To: All Awl Staff
From: Alex Balk
Re: Year One And Beyond

One year ago today exactly we were all giddy with anticipation for the launch of The Awl. (I was also giddy with liquor, which continues to be the case even up unto this moment.) I can recall the mixture of pride, anxiety, and perhaps a bit of arrogance as we gathered together around that Herman Miller conference table in Meeting Room B of the Awl offices and prepared ourselves for the endeavor we had pledged to undertake.

We were younger men, then, a bit more naive and excitable, but we were men with a dream: a dream that the world was ready for-nay, craved-a smart, well-crafted website that refused to pander for traffic. We all earnestly believed that there was a readership out there hungry for the kind of intelligent takes on New York City, politics, knife crime, bear videos, gay gripes and corrupt Italian prime ministers which they were not at that point being served. One year on, has that dream been realized?

Well, how would we know? Because we built this site instead. But I am happy to pretend that all our dreams have indeed come true. And while this project has been remarkably successful from a financial standpoint, thanks to our unbearably sexy audience of city-dwelling professionals with graduate degrees who Tivo at least 4.5 hours of TV a day and screen more than 40 movies a month, I am tired of David holding up the conversion of the diamonds and rubies with which we are paid by our fine Brand Partners™ into cash.

Sure, our extreme awesomeness hasn’t come easy. The site is a work in progress, and sometimes we’ve veered off course. Sometimes we have been guilty of the same traffic-baiting we decry in others. (I am thinking particularly of our coverage of the foliage of Washington Heights.) We have occasionally been too passionate about certain subjects, fraying our own relations with each other, which have resulted in fisticuffs (Choire) and crying jags (me). And the frequency with which we turn down David’s exhortations to be more esoteric and focus less often on issues that might appeal to those under 23 has caused him, I know, much hurt and distress.

Even though we have suffered those tribulations, I feel as though we have earned the right to point to this site with something somewhere between “shame” and “glee.” This is in no small part due to the efforts of our contributors, whose generous offers of free content have kept the site humming during those moments when Choire and I were at each others’ throats over whose turn it was to not mention that famous golfer who got in trouble with his wife. I’m especially thankful to Dave Bry and Maura Johnston for picking up the page and putting it on their shoulders, as well as that traitorous crazed wonder-skank Mary HK Choi who ditched out on us for her dream job, but this has indeed been a group effort for which its two main editorial staffers can claim only but a small bit of the blame and/or credit.

As we move forward into Year Two of The Awl, what changes should we be looking at? I’ve been hard at work coming up with several verticals to expand both our demographic reach and topic selection. They are, in no particular order, as follows:

Awlchick: Our female-skewing vertical will lean heavily on stories about menstruation and makeup. I mean, more so than the main site usually does. There’s a lot of advertising out there that I want a piece of. Plus, you know how the broads like to yak. Pageviews are gonna skyrocket!

The Awlple: All Steve Jobs, all the time. Can’t miss!

AwlBall: Our sports vertical. All we need to do to make this work is find someone who knows anything about sports. Can you feel it?

AwlBalls: A site written from the perspective of testicles. This will both help us make further inroads in the male demographic and prove the perfect solution to the knotty problem of My Cock being considered the intellectual property of Gawker Media.

NotAwlForWork: Boobies, blowjobs, you name it. Nudity. There is money to be made in porn, especially if we add the same nontraditional take we bring to the subjects we approach on the main site each day. Let’s see if Chris Lehmann is up for a column called “Jizz People Things.” I see possibilities.

In fact, I see so many possibilities that I am more encouraged about the success of this project than ever. I only regret that I will not be there to see it through with you both. That’s right, suckas, I am OUT OF HERE. I’m gonna put on a dress and stealth-market personal data devices to unsuspecting drunk dudes. Good luck with your esoteric little blog posts, schmucks! It’s Balk Time now.

Best, etc.,
Balk

Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, acting leader of Friday prayers in Tehran, is concerned about earthquakes-a not unreasonable fear in a country prone to seismic disturbances. But what is the cause of these natural disasters? If you guessed “hot chicks in tight clothes,” you are either familiar with a certain strain of Koranic interpretation or you have seen this item elsewhere. Anyway, let’s hear it from Hojatoleslam’s mouth (or, at the very least, from a translation of the Iranian media transcription): “Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.” Okay!

…. and he wants his iPhone back. Oooh. In other news, receiving stolen property, in the state of California, is often charged as a misdemeanor. (Interstate receipt, however, under federal law? Well, things get a little more hectic.) But we’re still awaiting the explanation on how Gizmodo came to have the opportunity to pay $5K (we believe) for the missing alleged new prototype iPhone. Could be totally legit!

“This was not a coincidence. There are no coincidences in this world. None.”
-Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer is convinced that the SEC lawsuit against Goldman Sachs might just have something to do with the financial regulatory reform bill being worked on in the Senate. Added Spitzer, “It could be both a witch hunt and legitimate exercise of regulatory authority,” which I seem to remember being his campaign slogan during his time as Attorney General.

Thanks to TV networks doing away with their shows’ opening-credit theme songs in order to cram in as many ads as possible, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences today announced that the Emmys would be retiring the award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music, effective next year. The award was won last year by John Williams’ new theme to Great Performances and has somehow not even nominated any of Mike Post’s contributions to the Law & Order franchise during the award’s 21-year existence. The award is being replaced by something honoring “music composition for a non-fiction program,” which will most likely result in a lot more awkwardly wacky songwriting competitions during the course of shows like The Biggest Loser and the 85,549 reality shows Vh1 is programming this year.

Engadget said that the “finder” (who some are referring to as a “stealer”) was charging to see the “lost” new iPhone-pictures of which were published on Gizmodo this morning. Tech blogger John Gruber said the phone was a “total hoax,” but seems to have backed down on that; now he says “That this belongs to and was made by Apple is almost beyond question at this point.” He also says that Apple considers the phone “stolen.” Gawker honcho Nick Denton promises that the story of the iPhone’s acquisition is coming, and it’s a “corker.” (“Slang: A remarkable or astounding person or thing.”) It’s going to be a big double-dare to Apple’s legal department, we think-and also intended to be a big middle finger to Gizmodo’s chief competitor, Engadget. (Also, the getting of the iPhone, by Jason Chen with Jesus Diaz, may have some role in succession planning at Gizmodo, when site honcho Brian Lam leaves.) Finally, we hear the price that Gizmodo paid for the phone was laughably small-particularly for what looks to already be one of Gawker Media’s top-five most trafficked news posts. Update: The first number out of the gate is a mere $10,000. We think that’s a little high, actually! Update: We hear it’s $5000, with a bonus for traffic. Update: And then we hear Steve Jobs picked up the phone to say hi. Ruh roh. Update: And then Gizmodo semi-explained how they came by the iPhone: an apparently drunk developer left it in a bar. On March 18. Which then somehow wended its way to Gizmodo-to be posted about a month later. (We presume some of that time involved the Gawker Media legal department doing their job.) Gizmodo is currently being roasted in the comments for naming the Apple engineer. And what’s more, Nick Denton confirmed the $5000 bounty to the “finder” (that was previously reported here)-which is a suspiciously familiar dollar figure to those who do federal prosecutions regarding stolen goods being transmitted across state lines.

Turns out near-death experiences are basically just hallucinations brought on by a lack of oxygen. There is no life after death; once you die, that’s it. There is nothing ever again. Which, on a day such as this one, seems like a pretty good deal.

Finally, folks are heading up the mountain to clean up Mt. Everest, which is littered with trash… much of it in the form of handily-frozen dead bodies. You would think they would just slide down but things are never as simple as they are in the CGI cartoons; they are actually going to carry them down. No word on whether Sandy Hill Pittman was financing the clean-up effort. (Too soon?)

Richard Simard, a New Hampshire state liquor commissioner, has been charged with driving while intoxicated, which, you know, when your whole job involves being around, talking about, and thinking about sweet, wonderful liquor all day, is kind of understandable.

EVEN THOUGH other volcanoes besides Iceland’s Asdlfjasdfasdf; aren’t blowing up, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t, report scientists, newspapers hungry for filler.