i preferred shaq but i did like how he jumped over a car here
but have you seen what that video looked like without the special effects?
meanwhile this was a pretty awesome pass
im not a huge kobe fan
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it was close to a hundred degrees this weekend here in LA
basically it was the first day of summer.
the good people of hollywood got to sleep with their windows open for the first time in a very long time. so long that even the cars were able to park all day in the shade for free.
the boys got to run around with no shirts on and the girls got to wear those micro miniskirts that seem to remain in fashion thank the lord. and the homeless pushed their worldly possessions right there down the middle of sunset.
it was so hot that coca cola sent vans of people to santee alley to give out free bottles of coke to the folks who were buying illegal dvds
and counterfeit clothes and unlawful bunnies in little plastic cages filled with rabies and soon-to-be dashed dreams. or dinner.
it was so hot that girls that you arent even making love with will call you up and say lets go to the beach and when you pick them up they dont have any beach clothes and you ask them oh are we skinny dipping and they pull out a flask of love and say maaaaaaybe and you think yes im so gonna get lucky thank you unreal heatwave of sex and you picker up in the palisades
and you drive through santa monica and you let her take pictures of palm trees out the window and you make it to venice and youre about to park and becuase shes basically anorexic shes already wasted from the rum and she says psssst
and you say que?
and she says lets just go to your casa.
and you say but my casa is messy-a
and she says lets just go to the snooty fox then
and you say baby you carry around hand sanitizer in your coach bag you dont wanna go to the snooty fox
and she pulls you close at a red light in culver city and whispers in your ear and convinces you to find the snooty fox in ten words or less.
and you drive with the top down listening to satellite radio and this girl knows every song of the big 80s station even though she was born in the middle of the much maligned era
and she asks you to drive thru the taco bell drive thru before you get to the 405 so you do as youre told and she whispers something in your ear that convinces you to get to a little more swanky hotel than the snooty fox in five words or less
and she eats her chalupa while lookin at ya
and by the time you are about to valet
shes passed out and snoring
and say what you want, but life is so not boring.
our good friend doc searls who created the genius marketing concept of
“markets are a conversation” from the groundbreaking book the cluetrain manifesto, is currently under doctor’s care. he says that hes ok, but you should still probably keep him in your prayers for a week or so.
here’s an email he sent to me and a few others this weekend that id like to share with you.
subject: A little pulmonary embolism
Hi.
Ya’ll are on a loose list of folks I am guessing hasn’t read my blog, or heard through the grapevine that last week I went to the hospital with what felt to me like muscle cramps in my rib cage, but turned out to be a pulmonary embolism, better known as a blood clot, in my right lung. I’m on blood thinners now, and will go in for more examinations this next week. The Wife was in Paris on a vacation that was to continue in Munich this next weekend when The Kid and I were scheduled to meet her (in time for me to do a bunch of work-related stuff at conferences), has returned home to hold down the fort and keep things sane as we get my ass stabilized (that is, with blood sufficiently and consistently thinned), so if I croak it will have to be from something that doesn’t involve clotting. This is a Good Thing.
I may still go to Munich, by the way. That’s the plan, although it’s a bit of a long shot. It depends on whether my clotting resistance is consistently low.
Mysteries at this point are 1) whether I have the same clotting disease my cousins have, called Factor V Leiden (which is treated with the anti-clotting medicine I am already taking); and 2) where the clot came from. We await tests on the first item and may never know the answer to the second. Sonograms of my neck and legs show clear veins. An echo-cardiogram of my heart looks excellent, as does my EKG. My heart, in fact, appears to be very healthy (consistent with tests done several months ago in Santa Barbara after a similar scare that turned out to be a false alarm.) So does pulse (62) and blood pressure (120/70).
The “PE,” as they call it, appears clearly on a CAT scan, as do a few tiny “nodules” that are probably nothing, but require that I get re-CATted in 3 months. Since I have never been a smoker, the doctors are not concerned, but they still want to monitor things, which is good.
Since the most likely source of the clot was my legs, excessive sitting (at my desk and in airplanes) is the leading suspect, in terms of lifestyle. So I have already taken to walking and riding the new bike I bought today. The Wife bought one too. We plan to become a more physically active family.
Other good news is that we are being treated by the greater Harvard medical system, which means things like getting this guy for my hematologist.
This is also the first time I’ve encountered a health care system that pushes me much harder than I push it. I get concerned calls several times a day from truly interested and caring professionals at University Health Services, from the Law School Clinic (where I showed up with my chest pains), and elsewhere.
We just got on that plan a few weeks ago. Much better than having to deal with California minimum self-employed Blue Cross, here in MA.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be fine, even if I now fear sitting down, which in the long run (say, more than a week) is a career-limiting attitude.
So I’ll soon be getting a stand-up desk and a much better chair for my sit-down desk.
Anyway, that’s the news. Love to all,
Doc/Dave/David
here are some posts that Doc wrote over the last week regarding the deal at hand
you might remember doc searls from such busblog posts as
– Live From the Blogosphere, Ev Williams announces Blogger being Sold to Google
– Doc at SXSW 2006 with Dooce, her husband, and Henry Copeland of BlogAds
– Doc calls me “the best blogger ever”
you know i love my man ken layne
so i really appreciate him doing an interview with me for the LA Times blog Web Scout
here was one of my favorite back-and-forths that we had during our 50 minute google chat:
Web Scout: Why on earth do you think Denton would sell Wonkette in the middle of a presidential race?
Ken: It’s a good time for the site to make a move, when everything’s about politics. But Gawker’s ad people just aren’t going to move to D.C. and sell political ads for one site when they’re selling 200-plus million impressions for gadgets and consumer things. So if we’re going to do well, we need ad people who understand political blogs and an agency that sells a ton of political advertising.
Web Scout: Denton says that he has a hard time selling ads for the three blogs it is selling off, not just yours, so wouldn’t an intelligent man then fire his sales team instead of the blogs?
Ken: Well, if any of those blogs were doing the kind of traffic Gizmodo does, then yes. I mean, in a way it’s going back to the whole ideal of the news blog: One or two people do the editorial, BlogAds sells the inventory, and you kind of omit the whole “publisher” part of the model. It’s the Matt Drudge/Perez Hilton/Fark way of doing the Internet, which of course is the way I like to work, at home, with my cocktails and e-mail. And necktie and jacket — I always put on my tie before I go to my office. Must have workplace dignity.
Web Scout: What is your drink of choice nowadays?
Ken: For live-blogging, it’s Jameson on the rocks. Otherwise, bordeaux and pinot noir.
Web Scout: Nothing American? Now I see your ways. OK, now according to Technorati, Wonkette is ranked #63, meaning there are only 62 blogs more popular than your site in the whole world. How is it that Denton seems to think that Wonkette, Idolator and Gridskipper combined only account for 3% of Gawker Media’s traffic? Could that be true?
Ken: There is a Coppola claret that we like a lot, and buy by the case. It’s from California.
Web Scout: Good save. And Sofia can really stomp a grape, I hear.
Ken: It is true, the traffic figures. Now, Wonkette is one of the very top politics blogs. We did 6 million pages last month — another record — and 1.2 million unique visitors. We’re a very big politics site, no doubt. But it’s also true that Gawker sites did 200-plus million views last month. And there’s your 3%.
Obviously, I like political news to be subsidized by fluff. This is why whatever half-naked tart of the month is on the cover of Vanity Fair, but inside you get these great news features and investigations and political rants. I don’t mind that situation. But the truth is that fewer publishers/broadcasters in any medium are willing to subsidize news and politics. Tribune Co. doesn’t want to do it, the TV networks don’t want to do it.
read the whole thing here and dont miss the part where i asked if Nick Denton sold Wonkette because he was afraid of dissing a black or a woman if one of them became president
ken layne convinces nick denton that the sky is falling
and wrestles Wonkette away to be all his.
denton also seemed like it was time to sell off the curiously average Gridskipper to Curbed and music blog Idolator to Buzznet,
“There’s a cold wind coming,” Denton told Silicon Insider via IM. “We need to focus on our core titles.”
what world does he live in where Wonkette isn’t core? maybe i can get an interview with Layne later today. in the meantime heres the email Denton sent his troops this morning:
From: nick@gawker.com
Subject: Gawker spinning off three sites — Idolator, Gridskipper and Wonkette —
Date: April 14, 2008 10:26:06 AM EDT
To: all@gawker.com, edit@gawker.com
I’m amazed we’ve managed to keep a lid on this news; that, given your naturally gossipy natures, must be a first! We’re spinning off three sites: Idolator, Gridskipper and—this one may be a surprise—Wonkette. There were indeed some rumors about Maura Johnston’s music blog late last year; they were true of course. For reasons that I’ll explain below, both it and our travel and politics sites have better commercial futures outside Gawker than within. (Excuse the corporate lingo: some of it is unavoidable.) But, first, the facts, which will be hitting the wires later this morning, or as soon as you leak this email. Go ahead!
* IDOLATOR is going to Buzznet, a music-focused web and social network. Buzznet recently acquired Idolator’s chief rival, Stereogum, and received a big investment from Universal Music Group.
* GRIDSKIPPER isn’t going far: it’s being taken over by Curbed, the network founded by Lockhart Steele, in which Gawker Media is a shareholder.
* WONKETTE is being spun off to the managing editor, Ken Layne, former founder of one of the web’s very first news sites, Tabloid.net. The title will become part of the Blogads network of political sites, which includes Daily Kos, among others.
Why these three sites? To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.
Music audiences are fragmented across genres; Maura’s Idolator gave Stereogum a good run, but a group with a whole array of music sites will command more attention from record labels than we could. In the case of Gridskipper, our urban travel guide, we could never match Curbed in attention to city-specific content and advertising. As for Wonkette: political advertisers are a strange breed; they don’t come through the same agencies our sales people deal with.
I’m relieved we’ve found pretty decent homes for the three sites, and most of their writers, but we’re gutted to lose them. Idolator’s Pop Critic’s Poll was a tremendous coup—and Patric’s bleeding-heart logo for the site was one of my favorites. Gridskipper is so far the most sophisticated travel blog: it entirely deserved its inclusion in Time’s list of the 50 coolest websites.
And Wonkette is one of the brands with which the company is most associated; people will be shocked that we would ever part with it. The political site has won an array of Bloggies and other awards; it introduced the word ass-fucking into the dictionary of political abuse; the founding editor’s slippers are even on display in the new media museum in Washington, DC. And Ken and his team have brought a new liveliness to the site this election season—validated by the record traffic of the last three months.
So why not wait, at least till the election? Well, since the end of last year, we’ve been expecting a downturn. Scratch that: since the middle of 2006, when we sold off Screenhead, shuttered Sploid and declared we were “hunkering down”, we’ve been waiting for the internet bubble to burst. No, really, this time. And, even if not, better safe than sorry; and better too early than too late.
Everybody says that the internet is special; that advertising is still moving away from print and TV; and Gawker sites are still growing in traffic by about 90% a year, way faster than the web as a whole. But it would be naive to think that we can merely power through an advertising recession. We need to concentrate our energies, and the time of Chris Batty’s sales group, on the sites with the greatest potential for audience and advertising.
The dozen sites that remain represent some 97% or our 228m pageviews per month, and an even higher proportion of our growth and advertising revenue. (Key facts are below, in case anyone asks.) We’ll be able to devote more attention to breakouts such as Jezebel and io9, as well as established titles such as Gizmodo and Kotaku, which are becoming utterly dominant in their domains. And, then, once this recession is done with, and we come up from the bunker to survey the internet wasteland around us, we can decide on what new territories we want to colonize.
Both Noah and I are around to answer any questions. On email, IM, or phone. I’m xxx-xxx-xxx and Noah is on xxx-xxx-xxxx.
Regards
Nick
congrats to ken, sara, and the readers of Wonkette. it will be fascinating to see what that site can do with Ken Layne running the whole thing.
and special thanks to basart for the early morning email tipping me off.
when did lollapalooza get great again?
prince, roger waters, the breeders, and gogol bordello out in indio for coachella are pretty much all i need from a music festival,
but perry farrell seems to have done some crazy ass overachieving, cuz look at this nonsense that he put together for lolla this year – a sample:
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails
Kanye West
Wilco
The Raconteurs
Louis XIV
Love and Rockets
Gnarls Barkley
Bloc Party
The Black Keys
Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco
Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson
Cat Power
The National
G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Brand New
Gogol Bordello
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Dierks Bentley
Blues Traveler
CSS
Battles
Butch Walker
Mates of State
Brazilian Girls
Chromeo
Duffy
The Kills
The Postelles
Rogue Wave
The Go! Team
Yeasayer
Grizzly Bear
We Go To 11
MGMT
Santogold
Black Kids
Black Lips
Dr. Dog
The Ting Tings
Kid Sister
The Cool Kids
What Made Milwaukee Famous
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
The Whigs
The Octopus Project
never have i wanted to return to chicago in august so badly but i think bro just talked me into it. if only to see kanye, kid sister, and the cool kids in grant park. and i could crash at my mommas house. and maybe see a cubs game? and drink old style? oh the possibilities.
complete lineup on the lollapalooza site
because i was meant to have the weirdest life ever
when i was a boy i got to meet Jesse Owens, who was a friend of my grandmother.
although i believe in making it tough for a torch to get from one end of frisco to another, i dont believe in not going to olympic events out of protest.
i believe in having jesse owens go to nazi germany to win gold right there in front of hitler and his beliefs about the master race.
i believe in going to mexico city and raising the black power salute while they play the star spangled banner
i believe in beating the russians with kids because yes al michaels i believe in miracles
and miracles dont happen unless you play the game.
do i think that george bush should go to china? no, i think he should go to new orleans where people are still living in fema trailers, i think he should go to watts where gang violence is outta control, i think he should go to pakistan and find evil doer number one.
something tells me that those trips would bring more good to america than sitting in some luxury box halfway around the world.
and then i think he should go to iraq until the end of his term since he seems to have put all his chips on that number.
so go there, war president, decider, uniter, and bring back that victory you keep talking about. there will be enough americans in beijing, as there should be.
the other day your bff ashley* posted pics from her bachelorette party
as expected it was fun and vegasy and populated with all her hot friends. and the daisy princess looked happy.
but how do i feel about it? this notion of her getting married?
i feel like the dude in sixteen candles who hears from long duck dong that molly ringwald is getting married.
married?
mallied.
married?
yes mallied!
i guess im happy for her. she deserves love. everyone does, but shes a sweet girl and probably deserves it more. and if she wants to get married she should, i guess. she never really had any great boyfriends before, and i wasnt even technically her bf, and the dude shes marrying she lived with for a while and they went through ups and downs, so thats good. at least she knows sorta what shes getting into.
i suppose i have a pretty jaded view of marriage. which is weird because almost all of my friends who have gotten married have all seemed to be happy about it, their kids are beautiful and smart and all, but theres something about the whole concept that makes close to zero sense to me.
even at my advanced age, and even though ive seen it all, almost every week an interesting woman crosses my path and my heart usually says thank you tony for not figuring out a way to end all possibilities for her to reach down your pants.
marriage seems good on paper: lover for life, companion who really knows you, partner who has your best interests at heart, sex and dinner served hot each night. but relationships dont happen on paper. they happen in the real world, and in that arena most of the people who arent my friends generally laugh and admit the fact that the sex ends after a few years of marriage.
count me in?
so what you get is someone who knows you real well who you can get fat with together?
oh, and raise kids. because thats so appealing too. the crying, the whining, the day care costs, the shielding away from the molesters, the health care costs, the tudors, the embarrassing things that they say before you can embarrass yourself on your blog – basically the complete loss of your life for a midget who can barely speak english.
obviously there must be something to the marriage, kids, getting fat path because its been going on since eden and millions of people who enter into that world seem to have absolutely nothing but great things to say about it.
was i going to marry ashley when she was 20? uh, no. was she a great girlfriend, absolutely. do i think that her marriage and future are bright? i think that ashley has a great family, great friends, i think shes smart and beautiful, and the world is her oyster. but since shes a vegetarian, i think the world is her grilled cheesed sandwich. so i think that she will continue to go against the grain, like my friends, and make something good out of this failed concept of til death do us part.
and for sure she will make a gorgeous bride.
another reason i probably wont vote for obama
: no cubs shirt
my drinking buddy andy sternberg bought an MLB Obama shirt before MLB shut down the site that provided said shirts.
Smoking Gun last month explained why the league shut down the site and has a nice little photo gallery of shirts/jerseys of the other baseball teams that the Obama ’08 campaign ripped off, uh, gave tribute to.
I see an old school White Sox jersey, an old school Padres(!), and above i see the Dodgers, but wheres Da Cubs?
No respect i tell ya, no respect.
btw the Cubbies are on fire, fyi.
xTx asks: “Tone…did you listen to howard yet today?
rtie had a major meltdown and resigned from the show… it was intense! yikes!”
yes i did. i listen to howard every morning. hes one of my all time idols. i have the second stiletto, it sits next to my bed, it starts recording at 3am and it records for 6 hours.
like most stern fans, artie is my second favorite person on the show next to howard. one reason i love artie is because hes so out of control – the drinking, the overeating, the drugs, the gambling, the overwork, the falling asleep at work on the job, the grandma capprio. artie is so out of control that even though hes so beloved by fans he still feels like he needs to go to hookers to get sex.
the meltdown was classic because teddy and artie blamed each other for everything, howard tried so hard to be supportive but yet artie tried to blame howard, then teddy tried to blame howard. then artie said he loved howard and walked off.
textbook drama. textbook human nature. textbook bipolarity of artie dancing with Lisa G one minute saying how happy he is to be flying to amsterdam later that day and the next minute trying to jump over the console so he could bitchslap his lame assistant.
ultimately i blame teddy. artie is the most generous man on the show. he gives everyone and anyone money. from jeff the drunk to strippers to fans. plus everyone knows what a fragile person he is. so if teddy is nagging him about bonuses, if hes leaning on artie to give him loans, if hes mooching in any way in regards to money – the issue that seems to have caused the most resentment from our fat radio friend – then its teddys fault, not arties.
artie is the only man youve ever heard of who felt bad for his bookie after winning tens of thousands of dollars and let his bookie off the hook.
this morning on Howard 100 News they say that the entire bachelor party of men, teddy and artie included, made it to amsterdam. they say that everyone has seemed to cool off. and tonight there will be a dinner and all parties are expected to be there.
will amsterdam with its access to any vice that artie can escape to (hookers, heroin, hash, hamburgers) spiral him down a tragic and fatal hole? probably. will this blow up scar the stern show forever? never. was it weird listening to howard be so shaken and down once artie left the show? yes.
if he doesnt die in amsterdam, do i think artie will return to the show?
probably not.
i dont think artie ever enjoyed waking up at 5am to get into the show. i dont think artie knows how to fully enjoy success. i dont think artie ever recovered from breaking up with daner. and as a fellow libra, i dont think that artie will ever be at peace with himself until he’s in a committed relationship with someone who he is deeply in love with.
artie appears to be the typical libra, no matter how successful he is, unless he is in love, hes miserable. he can sell out the universal amphitheatre, he can be the funniest guy on the most popular radio show of all time – one whose audience is about to balloon to 18 million listeners once the FCC quits cockblocking and allows Sirius and XM to merge – a guy who is even funny while hes sleeping, he can sell out carnagie hall, he can be so rich and fat and surrounded by family who loves him, he can even have just seen his football team win the super bowl, but yet without a real love affair he’s empty inside.
so yes xtx i heard it, and im sad, cuz i think arties gonna die in xxx.