Reblogging Julia

Once more with feeling.

Christ, it has been a while and not nearly long enough. The hypothesis of the experiment proved to be remarkably accurate. The credit is yours, baugher nation. For old times’ sake, let’s take a look at some of the topics we have missed over the past few months, bulleted and ribbed for your pleasure.

• Sex and the City: My favorite part of this bout of staged inanity was that I couldn’t help but wonder which one of them actually had a job, boyfriend, or any sense of boundaries between private and public that in any way resembled their dream show. I think they all missed that nuance of SATC - it was never about self promotion or attention whoring. It was kind of dumb, and they certainly picked up on that and ran with it, but it was never about being famous for having no talent.
• “That’s where Sex and the City’s consumer romance culture stopped being cute and started being a little, well, sad”. You know what? I couldn’t agree more.
• Also, phoning it in much? (and rewriting history in your free time?) She said she would rather get shoes than a date. That isn’t a manifesto on cheap dating, Pink Lady. That is saying you would rather have the object of your ambition buy you something, rather than share a meal with him. It is almost as if you need someone to be the custodian of your memories.
• Might want to give those columns a little more effort, seeing as how she lost the Star Magazine gig. But she absolutely, positively wasn’t fired. Except she was. It’s like when she read Tori Spelling’s book on the plane, while she was sleeping. I won’t call her a liar, since that causes family disownment, so let’s just say Twitter is her custodian!
• While we are on the subject of lies, lost jobs and new ventures, refusing a direct quote in an IM chat is not exactly the same as honoring a nondisclosure agreement, or, you know, exercising common discretion. I guess it really isn’t surprising that she needed this pointed out. Again.
• But! There is an online show coming! Not a reality show, of course, as unlikable and grating aren’t desirable buzzwords for television, but luckily, there is a shit ton of evergreen content. Memo to Our Lady of Introspection: when you upload things to the internet? The internet acts as your custodian! You see how that works? You might want to ask Meghan about all of that. It is really complicated and I hear she is the tech brains of your operation.

30 second recap? Meghan was in charge of releasing the topless shots, Mary has something up her ass, and Our Lady of Introspection is just really, really happy about her career right now.

Final note: never have three unemployed people blogged so much about being overworked.

Of clown pants and tight hats.

In memory of regular baughering….. 

• Let me see if I have this straight:  Our Lady of Introspection can’t fill out her pants and her hat can’t fit around her extension-burdened head.  Meanwhile, the Handmaiden of Passive Aggression is thoughtfully bringing sexy camel toe back and she doesn’t have the head to fill out the hat.  Well played, Meghan.  Give them enough rope and all that.
• If you want to be taken seriously in the tech community, show up at a Wired event sporting a tight white shirt, ribbons adorning your pigtailed extensions, something approximating parachute pants, and oversized glasses to fully communicate your respect of the players in the business.  Playing dumb is an original and thought-provoking way to draw attention to oneself and I salute her groundbreaking efforts to reinvent herself - there really aren’t enough Hooter girls in that market, especially ones who can purse it real good.
• It was unfortunate that her effort didn’t net her a headline mention on Valleywag.  It is almost as if there is nothing more to be said about her, as she has been thoroughly deconstructed.  Weird, that.  On the upside, at least Valleywag isn’t chronicling her every move, since it is plainly evident that she absolutely wouldn’t want that. 
• Oh, and since I am here, would publicly divulging the confidential terms of your ex’s departure from his job and his mental health issues constitute treating someone like crap?  Related:  if so, is that grounds for slapping the shit out of someone?  And further related:  did any of her friends tell her that publicly violating an ex’s privacy constitutes treating someone like crap and therefore worthy of a bitchslap of epic proportions, and if so, who did it and do they have my email?  Just mildly curious. 
• This is awesome.  This is just freaky.
• This isn’t irony.  This is getting frenemy dumped by NYT Mag blog.  We remember getting dumped by blog, yes? 
• blah blah blah, you don’t drink.  Duly noted.  That article made AOL posts seem informative.  It is almost as if she has lost her will to blog.  What’s the matter, sweet Scrunchy?  No one paying attention?

Hush.

What happens when you stop talking about them?

I think I know the answer, but need to test the hypothesis. This is important work in the name of medical and social science: what happens when you starve an attention whore of attention? She needs this blog more than you.

Perhaps families will be restored, younger sisters will suddenly appear, lips will be unpursed, and nature will return to hair. Perhaps there will be a different angle to garner attention for a new venture beyond the damsel in distress routine. Perhaps the seal, opened by blood, and which devoured the chosen from beneath, will be closed by tears of remorse. Perhaps absolutely nothing will happen, which is probably their worst fear. No one finds them interesting unless they are being parsed.

We shall see. And relax. It is an experiment.

Easy as 1-2-3.

I guess I have to parse the ABC.com article, but Christ, that is almost as tedious as parsing Our Lady of Introspection. Please forgive my detachment on all of this, as the promise for fresh baughering is fighting with my JA fatigue, plus all the gender and geographical reassignments of the past week. There are, however, some choice quotes in the story that merit a parsing.

Also, a note to the reporter: I didn’t realize the time sensitive nature of your story, as the whole thing seems positively stale. I apologize for not responding in a timely manner. I had archery classes.

ONWARD:

• “She has references about me that I didn’t know existed. She is a veritable storehouse of Julia Allison history and trivia.” Okay, the thing is, I don’t. I get tips from people who do (302 and counting, and I assure the readers, I publish about 2% of them), and in any event, I am not the friend who said ”Julia has an extraordinary ability to transform herself when she moves from one stage of life to another…. She literally forgets anything that is inconsistent with the person she is trying to become at that moment in time. It’s a little sad, I have to be the custodian of her memories.”

• “She’s [screwing] with my personal life, and she’s [screwing] with my professional life”, said Allison, who said that she’s “good natured about criticism” and can take more “than the average person.” Exactly how am I doing that? I aggregate and parse what you post on the internet. Are you really that pissy about the blind items, which are admittedly not verified, but exist all over the internet? Christ, you should see what I don’t post. The hundreds of tipsters that I don’t post. Actually, you should think hard about that. I have exercised remarkable restraint in the name of fairness.

• “This is scary.” I can’t be more clear on this topic. I have no desire to be in the same room with you, and would never take any affirmative steps to associate with you. None. I think everyone but you gets that, but you’ve been playing the ‘victim’ card so long, you’ve got an edge. You know what makes a winning hand. The ‘rape’ card, the ‘stalker’ card. Always a victim, never a bride. It’s hard making it to finals.

• If anyone can parse this for some semblance of meaning, I would love to hear it: The mystery blogger — who has never approached Allison in real life — has called Allison a liar, an insult the blogger takes most personally that has even led her parents to disown her, she told ABCNEWS.com.
• As far as I can recall, I never called her a liar, but only threatened to call bullshit if she continued to deny the authenticity of the MacAir emails, and I apologized for my ungentlemanly tone in that missive the next day. If I were the liar or had otherwise misrepresented that story, Our Lady of Introspection would be in the best position to set things right with her parents, what with the objectively honest emails that clarified the context and thoroughly disproved my angle.

• Seriously, did Mary write that quote? What the hell does that mean? How is a reblog responsible for disowning? Is ‘disowning’ code for “mom hasn’t responded to my last few twitters?”

• Right now? I am really scared.

Stay the course.

You know how after we went to war with the 9/11 terrorists in the wrong country to protect ourselves from the weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there, and in the process, completely upended a country that is now in a massive state of civil unrest, such that we can’t do a takeback and pull out of the whole damn thing with a note of apology, saying “our bad, wrong country?” 

Yeah, that is kind of the idea behind the joint effort by Our Lady of Introspection and gawker to ferret out your humble baugher.   I had previously tried to explain that the baugher process was a little unorthodox, but Our Lady of Introspection has a target in her sights and is not afraid to use Gawker to advance her theory.  I always knew I had more reliable tipsters than Gawker, although, in full disclosure, the Pink Lady is also one of mine (and a sometime editor). 

The uploader will be fine.  Bonus points to Scrunchy for going the extra mile to research court records for her marital status and for adding a decade on her life, but Our Lady of Introspection isn’t exactly a poster child for knowing what age appropriate looks like. 

Myself, I am contemplating the interviews tomorrow.  Most media outlets aren’t the least bit interested in my identity, but rather the aggregation of a near unanimous response to a pathological narcissist, hellbound and determined to be famous.  Far more interesting topics are the nature of the information and tips I get, and why everyone wants to remain anonymous.  Hint:  it has a lot to do with not wanting their name associated with Our Lady of Introspection, as her kryptonite, it is strong.   No one wants their name tied to her by Google for time immemorial.

The fact that she thinks she is being stalked by blog?  Comical in light of her admitted Facebook stalking of her exes, one of which was featured on Gawker, and even funnier in light of the tipsters, who have shared unbelievable, yet utterly believable, stories.  Applications for restraining orders were involved.  I made my assurances to the tipsters not to share their emails and I will, of course, honor that, to the chagrin of a few journalists.   

It remains odd that she raised such a stink, right when I was shuttering this down.  I remain convinced that she, like every single goddamn email in my inbox, wants baugher to live on.  Alas, I am in crippling Scrunchy fatigue, as the point has not only been made, but is currently nailing the dead horse to a pile of hair extensions. 

But you know what, Pink Lady?  You went off half-cocked, albeit through your PR firm (Gawker), when you knew damn well you don’t know who the hell is writing this (by the way, greetings from NY, and no, I still don’t want to share airspace with you EVER).  You just bought yourself another round of baugher.

Private parts.

There is almost no way to start this without sounding a little scrunchy, but a word of thanks to the tipsters interns, rebloggers and emailers who voiced concerns about the integrity of tumblr’s privacy policy. 

I am absolutely confident that there was no breach of that policy, and that despite the Pink Lady’s desperate attempt to portray herself as a tumblr insider, no private information about this account was shared with her.   I know this for a number of reasons, most of which are probably obvious to anyone without crippling hair extensions. She must be chasing the IP address of all of her emails that I never returned.  It is almost as if she doesn’t quite get the internet and is too proud to ask Meghan.

Now, normally, here is where I would parse, but alas, I have to go get relationship advice from Marco before meeting David for karaoke.  Only time for one measly bullet:

• I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on this, but I suppose it is possible Denton has a more informed tipster.  Personally, I think Our Lady of Introspection was concerned that our time together was coming to an end and found a way to keep us both busy.

Blogger, please.

Oh Julia

Scrunchy, I thought I explained that correlation is not causation. You might have narrowed down one of the uploaders, but don’t mistake that for knowing who generated the content. Quite frankly, there is no way for you to know, even if the brass at tumblr were violating their TOS, which I am confident they are not. But you really think you know, goddamn it.

An experiment for you. Publicly point the finger at someone you really, really think is the author, but isn’t. You can imagine how badly that might work out if that person is familiar with the legal system. Particularly if your efforts to unearth your reblogger were considered within the scope of your employment, and implicated Star Magazine and Time Out. 

And, sweet thing, let’s be honest. You aren’t scared of your reblogger at all. Fear for your safety has nothing to do with this, and to be blunt, like most of your exes, I have no desire to be anywhere near you. 

I don’t publish blind items as veritable truths and you know it, and in any event, you have been called out on these issues before. I would normally point out here that you are the public face of a supermarket tabloid who goes on television to discuss unsubstantiated rumors about public figures, yet have some bizarre outrage when it is done to you, but I think we have established that introspection isn’t really your thing. Instead, ponder for a moment what I don’t publish, and wonder where that information came from. 

I am not obsessed with you — quite frankly, I am so bored with you and your entourage and, as I mentioned earlier, I am on my way out — but ask yourself why you care who writes this. You are upset with the insight, not the author. Or, to frame it in familiar terms, this is really about you and not me.

It is curious that you are getting so prickly now, on the eve of the shuttering of this here baugher blog.  It is almost as if you have a new venture to launch and would miss the attention.  Also? I never wanted to be your Facebook (or otherwise) friend. Good luck with your demons. I hope you have a lovely day.

Weekend trio.

A few from the mailbag, a few blind items, and a few parsings, all ribbed and bulleted for your pleasure:

Mailbag:

• Q: Are you Alex Balk?
• A: No. Pretty sure that’s a compliment for me and a slam on him, though.
• Q: Are you Julia Langbein and / or Neel Shah ?
• A: No, although I am intrigued by the subtle hint that they are one and the same. I’ll still score that one in the compliment column, though.
• Q: Are you Britt?
• A: Best. Question. Ever. No, I am not the Pink Lady’s brother. Nor her mother, father, or any other close family member for that matter.
• Q: Can you say anything nice about Our Lady of Introspection?
• A: She is a much better writer than her Court of Handmaidens, which is an admittedly hollow compliment. She has a wide stance and mouth. She sometimes gets the joke she is inadvertently telling. She provides a lot of manic content to parse.

Tipline (not verified - believe at your own risk)

• Which GU student was banned from her campus convenience store for repeatedly tucking candy bars in her doggie carrier?
• Which future talking head for a supermarket tabloid was punched in the face by her then-boyfriend’s sister for using his credit card without authorization? Apparently, it was a quality ass-kicking.
• What determined web personality met some of her ‘fans’ at a recent ‘rock concert’ with smiles and hugs, only to dismiss them later as fat and irrelevant within earshot of people who read this blog?
• What natural haired, non-blogging attention whore still thinks she has a chance with her ex’s friend, the floppy haired face of a popular college humor website? What interesting things she has to say about his girlfriend, who was the only reason she set her sights on his then-partner.
• What self-described fashion expert had her tenuous relationship with her more successful actress half-sister obliterated by the days of a friend’s life? Sources say that all those children weren’t tight before the younger/virtual sister made her well available for the company pen.

Parsings:

• Not many people can misspell a word (or town) back to back, especially after linking to a wiki entry, but luckily, the Handmaiden of Passive Aggression is such a person. She deleted the title of “Broy,” but she can’t seem to proofread for Bruges.
• While we’re with the Handmaiden’s blog, let us just ponder why the stylist doesn’t tell her Unnamed As Of Yet Handmaiden that her shoes are a size too small. Muffin top for the feet.
• Oh, we’re still here? Describing Rachel Sklar as someone who runs with quite a crowd: Dan Rather, Mitt Romney, Julia Allison, etc. reminds me of a certain Sesame Street sketch. The Pink Lady will spend the rest of her professional life trying to be in that company. Your role is to point out how she doesn’t belong there. Well played, Mary.
• You haven’t been invited yet because you lend nothing to the discussion. You are a talking head for a supermarket tabloid and a ‘dating expert’ for a very regional, low circulation publication.
• Congrats are in order, as phase one of the Zuckerberg infiltration plan has been achieved. For the record? I am betting strong against your extensions. You have failed in the sibling efforts in the past, and I am certain you will fail in these efforts again.
• Oh look. The Banality Triangle wants an intern. I wonder from whom she appropriated that idea? Incidentally, it is more than a little interesting that Mediabistro didn’t mention her prior internship with them in their otherwise comprehensive piece on her.
• Also, dude, you delete twitters while watching a movie at a theater? There really is no off button with you. No one believed that you were surprised to run into your ex at a photo shoot, least of all the tipsters.

Footprints.

A word of thanks to the interns tipsters, who have been very creative in their attempts to keep baugher an ongoing concern. My personal favorite implored me not to stop until the hair extensions are gone, but all of the emails have been laugh out loud funny. Also, dishy, and we’ll get to all of that before the end of our journey together. Just know that during the dark times? Yeah, I was carrying you.

In the meantime, may I parse? Yes? ONWARD:

• Wasn’t me. Still, it is odd that only her account was hacked, although maybe the other seven most hated people on the internet don’t have tumblrs. Or aren’t trying to get a reality show.
• I think Mary is a devotee of baugher. In this post, she calls out JA’s inability to parse anyone else’s words but her own AND she states that BEING HONEST IS NEVER EASY, BUT IT IS ALWAYS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!
• Which is probably why Mary is proxyblogging JA’s newest ‘relationship’, since the Pink Lady will never again exploit a relationship for public attention.
• And while we’re at that particular non-hiatus from blogging, let me just say that anyone who has read her dating advice column came to that same generalization. It is almost like the Pink Lady should develop a skill set of some sort, since the television punditry is kind of awful.
• Side note: your face is going to get frozen in that pose, and while you may think there are enough lip injections to counteract the wrinkles, you could probably start a pack a day habit with fewer cosmetic consequences.
• May I suggest a rousing game of spin-the-trust-fund-roulette? I am a little nervous about the production values on your “greenlit” show.
• Just a well sourced hunch here, but I suspect the person who tipped Valleywag on that story is the same one who tipped them on this one. It is almost like said tipster had, at one point, access to private information. Scrunchy that.
• Silly rabbit. No one should think this is JA. Not a pink dress, no hideous hair extensions, and the only thing Our Lady of Introspection would have to talk about with Dan Rather is colossal career mistakes.
• Also, I don’t think the Pink Lady gets demoted to “good friend” until the next attempted reality show: Frenemies: How Friendships Destroy Families on Lifetime. Jennie Garth as Mary (Tori Spelling was disqualified on account of tits), and Valerie Bertinelli (she’s skinny now!) as Our Lady of Introspection. Meghan’s part can be cast from the extras’ call.