ChrisMohney.com

The Universal Modular Trend Piece

"I am an exemplar of the trend in question," says the person, interviewed in a space appropriate to the theme while aesthetically following the trend's parameters, unless the latter is counter-intuitive though true. Background facts about the person explain his/her membership in the trend's demographics. "Now I am describing what it's like to practice the trend," she/he says.

Previously this trend did not exist or was not recognized, until now. Early forms of the trend have evolved and perhaps been identified as something, though not yet as a trend, for this piece shall serve as the official recognition of the trend in full flower. Consider a broad statement about the trend's wide applicability and growing acceptance. Here is an example of the trend in popular culture, like a celebrity or fictional character that may take the trend to satirical extremes. This proves the trend's legitimacy on the cultural radar.

Mourning Julia Allison

Here is the Julia Allison post I've been resisting for months, illustrated with a photo of her cute dog. Back in the dark days of November 2006, I wrote a Gawker post entitled "Field Guide: Julia Allison." The post was written at Nick Denton's vehement insistence, but he immediately kvetched in the comments that my depiction of Julia as an obsessive attention-seeker was pointless because, duh, that's what she does. Of course, now Nick himself makes fun of Julia's self-promotion mania, mocking her branded birthday party and  agreeing (with Julia, and with me from 2006) that she really should be more discreet. Julia herself still complains about the "Field Guide," since it repeated (multiply sourced) anecdotes about instances where her famous flirtatiousness may have crossed (or blurred) a line. She even brought it up during this past January's "liveblog" clusterfuck on Gawker:

When Gawker did the "field guide" to me, which accused me, amongst other things, of being a hussy who steals women's husbands, I cried all day.

And then, a few comments later, Julia followed her usual form of inadvertent reflexive self-analysis:

I think it's fairly obvious that the comments which hurt the most are those which hit closest to the truth.

Julia asked several people (me included, long after could I do anything about it) to remove the "Field Guide" because of its prominence in Google searches on her name.  Still in the top 10 apparently.  But given all the abuse she's endured in the past three months, Julia must be longing for the relatively genteel days of the "Field Guide." And now she's passed another blogging milestone and formally blogged about her decision to quit blogging.

A Job No Less Real than More of the Same

So I quit Gridskipper for the third time; the most recent two quittings were within a month of each other, and the first didn't take. Hence the second and more successful quittance. Someday I'll relate the entire teapot tempest there, once the dust has settled from tremors that maybe haven't even started yet. Enough obscurity! Though I'll still be an editor at large on Gridskipper, now I run the website and guidebook stuff for BlackBook magazine. Today I ate a savory cheese muffin for lunch and enjoyed almost six hours of meetings. Screw you, blogs!

Meanwhile, this space will mostly be reserved for longer or more substantive crap. Much less substantive crap can be found on the Tumblr, which I still seem to like.

So excited!

Exterminate rational thought!

This Is Not Me

Thank you, two people who emailed and one person who IMed, who together constitute three-fifths of the readership of the Columbia Journalism Review: I am not Chris Mooney. If I ever say something like "Yes, dear reader: the Bloggers Guild of America may be on its way," I beg of you -- kill me.

Sugar La La's: Three Tracks from the Vault

This will be of INTENSE INTEREST to a narrow subset of people, and of no interest to anyone else. But here are three unreleased studio tracks from 1990s Southern pop-punk band the Sugar La La's, whom I idolized in my feckless youth (they once watched along with me as my car fell into a sinkhole).

"Free Love" (4.1 mb)

"Everybody Hates Me" (4.6 mb)

"Into the Night" (4.6 mb)

Now of course these songs sound wildly different from the ecstatic experience of live La La, but them's the breaks of slavering over a long-busted band. Tracks courtesy Scottamus.

Observed, and found wanting

Leaving the Waverly Inn on a cold night, I ran into a paparazzo lurking outside the door, giant camera raised. Seeing me through his viewfinder, he lowered the camera and grunted out a disappointed, "uh ... oh," then stepped out of my way, averting his eyes in disdain. The two of us stood alone on the sidewalk, awkwardly, while I searched for a cab. No TMZ for me.

10 Reasons 'The Wire' Is Better than 'The Sopranos'

I watched The Sopranos from the beginning, and came late to The Wire. I regret the error. Don't get me wrong --I am one of those viewers who insisted that even at its worst, The Sopranos was still one of the best shows on television. I'll tell you right now that I did not like the ending, no matter whether or not Tony got whacked. But what you should know, if you don't already, is that the fifth and final season of The Wire starts January 6 on HBO. And while I anticipated the final season of The Sopranos with little more than resignation and a willingness to see it over with, I'm looking forward to this last season of The Wire with nervous anticipation and serious, sincere, enthusiastic excitement. And when I think about what The Wire accomplishes in comparison to The Sopranos, it's easy to see why the former beats the latter, hands down. There are more than ten reasons, but here are my best of the moment.

Where I'm Bacalling From

While home for the holidays and watching the required amount of holiday TV, I finally saw Dark Passage, the 1947 Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall noir. It's pretty fine, but several close-ups convinced me that Bacall possessed supernatural good looks even among the noir siren pantheon. By the time of this movie, the 23-year-old Bacall was already married to the 48-year old Bogart, whom she met while filming her first movie, 1944's To Have and To Have Not. Bacall got that role because of the Harper's Bazaar cover above, which was spotted by director Howard Hawks' wife. Something kind of creepy about the blood-nurse tableau and Bacall's doll-like expression -- but still, what a honey.

Gawker Is Dead-ish

I admire Carla Blumenkranz's long essay about Gawker in n+1 for attempting to summarize the website's history and predict its future. Or rather Gawker's lack of a future, as it's clear from the title alone ("Gawker 2002-2007") that the essay is meant as a funeral speech. I like this one more than I liked the New York article on Gawker, which admittedly had different goals. What I chiefly admire is Blumenkranz's ability to keep her knives sheathed for at least two thirds of the essay -- a thoughtful recounting of Gawker's progress from Elizabeth Spiers through Chorie Sicha's first stint to the beginning of Jessica Coen's tenure. You know the knives are there, of course, and they are gonna come out, but it's still an unhurried read almost free of judgment.  There's some good meat here, as no one (that I know of) has troubled to really plumb the Gawker archives with this kind of eye. But then the knives are drawn, and the judgment must be rendered, and the focus goes soft, scratchy, and self-righteous.