State of the Internet, Part 6: That Time Things Weren't Awful

Announcements from the Class Secretary: We're making this one quick.

Apparently, every minute wasted on the internet tonight is another minute of effort to set me up with one of New York's Finest "Hebrarem" as a 12:01 makeout partner sullied. But 2009 was a hell of a year for YM. No?

We took over Deadspin and rocked the joint. Dash didn't even read it. Krucoff's now both the nicest and the most attractive out of any of us. Eli played a Elipalooza, and it was glorious. We've celebrated 9/11. If they didn't know - and they didn't - now they know: Bakes is a better writer than basically everyone.

2009 was the year the inconceivable was conceived, and then, carried out: the School of Hard YMocks graduated a writer all the way up Denton's ass, which was in the same twelve month span that person also got a job with Mohney, who came out for drinks with us. With Spiers. And neither of them beat Krucoff or 99 into a fine frappe, like they probably deserved. For those of you who've been reading YM for way too long, you know this is like one of those alternate futures in Sliders.

But 2009, I think, and I'm sorry to do this to all of you, was the year of FAMILY FIRST.

We can honestly say that YM-Tang grew by, like, 50%. What was once an elite club of fuckheads is now almost entirely a fairly nice group of likable, welcoming people only cared about by fuckheads. Like me.

Maura, Ryan, Michael, it's like, how did this ever happen without you? Even Paolo! And did you ever think you'd be a part of the day when Brian Van felt like, I don't know, a by-marriage relative of this stupid enterprise? While we're at it, Jay Casey, you're a fucking weirdo and you scare me, but no more than I ever scared Krucoff, so I guess you're kind of in on this, too. We even got an ombudsman who cares a lot, and might be right to. Maybe not! But still: family. There are most certainly others who I'm forgetting. Balk, John, Peter, Lilit, AJ, whatever, whoever. There're a lot of them. Sac's still a crunchy asshole which I guess we need, and if he'd ever stop being a pussy, he'd come out to New York so I could say it to his face. Curt was smart and got the fuck out of dodge, but you know what it's like, right? We'll get him back. And speaking of resolutions for 2009, maybe I'll even get Abe Sauer to write for us. Unlikely, but who knows? After the year of GAMECHANGER, pretty much anything can happen.

Anyway. Thank you, all. It's been a good year for family. Truly.

Who's House?

Artist's rendering via NVC.

Holy shit. I'm clearing out the cobwebs here. It's been so long since I've taken to the left side/since Paolo first blogjacked it that the floorboards are all creaky and I just got some dust up my snooter and ACHHLEW! [Ed. Gesundheit!] Speaking of which, there's a party tonight: it's Katie's birthday! And speaking of skiing, Katie's a great skier. Srsly!

Anyway: this reminds me of that time, like, a few weeks ago, when I offered the backchannel an opportunity to hold a roast for 99 at his birthday party (predictably, at Joe's, The Most Depressing Bar On 6th Street That Isn't The Cherry Tavern). Nobody responded, so for his birthday, he ended up with one drink (purchased by me, which does nothing to chip away at a year's worth of YM-subsidized booze) and an email full of bad police brutality jokes.

As for Bakes, I would roast her, but it's hard! For example, my source material:

• She has this innane obsession with Mickey Kaus that I really don't understand.
• Did you know there was once a picture of her in Business Week when she was like, ten, because she ran some kind of forum for thicknecked Rangers fans on Prodigy or something? Truth!
• She also has friends who don't work in media, and she doesn't work in media, which makes her media fetish as unhealthy, strange, and worrysome as Curt's. That being said, if she ever gets a job in media, I'm leaving New York: that'd be like going home from college to find out the Girl Next Door got addicted to Oxycotin after hanging out with all the bad kids for so long and managing to completely stay out of trouble. DO NOT WANT.
• I can't think of a single person who doesn't like her, which sounds like non-compliment, but around these parts, it's really not. Also, she taught me what advertorial was and didn't make fun of me for not knowing sooner for more than, like, a week.
• Katie's the kind of person that can survive having a facist roommate without bludgeoning them, which is also impressive. This actually happened, and the worst thing Bakes really ever did about it was break down the door to her apartment, which she contends was not an act of agression so much as the need to go to the bathroom. She's even too nice to admit that she was raging against the (Jewish NeoCon) machine.
  
• She devotedly wears her Giants jersey when she watches games at home.
  
• Her dogs smell (or: look like they smell) and she likes them anyway.
  

The point is, there's really not that much to roast Katie over, or maybe there is, but really, like, how could you? Anyway. She's (predictably) having another party at Barramundi and I fully intend on buying her and her charitable cause a drink. She is wonderfully smart, talented, a great friend, by far, the funniest writer on the YM masthead and inextricably (maybe, for her - and especially for Dave - tragically) part of the family. Katie, you might be a shiksa, but you're our shiksa*, goddamnit. This joint goes out to you:



*But Bakes is not the only shiksa in the YM-Tang Clan! I'm not sure exactly what persuasion Spiers is, but she probably renounced it, like, nine years before you've even heard of it, anyway.