Spiersblr: Randomly: a few of my favorite Observer pieces from this year, in no... →
Randomly: a few of my favorite Observer pieces from this year, in no particular order:
A Twee Grows in Brooklyn: the Portlandification of the increasingly bourgeois borough by Adrianne Jeffries
Almost Amis by Christian Lorentzen
Peter Braunstein Still Has Issues by Aaron Gell
Pony Up, Haters: How 4Chan Gave Birth to the Bronies by Una LaMarche
The Situation and the Story: Press Corp Parties While White House Makes History by Foster Kamer and Kat Stoeffel
Regarding Harry: One Reporter’s Hellish Life As a Young Wizard Lookalike by Michael H. Miller
Rapture for Radicals: Hipster Prophet Leads May 21st Faithful to Ninth Avenue Food Festival by Dana Vachon
Isn’t He Rich? Rich Hilfiger’s Rap Career Poised to Take Off by Dan Duray
“The Situation And The Story” was the best post-WHCD article I’ve ever read, full stop.
Just seeing this while looking at Spiers’ job opening announcements for the Observer. Jason: Thank you! That story was also one of the most patently intense and/or fun things I’ve ever been a part of, professionally. Here’s how life at the Observer sometimes is: My dry-cleaner was closed on a Saturday for whatever reason. I purchased a suit from TopShop in a rush to the bus that afternoon not even fully sure it fit (it did, but the pants were, let’s just say…snug) and promised myself to return it. I got on the bus to D.C. and managed to find Nate and Kat at our YM-alumnus provided crashpad. At that point, Kat had already been lectured by David Remnick the night before at the same party Nate had made fast friends with David Byrne, who he and Kat would later find looking for coffee, hungover to shit, on Sunday morning outside the NYO D.C. bureau/crashpad (they had to help direct him to a coffee shop). We were credentialed for literally nothing on Saturday night. We managed to talk our way into the main hall at the pre-WHPCD cocktail hour; I ended up standing between Jeremy Piven, Presidential Candidate Trump, and Greta Van Susteren as he was peppered with questions about whether or not Snooki would be his running mate. It was like being on acid, without the acid. We ended up watching the dinner in a hotel room with some other reporters from New York in the Hilton, eating their pizza (almost the entire room were NYO alumni, and this wasn’t their first rodeo/WHPCD shitshow tour of duty). As the speeches wrapped up, we hopped in a cab to the MSNBC party, which we essentially crashed by “acting like we belong(ed).” Nate’s faux-indignant rage at our names not being “found” on the list, if I remember correctly, did the trick. Kat and I were then yelled at or had been scolded by Rachel Maddow, MSNBC president Phil Griffin, and Eliot Spitzer, among others. Sarah Palin was oddly nicer than any of those people that we spoke to. Nate and I got manhandled at the door to the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair party, who wanted none of our shenanigans. It was 3AM. We didn’t get in. Did we even have a story? Maybe. The next morning we woke up and went to the Hay-Adams Hotel, which overlooks the White House, and watched a caterer spill an entire dish of butter onto one of the little old ladies from The McLaughlin Group. Everyone was hungover. We grabbed our stuff, cleaned up the crashpad, and started transcribing quotes from a coffee shop near the BoltBus stop, and tried to get some sleep on the ride home. Which was around when we heard the White House would be making an announcement that night. As it turns out, Osama Bin Ladin was being killed as we were blearily staring at the White House from a penthouse across the street, from which we were evicted for smoking cigarettes. We tore up the draft and had three reporters downtown near Ground Zero; Aaron and Spiers and I were in the office trying to drill down content for the site live. For that and the next two nights, Kat, Nate, Azi, and myself all took turns sleeping on the couch in Spiers’ office, which she woke someone up from three mornings in a row. It was, if I remember correctly, my third week on the job.
Somehow, the piece got published. The kind words are nice. I’m not sure if the final result was as great as the process by which it was cooked. Sometimes that happens. All of which goes to say: It’s a fun job, and the rare kind that you’re always learning from, and not in the bullshit way where one “learns” by simply being a sentient human being who fucks up every now and then and promises not to repeat themselves. There’s actually ground to be picked up, here, and it’s a great place to do it. And I suggest, if you are interested, to give the boss a shout.
