[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

I have made my fandom of Pat Kiernan and Pat’s Papers loud and clear previous to this. Which is why this was my “WE’RE ON THE RADIO!”-moment yesterday morning; I sent Joe video from my phone of what it looked like on the TV in my living room as soon as it happened. This was cool.

The Sweeter Side of 4Chan: Sending 90 Year-Old War Vet William J. Lashua a Birthday Card →

You mean 4Chan, right? “Yeah, that thing.” What do she make of all the attention, though? How’s everyone over there taking it? Have they started to receive any mail?

“Not as of yet, but from what I understand, we’re going to be inundated. The only thing that bothers me,” she notes, “is the idea that Willy’s going to be lonely or alone on his birthday. We’re a small town, and they say you can’t swing a cat by its tail without hitting a Lashua.”

Dog Days of Always

So I just got into work, slightly waylaid by last night’s celebration by a tremendous hangover, as anyone who’s ever had more than three drinks with me can tell you is bound to happen. Anyway: When you’re walking around in 90 degree heat and you’re just leaving your place at 2PM, the world’s already started moving, and you’re just stepping into it, and it feels something like walking onto a basketball court just as the third period started, and you haven’t even stretched, and oh, there goes the ball. Or at least that’s how it is for me. I’m kind of an invalid, and it’ll take me two stops just to get my headphones on, and another one to pick a song, and I’ll just stare at things, not really because I’m looking, but because it’s something to focus on, and I’m not even processing it. Yeah: Like the rest of the known universe, given the opportunity, I will let a hangover render me fairly useless. 

I get out at the 8th Street NRW to grab a bite before I head into work, I go into the pizza place on the corner, get money out of the ATM, and walk out. I’m about to cross Broadway and I see a guy in an FDNY shirt bending over, using a spritz bottle to spray down a dog laying on some blankets, next to a change cup with a few dollars in it, and the dog is resting his head on a milk crate turned upside down, under the awning of the shops with just enough shade to protect the dog and the blankets from the sun. The guy stands up after spraying the dog a few times, looks around, shrugs, puts the water bottle down, and goes inside. I realize I’ve been standing there watching this entire thing happen, because I see a hot, sad dog, and my heart sinks into my stomach, even more so when someone is taking the time to cool it down with some water and it doesn’t appear to be theirs. My natural, dumb reaction is to take a picture of this and post it here, because I see an act of general kindness, and it’s genuinely touching, and I don’t know how else to handle that moment but to try and share it, but my camera phone isn’t working. The dog is now on the blanket by itself, though, because the FDNY guy is in the store, and the change cup is just sitting there, and the way I put it together in my head is: maybe the guy whose dog it is got picked up by cops, or something, and this dog is all alone, and what’s going to happen, is anyone else going to stop by? Should I now go and spray this dog?

The guy in the FDNY shirt walks out of the drug store back to the dog, turns around, and looks at me: “You tryin’ to take a picture of my dog? What is this, man? We’re hot and hungry.” I fumble my phone back in my pocket and explain that I didn’t know it was his dog and was worried, but “uh, I’m glad it is, it looks like a nice dog.” It did. The guy asked me for some change and I fumble out a single and put it in his cup. While I’m doing this the dog comes up to me and puts its head on my leg - it looked like a pitbull-mutt of some kind, and a genuinely sweet dog - and he’s telling me man, I’ve got the worst heartburn right now, you ever get that? It’s so bad, I don’t know what to do about it.

Hold this, I tell him, and I hand him what little is left of my iced coffee and start digging through my bag, and he’s telling me thanks for (looks at the cup) this man, and I say, no, wait, and I find the white bottle in my bag with the red top, and pull out two antacid tablets. I’ve started to have to carry them around with me or have one at least within a five-minute reach since I went to the ER in late March for an ulcer/reflux attack, which was the first (and only) time I’ve ever had to go to the ER. I couldn’t breathe and it was generally terrifying, so, you know, whether or not I really need them, I’ve still always got them with me, for the most part. 

I hand him two and he takes both immediately. Aw, thanks man, appreciate it, thank you, I can’t believe you had these on you. I mumble something about it not being a problem and I take my coffee back and I leave, and while I’m standing on line for lunch at a truck, and I realize he took both the antacid tablets, and aren’t you not supposed to take more than one in a day? I’m starting to get paranoid that I might’ve just sent this guy to the hospital.

I walk to the office and find a table and set my lunch and messenger bag down and dig through the bag to find the bottle and read it, and I’m peeling back the label and my heart’s pounding, and even so, even if this is a problem, What the fuck am I going to do about this? What can I do? Tell him to get to a hospital because someone gave him two antacid tablets and didn’t tell him that if he took both he’d OD on them? Take him to a hospital? Fuck I don’t even and there it is: “Don’t take more than two tablets in 24 hours.” He’s gonna be fine. I walk down the street to the office, and I put my headphones in, and I realize Wilco’s “Poor Places” was on before I took my headphones out to take the picture, and for some reason, the song won’t come back on, and I’m not even surprised at the quasi-coincidence. I’ve never not been a sucker for panhandlers, in the five years that I’ve been here, but the ones with kids and dogs really, really get to me. What page is the story on, Paolo? It’s not. It’s on my shitty Tumblr. I know this one made the front page, so did this one, and this one, and I know it was just a subversive aside to put this in perspective, and one that was spot-on, but yeah, I don’t know who does this that’s not unaware of what doesn’t make the front page. Their lives are probably easier if they exist, and I’m sure they do, but I wouldn’t want to be them. At the same time, I didn’t wanna be me for about twenty minutes today, either.  

Fox News vs. Hipsters: A First-Rate Lesson in Hate Speech →

Why Fox News Truly Doesn’t Understand Hipsters, by Fox News: “These are all common beliefs of hipsters that can be overheard on a Sunday stroll through NYC’s East Village. — Just be sure to avoid the tainted syringes. — If you were to ask the modern hipster, he… I mean she… Sorry, IT is likely under the impression that Usama Bin Laden is wearing skinny jeans in his cave, currently listening to Animal Collective as he throws back cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Certainly Al Qaeda shares a common bond with the trust-fund jackass, bobbing his head at the Vampire Weekend concert.” First of all, it’s now expensive to live in the East Village, “hipsters” are primarily housed in Brooklyn, it’s widely believed and/or understood. Even if that weren’t the case, the East Village hasn’t been junkie-friendly for at least six or seven years: an Upper West Side Starbucks Bathroom sees more junkies in a day than St. Marks does. That said, you were close with “Pabst” and “Animal Collective” and “Vampire Weekend” by at least three to five years (a reference to “chillwave” or “Four Loko” would’ve taken you far, here).

Okay, all fun and games in this part. But seriously, please click on this, if only to see the last paragraph. I’m a fierce first advocate, but hate speech is hate speech, no matter who it’s against. This is a particularly worthless cause on their part, but, really: Why is everyone so angry like this? It sounds like a naive question, but I mean…I don’t know. It probably is.

————— Forwarded message —————
From: Foster Kamer 
Date: Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 1:12 PM
Subject: i need you to call me
To: Joe Coscarelli 


office: 212-475-1900. we have the opportunity to do something very exciting.

And so this thing started. Tony came over to my desk, asked me if I had anything, and that was the first thing I did when he walked away. More on that in a second.

Why gossip? Because it was interesting to us, we were writing what we know, and we felt like we could

(A) Get it correct, 
(B) Do a story that would satisfy people who were already familiar with the topic as well as — and more importantly — reach a wider audience with a topic that’s often in their periphery without much thought to it otherwise while
(C) Making it pretty entertaining, too. You can’t do a story about gossip without a little gossip in it. I mean, you could, but it wouldn’t be as much fun as this.

The main aim of the story wasn’t necessarily to declare anything “dead” though — because those pieces are more often than not, wrong — and in fact, not really to declare anything anything so much as just let the people who make these things speak for themselves, and then take stock of it. I’ve personally experienced the not-great sensation of fucking up some story or reading someone else’s half-baked trend piece with anonymous sources that everyone writes off because it begins with the same conclusion it’s going to end with, and everything in that story is dedicated to reach some grand proclamation. What emerged was, what we think of at least as a pretty accurate picture.

There’re some leftover questions, mainly, Why should I give a shit about gossip? and What does gossip even mean any more? among others. We’re gonna be taking some of the awesome interview material we have still - and there’s plenty - and churning some blog posts out of it. This thing isn’t done yet. That’ll be fun, too. Bloggers and print, mixing! It happens.

Anyway, back to that email: I’m happy with this, but Joe, I mean, Joe fucking killed it, here. This wouldn’t have happened without him. The soul and balance and intelligence of this piece was him. Joe talked me off the ledge one night early on after something we thought we had fell through (when we thought our deadline was a week earlier than it actually was, ha) from basically going into Tony’s office, curling in the fetal position, and telling him to run a five page crossword puzzle (still a decent idea, but glad we went with this). Joe’s also just turned 23 22! Which is insane.

Between this, Meagan’s name on bookshelves, Lilit’s name of bookshelves, Stelter with the A1, and Adam Frucci’s new digs, it’s a pretty exciting week for young writers/mediapeople in New York City. Oh, and also: It’s the first day of September, the best month of the year. On an oversharey note, five years ago this month, the day before my 21st birthday, I moved here after dropping out of college and basically was told my life was fucked by everyone but four people, and as much as I loved them, I was pretty sure everyone else was correct. Don’t want to tempt fate, but I’m pretty sure those four people turned out to be right.

And to celebrate this, I’m buying one of them a drink tonight.
And then getting blackout drunk with Joe. 
Happy September. 

Jon Liu on Antony and the Johnsons for Capital NY →

(via leoncrawl)

No we’re not, we’re FUCKING AWESOME. WE ARE THE AWESOMEST EVER!

alexbalk:

“Though The Awl has become a steady read among media professionals and urban enthusiasts, it’s still a modest operation.”

[NOTE: I don’t “do press,” but I would like to say that I also am “personally delighted to be going into partnership with the talented Adam Frucci, who’s worked with some of the best in the blogging biz.”]

Press Clips: Certain Media Reporters Think Howard Kurtz is Full of Shit →

Well, it’s true.

The incredible talents of Zach Baron, everyone.

Paris Hilton, Cocaine, Vagina, "Pro": Take A Guess. →

“She has cat like reflexes.”