Funniest email that didn’t make it into my story, from Elizabeth Spiers, editor of Mediabistro:
Hey Derek –
Are you asking me if my blog gets me laid? Well, yesterday I blogged a fake prospectus for a magazine IPO. You’d think men would be beating down my door after that sort of thing, but sadly, no. I even used the phrase “pending buyout of existing minority shareholders at a multiple of one and a half times revenue.”–hot, right? Nothing. Not so much as a half-heartedly IMed “age/sex/location, send me yr pix” from a pedophile addressing the wrong AIM screename. I guess guys just arent’ turned on by long posts about magazine circulation, politics in the Times’ Baghdad bureau, etc. What can you do?
Just to be obnoxious, I called Spiers and told her Gawker’s Jessica Coen gets propositioned all the time …
Fav. quote that made it into the story: “”I think there’s this attitude that the people you meet that way [via blogs] won’t be attractive.”
I’m afraid she’s right people. Clearly, more needs to be done to popularize nyc blog-babes like Chelle.
Lindsay Robertson also sent a very amusing email:
It’s true that “blogger romance” does happen a lot, but I don’t really know anyone who would want publicity for it and I don’t talk about my personal life to the media(hahaha, I just always wanted to say that! Like the media cares!Like I’m Gwyneth Paltrow or something! Get it?) …
I don’t think you’re really going to find anyone who would want to publicize their relationship like that, except losers, so I expect a very entertaining story! That’s my advice: find yourself some losers and the story will write itself.
Heh.
I wish I had been able to interview Benjamin Wagner, the guy who dated Stephanie Klein and Heather Hunter at the same time. But he had work and then rehearsals and we didn’t manage to connect … I was given this story late Wednesday with a Thursday evening deadline.
I also wish I had gotten to meet some of these people! Because of the tight deadline, I did it all by phone and email. Oh well.
Also, I know the knock on Stephanie is that she’s publicity-hungry, but she never answered my email…
Rose Yndigoyen’s blog can be found here. I thought the URL was too long to put in the paper, but mentioned the title and that it was on Livejournal in case people wanted to find it. She and her partner didn’t want to be photographed, alas. I admit, I thought twice about having the first couple I mentioned be lesbians … but — why not? They were the strongest story.
Heather was too busy to be photographed, so I went with Denise Delgado. Her blog is here. (She emailed she was still trying to decide whether the story is flattering or not — “that caption definitely makes me sound like some sort of sex hotline. But it was nice to be quoted.”)
I made the box about some of New York’s “most eligible bloggers” at the end of the story a little snarky, but I’m glad that people seemed to take it in the good-natured spirit it was intended…
One thing I learned while researching this story is that the blogosphere is a lot bigger than I might have thought. I’d never heard of myspace, (a combination of Friendster and Livejournal), or Jason Mulgrew, a New York City blogger who gets 4,000 visitors a day. People follow links from sites they know and explore little “blog-cliques”, but there’s a lot more out there, I think.
There were several other people who took the time to email me their stories, and one guy I spoke with over the phone, but I wasn’t able to include them. I always feel bad when that happens … only had 12 inches to write the story.
Ultimately, though, you don’t write the stories for the people you interview; you write it for your readers.
UPDATE 4/22: Edited.
Thanks for the press, even in spite of my lesbian ways! This has actually made me realize that my URL IS way too long and I need to do something about that. So, it’s been a blog altering experience if not a life altering one.
-R
Haha – well, I was happy to give you the press! And it was fun talking to you and Jen.
BTW: If you’re looking to change blog packages, I’ve actually been pretty happy with WordPress. I have a hosting package that costs me $11 a year, and then just a bit more for the derekrose.com domain name. Or, it’s easy enough to just buy a domain name and just have it resolve to your Livejournal blog.
You are so cool at featuring a lesbian couple, especially considering that the idea for the story came from dawn eden, aka dawn goldSTEIN, your co-worker whose blog is filled with homophobic rants. Nice move Derek ! You really stuck it to her, even if you weren’t intending to! Way to go!
Heh. But no rants against my co-workers on my blog! Dawn is very nice in person, but obviously I disagree with her on this.
Earlier I did email Rose to say I hope she wasn’t offended by what I wrote about thinking twice before featuring a lesbian couple as the first anecdote … really, it shouldn’t matter! I think everyone loves a good love story, no matter what the genders involved. Well, just about everyone.
(God, don’t I sound P.C. — barf!)
I apologize to you and her. You’re right. The rants are out of place. I should start my own blog if I want to really go off. It’s just … well. It’s just it really hurts sometime. But you are right and I apologize.
She emailed me back and I even talked to her on AIM
I take back my apology after reading tonight’s installment. The woman is pure evil and in no way understands the pain she cause. She also has no explanation on her opposition to gays raising children on what to do with all the unwanted foster kids. She’s too busy blogging to adopt one herself.
Okay okay. You are certainly welcome to have any opinion you’d like on anyone you want. But as much as I believe in free speech and letting commenters indulge in flame-wars, I think it’d be odd to let people do so on my blog against a coworker. I hope you understand the position that would place me in.
If you want to get into an intellectual debate about gay marriage, homophobia and gay foster parents, that’s one thing, but seriously — no more insults against coworker in question.
(Of course, people can insult me here all they want…)
And really: I’m sure you care very deeply about these issues. But calling people who disagree with you on them “pure evil” is … it’s just part of this overheated political rhetoric we don’t need more of.
Also: if you let the opinions of people you don’t even know cause you “pain”, you’re being really silly. Why do you care what they think?
[…] od… … is a real, live running partner. The other day I wrote about bloggers getting dates from their blog. But I think the real trend might be bloggers getting together for runs! L […]
I once had a back and forth e-mail exchange with a self-procliamed “sex blogger” who went by the name BadMan. The way he wrote about himself you’d have thought he was Colin Ferrel. Umm…yeah. He kinda…wasn’t. Peopel can be whomever they want on their blogs. I guess that’s the appeal. Although I don’t think I’d post a pic on mine. That’s seems a little too self-indulgent to me.
Great blog, BTW.
cHEERS,
Moxie
sexandmoxie.blogspot.com
[…] So my longtime readers may remember that a year ago this month, I had to write a story about bloggers dating. I blogged about said story here and here. It is time to offer congratulations to two of the men featured in said article … I will be able to say, I knew them when. […]
[…] The puff piece by Stephanie Rosenbloom, however, came across as one written on Judith Regan or Regan Books stationary. In fact, after reading it, I asked Stephanie whether the publicity team over at Regan books was responsible for planting the story, since the story did not contain nary a critique. I realized the insensitivity of my comment when I made it but maybe I was just being “straight up and dirty.” My sense was that the writer was very much one whom Stephanie Klein courted and developed a relationship. I almost wanted to ask whether Stephanie Rosenbloom was in fact a personal friend of Stephanie Klein. I suspect so, as Stephanie stated to me that, “they really like me over at the New York Times.” Perhaps the manner in which Stephanie Klein and Heather Hunter networked the Times for their gab fess piece on getting schtupped by the same guy, Benjamin Wagner, at the same time explains the reason for their being on the same menstrual cycle. Maybe their internal fluids became mixed in the process? See, Traveling the Too- Much-Information Highway. […]
Hey there! I am the other half of the lesbian couple you profiled. I ran across this today. I almost forgot about that interview. Rose and I are still together, and are getting married! 🙂