Entries tagged “new york times”

"Gollywaddles!"

Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre (no seriously, his initials are "GGG"!) aspires to the title of Most Ridiculous Person In The World today with his impressive and absurd display of intellectual dishonesty, as quoted in the New York Times article today on the Supreme Court's reconsideration of profanity on television:

“The world that the networks are asking you to adopt here today, where the networks are free to use expletives,” said Gregory G. Garre, the solicitor general, may include “the extreme example of Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on ‘Sesame Street.’ ”

It's Big Motherfuckin' Bird, people! It's Oscar the Bitch! (No Elmo.)

Additional delights in this story abound, with the image of the supreme justices throwing around all kinds of euphemisms for common expletives, and even culminating in what I sincerely hope becomes the law of the land: Any joke is okay, as long as it's sufficiently funny.

Justice John Paul Stevens suggested a novel standard for judging indecency. Is it ever appropriate to consider, he asked, “whether the particular remark was really hilarious — very, very funny?” Mr. Garre said funniness could play a part in the commission’s analysis of whether a remark was shocking, titillating or pandering. Justice Scalia jokingly summarized the new standard: “Bawdy jokes are O.K. if they are really good.”

It is a new day, people. A new day.

I think one of the biggest reasons many great writers go into journalism is for the chance to sneak little wisecracks in, with the hope their editors will indulge. I took the opportunity to read a printed copy of the New York Times the other day, and spotted a gem in this local story on Michael Bloomberg striving for a third term as mayor of New York City:

Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader who founded Bloomberg L.P., a financial information firm, was sought out by the press as a financial guru. He appeared on “Meet the Press” and was not shy about commenting during public events about his interactions with the central players in the financial drama, whether it was Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. (Mr. Bloomberg calls him Hank) or Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman’s chairman and chief executive (Dick, of course).

Hank! Dick!

The New York Times is removing the payment barrier from its TimesSelect content. Hooray!

I pundified* incorrectly about this two years ago when they launched TimesSelect -- go look and marvel at my foolishness! Update: Andre points out that this is just a Hail Mary play to win a bet. The Long Bet is broken anyway, because it presumes a blogs-vs-Times model, which of course isn't accurate.

* "Pundify" is to pontificate without the burden of facts and in full embrace of intellectual dishonesty.

Pentagram, the designers of the website, signage, marketing materials, and stationery for the new New York Times building, have a fascinating blog post about the intricacies of the sign that they’ve created for the new Times Square skyscraper. The photo here is my cameraphone shot of the backside of the tower, taken when passing by yesterday.

And you thought this post was going to be about Prince.

A little over a year ago, I wore a funny t-shirt while posing for a photo that was published in an article in the New York Times. The shirt's a reference to a popular (and rather offensive) internet meme, and the reaction was immediate and passionate:

• "I can't believe you slipped one over The Man." - Grant Barrett, author The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English
• "Rather than the scary fragmentation of our society into a nation of disconnected people doing their own thing, I think we're reforming into thousands of cultural tribes, connected less by geographic proximity and workplace chatter than by shared interests." - Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail.
• "@$!%!" - Mena Trott, President and Co-Founder of Six Apart.

I'm 30 years old, and this is now the single thing I'm best-known for in the world. Now, I'm not worried about being a one-hit wonder, but I do see this as a perversely entertaining example of getting what I deserve. I've always said my sense of humor thrives on the absurd, and it doesn't get any more absurd than having this stunt as one of the first things listed on my wikipedia profile. At this rate, my epitaph is likely to be something like "He told great fart jokes."

I'm reminded of this absurdity because I'd been reading The Long Tail. It was inevitable that I'd like the book -- I'm (briefly) in it. Page 182 has a nice nod to my Goatse t-shirt escapades, providing support for my hope that the in-joke worked on multiple levels. (Note to aspiring media hackers: You can't go wrong with a nominally subversive t-shirt if you're looking to gain a small degree of notoriety amongst your peers.)

As of today, 13 months later, there's approximately twelve thousand mentions of the gag. To all those people, and to those whom I've had approach me at various events and conferences, asking me about the picture, I have one request. Can we please make sure to say I'm "the goatse t-shirt guy" and not "the goatse guy"? There's a big difference.

These days, I think people in traditional media outlets are writing stories just so they'll get linked on particular blogs.

John Cook trumping up a fuss in Slate about Sasha and Jessica's analysis of Merritt-ocracy seems like it was written just so Jay would maybe write a post about it.

The Times' A.O. Scott seems to have written his lengthy, amusing slam of The Da Vinci Code just so Matthew could cover it in the Bad Review Revue.

And three thousand eight hundred words about Michael Jackson's finances? In the Times Business section? Clearly that's written just so I would link to it.