The Basics
Age and occupation. How long have you lived here, where did you come from, and where do you live now?
I'm 27, and a freelance writer. I moved here immediately after college in 1999, at the height of the boom. I grew up in semi-rural Illinois, and now I live in a semi-hip neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Three for You
1. Your latest Business 2.0 article on Internet mogul Nick Denton has received much criticism, at least from the man in question. Would you like to defend your back of the envelope calculations or any other claims he has made about your claims?
Obviously, I stand by my story and its figures, and personally I think Nick doth protest too much. Nick seems convinced that my editors and I are conspiring with Jason Calacanis to blow a new bubble we can cash into. (He might be right about Jason's motives.) Nick didn't want to participate with my story because he's participating with Wired's instead, which sort of undermines his leave-me-alone-I'm-working argument a bit, don't you think? He's a master of anti-hype hype, and for that, my editors and I saluted him.
2. You were the media reporter at Women's Wear Daily not too long ago and then quite abruptly, as these things tend to go, you were not. What happened?
Well, I'm supposed to be working on a book or two, and I wanted to write for and about companies that weren't owned by Si Newhouse. I really liked working at WWD, but when you spend all day memorizing who a magazine editor's friends and enemies are, you quickly realize that you either have to be prepared to specialize in this subject for the rest of your professional life (as The New York Post's Keith Kelly seems to have done) or you have to bail out at some point to write substantive features or whatever. I mean, when Barbara O'Dair was nudged out of her job as the editor of Teen People, my colleague and I sat there, asking each other aloud "Who's she friends with?" and then calling them. I'd rather keep tabs on what my own friends are up to.
3. Rumors of your sexuality swirl like a cotton candy machine on the boardwalk in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. Of course, one's orientation is of no importance but how distracting do you find these allegations?
What rumors? As far as I know, the only people who've ever seriously wondered if I was gay were my clueless straight male friends. Women and gay men apparently pick up on my own cluelessness immediately -- despite my penchant for stripes. Choire Sicha liked to joke on Gawker that I was "ambiguously metrosexual." The joke was that there was nothing ambiguous about it -- I'm a former slob who discovered the joy of being halfway presentable way too late in life. Now I'm pretentious as hell about it.
Proust-Krucoff Questionnaire
Please share a personal (and hopefully interesting) NYC taxi story.
A few years ago I was leaving work at Inside.com with our intern (the infamous Ultragrrrl) when we were caught in a sudden summer downpour. We sought a cab on 10th Ave., and while I was hailing one, she pointed to a man on the far side of the intersection and asked "Is that David Bowie?" She called to him to share our cab, which was headed uptown. He got in, and sure enough, it was him. We played it infinitely cool -- idly chit-chatting, pretending he was just like us, or we like him, or something. We got out first and began jumping up-and-down screaming after the cab disappeared from view. I mentioned this story to one of Ultragrrl's friends a few months ago, and was told she edits me out of the story when she tells it now.
Time travel question: What era, day or event in New York's history would you like to re-live?
The New York of 1962, i.e. the Breakfast at Tiffany's era. The people were smart, dressed smarter, and talked smarter still, or at least it seemed that way in the movie.
What's the most expensive thing in your wardrobe?
The Paul Smith suit pictured above. I'm ashamed to say I actually paid retail for it. The one thing I learned during my brief stint in the fashion business is how truly insular that world is -- much more so than publishing. Everyone looks fabulous, but no one pays for it. Only the rubes are expected to pay retail; even the assistants have endless discounts, private sales, etc. at their fingertips. Everyone's lifestyle is subsidized by the fleecing of outsiders.
Where do you summer?
My girlfriend works for a Hamptons-related magazine, so naturally we don't step foot in the place. We're Fire Islanders -- we're all about the ferry and reading the Sunday paper in The Sunken Forest.
Of all the movies made about (or highly associated with) New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Nick Smith in Metropolitan, or I should really just say "Chris Eigeman," because he always plays a variation of the same, sneeringly charismatic character. If I ever bump into him, I'll just look him in the eye and indignantly announce "I'm not 'tiresome.'"
The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
I won't be blogging it, that's for sure.
