a common purpose: in ours and McSteamy's, to bring stories to The People. In the case of Kate and Jon Gosselin: for the children. Marty Singer is about to fuck up some children.

But it takes three to tango (as we learned). This wouldn't be so awful without the help of Singer's awful client (the child-exploiting Kate Gosselin) and their awful defendant (the sleazy walking Ed Hardy lifestyle line that is Jon Gosselin). These people are awful! Don't they have eight kids somewhere wondering why their parents are being such complete meanies/absentee, hyper-aggressive, moneygrubbing scary breeding units? Because they are. Basically, it goes like this: Jon Gosselin went on Larry King to tell Kate to put the divorce proceedings on hold. He made TLC shut down the production of the show. And sometime before that, took all but $1,000 out of a shared money market account of Kate and Jon's.

Now Kate wants the money back in there. Furthermore, Singer is alleging that Jon's lawyer is a crook.

Singer says Heller has done this before, citing a New York Supreme Court decision which says Heller directed one of his clients in a divorce to "withdraw everything that's in the bank" so the money could be used to pay his fee. And then there's this ... Singer blasts Heller, noting that the New York Supreme Court "addressed charges that you violated 'thirty-eight counts alleging multiple violations of the disciplinary rules,' and charges that you 'had engaged in a pattern of misconduct involving misrepresentations, deceit, abusive treatment of clients, fee gouging, neglect and willful failure to return unearned retainers to his clients' in matters which involved your 'mishandling of the matters of twelve separate clients.'"

Damn. Talk about being able to sniff out your own kind (Ahmadinejad). Lawyers! God bless 'em. Good to know Singer's keeping busy with a client list full of America's most savory famous types. I gotta admit, though, I am curious to hear what Jon intended on doing with the scrilla (besides paying lawyers). Maybe he was broke. Maybe Jon just wanted the money to get in on the next McSteamy key party? Maybe he's gonna invest in web startups, har har! Who knows. Either way, Singer wants a piece of it. Somewhere, eight children hate him.

The bride, 32, will be taking her husband's name. She graduated from UNC Wilmington in 2000 and most recently worked as an Art Director at McCann Erickson. In early 2009 Kerry left her job to focus on the arduous task of planning a massive wedding, something she accomplished with serious gusto. There was even an oyster bar! Her father is a world renowned equine veterinarian at the Carolina Equine Clinic, and her mother is the director of development and community relations at ChildSavers, a non-profit organization committed to the mental well being of children.

The bridegroom, 36, is our boss at Gawker Media. As VP of Sales for the past 5 years, Christopher championed the sponsored post format that you're currently reading (see, we told you this stuff works!), as well as various other advertising innovations you've all complained about at one point or another. He graduated from Tulane in 1996 as a Sigma Alpha Epsilon (ask him about the tattoo) and no longer has a warrant out for his arrest in the state of New York. His father and mother don't have LinkedIn or Facebook pages, so we can't really tell you what they do.

The wedding was an absolutely stunning affair, complete with black tie reception and entertainment by New Orleans' own Kermit Ruffins. Of course, most of Gawker Sales and HQ found our way down to the coniferous outback for the ceremonies, pictures of which can be found below (photo creds to Katz).

The Gawker Sales team wishes Chris and Kerry all the best together. Congratulations!

Donald Trump Roasts Joan Rivers, and Her Vagina - August 25, 2009

What's That About A Powerful Vagina? - September 23, 2009
Glenn Beck's Powerful Vagina - September 25th, 2009
UPDATE: That Top Shop Thing Is TOTALLY A Dentata Shirt - September 24th, 2009

Tags:

Vagina Shirts Are The New Black
Powerful Vaginas
Megan Fox Powerful Vaginas
Cervix Journalism
Nick Dentata

Yes, Rachel Sklar is doing this to attract attention from (A) people searching "glenn beck + vagina" on Google (B) people like me and (C) anybody who's ever been shocked by reading about a vagina in relation to something it has no bearing on (like Glenn Beck, who, for all we know, has never seen one). But I did LOLZ at "Cervix Journalism" as well as her investigation into vaginas with teeth ("vagina dentata"). Also, the figuring in of the word "dentata" into both of our respective employers names, because I'm 12. Then again, it's funny to think about shady Dan Abrams having a vagina with teeth (which would make him shadier!).

But I've got another theory: Maybe Rachel's trying to tell us something? The professional media gormandizer's love life was partly chronicled in a New York Observer profile of microfame expert Rex Sorgatz. Observe:

The rest of the room was dominated by attractive single women, including blogger Rachel Sklar, who had been Mr. Sorgatz's girlfriend up until a few days before. I cornered Mr. Sorgatz and put it to him straight: As a straight man, how can you justify hosting a Gossip Girl viewing party?

The 35-year-old, spikey-haired online consultant didn't flinch. "It's an awesome opportunity to invite girls over," he said.

If Rex Sorgatz can't make your vagina grow teeth, I don't know what can. This is what your vagina looks like with teeth:

Onetwothreefourfivesix. Six emails in my inbox, from Tucker Max. Although none of them were anything worth writing home about. And then there was that time you wanted to challenge us to some bet about your movie, which caused Ian Spiegelman to unleash that epic, apoplectic rant, remember? That was funny.

Anyhow.

• Megan Fox says she has supernatural sexual powers. I say it comes from her freaky thumbs. Those freaky, beautiful thumbs. They resemble the thumbs of other superpowered individuals. But she's using her powers for the best of bests: doing it. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• John Travolta's going to testify in the extortion case regarding the paramedics who tried to roll Travolta during his son's death. [TMZ]
  
  
• Oh, man. How does it feel to be Deryck Whibley, the Sum 41 lead singer now getting divorced from and by Avril Lavigne, after she spent the summer partying on a yacht with greaseball oil heir Brandon Davis? Well, probably shitty. They've been together since she was 17, got married when they were 21, and now at 24, Lavigne's saying L8R to the original SK8R BOI. Which is the kind of thing he should be reassured by, though: she went from a Canadian punk rocker to Brandon Davis, which is the celebrity romance equivalent of going from drinking lots of Schlitz with the occasional hit of weed, to smoking meth and getting all scratchy and jaw-clenchy. Brandon Davis, Avril? Really? Say L8R to your dignity. Whibley need not worry about karmic retribution. [Page Six]
  
  
• Taylor Swift may write a song about being Kanye'd by Kanye West at the VMAs, thus resulting a hip hop beef on par with LL Cool J and Canibus, but not on par with, say, Jay-Z and Nas. Because this one's a no-brainer: Swift will slay West with her sick rhymes about destroying him up the ass with a fist and a jammy, or whatever rappers scream at each other about when they beef these days. [US]
  
  
• Yoko Ono calls Britney Spears a survivor. Meanwhile, remember that time Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles? [US]
  
  
• Michael Jackson's brothers are filming a reality show. This is why I'm glad I only have one brother and zero reality shows. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Jay-Z called Kanye West "super passionate," which puts him in the same category of bark-happy rapper DMX, and where's DMX now? In the kennel, or wherever rappers go to have their careers put down or at least go away for a few years. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Jon Gosselin won't charge for his signature. Good thing, because anyone willing to pay for his signature should probably be jailed or sentenced to a particularly intense colonic to get whatever bad chemicals are inside of them that's forcing them to do that extracted in the most visceral way possible. [TMZ]
  
  
• Rebecca Gayheart—yes, Eric Dane's wife, she of The McSteamy Affair—is preggers. She's said to be having quite a bit of trouble with morning sickness. Doctors attributed it to reading too much Gawker in the morning. Apparently, the rage-induced anonymous binge-commenting provoked by typos were making her queasy. [Page Six]
  
  
• Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland had a seizure on an airplane, which had to be piloted to the ground in order for him to recieve appropriate medical care. Hopefully, he's okay. [TMZ]
  
  
• Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around, Comes Around" philosophy has been transcended...by Justin Timberlake. The other night at Avenue, Timberlake skipped the line. Some girl gets faux-pissy and jokes to Timberlake that he can't skip the line, to which he replies "Oh, I absolutely can," in all sincerity. She then asked for an autograph (clearly a tourist), to which he replied that he would, but he's too wasted (the best excuse in New York). Every now and then, Timberlake should be allowed to—or even, be encouraged—to be a dick. I mean, jesus, this is guy that brought sexy back. He has a quota to fill, assholes. [Page Six]
  
  
• Is it a good sign or a bad sign when a director misses a press junket for her first movie? Take, for example, the hot mess that's going to be Drew Barrymore's Whip It, starring Ellen Page as a rising roller derby-ette. She missed the press for the Toronto Film Festival because she was out getting tanked with Amanda Seyfried a couple of nights before. [Page Six]
  
  
• Some guy tried to violate the magical ecosystem of Hollywood by assulting blessed Hollywood munchkin Ryan Seacrest. He tried to get into Seacrest's clown car, Seacrest did what anybody else would do—pulled away—and now he's going to face 15 days in jail and is ordered to stay away from Seacrest. If the man is secretly an aspiring unicorn, this is essentially equivalent to a particularly heinous, roundabout instance of self-immolation. [NYDN]
  
  
• Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelly have a new Babsian in their lives, the 10 month-old Naleigh, adopted from South Korea. It's really pretty cute, and there's a picture. You thought I was going to go somewhere else with that, didn't you? Fuckoff. I like babies. [Page Six]

Finally, Shana Tova, Jews! It's the first day of the Jewish New Year, and if you're not at synagogue for the high holidays, feel free to email Rabbi Foster (I was bar-mitzvah'd: that certifies me, no?) at Foster [at] Gawker [Dot] Com with all of your resolutions for the Jewish New Year. Rising ponzi schemers: I'm listening, and have a solid client base. Now: bump this shit.

There's no doubt that as media gossip goes this is exactly the kind of story Gawker would usually cover. And while I'm a bit surprised that the incident took as long as it did to become public, I doubt this will be the only mention in the media. But seeing as how it involves a guy sitting ten feet away from me, I doubt anyone really expects Gawker to be an objective referee of the facts here. So we'll let the other media outlets who are being tipped to the incident do the digging and speculating.

Well! Oxfeld's attempt to break through the threshold from the mere peasantry of a walk-in right to a prime time table was chronicled by Eater:

I feel Oxfeld's pain, as someone who has both been through the intense process of trying to get a goddamn steak and as someone who used to take reservations for Keith McNally's restaurants. Full disclosure!

Without revealing any of the top secret, Pandora's Box-esque Black Voodoo BloodMagik that goes into getting a table at one of his places, know that it can be done. But Oxfeld, who—Mazel Tov!—was recently named the new theater critic at the New York Observer, wasn't getting one. And he wasn't about to take that shit lying down, or past 10PM.

It sounds like he tried to get a reservation exchanged, and was a little too aggro in dealing with the reservationist on the other line. Note to all New York Diners: be nice to your reservationists. Otherwise, you might end up getting it blogged, and the owner of the restaurant will consequently call you out for being an asshole. Like this:

I just investigated the Jesse Oxfeld claim and discovered that most of what he said is quite true. However, according to Hannan, the reservationist who took his call, Mr. Oxfeld was so pushy and aggressive on the telephone that she took it upon herself to distort the reservation policy to ensure that someone as unpleasant-sounding as Mr. Oxfeld would not be eating at Minetta Tavern.

I'm personally so upset not to have someone as unpleasant and aggressive on the telephone not eat at Minetta Tavern that I'd like to now take this opportunity to offer my sincere and heartfelt apologies to Mr Oxfeld.

Sincerely,
Keith McNally

Zing! For those of you outside New York who are still wondering what the everloving fuck is so important or amazing to deal with the trouble of getting a reservation at a place like Minetta, well, departed New York Times dining critic Frank Bruni, in a review noting Minetta as "the best steakhouse in the city," also wrote:

Where Mr. McNally goes, models, movie honchos and magazine scribes follow, because they're sure to find themselves among other members of their slavishly fashionable tribe, coddled in an environment that's as much stage set as mess hall.

Also, the french fries are cooked in Lorenzo's Oil and the salads are topped with Weapons-Grade plutonium flakes: it's the new Foie Gras. Mind you, this is a city that will wait for hours for a goddamn hamburger, rain or shine.

New York, New York. It's a hell of a town. If you need any further explanation, this should help.

A report from the trenches comes to us from a deeply disturbed member of the 'House. The last time you heard from SoHo House, they were spending the summer attempting to cleanse themselves of unsavory, money-earning types or just trying to off them. Well, it looks like they've finally advanced on Poland started to enforce the rule. And maybe they have quotas? From deep in the belly of the beast, we hear from a tipster who's being discriminated against in real time:

I went to the movie two days ago, got a bottle of wine and sat with a friend. Suit and no tie. And I got a call yesterday from someone saying they really want the club to be relaxed and asking me not to wear a suit and tie on the roof. I told her I was wearing no tie and was at the movie, and she said they are really trying to make the club a more relaxed place like it used to be. And that the club was for artistic people. And that it was part of "an ongoing conversation." It was as Orwellian as it was annoying

For a conversation about curating a community of creative types, it sounds pretty angry and one-sided. Isn't trying to bring together a community of artists by shutting down a means of expression counter-intuitive? What if an artist ejaculated on that suit, or something? You don't know what art is, Man. Meanwhile, they're also trying to make SoHo House a distinctly more, ahem, literary place to be. From an email sent out to members recently:

Real Library, Real Books

As part of the Library renovation, we're replacing the bookshelf wallpaper with real shelves and real books. We're planning on having a section devoted to members' books so if you're an author and would like to donate some copies, please let Claire know at claire@sohohouseny.com. Likewise, we'd love to hear from publishers and agents who may be able to donate.

You know someone there used to spend hours rifling through that wallpaper. This is sad. But Claire would love to hear from you, Agents! May we suggest selections from the Gawker Book Club or Status Galley Book Club. Or maybe even something sprung from Gawker's loins! You have plenty of Tumblr-To-Book-Deal books to choose from - they are easy reads! Often in large print with plenty of pictures, and also, are not narrative-driven - or even The Official, Critically Acclaimed Gawker Book, a few copies of which we'd be glad to donate to your cause (don't worry, we have a few extras after unloading some on the masochistic coding squad now-enlightened citizens of Hungary during our last visit there).

Truly! There's use you can find from these books, especially now that the Culture Gestapo is on the loose. We hereby bequeath you our advance review copy of Look At This Fucking Hipster, as it'll help you separate the blue-bloods from the impostors amongst you, as well as help you understand the transformation your reflection is undergoing. Happy hunting!

Do yourself a favor and watch it with the sound off. Apparently it's really old but hey, at least YouTube is working! I enjoyed it a great deal and laughed very, very hard because this is pretty much exactly how I feel today.

In an email sent out to their daily email subscribers, two-time Gawker editor Choire Sicha revealed a backdated post that wouldn't appear on the front page of the site to otherwise uninitiated readers.

So this is a special Weekend Edition Email to thank you for your patronage. Why? Well, this week, on July 30, 2009, a person residing in (or visiting!) the glorious town of Austin, Texas clicked through from somewhere (perhaps from one of your Twitter accounts, dear reader!) to view a post (and then depart for Internet places unknown) and, in doing so, became our millionth visitor:

http://www.theawl.com/2009/07/one-million-served

(That's a backdated secret post, so that it didn't appear on our front page.)

This lucky Windows user, wrapping up the end of his or her workday at 5:30 p.m. local time, or perhaps just waking up, and getting ready for the roller derby, or maybe, well, who knows: who is shim? What time does hermself wake up? We may never know....

Now, Sitemeter is notoriously wacky as a traffic counter, as you probably know, so, don't worry, we don't attach too much significance to this number. But it's a big round number! How exciting! It kinda makes me feel like Ray Kroc.

The Awl launched to much excitement a few months ago: an interview with Vanity Fair's site, and posts from MediaBistro, like this one, in which Choire talks about how he doesn't look at his own traffic!

Has the press' lovefest led to strong traffic?

Sicha, for one, has no idea. "You know, I have actually *never looked* at our traffic," he emailed FishbowlNY.com this morning. "I leave that in David Cho's capable hands; he's our business guy, and that stuff is his problem. I am just trying to have a good time, and that itself is our stated goal."

Balk, Sicha, and their numerous contributors - who count plenty of Gawker Media past and present writers as among their numbers - look to be enjoying themselves, as they recently called this company the "Goldman Sachs of the Internet," (which is funny, because I'm still broke) and reportedly had their site crash due to an overwhelming influx of traffic. In the aforementioned email, they also announced a special new contributor who's "much better" than Ed Koch.

Meanwhile, this blog took note of nearly anti-celebrity-beat site The Awl's Michael Jackson-911-call link in a passive swipe, and before that, Nick Denton once took note of their content layout.

The Awl's now at a million hits and Denton's busy minting his own currency or something, and unlike Sicha, doesn't own any pets. Yet. "Congratulations" to all parties involved.

One Million Served [The Awl]

Held on a rainy Friday under an enclosed rooftop a stone's throw from Lincoln Center, The Webutante Ball was the sordid brainchild of URLesque blogger Jessica Amason and Gawker Media video maven Richard Blakeley, the two of whom are the co-authors of forthcoming blog-to-book-deal staple This Is Why You're Fat and an egregiously, irritatingly cute capitalist couple. It was, for all intents and purposes, a prom for internet, tech, and media dorks. There was a ballot, and there were nominees. There were winners! And there was a rope, with a line.

I braved the entire thing with my hot date/cover fire, Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz, who was incidentally - and, at least to her, incredulously - a balloted nominee. "I have absolutely no idea how I ended up on that ballot. I'm decidedly not internet-famous." Oh, honey. You are now. Also on the ballot, former Gawker Mascot Andrew Krucoff, who declined to show for the festivities: "I'm celebrating shabbat," Krucoff noted. "Also, fuck that noise," he added. Onward: to the gallery we go!

Former and still-sometimes HuffPo writer, Dan Abrams Kool-Aid Drinker, and author of her upcoming and hotly anticipated book-deal book Jew-ish, Rachel Sklar, gets "man"-handled by her date, the VP of some telecommunicating tech thing called LifeLinks, Ash Kalb. This was staged.

Former Flavorpill editor and Double-X contributor, Anna Balkrishna with New York Post writer Justin Rocket Silverman. I asked Rocket - yes, Rocket - about his recent story for the Post in which he covered the meditative art of fingerbanging. Silverman instructed Balkrishna and I on proper performance, which is apparently akin to the "REDRUM" finger painting from The Shining.

Webutante Ball co-founder Jessica Amason is the "Yearbook Girl" of this entire enterprise. "Also, make sure you don't credit me as 'Blakeley's girlfriend,' goddamnit." She then grabbed me and hung me over the roof of the Empire in a Suge-Knight esque manner to ensure I understood what she was saying. Point taken.

Roger Wu, the founder and president of Klickable.TV, gives us his best entrepreneurial smile. He just gave a bunch of Vimeo kids a curbside beating and left them for dead on the third floor of the Empire.

Nerve and ASSME writer Drew Grant conspires with Yalie and Dan Abrams henchman (yes, that is what a Dan Abrams henchman looks like) Andrew Cedotal to feed me information regarding the sexual workings of fired media elites, which they will then use for profit when taken to corporations who could give a shit about the bold line between journalism, market research, and publicity. They are the future.

Julia Allison showed up in an Escalade, wearing a crown, and walked around the party as such. I have nothing to add here. She didn't win anything, luckily, and went home the same person she arrived as. Also, she came with an unnamed foot solider.

Regular Party Crash contributor Melissa Gira Grant, with former Valleywag editor, the dangerously ginger Nick Douglas. "I'm off the fucking job, get away," Gira delicately noted. Douglas smiled politely and retreated to his iPhone where he used his Pot 'O Gold app to make sure nobody had taken his treasure in the last two minutes.

Guess what party these people aren't with. No, really, guess.

On the left, Former Gawker Intern Mary Pilon, with Web Personae and Webutante nominee Anthony DeRosa on the right. Mary went from being a Gawker Intern to working for the Wall Street Journal! Anthony does something with tech something or other and blogs about the Mets. Neither would take a picture without me in it, so I happily obliged. Suckers.

Jake Hurwitz of College Humor, kissing sweet nothings into the face of College Humor's Ben Joseph. They take a bunch of these kisses and make laughs out of them! Whee! Barry Diller actually encourages this kind of thing.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The winner! College Humor's Amir Blumenfeld is the King of the Webutante Ball, because he fixed the vote! As if having his own MTV show and web series weren't enough, he and the College Humor people had to come and win this shit, too. His queen, ridiculous Jewess Cutie and fellow College Humor startlet, Sarah Schneider, poses with him here. Barry Diller doesn't just encourage, but mandates this kind of thing. Well done, kids. Pictured with him here: an unnamed friend.

Richard Blakeley takes Boyfriend Duty incredibly seriously.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.MediaBistro reporter Hunter Walker tries to scoop something out of Random Night Out photographer Nick McGlynn. McGlynn's doing some startup with socialite creature thing Adrien Field, and Hunter, intrepid reporter that he is, probably wanted to know what planet Field is from.

They don't care about the Young Folks; they're here to sap them of their youth and enter one of their heads through a portal, like the end of Being John Malkovich, except the low-rent version.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Brah! My thoughts exactly.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Cnet reporter Caroline McCarthy is shocked - shocked! - that there are people here taking pictures. This is also the face she makes before she turns into Golum, takes the camera and my notes, leaps off the roof and into her batmobile, where she goes home and tirelessly reports the comings and goings of the rest of these people for a living. Princeton grad. Princeton. Grad.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Foursquare Mayor of Kensington, Brooklyn, New York Press and ASSME writer Matt "Slim Thug" Harvey is being properly identified in this picture.

Gawker Media business something-or-other Scott Kidder wants to know what's in his teeth, and if you could get it out, please, so he could then latch his fangs on to you and suck your will to invoice him for services rendered out through your neck. This is why Denton pays him the big bucks, insert Bloodcopy joke here.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Blogger and Media Maven Brian Van wants to know why everyone wants his picture. It's because he's the one guy wearing sunglasses inside. That being said, this was probably the place to do it, as it was maybe the least egregious display of jocular self-seriousness in the house.

Esquire's matrimonial expert Matt Shepatin was just given some BHG. It's like GHB, but instead of knocking you the fuck out, it makes you all too aware of your surroundings, which can leads to blackouts and unconscious episodes that eventually render you both useless and clinging to the floor of a J-Train, talking to a cat-strewn BagLady about the future of digital media.

Richard Blakeley's Delta Force of terrifying interns. They sit around all day and pick out video clips like monkeys pick coffee beans from trees in far away countries, and then bring them back down to Blakeley. Some coffee-picking monkeys eat the beans and then shit them out for their coffee-harvesting masters; luckily, Blakeley doesn't ask them to do that for him. Yet.

The Founding Couple of The Webutante Ball, together. I asked them, in all seriousness, why they were doing this. Blakeley kept his mouth shut, while Jessica kinda explained. Was it for money, to generate book sales buzz? "Eh, kinda." Why, then? "These people probably didn't go to prom, or never had a chance at being elected king or queen. Now they do. Also, this scene's more or less exactly like high school, no matter what level you're on. It makes perfect sense." But WHY? "Because we're sick of the same parties. We wanted to make people dress up for a change. We needed to class it up." Despite her attempts, these people - myself included - are all circlejerky, pompous, and declasse. But they got drunk on a rooftop bar uptown, which was actually a nice change from Tom and Jerry's. Sigh. All's fair in love and social media.

Party Crash photog and Webutante nominee Mo Pitz is drinking away the sorrow of losing. Ha! Just kidding! She's drinking away the sorrow of being my date.

I still remember the day I called you up and tried to recruit you to Valleywag — only to learn that that sneaky rapscallion Nick Denton had beaten me to the punch by one whole day in offering you the night shift at Gawker. It all worked out in the end — and perhaps better than I could have imagined back in 2007. But the main lesson I take away from that is that you can get Denton to do pretty much whatever you want if you're patient enough.

Denton, who has a weakness for idle truisms, likes to say that gossip is a young man's game. But you're old enough to remember the first dotcom bubble, and how it popped. That's going to be key in the next few years. We may escape a depression, but Silicon Valley is facing a reckoning nonetheless. Too much venture capital chased too few idea for far too long — and a buoyant economy can no longer hide the startup factory's mistakes.

The biggest mistake you can make is getting too close to your Valley sources and fall for their groupthink in order to ingratiate yourself. (You know how I've scolded you for gullibly buying the hype that Twitter is an amazing source of real-time news. Okay, perhaps it was — for five seconds, before the blowhards, spammers, and self-promoters found it.) At least your schooling will help you remain an outsider: As a Berkeley grad, you'll have an instinctive dislike for the Valley's Stanford in-crowd.

At the same time, don't forget that your years living, studying, and working in the Bay Area give you a better understanding of your beat than anyone can have from 3,000 miles away. Gabriel and Nick, though well-intentioned, have the Manhattan media habit of confusing proximity with relevance. Gawker is much more than New York now — and Valleywag's unique place therein must be firmly grounded in northern California's shaky soil.

Remember: Love is far more powerful than hate. Keep a clear-eyed passion for the Valley. Most tech reporters here secretly loathe their subjects, but try to disguise it with a supine gladhandery as they beg for scoops about new startup website features. They hate themselves and the people they write about. Sad, right? By loving the Valley, you can write about it more honestly than any of them. Just prepare to have your heart broken again, and again, and again. To truly love something, you must love it with all its failings.

For example, the Valley's Alice-in-Wonderland economics — why is Twitter worth more than most startups precisely because it has no revenues to speak of? But the thing you must love most about Silicon Valley — the part of the story the local press corps always skips over in favor of buzzwords, punditry, and lazy analysis — is its people.

The Valley's story is not one of chips and code. It is not a tale of technology. It is the always-running tragicomedy of the people who make technology.

Here are a few characters to watch. I hope it helps — but I can't wait to see who you add to the list.

Marissa Mayer Valleywag's first story remains its best. The public face of Google, Mayer also runs search, the only business that matters there. The cupcake frosting of her girly image — one she assiduously advances at every opportunity — may humanize the otherwise robotic computer scientist. But it is a distraction. The real question to ask about Mayer: Does her spreadsheet-ridden management style scale to new problems beyond search? Are her strengths now turning into limitations?

Mark Zuckerberg Ignore the nerd façade. Facebook's 25-year-old CEO is headstrong and ruthless. Here's the grand irony of Zuckerberg's revolutionary venture: He claims to be all about openness and sharing. But his imperious, my-way-or-the-highway management style has created a fractious culture of dishonesty, delusion, and disillusionment at the social network. His underlings either learn to say things they don't believe, or they move on. This is why Sheryl Sandberg is exactly the wrong COO for Zuckerberg. The veteran of the Clinton Administration has forgotten her Google training and reverted to Washington-player form, where staying on message is all that counts. Facebook's best hope is that Zuckerberg learns from his mistakes — but first he has to recognize them as mistakes.

Carol Bartz Yahoo's CEO swears like a sailor. At last, a boss who has found the right language to describe Yahoo's plight! Bartz brings a refreshing frankness to Yahoo. But the already demoralized troops she inherited will need to start seeing results. Otherwise, Valleywag will continue to be a steady recipient of leaks from Sunnyvale.

Elon Musk The CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX is living the geek high life, playing with fast cars, rocket ships, and other people's money. It's wonderful that Musk has realized even a small part of his childhood fantasies. But he risks destroying his dreams by refusing to reconcile them with reality. Factcheck everything Musk says. For example, was he actually running either Zip2 or PayPal, the previous dotcom successes he likes to cite in his bio, when they were sold?

Owen Van Natta Everyone is going to give MySpace's new CEO a pass, because the so-called "social portal" is so clearly troubled. If the former Facebook executive succeeds in a turnaround, it will be viewed as an astonishing achievement; if he fails, people will say no one could save MySpace. That's not fair. Hold his feet to the fire, and judge this disturbingly tan rock-star boss like anyone else on the list.

Peter Thiel Thiel, the PayPal cofounder, likes to brag about how he recruits only the best brains from the best schools to work at Clarium Capital, his hedge fund. Oh, really? Take a look at their résumés on LinkedIn. Like so many of this outspokenly harebrained libertarian's theses, the claim sounds good on paper but doesn't stand up to inspection. Valleywag, alone in Silicon Valley, can take a keen look at Thiel's rhetoric without being dazzled by his inflated wealth.

Tim Armstrong Like Van Natta at MySpace, Armstrong, a Google golden boy now charged with running AOL, will be enjoying a honeymoon. Don't worry: There are plenty of disgruntled AOLers who will gladly help you break up the lovefest.

Jimmy Wales Remind me: What does Wikipedia's founder actually do to earn his keep, besides give speeches? In all this time, I was never able to figure that out. Maybe you can!

Eric Schmidt When did Google's CEO turn into such a raging egomaniac? When the blogosphere was the only corner of the Internet that criticized him, he dismissed it as a "cesspool." But now everyone from Hollywood to the New York Times to the Federal Trade Commission is looking askance at his online empire's practices. "Don't be evil" has turned into "don't get caught." He will, though. Be ready when he does.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google's wonder twins have achieved geek nirvana, creating a cloistered campus with free food, lava lamps, and exercise balls to spare. They have a fleet of jets to transport them to rocket launches or rendezvous with Richard Branson and Bono. They've even managed to get married and reproduce. Just one question: Are they still sane? Were they ever?

There are many people who will help you — many of the same people who helped me so much, I hope. They include:

• Nick Denton, for putting up with three years of playing hard to get — and then putting up with much more besides.
• Brian Lam, Choire Sicha, Noah Robischon and Lockhart Steele, for tag-teaming me into taking the job.
• Gabriel Snyder, for expertly steering Valleywag into Gawker's welcoming arms.
• All the Valleywaggers: Paul Boutin, Nick Douglas, Megan McCarthy, Tim Faulkner, Mary Jane Irwin, Jordan Golson, Nicholas Carlson, Jackson West, Melissa Gira Grant, and Tim Woolery. You guys, we've been through so much together!
• Richard Blakeley: We made sweet Photoshop magic together.
• Everyone at Gawker Media: How much do I love you? Far more than just five milligrams.
• Sarah Lacy, Kara Swisher, and Peter Kafka: My peers and fellow purveyors of Valley gossip, you constantly inspired me.
• Countless sources, tipsters, and fellow scribes: Please understand that I esteem you none the less for not naming you here. In fact, your continued anonymity is the best sign of my abiding affection.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Good luck, Ryan. I'll be reading eagerly.

Don't screw it up.

Yours,

Owen
The Valleywag

(Photos by Brian Solis and Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

I landed here via a long, strange lineage representing Gawker of yore: one time Emily Gould banned me as a commenter on this very site. Sometime after, I started a blog parsing the exploits of Gawker mascot Andrew Krucoff, and his blog, Young Manhattanite. Krucoff soon adopted me as his son, and I started writing silly things for YM. Not long after that, former Gawker managing editor Chris Mohney - who got his gig with Gawker by starting the original Gawker-following blog, Gawkerist - hired me at BlackBook when I stopped bringing "daddy home the bacon" for AK. And after writing for founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers at Flavorwire, onetime Gawker editor Alex Balk at Radar (3.0), and again for Balk and two-time Gawker editor Choire Sicha at The Awl, I'm here. Sometime between all that was some silly Vanity Fair article, a few entertainment industry gigs, and that one time I got really drunk and threw a bunch of marbles down Nick Denton's stairs. Hello, new boss!

(I was told to put a Laurel Tobey joke here, but I'm politely declining.)

Essentially: I'm a Deliverance-level inbreed of New York's media scene, and now, I'm here. I'd butterfly my own credibility further, but we've got an entire weekend to do that! I'm a college dropout, I know nothing about this silly Internet business and I like rap music. At some point I might freak out and take a bunch of drugs. If you don't want me to die working Denton's brunch shift, be sure to send in tips and the like. Let's get started, shall we? We can break some news, we can bring the ruckus, and we can be heroes just for one (or two) day(s).

This'll be fun.

You see, Time's argument is that since Gawker grew up chronicling media barons, we're now doomed to go down with them. It's the sort of pat logic you might find in a newsweekly pitch meeting: "All that's left for Gawker is to report on its own demise."

The expansion of our coverage beyond the Manhattan media world —- and into entertainment, politics and, after last year's merger with Valleywag, technology — has been paying off. In fact, traffic has been booming around here: With nearly 23.5 million page views last month, according to our public traffic numbers, the site had its second biggest month ever. And last week on Quantcast we passed the 3 million unique visitors mark, a better than 50% increase from December.

AMC was briefly forced to beg for donors to support her journalism after her Radar gig collapsed (along with the entire magazine). No matter!

Air America Media (www.airamerica.com) has hired Ana Marie Cox as its first Washington, D.C.-based national correspondent, travelling the country to profile people and stories illustrating life in America. She will contribute text, video and audio content to airamerica.com, as well as to a weekly program to air on Air America’s radio network.

Ana is going to the home of American darling Rachel Maddow. Who has Ana on her MSNBC show frequently now. And they're obviously pals—in the clip below, Maddow even offered her a ride home! Did Rachel Maddow give her the hookup for her new gig? We have no idea, but it's an angle. Congrats to Ana for finding a media job, America's most precious natural resource.