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Make no mistake, this was a much better outcome than many library supporters were expecting. But this year's wrangling also represents the continuation of a debilitating cycle that leaves libraries in the lurch every year, stuck counting on budget negotiations to provide not just cash for flex spending, but a basic operational baseline. Which means that, when the city’s scrounging for pennies wherever it can find them, those operational costs turn dangerously subjective: Between 2009 and 2011, the four libraries that comprise the NYC system—Research, New York, Brooklyn and Queens—saw their budgets slashed 40 percent; this year’s cuts chip further. "It's an ongoing problem," says City Council Member Gail Brewer, an ardent library supporter. "Every year, the mayor cuts the libraries, and we always try to restore it. It's part of the budget dance."

According to Christian Zabriskie, “This year the budget dance wasn’t a waltz, it was a mosh pit.” Zabriskie, a Queens librarian as well as the founder of the advocacy organization Urban Librarians Unite, describes the funding wars as “taking up an enormous amount of energy and an enormous amount of capacity that we could be focusing on helping our public."

The 2012 budget battle started shaping up back in January, when Bloomberg announced a preliminary budget proposal with cuts that Zabriskie calls “draconian”: $88.4 million—a 28.6 percent reduction from FY ’11 across the public library systems, which losses would have resulted in an estimated 40 branches closed, 1,000 positions laid off, and serious reductions in operating hours. But the numbers were scary not just because they were so deep, but because they were so familiar: The preliminary FY ’11 budget had contained similarly drastic decreases. Supporters had protested, and at the last minute, the City Council had swooped in and saved the day, restoring much of the libraries’ funding. Now, just months after that victory, recently won funds were again on the chopping block. As Linda Johnson, the interim executive director of the Brooklyn Public Library, noted in a May 23 budget hearing, "I am particularly frustrated that $17 million, or two-thirds of [this] cut, is the funding BPL fought for and the Council and Mayor restored just 11 months ago." (The two-thirds Johnson's referring to is of the BPL's portion of the cuts specifically, which weighed in at $24.1 million—budget numbers get confusing fast).

And this time around, it was harder to rally the troops. Though the past few years of budget back-and-forth have given library systems and their advocacy groups an arsenal of fighting tactics, stalwarts like the 24-hour “Read-In” and the postcard-writing campaign attracted less attention (though the latter still received nearly 140,000 submissions). "Everyone knows the budget stinks and everyone's tired of hearing about the budget," Zabriskie says. "What last year was seen as a really fascinating, wild thing, this year just did not seem to be sparking anywhere near the same amount of interest." To combat the jadedness, organizers tried to come up with new, more aggressive strategies, like the mass "hug" of the NYPL's Schwarzman Building, and a VYou campaign in which supporters recorded videos explaining their library's importance to them. By the time the cycle swings around next year, activists will probably have to set up French-A-Librarian booths to get any attention.

The idea behind such public displays of affection was to lend faces to library usage and circulation numbers which, against the odds, are on the upswing. At the BPL, 2010 marked a record number of users, and circulation reached almost 20 million items, "[t]he highest level in BPL's history and a 13 percent increase over FY ‘09," according to Johnson's testimony at a March 24 preliminary budget hearing. Part of the reason the libraries have been able to keep on is that, as any recent visitor knows, they're offering a lot more than books these days: Essential literacy, tutoring and job-training programming have taken on central, and valued, positions. (Not to mention cutting-edge digital projects). In her March testimony, Johnson defined three of the BPL's primary focus areas as service to immigrants, service to teens, and access to technology.

This demographic may be another reason library funding is such an easy target for budget cuts. Because the people in City Hall aren't the ones who need many of the services the library provides, there's a disconnect between the perception of the library's usefulness and its actual impact. In a June 6 budget hearing episode that's been oft-repeated among library advocates, City Budget Director Mark Page said that libraries are losing relevance in the digital age. But to Zabriskie, Page can't pass judgment: "For a man who makes over $200,000 a year, and can buy books and computers, maybe libraries aren't essential. But for a lot of New Yorkers they are very, very much a big deal." (An acerbic blog post at savenyclibraries.com drives the point home further).

On April 8, when the City Council responded to the Mayor's FY '12 preliminary budget, it proposed a solution to these past few years of budget woes: To create a baseline off of which future proceedings could work, instead of leaving the libraries in limbo from year-to-year with no funds guarantee. "It is time for the City to create an operations policy for the three public library systems," the report proclaims, "setting standardized minimum levels of service in each borough and providing adequate baseline funding to meet this mandate. Currently, there is no operations policy guaranteeing a minimum service level so that all boroughs have adequate and equal access to library services."

This is a very good idea. As Zabriskie says, "It would be a huge, huge, huge step forward in stabilizing libraries and library funding." But it's likely too big a step for the current budget climate; instead more of an anchor on the opposite end of the spectrum from Bloomberg's proposed FY '12 cuts. For now, the libraries have scraped by for another year. But come January, when the Mayor’s staring down an estimated $5 billion deficit, maybe instead of proposing familiarly steep cuts to the libraries he’ll prioritize breaking the cycle.

Olivia LaVecchia is an Awl summer reporter.

Photo courtesy of savenyclibraries, used with permission.

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Sub Pop Records co-founder Jonathan Poneman—still earning sizable royalties for his initial signing of Nirvana over two decades ago—scowled his way through a series of accolades delivered for him. And Mac McCaughan, frontman for indie rock standard-bearers Superchunk and co-founder of Merge Records, merely shrugged and then shrank back in his seat as moderator Karen Glauber, president of Hits magazine, began gushing over the recent accomplishments of Merge’s Arcade Fire: A gold record—500,000 CD sales—at a time when such certifications are increasingly rare for even the industry’s biggest players, followed by a left-field Grammy award.

Glauber recalled screaming in delight when the win was announced, leaping out of her seat in the Grammy audience. Meanwhile, she said, and laughed, “Everybody around me was asking each other ‘Who is Arcade Fire?’” Indeed, hip-hop record executive turned advertising mogul Steve Stoute even bought a $40,000 full-page ad in the New York Times to run his protest letter to that effect. (That he chose to buy a page in Sunday Styles—as opposed to Business or the front news section—carries its own modern media lesson.)

So, Glauber bubbled, was McCaughan riding that wave? Was he doing anything different with Merge’s marketing plans in the wake of the Grammys? McCaughan shrugged again. The recognition was nice, he explained, “but it doesn’t change what you’re doing.” Yes, he’d been able to book Merge act Telekinesis onto "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." And network TV exposure is always appreciated. But he’d already had several of his label’s artists perform on Fallon’s TV show over the past year. “It doesn’t help us sell any more records.” The traditional gatekeepers may have abandoned their posts, but so have the audiences they once commanded.

Gerard Cosloy, co-owner of Matador Records, chimed in: Two decades ago, having a Matador release from Pavement or Yo La Tengo top the Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jopp poll, or appear in a New York Times review, would result in a sales bump of up to forty percent. The sales boost from such placements today? Zilch. Cosloy was hoping the industry would consider scaling down their award system: Forget about platinum and gold. How about wood?

Still, if the bottom continues to drop out of the music business, that was news to the crowds that converged on Austin for SXSW’s twenty-fifth edition. Police estimated the throng at 200,000 (in a city of 790,000), though only 14,000 were actually registered to attend SXSW’s official music events. That's a fairly good metaphor for the state of the industry-at-large, particularly as many attendees took to the web to subsequently decry the fest’s “commercialization,” conveniently forgetting that SXSW was launched as an insider’s trade show, a way to entice A&R men and critics into seeing bands far from the NY and LA club axis—not as a fan-focused free-for-all.

For a party sans even a whiff of angst, all you had to do was latch onto some of SXSW’s Interactive attendees (at 19,000, they eclipsed the music portion of the fest). Many opted to hang around Austin after their own festival wrapped, spring break-style, flexing their expense accounts in a manner that could only make music bizzers nostalgic for their own salad days. Or at least conjure up flashbacks to the first dot-com boom. “Startups were loaded down with venture capital that they had to spend to qualify for their next round of funding,” remembered SXSW executive director Mike Shea, in the newly published SXSW Scrapbook. “We had companies calling to tell us how much money they needed to spend and wondering what they could buy for that. Good times.”

The good times were certainly back on the swag front. In years past, SXSW music attendees were handed a “big bag” bulging with all manner of sponsor-provided tchotkes. This year’s bag was virtually empty beyond a thick festival schedule, part of SXSW’s stated desire to “reduce its environmental impact.” This somehow didn’t stop organizers from stuffing scads of fliers and corporate toys into the Interactive fest’s bag. Likewise, the music festival’s Convention Center trade show featured only a handful of booths bought by music-related companies. The bulk were instead manned by online entities, from WordPress to the digital temp agency Solvate (whose “Boba Fett was a freelancer” T-shirts were a big hit).

Which isn’t to say there weren’t still dozens of good reasons to wander around Austin. If you looked past the usual blog suspects and next-big-things all busy recreating the stifling New York-Los Angeles axis of yore, incredible musicians were still pouring their hearts out, analog-style, at makeshift venues all over town. The quality level was generally inverse to the number of bloggers on hand.

In a back lot behind the nondescript G&S Lounge, local roots music magazine 3rd Coast Music (“You’re not getting old, the music really does suck”) assembled its own five-day bill of country-tinged “Not SXSW” acts, including Austin singer-songwriter Sam Baker. With mandolin, acoustic guitar and violin accompaniment, Baker spun out a spellbinding set that invoked prime-era John Prine, by turns heartbreaking and wryly moving. And amidst the 200 or so folks raptly watching, only one felt compelled to whip out his iPhone to immortalize the moment.

Similarly, honky tonk-roadhouse veteran Dale Watson kept a bowling alley-cum-nightclub full of people too busy dancing to worry about shooting video of his set of infectiously dirtied-up swing tunes. Just as seasoned, but releasing his debut album at the age of 61, was rhythm and blues crooner Charles Bradley. Backed by much of the same crew of old-school soul musicians who helped reinvent Amy Winehouse (and currently perform with singer Sharon Jones), Bradley wildly shimmied his way across a cramped outdoor stage, riffing off the James Brown impersonation act which first got him noticed, and nearly knocking over both his guitarist and his horn section in the process. From the female screams that emanated out of the front row, the crotch-eye view of Bradley’s contortions was even more entertaining than my own overhead vantage point.

After all that, should one still be jonesing for a flock of unwashed bohos to kick up a fuzz-laden racket, complete with vintage organs and rows of effects pedals, Austin’s own Black Angels more than delivered, thanks in no small part to its head-snapping drummer.

Unfortunately, that full-body rumble doesn’t quite translate onto the group’s latest CD Phosphene Dream—a solid outing, yet hardly as memorable as hearing those same songs tackled live. Which is increasingly all that matters, fiscally speaking. With concert ticket sales the only consistent income for most indie and major label acts alike, CDs are becoming promotional items, calling cards for the main event.

If there’s a sticking point in this New Economy, it’s that rock swagger in the digital age ain’t what it used to be. Prior to their show, Black Angels guitarist Christian Bland threaded his way through the crush to knock on a backstage door. He was met by a gruff security guard who sized up the smiling beanpole before him and barked back, “This room is for the band only.” Bland seemed at a loss. Then, regaining his composure, he insisted, “But I am in the band!”

Brett Sokol’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, New York, Slate, and Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive magazine, where he is the arts editor. He still owns a fax machine, two landline phones and a VCR.

Photo of Charles Bradley at SxSW by Jim Porter.

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Tina Brown didn't notice because confectioner's sugar is really light, you know, and it's on her back, and then some other old dude came over to Tina Brown and stood behind her and talked to her for a minute, he probably congratulated her about her website The Daily Beast merging with Newsweek, and then when he was done talking to her he patted her on the back and unwittingly smudged the confectioner's sugar and then she went back to talking to the first old dude, so now there is a palm-sized splotch of confectioner's sugar on the back of Tina Brown's black dress and i can't take my eyes off it :)

we brainstorm questions for Tina Brown while we wait for her conversation to end. Nate says to Mike, "ask her how she has time to come to parties like this when she's running a publication that hemorrhages five hundred grand a week!!!!" and Nate's eyes look up but his head stays level and he holds his hands up and shakes them and he goes "OH NO! OH NO!" and me and Mike laugh and then i excuse myself and walk to the bar and get a white wine and scurry back. eventually there is a lull in Tina Brown's conversation and Mike goes up to her to interview her and she tells him to come back after dinner and so we go back to the press area to wait out Tina Brown's dinner

anyway, and i want to slip this in before i go on because i thought it was a good story, the way that i sneaked into this National Book Awards is that last night i emailed Choire, the editor of this website, and i said i wanted to cover the National Book Awards, and he emailed me back and was like "excellent!" and i wrote back "but like can you get me in though?" and he said he would see what he could do on such short notice. and then this morning i got an email from him that said "you're in luck! you can go, but there's a catch: you have to say you are..." and he gave me a name that was an incontrovertibly female name that i will say is "Patricia Simpson" for the purposes of this post, "...and that you write for..." and the publication i have to say i write for is, let's say, a prestigious French literary journal

so i brainstormed ideas about how to get in, i thought about saying my name is Patrick Simpson and they got it wrong on the list, or that i also work for this literary journal and i am going in Patricia's place. it is hard for a swarthy unshaven 22-year-old kid to pretend to be a "Patricia Simpson" that works for a prestigious French literary journal, and then so tonight me and Mike and Nate walk in to the National Book Awards and i am so nervous and the woman with press clipboard asks for Mike's name and she looks through the list and says his name isn't on the list and he says "maybe it's under my editor's name?" and then he gives the press list woman the name of his female editor, and then a figurative lightbulb went on over my head and i tell the press list woman that my editor is Patricia Simpson and i give her the name of the prestigious literary journal, and then Nate gave her his name and she let us inside! i was so happy, i've never been to an awards show like this

so anyway now i am in the press area and it is dinnertime and there are other reporters and bloggers standing around here too. the press area is centered around a buffet that is against the far wall of the restaurant/gala hall. this room is so big that you could probably play softball in it and the walls wouldn't be that much of an impediment. in the press buffet there is some pasta with plain sauce and some, ummmm, uninspired sandwiches and salad, kind of a weak dinner compared to the filet mignons or tuna filets that the regular attendees of the awards ceremony are getting, and it makes me think that if the regular attendees get filet mignons in the dining area of the ballroom, and the press gets sandwiches on the edge of the ballroom, than the cater waiters are probably eating dog food in the back and i shouldn't complain about the sandwiches

also right now the first half of the awards ceremony is over, i got here late so i missed almost all of it except the part where Tina Brown gave Tom Wolfe a lifetime achievement award and he thanked her for it and said something about how she started blog news, which i am positive is a complete falsehood but everyone likes him so it's not a big deal, and now i am trying to gauge the importance of this awards ceremony among the bloggers and reporters. i ask what the equivalent of the National Book Awards is in movies, like is it like The Oscars or like The Golden Globes?, and there is some debate around the table, and then the reporter who i looked at when i was asking, so i guess he is the point man on this question, makes up his mind and declares "this is cannes and the fuckin pulitzers are the oscars" and then quickly adds "this is on deep background by the way, not for attribution" and he laughs and then says "actually i don't give a shit". when he said "deep background" it made me think of that movie about Watergate with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

a few minutes later, Foster Kamer, a blogger for the Village Voice, goes "okay i got my headline for tomorrow!" to Katie Baker, a blogger for Deadspin, and people around the table look at him expectantly and he says he isn't telling and we're like "come on man" and he says "okay fine—it's NBA Jam!" and he smiles and we laugh. it makes me try to think of a funny title for this post. a few minutes later, Mike realizes that he forgot to remove a piece of extra stitching from his new suit and we talk about the suit for a minute and Foster leans over to Mike and smiles and says "that's the J. Crew Ludlow right?" i think he is a little embarrassed that he knows the name and brand of the suit but also proud, maybe he is blushing but the lighting in here isn't good, and then he looks at me and says he knows his menswear

Mike and Katie Baker talk for a while and then Mike hands Katie his Blackberry with a new contact screen open and her name in the contact info but the phone number and e-mail address fields are blank, she says "do i fill it in?" and mike says "yeah" and i say "that's a smooth move dude" and he grins and looks at Katie and says "i'm gay!!" so she doesn't think he's trying to get her number romantically. despite his sexual orientation Mike is actually really gettin it with the ladies tonight, his date here is the blogger Molly Young and he told me he feels like the luckiest guy on the Lower East Side and i asked him if he thinks he's gonna score later and he said he hopes so

then the second round of the awards ceremony starts and people take their seats. we stay around the press table and watch. a woman who looks like the platonic ideal of a school librarian wins the young adult book award, some other people win some awards that i didn't write down, and then Patti Smith is up for an award and then she wins and Nate and Foster give each other a high five and both say "BOOM!" in unison and clap and yell "woo!!" as she goes up onstage. Patti Smith gets teary during her speech and says that when she was younger she dreamed about winning a National Book Award. this is maybe a dubious claim but hey, who knows, people have weird dreams i guess. a few minutes later, Foster tells me that the host of this awards ceremony is Andy Borowitz, the creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and i almost have a conniption because that's one of my favorite shows

eventually the awards get boring and Mike says "this thing is a snooze! and you can quote me on that" and Katie laughs and Nate asks if anyone wants to go out for a cigarette and i drink a white wine

then the awards end and it's dessert time and most of the attendees get up and start schmoozing. i mill around looking for desserts to take off peoples' plates who are leaving or have left and wonder if i am getting too drunk to function normally. then i see Andy Borowitz standing by the bar and he is by himself. he is tall and very thin, imagine David Bowie but with a big schnoz and straight, medium-length salt and pepper hair, and wearing a crisp suit. i go over to him to interview him about The Fresh Prince, i introduce myself and tell him i want to interview him and also that i love The Fresh Prince. he says something to indicate that he is getting a kick out of talking about The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air at the National Book Awards, i would interview him about something more relevant but i don't know what he has done since that show, i should have read his wikipedia beforehand, and we talk about the show for a while and he smiles a lot and seems jovial, i smile too but i try to not look insane by grinning constantly, and then he says "you want a drink?" and i say "sure!" and we walk over to the bar and he orders a white wine and then asks what i want and i tell him i want a jack daniel's and diet coke and he laughs and goes "is that some sort of hipster drink?" and we both laugh. he is mostly joking i think

i ask him what episode of The Fresh Prince he would recommend someone watching if they had never seen an episode before, which i guess is my official interview question for lack of a better one, and he says "the one where they got up and did the striptease—well, i'm not saying that one is the best, but that's the one that's most viral on youtube" and he thinks about whether that is a valid way of determining what is the best first episode to watch and then seems to decide that it is and he smiles and says "i hope that's in my NYT obit!" he is really friendly and i try to conceal how drunk i am. he says, "are you going to the afterbeast?" because the afterparty for this awards show is hosted by The Daily Beast and i tell him i think i am. we talk about Fresh Prince for another few minutes and then i excuse myself because i suspect i seem really drunk and i don't want to drunkenly linger

i wander around looking for Jonathan Safran-Foer or Patti Smith or Tina Brown to interview them but i can't find them. i steal a chocolate-covered strawberry off an unattended plate and then spot Katie Baker and two other bloggers across the room, i am afraid i am nearing that stage of drunkenness where like i don't even have to say anything for my presence to be alienating, like when you know someone you are around is so drunk that it makes you uncomfortable because really drunk people are unpleasant and unpredictable, so i try to keep my mouth shut to not alienate these people. the bloggers are very nice to me and i like listening to them, they talk about insidery-seeming internet stuff that i don't really understand, and then we all go outside and go around a corner and the bloggers smoke cigarettes and marijuana and we chat about different websites

and then it is getting late and the bloggers go back inside and i say bye to Katie and put my headphones on and walk to the subway. now i am on the subway listening to the Nicki Minaj record that leaked today and i really like it, she raps a lot about New York, or more than she does on most of her guest features, and sometimes i think about leaving New York because it can be a psychically crushing place but right now listening to Nicki Minaj on the subway after sneaking into the National Book Awards i am happy to be here

Sent via Blackberry from T-Mobile

David "Shapiro" is 22 and lives in New York City and has a Tumblr.

Photo by Mike, taken this morning, on the street.

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Moe has this piece in CJR now that seems to me to somewhat be two pieces (or two of what should be five!) but that very well conveys the cannibalizing of personhood in the Age of The Brand and the self-destroying economic model of The Way We Print Words (And/Or Money) Now. All excellent points. And, in relation to those two things, or because of them, she says that much of her blogging work was a performance.

Of all the resentments I had accumulated before coming to Jezebel, I had never much dwelled on the misfortune of being born a woman. But women, who so disproportionately bear the nothing-based economy's unrelenting fusillade of invented insecurities and predatory sales pitches, were ideally positioned to share my list of grievances. It makes sense, in retrospect, that a readership so universally practiced in the faking of things-orgasms, hair color, age, disinterest in men one was actually interested in, etc.-would humor the intolerance for fakery that helped define the "Moe Tkacik brand," which was basically an angrier, more recklessly confessional, and more contemptuous version of myself.

This is odd for me because I never thought she was "performing" a "persona," and why would I? I suppose I thought she was sort of a freewheeling lady about town who also thought oversharing was a tactic to get at writing about what she cared about, for sure. But I did not ever think that she might have made a decision that "contempt would just have to be part of the 'Moe Tkacik brand.'" And now, in light of this piece, thinking back on all of her work that I've read before, I'm actually not even sure I know which is the persona: is it the outlandish and contemptuous one or the one that now defines that behavior as a brand strategy?

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Abe Sauer will reveal the answers at some later date. Maybe. Or maybe not!

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Gah. I want to douse the flaxen-haired author with superspicy haterade, snatch her bag, smash the perfume behind me like a smoke bomb, and go legging it down the block cackling like a maniac-but can't. Because Tavi Gevinson, the writer, is a fashion blogger who's been featured in Teen Vogue, the Times magazine, graced the COVER of the POP magazine relaunch and IS A CHILD. Like a teeny wee baby person, who can't feel all that good to maul. Or at least it would feel FUCKING FANTASTIC but, like, only for a second.

Tavi is 13, small for her age, a dweeb, happens to be besties with Rodarte's Mulleavy sisters, gets to go to ALL the shows, ALL the parties, and has Rei Kawakubo sending her Comme des Garcons like it's no big whoop. People who know she exists are tired of hearing about her and people who remain ignorant of her existence get to go on feeling like they've made good decisions about their lives.

Whatever, girl's got a grind. But on the heels of the video she shot for the launch of Rodarte's Go collection for Target that was released on Style.com earlier this week (with a pretty extensive Q&A no less. Also, I think the line is barf, it's Rodarte distilled to the point of looking like colored fondant), she's reviewing spring collections for Harper's Bazaar.

Here's what she had to say about her BFFs' runway collection:

"Rodarte was the most enchanting. It began with fog slowly crawling up the legs of our chairs. A few people coughed, unimpressed. But through the fog flew the Mulleavy sisters' California condors, draped in burnt cheesecloths and distorted leather. Immediately, the unmoved were intrigued and didn't care to hide it. The audience broke into roaring applause."

Eh. Not dreadful. I get it, she likes it. But then she spouts some mess about how "effortless cool" is "always in style" and some other pshaw, which is right at the point that other magazines' fashion editors, who you know were just spoiling to get their licks in, are turning on the girl, calling her gimmicky and JT LeRoyish. And sure, Bazaar's on some WaPo shit with this anyway but now I'm wondering if this is the exact point that the wave crests and the backlash begins? Did this girl (who I think is clever and endearing and who I kinda don't care if she's nothing more than a brand because her market positioning is KILLER) peak at 13? And after a scant 2-year stint? If you look at the video, the expressions on everyone's faces are exactly like they're talking to Brüno and if you look at her blog, EVERYONE is posing for photos with positively vulpine rapaciousness. And it's not just 'cause they're starving.

Are they all colluding with the understanding that with one signal she could be flung from the party? Why does this start to feel like some elaborate parlor game and one in which whoever attempts to evict her prematurely can be blackballed too? Are there pony-hair animal masks involved? And gloves? And candelabras? And chanting? Am I giving these people way too much credit? What is this feeling of protectiveness I am feeling in my womb-area? I think I'm going to sleep now.

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THE AWL: You were apartment hunting recently. How did that work out?

MICHAEL K: Oh, it didn't really. I'm really picky, and I don't know why, because it's New York. I've lived here six years, and I'm still looking for the perfect apartment even though it doesn't exist unless you're a zillionaire.

THE AWL: What's your work day like?

MICHAEL K: I roll out of bed and get on the computer, and then at night I roll off the computer and go to bed. I don't shower until like 7 at night, and I usually don't eat until later either. I leave the house in the morning to walk my dog and then am just in front the computer all day.

THE AWL: So what time does this start?

MICHAEL K: I get up at like 7:30, which is like really early for me. I've never been a morning person. When I had an office job I would start work at 10 and get up at 9:30 and roll out. I hate getting up that early, but I have to start picking stuff out for the day. It's really hard to be interested in that stuff at 7:30 am, hard to be funny. Usually the night before I try to get a couple of things going in my head so I'm not totally brain dead in the morning. I usually just start writing first thing when I get up, which is like, painful.

THE AWL: So you're literally just in front of your computer all day.

MICHAEL K: I watch TV, I'm at the computer, I try to multitask, but it's hard to watch TV and work at the same time. I'm just stuck to the computer, and if I have to take a break I'll watch TV. I'm sure I have cancer or whatever you get from being in front of the computer too much.

THE AWL: Are you writing in character?

MICHAEL K: No, it's totally me. Sometimes it's an exaggeration of me, but it's me. I'm not creating a character. There's not two different people.

THE AWL: Can we talk about vulgarity? Your site is pretty vulgar.

MICHAEL K: It used to be worse! It used to be so much worse. I think because I've gotten a little bigger I've tamed it a little bit, but in real life I'm a lot worse. But I don't think it's that vulgar! I've always been around that, that's how my friends and I talk. I talk like that around my mom, just because I like to shock her, so I think I get worse and worse to shock her, and she's like oh my gosh Michael, don't say that. But I think it's kind of tame. What I think is vulgar isn't like sex or anything like, but sites with exploding brains and stuff, people send me this stuff for Caption This! pictures. I can't remember the site name, I used to link to it all the time. But that's vulgar and gross to me: exploding assholes, exploding brains. And Christian sites are vulgar to me, too.

THE AWL: You started the site for fun. Now it's your job. Is it still fun?

MICHAEL K: Mostly it's fun, but it's become a job, so it's like with any job: "I don't want to look at pictures of Jon Gosling again, I don't even want to know he exists today." But when I get into it it's really fun, people send me things, and it's fun, but there are days when it's like, "God, I don't want to even think of these people."

THE AWL: Do you just hammer the posts out and throw them up or is there an editing process?

MICHAEL K: It's so obvious I don't edit them! My mistakes are so bad. I don't really edit. I write it once, and then I go back and read it a couple times to make sure it's somewhat legible, and then I'll go with it. I don't change a lot of things. I want it to be first instincts, whether it's funny or it's not, just first thoughts.

THE AWL: Do you feel a kinship with other bloggers, that you're part of a bigger community? Or does it really feel like just you and your site.

MICHAEL K: It isn't as lonely as it sounds, I talk to other bloggers all day, to readers all day. It's not completely lonely.

THE AWL: Do you ever meet your readers?

MICHAEL K: When I started I'd meet people all the time, they'd be like, oh let's go for a drink. Now I don't do that as often. It's still kind of weird. It's like a blind date. And now it's so much pressure. So I do it, but I kind of have to be liquored up before I do it.

THE AWL: How did you end up in New York?

MICHAEL K: I'm from L.A. I always wanted to live in New York, ever since I was a kid. I knew I would like it. I visited a few times, and I lived in Florida for a little bit, but that was just awful. So I just moved here.

THE AWL: After school?

MICHAEL K: Yeah, after college, in L.A., in Orange County.

THE AWL: What did you think you'd end up doing?

MICHAEL K: I never really knew, honestly. I thought like, oh, maybe I'll be a writer. It always changed. I'd watch a movie about fashion design and think, oh maybe I'll be a fashion designer. I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grow up. And I still don't. I don't see blogging as a real job. And people don't either, people are like, oh when are you going to get a real job? It's like, good question. It just doesn't seem like a real job. I think because it's still fun, and I feel like I'm just messing around.

THE AWL: I read that you've been able to live off the blog for awhile.

MICHAEL K: I've been living off of it for a couple of years, which is crazy to me, I didn't think I'd make one cent, it wasn't about that. It's still crazy. I got advertising probably the year after I started, and when I started selling ads, it was like, okay, we'll see. I never thought I could be making a living until I started making a same amount that I made at my job.

THE AWL: Is it a lot of work to run the site?

MICHAEL K: Blogads does all my ads. I have a programmer, but not fulltime. Updating it is just the most work.

THE AWL: And what were you doing when you started the site?

MICHAEL K: I worked for a gay website for dudes to find sex with each other, and no I didn't jerk off on webcams or anything like that. I did the administrative stuff. When I started the blog I would do some at work, some at home, some on the weekends. They knew and were totally fine with it, which was good.

THE AWL: How much longer do you see yourself doing this?

MICHAEL K: I don't know. I just take it day by day, I don't put a time limit on it. I don't know if it's still cute if I'm talking about assholes when I'm 40 years old. There's definitely a time limit on it just because it's so time consuming, it takes your whole life. I can't go on vacation, I can't have a day off. There will come a time and it's going to be a sad day for me. It'll be a like a chicken without its head for me.

THE AWL: Have you ever had guest bloggers so you could take a break?

MICHAEL K: A couple years ago I decided to go on vacation and I had some guests post, and it was a disaster. I came back and I had so many emails that were like, don't ever leave again, they were total idiots, and the people who did it were like, don't ever ask me to do that again, those people are crazy. But I might have to do it again. It would be nice to have a Saturday.

THE AWL: Wait. You blog on the weekends?

MICHAEL K: Yeah. Seven days. I don't blog as much on the weekends, but I spend 3 or 4 hours on it on weekend days, yeah.

THE AWL: Are you actually into celebrities still?

MICHAEL K: I think it's unhealthy how obsessed I am. I have dreams about celebrities every night. Last night I had a dream about Lady Gaga, or Lady CaCa as I have been calling her. I think I've always been into it, TV, movies, celebrities. It's just the way I was born. I was always into gossip and talking shit. It's been the biggest part of me I think.

THE AWL: Is there anyone you won't write about?

MICHAEL K: I think the boundaries change each day. Some days I'm like, okay you're not going to make fun of children, and some days its like, you're not going to make fun of Michelle Williams because of the whole Heath Ledger thing. But then here are some stories you have to do whether or not you can make them funny. But there are some stories that if I can't find any humor in it, I don't touch it.

THE AWL: What do you think about reality TV "stars"?

MICHAEL K: I love them. I think it's because they are such an easy target. It's so easy to write about the Goslings, so easy to write about Heidi and Spencer. They have really no talent, so it's such an easy target. When it's easy it's fun. It's the gift that keeps on giving. They want to be famous so bad, it makes them so desperate, it's easy to slap them around a bit, and they love it because it gives them attention. People write me and are like, stop giving them attention! But they don't mean it. They love to slap them around, too.

THE AWL: Okay. So besides the reality kids, any other favorites to write about?

MICHAEL K: Britney was my favorite, favorite when she was a wreck. But then she got her shit together and washed her hair, since then there hasn't been anybody like that.

THE AWL: Not Lindsay Lohan?

MICHAEL K: Sometimes I see pictures of Lohan and it's just too sad, it's too easy. Then sometimes I'll read her Twitter, and it's like god, what is she doing. I'm kind of sick of her. I'd love to see more of her mom. But with Lindsay Lohan it's the same shit. She's no Amy Winehouse.

THE AWL: Speaking of. What happened to her?

MICHAEL K: She went to St. Lucia and became a drunk instead of a crackhead, and now she's back in England. She's such a mess, but she's so endearing for me. I just have a thing for crackheads, I like them. When everyone is standing on the street and it's quiet, a crackhead will always talk to me.

THE AWL: Do you mostly write sober or do you turn to substances for help?

MICHAEL K: I'm mostly sober. I think people can tell when I'm drunk because I have more mistakes then, usually.

THE AWL: What TV shows do you watch?

MICHAEL K: Oh my God what don't I watch. I watch it all. Well, all reality shows, not real TV. Everything on VH1. mostly reality shows. Reality crap. Big brother, I love that.

THE AWL: When you go out in the world and meet people, what do you say you do?

MICHAEL K: I just say I write things on the Internet, ha. Usually that's all I say, and that's fine, because that's what I do. Or I say I'm a blogger. I think mostly people understand, they know what a blogger is. My mother doesn't understand, but mostly people know.

THE AWL: Does your mom read the site?

MICHAEL K: My mom reads the site, she does. People are shocked by that, but that's how I am with her; she doesn't expect anything less. I talk to her everyday. I have a lot of friends that don't talk to their parents for months. I feel weird going a day. Maybe I haven't left the nest yet.

THE AWL: Do you have siblings?

MICHAEL K: Yeah, I have a younger sister who lives in Brooklyn. She's a kindergarten teacher.

THE AWL: Ha! Sorry, I don't know why that's funny.

MICHAEL K: Yeah, we're complete opposites, different sides of the planet. But I see her all the time. Our family is really close because it's just us three, my dad left when I was three. But she reads the site, too.

Logan Sachon is a writer in Portland (Oregon).

Previously: Michael Anthony Steele

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