diary

Short Ends: Bob Saget Is God. Obvs.

mark · 08/23/04 08:25PM

—We've always sort of suspected it, but now that it's on a website it's obviously true.
—Some porn (i.e. Huge Man Meat) passes easily through Canada's borders. Some (i.e. Hardcore Horse Explosion) does not.
—No worries, Governor Arnold isn't indulging in any of that girly, Beverly Hills salon crap. He's just stopping by for a gossip session and a cup of cappuccino with his hairdresser. And maybe he throws in a quick bikini wax from time to time, but what's a little manscaping between friends?
—Breaking Olsen Twins news: Mary-Kate now strong enough to carry styrofoam and walk...at the same time!
— Now let's fall all over each other trying to nail down this scoop: Julia Roberts plans on not doing anything for a while.

Gawker In The Park: Wigstock 2004

Jessica · 08/23/04 02:10PM

Nothing like a tacky outfit, bad hair, and a tired, self-aggrandizing act to make one want to pull a knife out of the pocketbook and start cutting. And that's just RuPaul in cowgirl gear. Gawker Special Correspondent Jared Abbott braved the rain and the has-beens for the magic of Wigstock, featuring a slew of interesting characters pretending to behave badly. When there's a party Tompkins Square Park, you know we're there, even if it proves to be a booze-free version of hell.

Short Ends: Friday Afternoon Edition

mark · 08/20/04 07:52PM

—Allow Good Plastic Surgery to ignite yet another Lindsay Lohan controversy. Really, we felt that those were in such short supply lately.
—Separated at birth: Motormouth auteur Quentin Tarantino and Richard Kiel, legendary Bond nemesis "Jaws."
—Another noteworthy Missed Connection from Craigslist: "I grabbed your boobs on Sunset. - m4w - 24"
—Remembering Rick James, the best way we know how.
—LAist on The Grove's snuffing out of the Beverly Connection. Where will we catch a second-rate movie after a leisurely shopping trip to Sports Chalet?

Advertiser Happy Hour

mark · 08/20/04 07:15PM

We'd like to take a minute to acknowledge the brave work of this week's sponsors, without whom we'd be scouring the Hollywood Hills, fruitlessly searching for a certain chihuahua that's already been found. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer, see this page.

The Week In Buzz: Nicky Hilton Makes The World Go 'Round

Jessica · 08/20/04 05:23PM

↑ It was inevitable, really: we start taking Kabbalah classes.
↑ Socialite and professional idiot Nicky Hilton outdoes sister Paris for once and marries creepy Todd Meister in Vegas.
↑ Tinkerbell, the unfortunate chihuahua belonging to Paris Hilton, is lost and then found.
↑ We totally want to do the Observer's Tom Scocca.
LA Weekly's Nikki Finke goes postal on a GQ editor, and the whole world shudders.
↑ Lit agent Doug Dechert releases a pervy diatribe against his barely-legal former lover, memoirist Abigail Vona.
↑ East Hampton's Two Mile Hollow Beach gets gay again! Hurrah!
↑ Join us in our crusade to ensure that Britney Spears and Kevin Federline are cast in the next season of MTV's reality disaster, "Newlyweds."
↑ We harass Warren St. John, Brett Martin, Ginger Clark, John J. Edwards III, and John Morgan.
↓ The Olsen twins, despite being worth a bazillion dollars, refuse to pay $100k for necessary renovations to their Morton Square barf annex.
↓ Bill O'Reilly's smug mug gets a beating in the subways.
Tom Wolfe's latest novel to get the censor-treatment in the New York Times. Boo! Bring on the raunch, Gray Lady!
↓ Nothing like a sketchy blackout reunion party, right? Thank God.
↓ Two Irish guys without dogs decide to launch the worst magazine ever, purely for shits and giggles.
Vincent Gallo pulls a three-page rant from the Village Voice because they refuse to put his scary headshot on the cover.
The New York Times sniffed a lot of glue this week, eh?
↓ iPod covers go totally retarded in hooded sweatshirt form. Wha?
Nest magazine officially calls it quits, leaving a gaping hole in the world of impractical interior design.
↓ Who isn't inflating their circulation numbers these days?
Jane Pauley's going crazy! Yay!

To Do: It's All About Sunset Junction

mark · 08/20/04 04:29PM

Friday
1. Reap the rewards of your front-running fandom and buy a scalped ticket in the third inning to see the Dodgers play the Atlanta Braves: It's Don Drysdale Bobblehead Night at Chavez Ravine!
2. Go to bed early and rest up for Sunset Junction.
Saturday
3. Hipsters, leather boys, indie rockers, carnies, local businesses, thrift-store fashion victims, more carnies, and the odd, lost Westsider come together for the two-day, 24th Annual Sunset Junction Street Fair. Eat carnival-booth-quality food, drink beer in the sun, and take in the extensive bill of musical acts. Performing: The Donnas, X, Ben Kweller, Har Mar Superstar, Camper Van Beethoven, Ima Robot, and more.
Sunday
4. Wash, rinse, repeat #3 at 1/2 speed for the second day of the festival. You might want to call in sick on Monday to fully recover from two straight days of boozing, music, and carnival rides.

Advertiser Love Fest

gawker.com · 08/20/04 10:35AM

An air-kiss to this week's advertisers, without whom we wouldn't be half as drunk. Interested? Info here.

Short Ends: Tom Cruise's (Political) Outing

mark · 08/19/04 07:28PM

—He was playing coy, but now Tom Cruise is outed...as a Democrat. This, of course, obviates the need for any Log Cabin Republican jokes. [via Cinemocracy]
—Dear HBO: Please explain to us why a show about a family of bounty hunters would be better than one about "an undercover investigator from the New York State Liquor Authority who infiltrated two [illegal sex] parties described [as] a wild bacchanal of unsafe sex among random partners dressed in leather costumes that exposed their private parts"?
—For reasons that we don't quite understand, the guys at TVGasm want to fix one of the Big Brother 5 competitions. Screwing with a reality show sounds like a good enough cause to us!
—Come on, everyone's doing the Lynndie! It's easy! You bring over the naked prisoner pile, we'll make sure there are enough finger-guns to go around. It'll be very! [via Boing Boing]
—Somewhere, fading MPAA head Jack Valenti has upturned his bowl of tapioca pudding and is muttering something about the evil victory of copyright-raping pirates.

To Do: Dr. Strangelove And Other Subtle Political Activities

mark · 08/19/04 05:05PM

1. Do we even need to tell you which candidate is benefiting from tonight's screening of Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb benefit screening at Hollywood Forever?
2. Is this a little more subtle? Attend John Powers’ (NPR Fresh Air) reading at Book Soup tonight at 7 p.m. to promote his book Sore Winners (And the Rest of Us) in George Bush's America.
3. Earthdance: United Beats of Peace with Dan the Automator, (a.k.a. Handsome Boy Modeling School, a.k.a. member of the Gorillaz) perform at House of Blues. Go and figure out which persona is showing up to spin for your ecstasy-dropping pleasure. Um, ecstasy-dropping for peace!
4. Politicis, schmolitics, here's something even Republicans can get behind while the liberals are watching a movie in a cemetary: free food and drinks while you shop at the Melrose Heights Summer Block Party. [Scroll down to view flyer.]

Gossip Roundup: August Blows, So Does Gay Beach Party

gawker.com · 08/19/04 09:55AM

Briefly, can some D-listers please start publicly screwing barnyard animals or something? There's nothing out there, people. You can hear the crickets laughing at the paltry social reports.

Short Ends: More Britney, More Hiltons, Kill Kill Kill!

mark · 08/18/04 07:47PM

—Please, Jesus, can you make sure that Britney and Kevin get chosen for Newlyweds? Also, feed the hungry children in Somalia, etc etc, but only after you do the Britney thing. Amen.
—Oh yeah, Jesus? We're pretty certain that Britney is sorry about that dildo remark, just in case you're holding grudges.
What's next for the Hilton sisters? The first idea on the list would probably set a video sales record, so we're pulling for that one. Those girls could really use the mad money.
—Tom Cruise finally (finally!) clams up about something deeply personal—his political leanings. Are the Scientologists running anybody this year?

Ghetto Email Issues Resolved

gawker.com · 08/18/04 11:58AM

We've finally caged our gimpy tech team and outsourced our issues to Bhubaneswar, whose residents have worked tirelessly to alleviate any email confusion. Please note that we've done away with "tip" @ gawker and are pursuing a dedicated relationship with "tips" as our email address. (Really, don't ask.)

Short Ends: Aguilera Sheds Pounds...Of Scrap Metal

mark · 08/17/04 08:37PM

—TVGasm deducts two cred points from Adam Goldberg's hipster balance sheet for casting Haylie Duff and Holly from Big Brother 5 in his movie.
—Christina Aguilera removes all but one of her body piercings. Now when she walks she no longer sounds like a bag lady pushing a shopping cart full of tin cans.
—Are you a "BIG BODYGUARD" or EDGY/ HIP/ TALL/ THIN/ FASHION MODEL" type? If so, you could be in the next Britney Spears video.
—Writer Daniel Radosh reveals the real, semi-rockstar-ish sounding names of teen girl band Huckapoo.
—And the "We're Trying So Hard To Seem Hip That We're Still Quoting Swingers In Our Headlines Eight Years Later" Award goes to...E! Online, for "Ashlee Simpson: All Growns Up?" A representative from E! can pick up the award, a gift bag containing bowling shirts and wallet chains, at Defamer HQ at their earliest convenience.

Short Ends: Britney's Wedding Moved Up Or Entirely Canceled

mark · 08/16/04 07:06PM

—Mixed messages about the Britney Spears wedding plans: Page Six says the date is moving up, but something called NW magazine says they're calling the whole thing off. What's the etiquette for getting back our case of Cheetos if they don't go through with it?
LAist shows us a picture of a urinal somewhere in Los Angeles, and we try to deduce which pop-star was famously caught masturbating in its vicinity. We don't want to spoil the fun by hazarding a guess. Could be anyone, really.
—If only Nicky Hilton hadn't had that barely-perceptible work done on her nose, maybe this weekend's cry for help/publicity could have been avoided.
—Our favorite sentence of the day: "West Hollywood leaders claim they are merely protecting their city's most identifiable asset by taking steps to prevent Los Angeles from hijacking the Sunset Strip's aura." [reg. req'd.]
—Courtney Love gets a trial date for her drug possession case. We can't wait for the hilarious explanation she gives for missing the trial. Taken hostage by a renegade Burke Williams masseuse? Cornered by vicious chihuahuas on Rodeo Drive? NyQuil overdose?
—Nicky Hilton Day draws to a close with a heartfelt poem from a fan.

To Do: Shopping Dangerously, Rocking In Spandex

mark · 08/16/04 05:35PM

1. Finally put your years of cardio-kickboxing or Krav Maga classes to use alongside LA's best anything-goes couture bargain hunters at the Barney’s New York Warehouse Sale. It's in a hangar at the Santa Monica airport, so there will be plenty of room for storing the shredded bodies of ill-prepared extreme shoppers sneaking in from the Valley.
2. Unleash your inner spandex-clad, crispy-haired Poison fan at the Roxy, where Metal Skool's headbanging hair-metal cover songs make you genuinely fear you're going to wake up next to Tommy Lee on Tuesday.
3. If a tongue-in-cheek appreciation of yesterday's music isn't your thing, shell out for a very sincere scalped ticket to count Sammy Hagar's chins as a reunited Van Halen rock the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim. Somewhere, David Lee Roth is quietly laughing to himself, but it's probably because he's really stoned.

Letter From The Editor: Now With 30% More Breasts

gawker.com · 08/16/04 07:02AM

My name is Jessica Coen, and I ll be your Gawker today. Please buckle your seatbelts and hang on as I crash this weblog into the Adirondacks, where we'll be forced to eat the flesh of our dead.

IMterview: Passing the Gawker Tiara

Choire · 08/15/04 06:25PM

Choire: So, new Gawker Editor Jessica Coen, who starts work today officially — when I told you that you had to send me a picture for posting against your will, I was hoping for one that emphasized your rack, not completely hid it. What's the point now?

Short Ends: Good Bye ,Julia Childs; Hello, Fun Rick James Floral Arrangement

mark · 08/13/04 06:50PM

—"Julia Child died in her sleep just a few days before her 92nd birthday, proving once again that eating well & drinking buckets of wine will give you a long, happy life."
—The Good/ Awful Plastic Surgery blogs go on a binge of rhinoplasty accusations. Good: Katie Holmes and Elisha Cuthbert. Bad: Billy Bob Thornton and Paris Hilton.
—A Napoleon Dynamite ad tries to out-spook The Village.
—Andy Dick didn't make it to the Rick James funeral, but a big bunch of flowers in the shape of a joint did. (Third row down, first position.)
—Apropos of nothing, other than its near-crippling awesomeness: Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics Of All Time.