A Very Sad Video from The Rocky Mountain News Now Defunct Newsroom

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Understatement of the Month: "Complex Relationship With the News Media"

RIP: The Business Lunch

Free lunch used to be one of the few perks of freelancing. The sting of Freelancer's Union shitty expensive health insurance was offset by editors who put your cheeseburger on the company card. No longer. No one wants to pay checks. This woman, a movie producer whose picture accompanied the New York Times article on said phenomenon, apparently has no problem paying for elective surgery. She's from LA. Obviously. [NYT]

"Fucking Shit," he realized, "I live in the new McKibben Lofts."

Update: Totally just ran into the dude on the stairwell. He apologized and turns out he's super nice. Maybe I'm just a crotchety old man,

My wife and I live in a former factory on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick. The building is directly off the Morgan Avenue stop in a neighborhood sometimes idiotically called Morgantown. When we moved in two months ago, we were one of the first tenants in the building. Like pioneers, we had neither heat nor electricity. We built a sod hut and burned old copies of The Nation to stay warm. I read Willa Cather every night by candlelight. But now the apartments are filling up, warrens of cubbyhole-sized drywall rooms are being erected and last night, a truly horrendous loft party was thrown in one of the empty apartments. The techno lasted until 7:30 am. Fucking shit, I realized, we had moved in to the new McKibben Lofts.

The party was thrown in the apartment of a 34 year old anime loving Brazilian graphic designer. It featured the truly uninspiring music of No Regular Play. How do I know? It was on this kid's fucking Twitter. But it was more than the mmm-tsk mmm-tsk music that kept me up. It was the pure rage, blind seething impotent rage. Why would someone listen to this music? Why so loud? Why so late? Could they not have given us a quick heads up. "Hey guys," he could have said, "I'll be playing horrible music very loudly all night long on Saturday. Just wanted to let you know." I even entered into the den of techno--it was lit by a blue light!--at six in the morning to ask that they turn the sonic rape down. "I'll ask," said the party's host. Ask? ASK? FUCK YOU MEAN YOU'LL ASK. IT'S YOUR FUCKING PARTY. YOU TELL! TELL!

But it was more than just his bad taste in house music and sullen sodding indifference that drove me mad. I was angry that this building, which we had simply through the timing of our arrival come to think of as at least partially ours, was being hijacked by the beer-drinking sticker-sticking bad house music-listening twenty somethings. (Even if the primary perp was fucking 34 years old.) But the true waking nightmare wasn't the moment. My anger and fear wasn't inflamed merely by the hellish bump of the music nor the smoke wafting from the hallway nor even the beer pooled in the stairwell. It was that this might just be the future.

Look Ma, I'm On the Front Page of the NYTIMES!

A Few Recent Pieces

I've been writing about The City for The Moment, the New York Times "blog that spans the T Magazine Universe"

I also wrote about Michelle Obama's fashion at the inauguration though that is old news now.

I filled in on Gawker for a weekend. Stressful. Fun

I profiled Sandra Lee and Andy Samberg for March's OUT magazine

I'm finishing up the 3rd edition of StyleCity's guide to New York City

I'm actively looking for freelance gigs! Send 'em my way.

I'm also actively looking for a couch.

Fuck, Marry, Kill: Oscar/Top Chef Edition

I'd go with effing Padma, marrying Kate and k'ing Blanchett, if only because of that unforgivable modern dance in the gazebo scene in Benjamin Button. You?

Australia Australia Australia We Love Your Men

The only two worthwhile things Australia ever gave us are Cory Delaney and this swarthy pigeon smuggler. According to the BBC,

Australian customs officials say [two] live birds were wrapped in padded envelopes and held to the man's legs by a pair of tights under his trousers. Officials also found two eggs in a vitamin container in the man's luggage. Australia has strict quarantine rules on the importation of wildlife, plants and food. The man, 23, could face up to 10 years in jail...Customs officials say they also seized seeds in the man's money belt and an undeclared aubergine, following the flight on Sunday.

As for the rest of that continent's contributions: drunk fat girls on the Tube, condiments that taste like shit and Mel Gibson.