Gawker

We Take It All Back [Angelo Mozilo]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:08:52 EDT

Angelo Mozilo was the grossly overpaid CEO of disastrous mortgage lending company Countrywide, who became the human face of the subprime crisis while simultaneously finding his customers' pleas for help "disgusting." But scratch that, because his own sister says he's nice. And she's a liberal! [HuffPo]

Here are the Lame Midtown Starbucks Given the Ax [Urban Anthropology]

Sheila — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:08:43 EDT

Starbucks recently announced the closing of 600 stores, and now the list of the doomed stores is out! Six in Manhattan will close, all of them in Midtown. Hey, it's a step in the right direction. Here they are:

565 Fifth Avenue @ 46th Street

1600 Broadway, @ 48th Street

1675 Broadway, near 52nd Street

400 Madison Avenue

the one in Macy's Herald Square

340 Madison @ 44th

See ya later, suckers!

Kreepie Kats in" Here's a Hilarious NEW YORKER Cover Idea: My Sweaty Kat Boner Krammed Up David Remnick's Fucking Nose!!" [Kreepie Kats]

Pareene — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:58:12 EDT

[Jim Behrle's kitties explain today that everyone reads the New Yorker for the cartoons. Just like Gawker! Also more explication of how to mock Barack Obama. AND THE MOTHERFUCKING BATMAN. Click thru and watch!]

"Driving a Vespa To Mars" [The Commies]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:57:00 EDT

Get in line, the bread's here. But only six of you are going to get any. Why? Because these are hard times and experiments have failed, and theories are grand but practice is hard work. So put out those little mitts of yours and trudge after the jump to see who eats this week.

From Aaron Altman in Race Baiting Media Whore Is a Credible Source To One Dumb Paper:
"Dear Newspapers:

There are still journalistic tenets to uphold, whether you are a free newspaper or not. Why must the new media keep schooling your fucking asses like this? Do you really, really think that your readers don't fucking care that you can't go around flouting basic reporting rules like 1) Checking your sources; 2) Factchecking; 3) Running your shit story by a goddamned editor who still gives a fuck that he or she is working at a fucking newspaper, that last bastion of objectivity in a very subjective world, for fuck's sake?

Newsies, please. I went to school for this shit. I bought textbooks. I was taught by former writers and editors, producers and reporters how to do this shit and do it right. Then I went out into the world and got myself a job, a news job, and did that shit right. Or at the very least put myself through the fucking paces so that whatever ended up on the air - or, in your case, on the front fucking page of amajor daily newspaper - was correct, and at the very least covered from all sides.

'I sold a stupid t-shirt. Someone got beat up and now they're gonna sue me' is NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH. FOR FUCK'S SAKE. BE A NEWSPAPER.

Love,

Your adoring public "

From the recently demoted Private Hangnail in Today's News In a Word Cloud:
"Is it me, or does this Word Cloud make us all look very, very stupid?" —Yes.

From MattGaymon in The New Yorker's Tasteless Cover:
"I'd be pretty psyched if someone drew me as Angela Davis."

From karion in Bright-Eyed Young Literary Woman Leaves New York in Disgust:
"The odd thing is, there are all these fish crammed into a fishbowl and everyone complains about being in a fishbowl and all that, but in reality, no one is paying attention to the fish except the other fish.

Whatever, Sheila, you should be fired. "

From Botswana Meat Commission in Will HuffPo Pay Its Bloggers Some Mythical Day in the Future?:
"She looks exactly how I imagine the Huffington Post would look in human form."

Your Party Pick this week goes to your friend and mine, dear old KarenUhOh who waxed rhapsodic in Julia TV: Confirmed:
"I give up. Time to give credit where due. Deserved or not, hypnotic or idiotic, this woman has nailed the more-with-less equivalent of driving a Vespa to Mars."

Beautiful job all. Enjoy your weekends. Oh, and you should take a listen to that sad hipster Footloose cover. Some of it is actually quite lovely. Also, this:

Real Geeks Confused By Latest Wired Cover [The Internets]

Sheila — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:52:03 EDT

"This is what happens when real geeks find out about the self proclaimed [New York] digerati," writes a tipster, referring to this awesome geek conversation, which includes, "I bet those other fake geeks dont even know what an RS-232 booster chip is for."

syrix: WTF

syrix: this world is going to crap

syrix: i dont get this

syrix: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-08/howto_allison

syrix: i dont even know who Julia Allison is

Jim: oh dude dont you read my tumblr

Jim: shes the prototypical fameball

syrix: *flameball?

Jim: no fameball

Jim: sigh, you dont hang out on the cool side of the internet do you?

[Jim Rock]

George Clooney Gets Women Drunk For A Mere Kiss [Advertising]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:50:19 EDT

Did you know that in the UK it's actually illegal for liquor companies to imply that their product will help you achieve “seduction, sexual activity or sexual success"? Crazy, right? But the byproduct is that even George Clooney—the sexiest man alive (according to women or whatever)—has to play like a good boy in his European ads for Martini vermouth. Oh, he's so couth. He just wants to twirl that fake mustache and meet you later on to get to know the real you. Don't believe the hype, ladies; he can't love you like a blogger can. Scoff at his act, after the jump:

[via Jossip]

George Lois to Design 02138 Cover [Living Legends]

Pareene — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:17:33 EDT

Relaunching your niche magazine in this miserable market and dismal culture? Get legendary designer George Lois on board! He cannibalized his old Esquire work for Radar, and now he's lending his talents to pretend Harvard Alum mag 02138 (can't believe we got the name of the mag right on the first try, sigh). If it wasn't late Friday afternoon we'd mock up a funny photoshop here. But now YOU CAN'T MAKE US. Anyway Lois is still awesome and cantankerous so it will probably be good, unlike the rest of that miserable magazine. The relaunch cover story? "The Harvard 100, the magazines annual ranking of the top 100 living alumni. " [NYP]

New Ad Campaign Flaunts Gossip Girl's Bad Self [Advertising]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:09:00 EDT

How could the CW ever top their infamous "OMFG" Gossip Girl ad campaign that set uppity tongues a wagging earlier this year? By embracing the finger-pointing criticisms and couple them with more sexy pictures of the sun-browned, nubile cast. Like the one here! And the two below. Oh, you know. After the:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

"Cancer tempting Tasmanian devils to have teenage sex" [Science]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:06:00 EDT

Do you ever read science magazines just so you have some interesting factoid to talk about and sound cultured? It's worthwhile. [60 Second Science]

A Demure Review [Things As Good As Cheese]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:43:00 EDT

More Batman! Our former leading man Choire Sicha reviewed The Dark Knight for Radar. And he liked it. A lot.

The Socialite's Nazi Publicist [Wtf]

Pareene — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:23:13 EDT

Ok guys, deep breaths. Do you know the Fanjuls? Pepe and his lovely wife Emilia? They're maybe the wealthiest Cuban-American couple in the nation. Emilia, a socialite about Palm Beach, the Dominican Republic, and, yes, New York, is famous for her charitable work. Recently she's made a couple headlines for her newest project—"helping to finance and build a sparkling new campus for Glades Academy, a charter school in the town of Pahokee, Fla.," a town full of impoverished migrant workers and their families. So it's odd, isn't it, that her "executive assistant" and publicist is a white supremacist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center noticed, in a magazine piece about Emilia and her work with the school, this innocuous-looking line: "For more information about Glades Academy, call Chloe Black." That name probably doesn't mean much to you, but it's very familiar to a group like the SPLC, which battles racist organizations.

Chloe Black used to be married to David Duke. Former national leader of the KKK David Duke. Straight-up neo-Nazi David Duke.

While less visible in the white supremacist world than either of her husbands, Black has a strong movement history of her own. She met Duke at a college meeting of the White Youth Alliance in the 1970s, and, after marrying him, became vice president of his Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. She long held the copyright to African Atto, a weird 1973 booklet that instructs blacks on how to kill whites — and which was written, as was revealed by enterprising reporters, by Duke, who then claimed he was using it to compile a list of “radical blacks.”

Yes but that was years ago, you say! People change! Sure. Her next husband was Don Black. Another former Klan leader! But far, far more famous these days for founding and operating the most notoriously hateful site on the internet: Stormfront. Look it up yourself if you don't know the deal—it's generally considered poor Internet form to mention it, let alone link. It's basically a neo-Nazi message board. Fucked up shit goes on there.

Don Black claims to be unemployed, though he pays to operate Stormfront all on his own in a house owned entirely by his wife Chloe. And where does Chloe get her cash? From Emilia Fanjul, the Cuban-American sugar magnate socialite! Black is an executive assistant at Florida Crystals, the Fanjuls' sugar conglomerate. They had no comment.

They maybe didn't even know! Though a GOOGLE SEARCH would've revealed that in recent years Chloe Black has attended the conferences of hate groups and says lovely things about David Duke to the press.

So yes a neo-Nazi is flacking for a school designed to help poor minority children out of poverty, and using the money she makes to run a site dedicated to raising hatred and inciting violence against those little kids. And a wealthy socialite is involved!

WTF.

[Photo of Emilia Fanjul: New York Social Diary]

'Guido' War [Public Relations]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:20:06 EDT

Staten Island—all of it!—is threatening to boycott Belmar, NJ because the mayor there made derogatory remarks about "guidos," the overtanned, hair-gelled, well-muscled gentlemen who I say are just fine, so that I don't get jumped next time I go to the gym. "The mayor should watch his f- - -ing mouth!" one Staten Island resident told the Post. Ha, right you are, my friend! Do you care to read the entire press release about this grievous insult from Staten Island Good Neighborhood Association president John "JE" Englebert, for some reason? Then click through and do so! [UPDATE: And a sample of the mayor's original gentle insults!]:

MEDIA ADVISORY

Staten Island Organization calls for Boycott of Belmar New Jersey
if Mayor fails to visit Staten Island

Staten Island, New York- John "JE" Englebert President of the Staten Island Good Neighborhood Association is calling for a boycott of Belmar New Jersey by Staten Islanders. An apology is not good enough. The group wants the Mayor Kenneth Pringle who insulted Staten Island to spend 24 hours in the crown island jewel of New York. He would be treated to the local cuisine including a night at the Staten Island Hotel. The Staten Island Good Neighbor Association wants to take him on a tour of the place people love to dump on.

If he refuses the group plans a fundraiser to give for the candidate that runs against him in the next election and boycott ads will be placed in local newspapers across Staten Island. The groups website is http://www.statenislandgoodneighborhoodassociation.com

"JE" Englebert is a life-long resident of Staten Island. He is owner of New York City nightclubs including Suzie Wong and Prime. The Organization is a non political group that is dedicated to the health, safety and well being of Staten Island. It acts as a community watch dog organization for good government and civic activities for the people of Staten Island.

Some of what the mayor wrote [via Newsday]:

The more time we spend on the NJGuido site, the more we think of Guidos as a kind of rare bird: they flock to our shore towns during the warm months, and are as welcome as, oh, Canada Geese. They're always tanned to the color of coconut shells, and easily identified by their plumage: satin shirts and short skirts on the females; Armani Exchange T-shirts and artfully distressed jeans on the males. The females favor bold hair styles and colorful makeup; the males tend to strut and flex their pumped up muscles. The call of the Guido is bellowing, and frequently slurred, invariably starting with the sound, "Yo," followed all too often by some creative variation on an expletive beginning with the letter, "F."

Au Revoir, New York Illiterately Mean [Executions]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:33:00 EDT

Executions started with the goal that commenters would come to be respected. A part of me hoped that Gawker commenters could rise above the scene of thoughtless vitriol spewed by anonymous office drones and 12-year-olds, to not be mentioned in trend pieces that try to co-opt what it means to be mocked on the internet. Because these days, everyone hates anonymous bile, unless it's funny. I hoped to force the Gawker commenters into the former category. And it seems to be working. Maybe too well.

Everyone is so friendly now. I feel lost at this point. I don't know how I can continue to execute people regularly if everyone continues the lovefest. I suppose it's possible to participate in it, and be a murderous jackanape, without actually becoming hypocritical. But this tiny concentration of liveblog chat rooms has become a juggernaut that subtly controls everything that happens in the comments section.

The experience has left me to grapple with learning how to cull the truly objectionable from a much smaller sample pool. In truth, I'm happy my job is becoming harder, but also glad that those below were still stupid enough for this week to have some bloodshed.

Executed: Mister Lincoln
Crime: Well, duh.

Executed: Hubert Cumberdale
Crime: A lot of stuff that I don't want to slog through, so let's just say this one.

Executed: sidemouse
Crime: Please—no more comments regarding the editorial direction of the site. Thank you.

Whining can be directed to gawkerexecutioner@gmail.com. I'll be here. Not in Paris.

Race-Baiting Media Whore Is A Credible Source To One Dumb Paper [Hoaxes]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:25:25 EDT

Metro, the free paper best known for causing track fires on the NYC subways, ran a cover story yesterday that is totally indefensible, even by the lowly journalism standards of free morning papers. Radar spotted it: a front page splash about an innocent grad student girl who was supposedly attacked by four wild young black females because she was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan, "OBAMA IS MY SLAVE." The paper's one and only source? The untalented media whore designer who sold the mystery girl the shirt. (We would feel dirty giving him more PR than necessary, but it was this prick). But guess what, Metro: we got that press release too. And if this whole story isn't a hoax, I will personally buy one of those shitty shirts.

Here's the release we got on Wednesday:

[Alleged victim], a 25 year-old graduate student who lives in Manhattan was attacked yesterday (Tuesday, July 15th, 2008) at 8.30 P.M. outside of the 14th St.-Union Square subway station. ["Victim"], who was at the time listening to music with her iPod, was wearing a pink t-shirt bearing the slogan "Obama Is My Slave". Four African-American female teenagers approached her and one of them started to curse her because of her t-shirt, screaming at her, and then push her. ["Victim"], who was shocked, started to walk away from the group but was followed by the girls. The same one who cursed her, pulled her earphones and another girl spat on her face. ["Victim"] ran away from them and called the "[Bad designer]" store on [LES] where she had purchased her t-shirt and complained about the attack to the employee who was working in the shop at that time. The employee agreed to give ["victim"] the owner's, [bad designer's], cell phone number and the still shocked ["victim"] told him about the attack and informed him she was thinking of suing him "for all he's got". [Bad designer] in return told her that he was very sorry she had been attacked, but that she could not blame him because as he told her "No one made you buy the t-shirt". ["Victim"] said that she would come the following day and demand a refund for the t-shirt, which cost her $69. [Bad designer] told her that he doesn't give refunds because it is against his store policy. This made her even more agitated and she started to scream at him saying that he should be "ashamed of himself". [Bad designer] asked her for her phone number saying that he would speak to his lawyer and call her back. Yesterday at 10 PM when I, his publicist, called ["victim"] she was extremely upset and told me that she had spoken to her parents and decided to take [bad designer] to court.

* To speak with [alleged victim] about the incident, you can reach her at phone number: [redacted]
* To speak with [Bad designer] aka [prick], you can reach him at phone number: [redacted].
* A picture of [Bad designer] aka [prick] wearing the "Obama Is My Slave" t-shirt can be found at: [Hell]

Sincerely,

Lauren Levy
[Bad designer's] Publicist.

What's wrong with this picture? The guy is supposedly getting sued, and his own flack blasts out a press release with all the alleged dirty details, including the contact info of the girl who is supposedly suing him. Any reporter who's ever seen a press release related to a lawsuit knows that there's no way on earth one side will be happily passing out the other side's contact info and encouraging journalists to call them. And Metro says the "victim" didn't return any of their calls. Which didn't stop them from putting this on the front page.

There are only two possibilities: Either this whole thing is a hoax; or, the girl did get assaulted, and the bad designer and his creepy flack decided that this race-baiting was just the thing to get his face in the paper. Either way, what a bunch of scuzzballs.

Metro: you fools.

[Radar]

Will HuffPo Pay its Bloggers Some Mythical Day in the Future? [New Media]

Sheila — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:05:42 EDT

The Huffington Post, that repository of crackpot rants and informed political debate (plus "verticals"! Lots of verticals) does not pay its bloggers. But they hypothetically might, sometime in the future. HuffPo CEO Betsy Morgan (formerly of CBSNews.com) was interviewed by her college alumni magazine. After the jump, probably the most obnoxious and telling new-media statement of our time about actually paying employees. (Hint? "So 1993.") (Mixed Media via CJR)

That said, we have a very good relationship with our bloggers; we’re unbelievably respectful of them. By blogging, they get terrific exposure and our brand gives them a unique platform. We’ve had a positive two-way relationship with them. Could that include money at some point? Sure. But it feels very 1993 to say, ‘Hey, it’s all about the check that I get at the end of the month.’

How incredibly, arrogantly out of touch. But hey, but this wouldn't be such a problem if people started REFUSING TO WRITE FOR FREE!

[Q&A: Betsy Morgan]

The Mournful Music of Footloose? [Muzak]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:05:00 EDT

So if someone told you that, as a memorial to a friend's dead sister, they'd recorded a mournful, twinkly cover of the entire soundtrack to the 1980's homo carnival Footloose (a movie about John Lithgow bellowing about the evils of dancing and Kevin Bacon boldly and baconly defying him), what would you think? Well, we are faced with that stumper today, as we've stumbled upon a musician called Doveman who has done just that.

A beery-eyed-at-the-bar-at-4:30am-thinking-about-college sad hipster jam version of the title track? Um, sure. How about the weepy ebb and flow of a dirge-like rendition of "Let's Hear It For the Boy"? Hermmm, OK. Basically it's Friday and we're hungover and befuddled and don't know what to make of this. So we're foisting the question onto you, dear readers. Haunting elegy for a lost loved one, or peculiar and misguided hipster fantasia? (Or, I guess, both?) Listen to the tracks here and read Doveman's friend, Gabriel Greenberg, describe the album below.

When I was very young, my half-sister Jenny died tragically. She was a teenager, and it was the 80's. She left behind a wardrobe of brightly colored clothes, rainbow stickers, life-size paintings, doodles on lined paper, and hundreds of tapes. These constitute most of my memories of her. It's sad for me to look at these things, and usually I don't. But a couple of summers ago I found a tape of hers with a startling cover photograph — this was Footloose. I couldn't stop listening: it was a portrait of 80's love, desire, pain, freedom, and frenzy; of being a teenager in a time of change. By listening, I could step into Jenny's shoes, see things from her vantage point. I could be emancipated by rock and roll and walkmen, just as she had been. We could listen together.

I asked my friend Thomas to cover the album, which, sheltered as he is, he had never heard before. I was clear that I wanted to him to cover the whole album - the point wasn't to rework any one song, but to re-imagine the picture they made together. With a new Footloose. we could reply to the past, tell our own story about being young.

Via Stereogum. (Yes we realize that this is a bit old, but we're oddly mesmerized by it).

Somebody Please Pun-ch Kenneth Cole. Get It? [Bad Ads]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:47:30 EDT

Kenneth Cole is not just a middling designer and outspoken advocate for responsible journalism; he's also, for reasons we can't fathom (narcissism), his own advertising copywriter. A bad advertising copywriter. It's not every CEO of a massive fashion brand that's too cheap to hire someone to write his own billboard taglines. But in Kenneth Cole's case, coming up with them only robs him of mere seconds of thought. That's how his poor clothing line ends up with billboards like this one on Houston St.—presumably the balls are there to distract you from the slogan itself:

[via Copyranter]

Ryan Adams, the Book [Ryan Adams]

Sheila — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:18:39 EDT

The musician/experimental blogger is already publishing a book of poetry, and today's Page Six says he's "signed with indie Brooklyn house Akashic Books" for a "collection of prose." Is it the same poetry book they're referring to—or a separate one? (Our e-mail to Adams asking for elaboration bounced.) [Page Six]

Public Slogan-Writing Promo: What Could Go Wrong? [Marketing]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:47:10 EDT

New York Life has a foolproof plan for its new online promotion: they let any member of the internet riff-raff go on their website and submit three-word slogans, which are displayed in the company's trademark blue box. Looks just like the real thing. I can see why they want some new ideas, considering what they have now. Jeez. [via Afreak]

Gay Hero Revealed to Be Nazi Super Baby [Papa Mia]

Richard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:44:00 EDT

Are you sooo super jazzed to see Mamma Mia!, that Meryl Streep movie musical based on the Broadway show which is built, in ramshackle fashion, around a raft of ABBA songs? If you are you just might be a gay person. And we love you for it! But you know who wouldn't love you for it? Hitler. And you know who has ties to his Nazi party? Beebop band ABBA's own Frida Lyngstad. Time and circumstance came to reveal that she is the daughter of a Nazi officer who, along with many others, was spreading his seed around Norway in the hopes of creating a master race. Like this was an actual eugenics plan commissioned by Berlin. A new documentary on The Jewish Channel chronicles the story, a preview for which (via Radosh) is after the jump.