Results tagged “gawker”

Tao Lin's promotional spam-mongering tactics have not made Gawker a fan of the author; last year the website addressed Lin, saying, "I know you're reading this. I just want you to know that because of your ill-conceived self-marketing strategy, you have 100% guaranteed that I will never read your damned book. You're maybe perhaps the single most irritating person we've ever had to deal with." They added that his stunts are "retarded" and "deceptive."

Last month Dumbo Books announced a new release by writer Richard Grayson called Who Will Kiss the Pig? Sex Stories for Teens; the announcement got some attention after their Craigslist ad was published. You see, they were looking for cool-looking hipsters to write blurbs for the book, and now they've finally sent out a PDF copy to those who inquired. What took so long? "We have been waiting for Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling [on internet child pornography] to ascertain whether we could still go ahead with publication of the book." Luckily, after consulting with their attorney they got the green light!

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on Broadway and 231st St. in the Bronx, an aircraft alert at JFK at Queens, and a person fatally struck by a train at 57th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan.
• Entries for the NYC Half-Marathon will start being accepted at 11:59pm on May 29th. Details.
• And the Design Trust for Public Space is accepting submissions for its Grand Army Plaza redesign competition.
• An Internal Affairs Bureau Lt. has been reassigned to a surveillance booth in a housing project after his friend allegedly raped a young woman in the apartment of the cop's girlfriend as she begged him to stop.
• The body of Rabbi Zev Segal, missing since yesterday morning, was found in his car, which apparently slid into the Hackensack River in NJ.
• The memorial for promoter-gossip Baird Jones is being held at Plumm, a venue he wasn't a huge fan of.
• A Gawker employee was shackled and thrown into the Tombs after drinking a beer-in-a-bag in the subway system.
• The carjacker of Mayor Bloomberg's personal car, which was in the possession of one of his aides, faces 15 years in the slammer for the crime.
• A lovely castle-like house in Flushing, Queens - turrets and Tudor details!
• Former Gov. George Pataki underwent emergency surgery this morning to relieve an intestinal blockage (he's had problems with this before!).
• And former Project Runway contestants Jeffrey Sebelia, Santino Rice and Kit Pistol watched Project Runway finale in LA amidst their young, adoring fans.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person trapped under an automobile at 9th Ave. and 55th St. in Brooklyn, a missing delivery man at De Kruif Pl. and Dreiser Loop in the Bronx, and a scaffolding incident on 7th Ave. and 25th St. in Manhattan.
• NYC's Dept. of Health wants pharmacists to be allowed to administer flu shots, citing the death toll of the disease and underutilization of vaccination supplies.
• A female pedestrian was struck and killed by a sanitation truck early this morning at 50th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan. A few hours later, a male pedestrian crossing the street at 23rd and 7th Ave. in Manhattan was struck and killed by a U.S. Postal truck.
• Publication synergy at News Corp. as Gawker notes downtown vendors selling The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post together for just $1.
• Plans for a City Jail in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx have been nixed.
• The rap artist known as Snoop Dogg will be performing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on March 13 as part of a VH1 special. Greenpointers has the 420 411 on how to win tickets.
• The Town of Huntington on Long Island has banned vendors from selling 'silly string' within 1,500 feet of a parade route; but people can bring their own if they want. Firefighters complain that the novelty substance damages the paint on their vehicles.
• And "Danny Boy" is too depressing for Foley's Pub in Midtown, which is banning the song for the entire month of March.

It's weird when a Reuters story seems like something on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update:

Kenyan elders may impose a fine on U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, payable in livestock, after a photo of her rival Barack Obama in robes dragged their people into the race for the White House.

Less than two weeks after the writers' strike has come to an end, and sixteen weeks after the show went dark, Saturday Night Live makes its return this weekend. Everyone is checking in with the troupe to see what they missed most, and it's no surprise that it's been the chance to chime in on the primaries (Lorne Michaels called his show's absent voice, "dispiriting"); the NY Times notes the missed opportunities (ahem, Mitt Romney).

Yesterday Gawker posted about a little-known LES space that, if you know the secret handshake, will open its doors to you. Once inside you'll find a reception room, a capacious old theater space... even fishtanks. The night Gawker stumbled in they found a band playing, and in booze-induced wonderment, took a short video clip. The clip was included in the post yesterday but now both have disappeared, becoming as mysterious as this secret club itself!

A.J.: I think the word needs to get out there.Like it or not, it's out there, thanks to Daulerio’s thorough reportage, in which he quotes a chief of clinical gastroenterology at the University of Wisconsin, who explains that “escolar is laden with an overwhelming amount of wax esters.” So unless your partner has a serious Cleveland Steamer fetish you want to spice up for Valentine’s Day, consider yourself warned to stay the hell away from the stuff.

Yesterday’s protest outside the headquarters on 46th Street amounted to roughly 100 masked gadflies cracking wise and chanting anti-Scientology slogans like “Tax the Cult”. Besides objecting to Scientology’s tax-exempt status, the protesters also blame the church for the death of adherent Lisa McPherson in 1995, their alleged use of child labor, and their “fair game” policy of aggressively silencing critics. Yesterday would have been McPherson’s 49th birthday.

On Friday, Gawker speculated that The Brooklyn Paper was in trouble after a tipster told them freelancers haven't been paid since last summer (a late freelancing check...unprecedented!) and perhaps more relevant, if true, that editor Gersh Kuntzman told staffers the "independent, family owned, locally-run" since 1978 paper is "undergoing some turmoil." We asked Kuntzman about the rumor, and here's what he had to say:

"The Gawker story is a complete fabrication. The Brooklyn Paper, which just won 'Newspaper of the Year' from a major national trade group, is certainly not going out of business. Brooklyn needs us too much right now, what with local papers being snapped up by billionaire moguls who have no interest in local news except maximizing classified ad sales. Has Rupert Murdoch even BEEN to Brooklyn? His reporters don't know the territory, either."

Attention Gawker commenters: Nick Denton needs you to pick up his dry cleaning. Though it sounds too good to be true, it seems that eager young Gawker interns are working their way up the new media ladder on the strength of their smug observations, sarcastic bon mots and impassioned diatribes on all things trivial. Will the "first!" be the first to be hired?

"White guy" Streeter Seidell created a White Folks’ Guide to the NYC Subway System, though he admits he should have left in Columbia. Our stop was omitted, was yours? View larger image here. [via Gawker]

After a turbulent couple of months at Gawker, the New York Times Style section is checking the media website’s pulse and wondering, with equal parts hope and desperation, if Gawker has finally jumped the “snark”. The Times’s uptick in Gawker stalking mirrors their aggressive game of catch-up with “teh internets” by increasingly emphasizing blogs on their website, and the article finds the Gray Lady digging a nice, cozy grave for Gawker owner and editor Nick Denton, pictured, to curl up and die down in, thereby releasing his zillions of page views to the cosmic trough.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, an injured corrections officer at Rikers Island in the Bronx, and a gas leak on East 68th St. in Manhattan.
• Chris Booker, the NY radio DJ boyfriend of Philly news personality Alycia Lane who allegedly punched a female NYPD police officer after calling her a dyke, says that she's being singled out because "[she's] a babe." Or it's because she allegedly punched a female NYPD police officer in the face after calling her a dyke.
• The Observer directs the politically inclined to Iowa Caucus-watching parties around town.

New Year's Eve wasn't all confetti, LED-lit crystal balls and...diapers; despite the impression Dick Clark gives to the world at large, there's always just as much excess, overcrowding and diminished expectations to be found outside of Times Square on Amateur Night.

Two years ago Snapple flooded Union Square with a bad attempt at a very large popsicle. Given it was the summer, the pop melted and chaos ensued. Right now there seems to be more panic in the Square, but the thermometer (and guys in hazmat suits) tells us it's not another Snapple snafu.

An explosion occurred at the Midtown building that houses News corporation businesses including Fox News and the NY Post. Fox 5 reports that a man was burned in the chemical explosion and 700 people have been evacuated. However, "the explosion has not interrupted the cable news channel's broadcast."

It’s said that when Dick Cheney was tasked with vetting potential Veeps for the Bush campaign, he carefully considered all the applicants before recommending the best man for the job: himself. Perhaps tearing a page from Vader’s playbook, Dark Lord Balthazar – AKA Gawker Media Czar Nick Denton – has found the ideal replacement to helm his flagship website in the wake of managing editor Choire Sicha’s resignation: an eager young go-getter from sector 7G named... Nick Denton! (We interviewed Sicha in the midst of all that drama.)

In some good news, the bigwigs at Viacom have heard the angry cries of their permanent freelancing employees, and today announced they were ready to concede. Just over one week ago the company Scrooged over a large portion of their workforce when they announced permalancers insurance benefits and their 401K plans would soon be a ghost of Christmas Past. Demanding equal treatment with full time employees (which the permalancers basically are), the group took...

MTV network freelancers took their beef to the streets yesterday in protest of changes to their benefits plan; about two hundred of the workers spent the afternoon picketing outside the Times Square headquarters of MTV's parent company Viacom. According to Gawker, an initial chant of “What the fuck?!” was revised into the catchier “We care about our 401(k)s!” after a reportedly winsome young rabble-rouser climbed atop a garbage can and helped brainstorm new chant...

The New York Press is getting their Gawker Stalker on with their latest cover story about stalking Claire Danes...and how you, yes you, can also follow her home! All you need is the internet, a lot of free time and an obsession in which to fuel your fanboy/girl fire. The payoff? Well, for the author of the article, Becca Tucker, it was a cover story complete with creepy photo, headline and font. Just close your...

Sumner Redstone, who as majority shareholder still calls the shots at Viacom, has arranged a special holiday treat for his already well-exploited “permalancers”. (The term refers to the practice favored by Viacom and other companies of employing workers full time but classifying them “freelance” to keep their sneaky hands out of the insurance jar.) Though Viacom permalancers had previously been eligible for healthcare benefits after a year, new rules dictate that insurance will only be...

Drama rocked the tabloid news website Gawker last week when half the editorial staff abruptly resigned. The news came to readers through an initially unassuming post on the website by editor Emily Gould, who addressed at length an essay about Gawker in the new issue of literary magazine n + 1 before divulging news of her departure, along with managing editor Choire Sicha. (It was later learned that a third editor, Joshua Stein, had also...

Resumes are being accepted to fill a sudden vacuum in the self-proclaimed “drug ring” that is Gawker. On Friday afternoon, at the end of a long Gawker post about palling around with the n + 1 crowd – who happen to be publishing a long think-piece on Gawker in their new issue – editor and cewebrity Emily Gould abruptly announced that managing editor Choire Sicha was to resign. And she would be joining him....

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a fatal fire on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn, a train derailment on 41st St. and 1st Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on East Gunhill Rd. in the Bronx.
• Anthony Marshall's––Brooke Astor's estranged son––lawyer pleaded not guilty to forgery in the sordid case of her will.
• BestWeekEver.tv's Michelle Collins manages to compliment Tony Bennett, fling a t-shirt at Nick Lachey, stump Josh Groban on the definition of "Cougars", covet Sean Kingston's 14K Crayolas, and be disappointed by Celine Dion, all in one 4-minute segment. That's jam-packed talent.
• Community spokesperson Al Sharpton and mayoral hopeful Council Speaker Christine Quinn fell over themselves denouncing hateful speech yesterday.
• Pimping your motor vehicle rides is for LA suckers. New Yorkers pimp their bikes with mega stereo systems––really.
• Managing Editor Choire Sicha is flying the coop from Gawker.com.
• A construction worker was rescued after being buried alive in Morningside Heights up to his chest.
• Ray Kelly flips Councilman Simcha Felder the bird, literally. He gave him a plastic pigeon in recognition of his somewhat controversial bid to rid NYC of what the councilman described as "flying rats".

Sean L. McCarthy has got it made. Blogger of comedy for The NY Daily News, New York's Funniest Reporter , and he spends his nights hanging out with some of the funniest people in the world. A truly enviable position! What's his secret? How did he get to where he is? Gothamist wanted to know and found out!

Talking Radio reported that Air American Radio host and liberal Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Avenue while walking her dog. Soon after, fellow AAR host Jon Elliott stated that Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, lost teeth and insinuated that the attack was part of "the right wing hate machine." And soon after that an AAR blogger, Nancy Scola, posted: "Air America host Randi Rhodes experienced an unfortunate incident hindering her from hosting her show. The reports of a presumed hate crime are unfounded. Ms. Rhodes looks forward to being back on the air on Thursday."

The current New York Magazine dives deep inside the navel with seven sprawling pages on Gawker. The rather tame procedural is conducted by Vanessa Grigoriadis, who's up front with the disclosures: Her NY Times wedding announcement was savaged by Gawker, New York Magazine currently employs two former Gawker editors, and Grigoriadis peeped managing editor Choire Sicha’s underwear.

As is the custom around these parts, we would like to take a moment to thank this weeks' advertisers on Gothamist.

We'd like to take a brief moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist.