#(which is coincidentally the title of his sex tape)

[invinciblerodent]

i feel like I haven't seen enough people mention the fact that Halsin canonically smokes, specifically exotic tobacco, and specifically out of a nice, old pipe that looks (to me) like it might be briar wood.

i just think there is something so inexplicably warm about that, that he enjoys such a small, but extravagant little luxury.

like the only thing I can imagine him smoking is something that envelops him in that woodsy-spicy, pleasantly scratching scent of good quality tobacco for the rest of the day, and the only way I can see him doing it is settled back in a nice chair, with his feet propped up, a good book in his hand, and some fuzzy critter curled up in his lap.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LUCY, THE AMERICAN MOTHER

S3;E7 ~ October 26, 1970

Directed by Jack Donohue ~ Written by Lou Derman and Larry Rhine

Synopsis

For a class project, Craig is doing a documentary film about Lucy. When Kim's boyfriend wins a $100 cash prize at school, Lucy frantically tracks it down to the local library where Craig and Harry are filming her every move.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carter), Gale Gordon (Harrison Otis Carter), Desi Arnaz Jr. (Craig Carter), Lucie Arnaz (Kim Carter)

Guest Cast

Mary Jane Croft (Mary Jane) makes her fifth series appearance as Mary Jane. Croft played Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy. ” She also played Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy is Envious” (ILL S3;E23) and Evelyn Bigsby in “Return Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26). She played Audrey Simmons on “The Lucy Show” but when Lucy Carmichael moved to California, she played Mary Jane Lewis, the actor’s married name and the same one she uses on all 31 of her episodes of “Here’s Lucy. Her final acting credit was playing Midge Bowser on “Lucy Calls the President” (1977). She died in 1999 at the age of 83.

Don Crichton (Steve Bailey) makes his third and final appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”  He was an Emmy nominated choreographer who worked on “The Carol Burnett Show” and “The Love Boat,” among others.

Olive Dunbar (Librarian) played a high school biology teacher in “Lucy Gets Her Diploma” (TLS S6;E5).  This is her last appearances on a “Lucy” sitcom. Dunbar passed away in February 2017 at age 91.  

Richard Collier (Library Assistant) was a character actor who played small roles in the musical films Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Hello, Dolly (1970).  He did two episodes of “Dennis the Menace” (1963) with Gale Gordon.  This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.

Sid Gould (Man in Library #1) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” and nearly as many on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton.

Boyd 'Red' Morgan (Man in Library #2) is an actor and stunt man who was seen in “Lucy and John Wayne” (TLS S5;E10), with whom he did eleven films. This is the second of his four episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Morgan, a veteran stunt performer, was cast because the character takes a fall off of his chair.

Alma Platt (Old Lady) was born in 1891, so was 79 years old at the time of this episode. Two weeks before this episode originally aired she was seen on “Marcus Welby M.D.” on ABC and four days after this episode originally aired she was seen on NBC's “Adam 12” - meaning Platt appeared on all three major networks in October 1970.  She died in 1976.

The character is only caught on screen for a moment when the camera pans to the right during the final chase scene in the library. She has no lines or business – she just sits and reads.

The woman who loses her wig in the library scene is the only actor not credited in the show.

After directing all of season one, Jack Donohue returns to “Here's Lucy” and will direct four more season three installments before leaving again only to reappear for the last six episodes of the series in season six.

In his DVD introduction to this episode, Desi Arnaz Jr. says that his parents took hundreds of hours of home movies. In 1993 Lucie Arnaz collected some of them in “Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie.”  

The title of Craig's movie will be “A Day in the Life of My Mother.”

When Kim hears Craig is making a documentary about Lucy, she 'auditions' to get into the act:

She first imitates Katharine Hepburn in the 1937 film Stage Door: “The calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower.” Coincidentally, Lucille Ball was also in Stage Door. The now-iconic line was actually taken from the play The Lake, one of Hepburn's rare failures.

She next imitates Maurice Chevalier singing “Louise,” a song by Leo Robin and Richard H. Whiting from the 1929 film Innocents of Paris. The song became Chevalier's signature song.

Lastly, she mimics Bette Davis saying “Peetah! Peetah! You read the letter, didn't you?” Although attributed to Davis and often spoken by Bette Davis impersonators, this exact line is not found in any of her films. In 1941's The Great Lie she does say the line “I wish to leave Pete a letter marked personal” which may be the source for the oft-imitated quote.

Lucy tells Craig she doesn't want to be filmed first thing in the morning, when she looks like the Bride of Frankenstein. The Bride of Frankenstein  was a 1935 sequel film to Universal's Frankenstein that starred Elsa Lanchester as the monster's bride.  Lanchester made guest starring appearances on all three “Lucy” sitcoms and it was common to use the name “bride of Frankenstein” as a punchline for jokes in all three series.

Lucie talks about having breakfast with Steve Bailey (Don Crichton). They've been out together five times. Don Crichton also played Kim's boyfriend Don in “Lucy, the Conclusion Jumper” (S1;E5).  

When Craig calls “cut” on a real argument between Kim and Lucy, he takes on an exaggerated German accent, feeding into the TV trope that all directors were temperamental Germans in the style of Erich Von Stroheim (1885-1957), who was actually Austrian.  

When Lucy can't seem to act natural in front of Craig's camera, she suggests he get someone else to play his mother; someone like Raquel Welch, Carol Burnett, or Don Knotts. Movie star Raquel Welch seems to be the show's go-to name to drop when wanting to reference a young female sex symbol. Carol Burnett was a great friend of Lucille Ball and the two made numerous guest appearances on each other's television programs. Don Knotts, the nervous Deputy Fife from “The Andy Griffith Show” (which filmed on the Desilu back lot) will make a guest star appearances in a 1973 episode of “Here's Lucy.”  

Instead of Gale Gordon ending the episode wet, he starts it that way when he walks through the front door splattered with water from Lucy's front lawn sprinkler system.

Harry says that Lucy's daily misadventures make “Laurel and Hardy look like Sears and Roebuck.”  Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were a vaudeville and film comedy team.  Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon briefly imitated them when under a hypnotic suggestion in “Lucy and Pat Collins” (TLS S5;E11). Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck founded one of the world's largest retailers (now simply known as Sears) in 1886.

Steve says that Spooky Brown and His Electric Goose Pimples is playing at the Rock and Roll Palace.

The book that Lucie puts the mended $100 bill into is titled Kiss Me Stranger. Daphne Du Maurier wrote a book titled Kiss Me Again, Stranger in 1951. This title was chosen to be provocative when spoken to the unsuspecting patrons of the library.

After the birth of Little Ricky, the Ricardos were also avid home movie enthusiasts.  Things came to a boil in “Home Movies” (ILL S3;E20).  

Kim imitates Katharine Hepburn saying “The calla lilies are in bloom again.”  In “Lucy's Italian Movie” (ILL S5;E23) Lucy Ricardo also imitated Hepburn saying the line to impress movie director Vittorio Philippi.  

Kim also imitates Maurice Chevalier singing “Louise,” something Lucy Ricardo (and the rest of the gang did) in “The French Revue” (ILL S3;E7).  Chevalier eventually appeared as himself in “Lucy Goes to Mexico” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  In that episode Lucy once again does her Chevalier impersonation singing “Louise.”

Lucy is suspicious of Steve Bailey's motives and wants to meet her “future son-in-law.”  Coincidentally, that is exactly what she thought of Kim's boyfriend Don (also played by Don Crichton) in “Lucy the Conclusion Jumper” (S1;E5).

Lucy Ricardo also tore a bill in half and went to great lengths to retrieve it in “Bonus Bucks” (ILL S3;E21). The second half of this “Here’s Lucy” episode is based on “Bonus Bucks.”  

Lucy Carmichael went to great lengths to retrieve five $500 dollar bills she lost at a carnival in “Lucy Misplaces $2,000” (TLS S1;E4).  

The red “SILENCE” sign on the librarian's desk is the same one seen in the dorm room in the previous episode “Lucy, the Co-Ed” (S3;E5).  Because the prop is used as part of a joke here, and only serves as set decoration in the dorm room, this episode may have been filmed first and aired out of sequence.

Make-up!  Although Lucy comes downstairs after rolling out of bed calling herself 'the bride of Frankenstein,' she is wearing full eye make-up!  

Shut the door!  Harry leaves the front door open when he comes in for the second time.

Fact Check!  There is no need to have a cello-taped bill “set” by placing it in a book.  

Sitcom Logic Alert!  Why is there a laundry cart in a library?  It is clear that “Bonus Bucks” (ILL S3;E21), which was set in a laundry and featured comic business with a laundry cart, was very much on Lucille Ball's mind when filming this episode.

“Lucy, the American Mother” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5

This is an odd episode that doesn't quite come together cohesively. Although a bit of an homage to “Bonus Bucks” on “I Love Lucy”, the home scenes seem disconnected to the library scene, which never pays off as big as it should.  Also, Craig is written to act in a very uncharacteristic way in this episode.  

[narcisbolgor-blog]

The Far Right’s Twin Trolls Taste Their Own Bitter Medicine

The irony is target-rich.

Far-right conspiracy-mongers Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiecwho helped orchestrate the Pizzagate and Seth Rich fantasies, among other falsehoods, and have seemingly stoked social media intimidation in the service of Donald Trumphave been protesting pitiably in recent days that some people on the Internet arent being nice to them.

Their wounded complaints come as the men also claimed a new high-profile liberal scalp: the firing by Disney and Marvel of James Gunn on Friday as director of Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3, after Cernovich and Posobiec resurfaced old tweets of the director joking about pedophilia and rape. Gunn apologized for his words in a sequence of tweets.

Cernovich told The Daily Beast: Disney took the right first step, but it's time to do an open investigation into all of Hollywood. That this was conducted in the open is disturbing and leaves one to wonder what happens no one is around.

Cernovich and Posobiecs instinct to attack is as honed as their assuming of the mantle of victimhood.

Why are these angry people threatening my wife and child? Posobiec demanded in an email to The Daily Beast, addressing his experience of being harassed by critics.

In a document titled "Sworn Statement" dated Feb. 20, 2018, Posobiec claimed one of his tormentersVic Berger, a director of satirical videos that frequently star Posobiec and Cernovichengaged in an increasingly hostile campaign of harassment, using electronic systems, of myself and my family and posted a threat to my wedding on Twitter.

Cernovich provided The Daily Beast with a copy of Posobiecs handwritten statement, which claims Bergerwho earns his keep making videos for Super Deluxe, the digital comedy website owned by TBSinstructed his 77,000 Twitter followers to crash Posobiecs wedding.

Posobiec told The Daily Beast that he filed the statement as part of a formal complaint to an unidentified local police department in Pennsylvania, but Berger said he has never heard from the cops. (The Daily Beast has asked Posobiec to identify that local police department, and will update this article if clarification is forthcoming.)

In his email, Posobiec continued, I held a peace rally against political violence at the White Housea sparsely attended demonstration last year in Washingtons Lafayette Park against fake news, Kathy Griffin, and a production of Shakespeares Julius Caesar featuring the assassination of a Trump-like Caesar. (Cernovich was a speaker at Posobiecs rally.)

Their tactics will incite terrible consequences for our country if they continue down this road, Posobiec gravely concluded.

Posobiecs buddy Cernovich, meanwhile, blogged this week that the fake news media are accessories to stalking and harassment by pursuing news tips provided by Cernovichs supposed stalkers and harassers.

Aside from the 35-year-old Berger, who lives with his wife and two kids in Pennsylvania, Cernovich blames Bergers friend Nathan Bernard for coordinating a campaign of what Melania Trump might call cyber-bullying.

Bernard, who met Berger online during the 2016 presidential campaign, is a 28-year-old Brooklyn-based tech entrepreneur and app developer whose web site, Bernard Media, tracks the antics of the conspiracy-boosting right.

Coincidentally, Bernard, who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, said he also happens to be a Boston University pal and former Bronx housemate of Democratic Socialist House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her campaign spokesman didnt make her available for an interview.

Theres a couple of guys stalking me for about a year, year and a half, Cernovich told The Daily Beast, referring to Berger and Bernard and claiming that theyve now fabricated a rumor that theres a sex tape involving me and [alt-right activist and Infowars contributor] Laura Loomer. And its just like one fake thing after another They claim that I was having an affair. The stories are just ridiculous.

Cernovich, however, has claimed repeatedly that Berger could be the leader of a pedophile ring known as Bergers Boys. Berger, for his part, has nicknamed his quarry Weird Mike.

Among the countless videos Berger has made to lampoon Cernovicha non-practicing California lawyer who conducts what he calls Gorilla Mindset seminars on the joys of male empowermentis this one posted on Bernard Media, replete with farting noises edited in for good measure, in which Cernovichwearing exercise gearbreathes heavily and repeatedly slaps himself in the face, presumably impersonating a hulking great ape.

Its not political, per se. Its more that they are just terrible human beings and are out to ruin the lives of people who dont agree with them, so we might as well fight back and have a little fun with it.

I think what Nathan and I are trying to do is use Cernovich and Posobiecs own tactics against themselves, but do it comically, Berger explained in an email. Show these buffoons for who they really are. Its not political, per se. Its more that they are just terrible human beings and are out to ruin the lives of people who dont agree with them, so we might as well fight back and have a little fun with it.

Berger added: These two clowns are unintentionally funny to me and are perfect fodder for what I do making comedy videos. Though, they are dangerous because they have a large following of imbeciles who believe their smears and outright lies.

Bernard, meanwhile, told The Daily Beast: Im not saying Im any sort of angel. Im a realistic-enough person to say that puttingout a sex tape story is a gray area. Im not saying my hands are completely clean But Im also not saying that I have any sympathy for these people.

The Twitterverse is teeming with Posobiecs and Cernovichs attacks on people they dont like, frequently punctuated by accusations of pedophilia.

In the past, Posobiec and his legion of followers have gone after perceived enemies such as a Navy Times reporting intern who in August 2017 cited an NBC News story that he was stripped of his security clearance as a reserve Navy intelligence officer.

The Navy Times journalist was Mackenzie Wolf, a Muslim American, divorced single mom and former Marine Corps corporal.

After a blitz of Twitter attacks from Posobiec and his supportersincluding the tweeted hope that Wolf might be strangled with her head scarf, and the doxing of her young daughters elementary schoolshe considered suing or going to the police, but ultimately didnt because the worst cyberbullies were anonymous, according to a source familiar with the episode. Wolf declined to comment.

In another episode of apparent cyberbullying this past Januaryone that received national media attentionTeam Posobiec took on Lindsey Ledford, a 31-year-old part-time Starbucks barista in College Park, Md., after she discovered the married Posobiecs profile on Bumble, and managed to get it removed from the feminist-oriented dating app.

But not before she tweeted: is @ bumble_app still a feminist dating app or the place where white nationalists / nazis go to cheat on their wives?

After that, it was just weeklong shit storm, Ledford told The Daily Beast, adding that aside from the doxing of her home address and phone number, and a campaign to get her fired from her job, she received death threats and obscene tweets featuring the c-word.

Her housemates were terrified, Ledford said, and she went to Home Depot purchase additional locks for the windows.

I was paranoid and always looking over my shoulder, she recalled, adding that the scariest tweets were the ones from strangers purporting to express concern for her safety. There was a lot of anxiety, Ledford said.

Despite evidence to the contraryincluding Bumbles confirmation that the dating profile was connected to Posobiecs genuine Facebook pagehe insisted it was fake and an instance of identity theft.

He made a video with his pregnant wife Tanyaalso fodder for Bergers satirein which he pointed out that she is so hot there was no need for him to look elsewhere for sex: Why would you go out for hamburgers when youve got steak at home, you know what Im sayin?

Cernovich, meanwhile, has demanded periodically that certain unfavorably-disposed journalists be fired.

Last November, he mounted a briefly successful campaign against MSNBC contributor Sam Sederover a sardonic Roman Polanski rape joke that Seder had tweeted eight years earlierand the left-leaning cable outlet announced Seders dismissal on Dec. 5 before admitting bad judgment and reinstating him two days later.

In his recent blog, Cernovich singled out Daily Beast tech reporter Will Sommer, who covers the far-rights activities on the web, claiming erroneously that Sommer had been calling people to ask for Cernovich d-ck pics."

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Cernovich sounded especially alarmed by a mysterious, 1,400-word email rife with British spellingsreceived recently by this reporter and others that asserted, with zero evidence, that his wife Shauna fears for her life, and that of their infant daughter, and that she now feels shes living in a mentally abusive nightmare she cant see any escape for her or the baby from being married to mike.

Jesus! This is, like, psychopathic! a seemingly shaken Cernovich exclaimed after the emailpurportedly from Arthur Kemp, the same name as an infamous South African white nationalist and neo-Naziwas forwarded to him. This is really nasty. Actually, this is an escalation. This is way beyond what theyve done. Fuck these people!

Citing no evidence, Cernovich blames the bogus email on Bergerwho denies authorship. It fits the pattern of Vic Bergers behavior and also his writing style, Cernovich wrote in an email to Posobiecwhich Cernovich shared with The Daily Beast.

As for Cernovichs wife, we were just in Montana on vacation. Shes gonna be pissed when she sees this, Cernovich confided over the phone. At which point, Shauna Cernovich could be heard asking in the background: Are you OK, honey?

Many people, of course, will hear Cernovichs objectionsand Posobiecsas comically paradoxical, considering their history of trolling and doxing adversaries and detractors.

How long do people have to go back? Whats the statute of limitations? Cernovich pleaded. Whats the statute of limitations on this shit? People are like, Well, youve said this! Yeah, how long ago? Oh, Pizzagate!in which Cernovich, Posobiec and others, notably pernicious Infowars fabulist Alex Jones (for whom Cernovich has hosted shows), claimed that Hillary Clinton and her political allies were running a pedophile ring out of the nonexistent basement of Washingtons Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor.

That was 18 months ago. Ive been a relatively good boy since Pizzagate.

On Dec. 4, 2016 that bogus conspiracy theory inspired a 28-year-old man to drive 350 miles from Salisbury, North Carolina, to Washington, D. C., armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle, and storm into Comet, where he fired multiple shots.

That was 18 months ago, Cernovich protested. Ive been a relatively good boy since Pizzagate.

And yet

A very recent example of Cernovichs and Posobiecs trolling tactics was their aggressive double-teaming of Eric Garcia, a 27-year-old reporter for Roll Call, hours after he posted a story on July 18 revealing that Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul had approvingly retweeted two of Posobiecs tweetsone praising the lawmakers defense of Trumps Putin summit, and the other a Trump quote from the Helsinki confab: I will put world peace ahead of politics.

Glad to hear it, the Republican senator commented on Posobiecs tweet.

After Garcias story was posted under the headline, Rand Paul Retweeted PizzaGate Conspiracy Theorist, Posobiec and Cernovich went to work, scouring Garcias Twitter history to unearth tweets from his teenage years in an apparent effort to discredit him.

Wow! @ RollCall - can Infowars book @ EricMGarcia soon to tell us the truth about JFK? We cant sit on this any longer! Posobiec tweeted sarcastically concerning the then-18-year-old Garcias musings: Watching a documentary about JFK murder. I dont buy that Oswald acted alone. What do you guys think?

Garciawho has around 4,500 Twitter followers, compared to Posobiecs 346,000 and Cernovichs 419,000retorted: Really classy of you to pick out a tweet of mine when I was 18 and take it as me having a legitimate political opinion, Jack.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Garcia recalled that Posobiec, Cernovich and scores of their Twitter followers also tried to tarnish him with political bias by digging up his past as an Obama White House internan experience he has written about for National Journalwhile mocking his youthful hobby in a garage band and accusing him of racism because he once wondered what a Mexican Muslim would put in a tortilla. (Garcia is Mexican-American.)

I made a lot of dumb remarks when I was young, Garcia said, adding that as his day progressed, his Twitter feed exploded with insults and accusations from strangers, including a wish that he choke on a taco.

I got called a racist and a hack and all that other stuff, he said. It was overwhelming. It was an onslaught of stuff, and it just got to be too much. It sent me into a funk, and around 1 a.m., I called my best friend back home in California, who told me, Hang in there, youre doing the right thing, dont back down.

If you do spend a lot of time doing this, eventually youre going to make the wrong kind of people mad.

Garciawho said hes at work on a book about his personal challenges living with a diagnosis of autismsaid hes hardly surprised that Posobiec and Cernovich find themselves in the social media crosshairs.

If you spend a lot of your time trolling people, then it should stand to reason that people are not going to like that, he noted. I dont have a major following. I never claimed to be a major journalist or anything like that. I never have and I never will. But if you do spend a lot of time doing this, eventually youre going to make the wrong kind of people mad. Youre eventually going to get somebody who is going to go back at yousomebody with a bigger following than a lowly schlub like me.

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

=> *********************************************** Source Here: The Far Right’s Twin Trolls Taste Their Own Bitter Medicine ************************************ =>

The Far Right’s Twin Trolls Taste Their Own Bitter Medicine was originally posted by Viral News - Feed

[suburbandecay]

A Farewell to Leather: the Death of Deadspin

Deadspin, the much beloved/maligned/emulated “sports” weblog, died last week after cascading resignations from editors and contributors. Barry Petchesky christened the mass exodus, fired for rebuking a quickly-leaked memo from Paul Maidment, editorial director of G/O Media, Deadspin’s parent company. Therein, Maidment ordered his employees to “stick to sports,” that is, Deadspin must soley publish articles about sports “and that which is relevant to sports in some way.” Not coincidentally, “stick to sports” stood as a Deadspin topic of choice since it came into full bloom in the 2012 election. Petchesky’s exit followed former Editor in Chief Megan Greenwell, who quit after G/O refused to guarantee the site’s editorial independence, violations of the employees’ bargained-for labor agreement. Today, we mourn the loss of one of the true original outlets, and celebrate all those who question the answers.

The editorial board of Suburban Decay learned about Deadspin in 2005, setting us on our current path. At the time, we were young and gainfully employed, but not too gainfully. Only following sports for a few years prior, our media intake skewed to the middle: ESPN’s Page 2, Sports Illustrated, and the other minimal bits of editorial content available online. Deadspin loathed the middle and hit like lightning. Their motto, “Without Access, Favor, or Discretion” says it all. Cued by their parent site and spiritual leader Gawker, founding voice Will Leitch loved sports, but also loved the lurid details bigger outlets omitted. The writers refused to disappear into the text, making explicit their teams of choice, biases, and opinions. Because, of course, that ends up influencing the editorial product anyway, and you might as well spell it out. The staff and contributors made themselves freely available, and Leitch both sent supportive replies to Suburban Decay, and linked to our first forays into sportsblogging. The early days of Deadspin approached sports as a fan. A tipsy, skeptical fan, who loved to argue and mock people in power.

What did Suburban Decay learn from Deadspin? First, that ESPN has serious conflicts of interest which irreparably warped the network’s ability to cogently cover sports. In every situation, the staff enjoyed the opportunity to make a nuisance. Leitch felt no hesitation posting gossip submitted by tipsters detailing various misbehavior by athletes, frequently under the influence. Their greatest early submission provides the title of this post, where ESPN alpha Chris Berman wooed a woman wearing a stylish jacket into his company by stating, simply, “You’re with me, leather.” Berman reacted very poorly. The site did actual journalism, but the ethos that drove them to publish that apocryphal story also motivated the more significant work: question the answers. Authority figures don’t deserve your unthinking fealty. Mindlessly regurgitating what money and power would like you to believe only benefits them. We can’t expect a company to willingly offer up facts that might interfere with their ability to sell a product. ESPN gained access and favor in exchange for their discretion, meaning they could not be trusted to make their journalism independent of their very expensive live broadcasts of sports.

This generalized skepticism pushed to new levels of aggression with the exit of Leitch and elevation of AJ Daulerio. As Editor in Chief, his most infamous scoop came from then-New York Jets employee Jenn Sterger, who alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. Daulerio decided to publish before Sterger consented, and included a purported photo of Favre’s withered and unsolicited penis. The quarterback was later fined by the NFL for “failure to cooperate.” The stunning story demonstrated the complex, messy results of the full execution of Deadspin’s ethos. It touched many of the uglier features of sports: toxic masculinity, stupidity, corruption, and the incentive to sweep ugly realities under the rug. ESPN would never take the lead on this narrative, only carry completed work. Daulerio identified a newsworthy situation that gave a fuller picture of an athlete looking for enablers. Unfortunately, he released the report without Sterger’s okay. The ability of sources to control what’s on the record is sacrosanct, and Jenn’s life since, hearing awful questions from drunk strangers, exemplifies what she wanted to avoid, not Daulerio’s choice to make. AJ rose to EIC of Gawker, only to zealously pursue a gonzo story about a Hulk Hogan sex tape, wherein vampiric billionaire Peter Thiel enacted revenge against Gawker founder Nick Denton by burying his flagship with a successful lawsuit in Florida. Negotiated down from $160 to $31 million, the resulting settlement permanently submarined Gawker, and made its sister publications vulnerable for acquisition.

Deadspin stood caught in this mire, first acquired and sold by a flailing Univision, then sold to Great Hill Partners, venture capital ghouls who eagerly initiated the power struggle that led to last week’s sad collapse. Losing it only emphasizes how many great people and stories lived on this site. Drew Magary, a founding-generation commenter became the signature Deadspin columnist, famous for his explosive rants but equally capable of introspection and self deprecation. Hamilton Nolan wrote movingly about labor, detailing all the ways capital is used against us, and urging workers everywhere to organize. Diana Moskovitz explored domestic violence, how institutions protect abusers and re-victimize the abused. Dave McKenna drove widely-hated NFL team owner Dan Snyder insane. And those are just a few of the many significant, newsworthy Deadspin threads. They also had a lot of fun with non-newsworthy ones. The site never forgot the simple pleasures of bears, using open records requests to look at a baseball player’s water bill, or watching adult men fuck cars. Deadspin appreciated both significance and insignificance. And by all accounts, it remained profitable and popular until the end. Everyone loses for its death, including Great Hill Partners, as Deadspin will struggle to sell ads with no creative team and a permanently alienated readership.

In this new world, Suburban Decay reflected on the status quo, where many of the obsessions of Deadspin and Gawker dominate life on earth. A cruel billionaire class sees us as gristle for the mill, and the law sides with them. ESPN’s muddy ethics only get muddier, as CEO Jimmy Pitaro commanded his employees to stick to sports, lest reporting sour a sale or annoy someone powerful. The NBA twisted itself into a pretzel trying to be the woke league that partners with a totalitarian regime. Our awful clown President might get booed at the wrong stadium, but owners of professional teams either directly support him, or his massive tax breaks. We need Deadspin. But for everyone who wrote for the site, and all those lucky enough to read it: question the answers. Don’t accept what they feed you. All writing is political, pretending otherwise is a luxury reserved for people in power. Deadspin started as a site, but it became a philosophy. In his farewell post, Drew Magary said it best:

Today, it lives on with you. Once you get a taste for sports news without access, favor, or (nor?) discretion, it doesn’t go away. That is how this will work. That is how you and I will keep the joy afloat. You are told every day that the internet is a shitty place, and you are given, in a steady stream, ample and mounting evidence that proves it. But there’s a reason people stay online. I came here to eke a career out of yelling about things sucking, but I also came here to make a friend or two. And I did.