All right, Andrew. Here it, the response you crave, and it's a good one. But linking to YM from Gawker comments? That's a new low of desperation, even for you. Now, I know you must play to your imaginary audience here, and I don't expect you to break "character." I've seen you drop the mask enough times when called on your bullshit after hours. And I look forward to the usual anemic gonzo shtick-response -- lame puns, tedious parentheticals, pretend quotations, insider allusions, and a cheerful embrace of criticism in order to avoid answering for it. But if I may, I'm going to be a little sincere with you, for the last time.
I'm not sure why you’re so obsessed with me personally, but I assume it's a subspecies of your general fixation on Gawker and the people who work there. Why do you care why I was booted from Gawker? Why do you even care about Gawker at all, anymore? How many posts have you written about me recently ... four, five? The core motive for these open letters to my attention seems to be that you’re vicariously outraged, and further outraged that I don’t share your outrage. Self-righteous vicarious outraged indignation, maybe?
Your worm's-eye view of who thinks what at Gawker, who is responsible for what, and who likes/dislikes what/who long ago taught me caution by example when speaking outside my areas of immediate knowledge. Offhand I can't recall more than twice when your assumptions were accurate. Suffice it to say that if you had any inkling of the true inner clockworks at Gawker, it would curl your hair. With boredom. It's the same mundane dynamics that exist everywhere. I know it's much sexier to envision a steamy network of treacherous glamor culminating in a spectacular auto-da-fe, but really, it's just your typical office with an eccentric boss, ungainly egos, and generalized, generally congenial confusion due to the company’s strange position in a weird industry.
But just to further indulge you, let's say that Denton and Lock really did hate everything I did at Gawker. So what? I know you're a fan of the "look me in the eye and tell me why I was fired" moment -- you mention it enough -- but again, who cares what the reasons are, truthfully or speciously? Would some clear, honest, come-to-Jesus explanation matter, effectively, to any of the parties involved? Nope. I think what I think, they think what they think, and we all act accordingly. Maybe this is what sticks in your craw, that I genuinely have little interest in the autopsy.
It's puzzling that someone like yourself, who goes out of his way to make enemies for fun, can be so concerned with what someone else thinks of what yet other people think. Do you ever wonder why you're universally despised? It's not because you’re a self-styled take-no-prisoners truth-teller. Don't get me wrong, everyone, myself included, enjoys your flair for insult. But the problem is not your eagerness to publicly horsewhip people you know and are ostensibly friendly with. It's your obvious, sadistic pleasure in doing so. And the source of your sadism is precisely satisfied by assaulting those who either have done you the least damage or who aren't paying attention to you anymore.
Sorry if this comes across as all uncool and heavy, but even I -- probably the last person at Gawker Media who said a word in your defense, however qualified -- have my limits. You need to move on, man. I have, and so has everybody else.
1. AK is unfortunately still coming down from the hallucinogenic power afforded him as the original skipper of the grid, drinking too much of the kool-aid emblazoned on the GM shirt of yore: Unhealthily Obsessed (TM yet?).
2. Neither Andrew Andrew or the Big Mo do snarky gonzo journalism particularly well when it's a topic too close to home. Big Mo seems to have drifted from the only thing he was every good at: penning snarky wishing they seem like insider baseball posts about GM. Andrew Andrew is losing his grip because even after 40 years of shitty celebrity journalism and he's surprised people he liked and admired turned out to be no more interesting or self-reflexively moral than Cindy Adams or Richard Johnson. Me, I thought it was telegraphed from Day One, so they don't disappoint me personally.
Plus he's impatient. If kosher wine had to, you know, age, we might get a smoother finish and less alcohol kick.
Chris,
I like andrew, he's my brother, please dont speak to him in this tone.
Chris, although you're quite a large guy, this might have weighed "heavier" if it came from someone who had a modicum of self-respect. (See, I don't either, so you're preaching to the quagmire.) To witness someone get treated the way you have by Nick and Lock and then go back to them? Hard not to look. It's just amazing, though not entirely unprecedented...(cue the ken burns effect)
Nick and Lock once told everyone who would listen that Spiers was fired from the venerable New York magazine and then shit-canned from Mediabistro (is this Googable?), one of them even told a story of being at a party where Laurel Touby was standing on a chair saying that Spiers was useless and out the door. (Honestly, I have no idea what the chair part meant but how the fuck could I make that up? Don't answer but I'm not.) Nick and Lock always made fun of her "work ethic" and post-Gawker "quality" (there are those quotes again, aaaaaaahh...they're real!) which I never understood until I got to really know her. Her own employees say they have no idea what the hell she does all day. Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, the pattern.
Like you, she eventually crawled back to Nick and Lock. It just breaks the heart - like a kid yelling at his parent for talking with their mouth fall, they get mad because they detect the unseemly behavior as a character flaw they wish that person didn't have. In her defense, when you start a blog network and plan to publish a book, you need all the linkage you can get so you suck whatever cock gets thrown in your face.
So what bothers me? Oh you know, the usual stuff I've been bitching about since the mid 70s: sycophants, corporate whores, mustaches, people who call bullshit on other people but can't handle bullshit being called back on them, unreliable dope dealers, and people I don't like for no other reason than they weren't like me.
The last group is practically non-existent, I love everybody. It's true, I do. The human race is a wonderful thing if you take the time to stop handicapping half of them with ankle weights and YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
You're gonna have to qualify your "universally despised" remark because I have found it be the exact opposite. Gasp! No? Wait, do you mean the "Gawker universe"? You gotta step out of that box from time to time, buddy. There's a whole bright world on the other side where children dance and sing. Of course, some of them need new textbooks too, but I'm doing the best I can.
My question to you, why do YOU care about the "YM universe" and what we say? Our twin moons barely revolve. No one pays attention to us and no one takes it seriously - except you, though I guess that kinda validates the big gossip business model when you extrapolate the unhealthy obsession to Paris's pink pussy and some mag skank hoofing the L train from Williamsburg. (Comment Alert!)
I mean, if you guys are allowed to write the same exact post 30 times a day, everyday of the week, 52 weeks a year, why you gotta be getting on my case for my once a week pony show? We offer free rides, too.
... more, more, MORE ...
Ok, just a little bit MORE. Andrew, this may come as a shock, but my self-respect is just fine, thanks -- it doesn't emanate from you or your opinions, which is fortunate for all concerned. As someone with self-esteem to spare, I'm sure you can appreciate that. Therefore, there's no need to get so worked up on my behalf that you feel compelled to perform a tough-love intervention as a thin excuse for the abuse you relish dispensing. I know you view everyone and everything at Gawker as parts of a continuous gestalt experience, a gigantic conspiracy running from Elizabeth Spiers to post quotas to the glorious present. But quite aside from the charms of memory lane: If I'm content with my situation, isn't all your angst and bile really much more about you than me? Dumb question. Sure, the "no one reads this, none of this matters" routine is part of your strategy to get off the hook for what you say here, but would you buy that from Gawker? For that matter, do you really want to pursue your elevation of YM as Gawker's bizarro twin to its logical conclusion? And lastly, in terms of getting out more, you demonstrably hang with bloggers far more than I ever have. I'm sure everyone likes you to your face.
First let me say, thanks for playing, none of this would be possible without your generous rapport.
[Warning: escape clause ahead. The following is neither meant to be high or low. Mainly just middle of the road fare with underage gas huffers laying in one ditch, disembodied text messages emanating from the other.]
I will admit your sincerity is touching, if not oddly devoid of real human emotion, but none of it obscures the fact that you were fired (I guess you prefer the phrasing "given a day's notice to accept reassignment or quitting"?) but you've stuck around anyway. Frankly, that looks pretty ridiculous (and a man in my position cannot afford to look ridiculous! - quick, name that movie) but maybe denial does wonders for self-esteem.
To address one point you tried to awkwardly make - "Sure, the "no one reads this, none of this matters" routine is part of your strategy to get off the hook for what you say here, but would you buy that from Gawker?" - my friend, I've bought it and I paid dearly for it. Though I did get a nice souvenir mention in the NYT and a trip to Israel from it.
So what's the logical conclusion? I don't know what your playbook says but I think YM hit its paydirt by getting banned. Did we ever ask for anything more - or less? We're in the victory parade part of this trip. And you know me, I. like. to. draw. this. shit. out. Especially with all the nice views. Sorry, eyes on the road, wouldn't be fun if got detoured into a truck convoy or funeral procession.
I don't know who these people are smiling to my face and not my backside (my front has a lot to grimace about actually, sigh) but I certainly thank them for being polite.
[Note to the apes who find this exchange in a time capsule buried under the Forbidden Zone: I would explain what's going on here but you're fuckin' apes!]
Damn dirty apes at that.
Jesus, what drama. Chris, will you just sleep with him already?
It's a good thing the stakes are so incredibly high here, otherwise this might come off as pathetic.
Remember my moving target advice? Apply that to topics of interest, stat.
Sorry Sac, we're in the "it's gonna get a lot worse before improving" phase of this operation. Come back in 30 years.
listen you should leave this poor guy alone. who among us hasn't had to crawl back in abject humiliation to a nefarious overlord in order to put food on the table? few i'd say.* me, i am in awe those that can do it (however much respect i respect the principled types, ie you).
*if you haven't: (a) you are supremely lucky or (b) you've crawled to some new nefarious overlord.
The funny thing is, AK secretly believes it's Doree posting as MooHoo. That's why it's all the third grade sexy talk (I hate you! No, I hate you!).
He whispered this to me when I was cornholing him at HiFi (we don't always go to the Mag).
Eh, if you ask me, Chris is a damn classy guy.
No one is asking.
(cha cha cha)
You're just jealous cause he works that Travolta-Wolfe look so well.
You know we're all a bunch of crazy talk show call-in kids, saving our voices.
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