Reblogging Julia

Hush.

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:14:00 -0400

I am getting the sense that I am a cog in a horribly disorganized publicity stunt. I am not Dr. Phil, and balanced people who are legitimately worried about being stalked don’t live blog for the internet their whereabouts in real time or further exacerbate a manufactured feud with their parents. You think you can use me, Scrunchy? Not hardly. The time has come for another experiment:

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.

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:15:00 -0400

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.

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:08:14 -0400

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.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:35:39 -0400

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.

"IP addresses never lie, my dear. Take up archery, seriously. It’s super fun! xoxo j"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:13:00 -0400

“IP addresses never lie, my dear. Take up archery, seriously. It’s super fun!
xoxo
j”

- Another email from our gal, after her latest tantrum. It could be that she can’t read any text without her name in it. It could also be that she didn’t understand the previous posts. I suppose one could also believe that she has decided on a course of action and won’t be dissuaded by blatant tips to the contrary.

Suffice to say, she hasn’t quite comprehended the idea that the person who uploads isn’t necessarily the person who authors. Pink Lady, for you, because I care, and because you only seem to leave the country when some oblivious guy, hoping to score (who clearly doesn’t use google) pays your way, let this be my gift to you. The next few posts will take you on a tour of this great planet. Fire up your IP tracker - no passport needed, nor any veiled suggestion of sex. You’re fine - no need to put out. Let me show you the world - track the IPs of the following posts and pretend you are on a fabulous adventure on your own dime.

Blogger, please.

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:25:53 -0400

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.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:24:45 -0400

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.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:00:00 -0400

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.

From the mailbag.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:29:00 -0400

Q:Are you Jakob Lodwick?
A: No. I have never met him. I used to think he was kind of a tool, as my only exposure to him was through the JA prism, and he was kind of a tool in all of that. Now, I see him differently - as someone who co-founded a couple of successful companies who made a really bad mistake in getting involved with the Pink Lady. I hope that his name eventually becomes disassociated with hers, and I suspect he feels the same way. He has nothing to do with this, and I believe that he will be relieved when this blog goes dark.
Q:Are you Nick Denton?
A: No. He has more tolerance for her than I do. I think we share a sense of experimentation, though. He promoted this creature. I parsed and deconstructed her.
Q:Are you Mary Rambin?
A:You have got to be kidding me. She can’t string a sentence together and I know how to use spellcheck. That is kind of insulting, actually. Also, Mary hasn’t exactly gotten a free pass from baugher. And no, I am not Meghan, either. I have gone a little easier on Meghan because she really doesn’t do much of anything parse-worthy. Also, I think she will be the first to jump ship.
Q: Are you a former friend of JA?
A:No. I don’t know her personally, and have no axe to grind with her. She is someone who exists solely on the internet, as far as I can tell, and she got on my particular frequency. With a few exceptions, everything I wrote was just a parsing of what she (and later, the Handmaidens) posted on the internet. I find it bizarre that she cares so much about what I write.
Q: Do you hate Julia?
A: I don’t, although I admit that I now have a negative opinion of her. Either I have some weird superpower, or she is just wickedly transparent. Everyone that has written in who knows her believes I am a former best friend of hers. That is really telling. And for the record? There are a lot of former friends with stories to tell.
Q: Are you just jealous of her beauty?
A: I confess that I can no longer see her beauty. Absolutely everything about her appears calculated, contrived, forced and affected. All I see is fake hair extensions, which is a great metaphor for the Scrunchy Pink Lady. I can’t figure out why she tries to look older than she is. That said, I occasionally see photographs of her when she is unaware of the camera and I think those are her best shots.
Q: Where do you find the time?
A: I post, at most, once a day, and it takes me about half an hour. Most of the work is done by the tipsters, who send links and insights. This shit really writes itself. Mary, in particular, makes it very easy. That said, I do have an editor, because I care about such things. I abhor spelling errors and other typos because I believe that reflects poorly on a writer. JA shares this sentiment, Mary doesn’t.
Q: What is the point of all of this? Do you think you can change her?
A:I had no real objective in starting baugher. It was a joke among friends that someone should start a blog that parsed JA for reality, and we agreed that anyone that did that would be stupid, petty and immature. And then I started baugher, and how it got the attention it did, I will never know. I never set out to change her - if her family and friends can’t permeate her self-absorption, I certainly can’t - but there was a part of me that believed she might gain some introspection on why her persona is so negatively received. I knew little about narcissistic personality disorder at that point.
Q: Do you think you are qualified to diagnose her?
A:Not at all, and sort of. Some of the more interesting emails I have received are from psychiatrists who are fascinated by her textbook case. I think she will be immortalized by new psychiatry textbooks, which probably isn’t the legacy she intended. I still find it amazing that she has ever publicly opined on anyone else’s mental heath, as hers is laid out there for the internet to witness. I suspect therapy is the scariest thing she could ever imagine, as several insidery tipsters have said that she considers baugher “a mean and vindicitve shrink.”
Q: Who are your more interesting tipsters?
A:In addition to the aforementioned psychiatrists, I have heard from former friends, loves, professors, employers, roommates and family members. Our Lady of Introspection has burned more bridges than Mary’s spelling errors.
Q: Do you really think JA is an evil person?
A: I don’t think I have ever said she was. I think she is extremely calculated, which necessarily means intelligent, but that intelligence is intensely focused on promoting herself and being noticed, and at the expense of absolutely anyone. There is no one in her world that isn’t disposable, including her current stable of Handmaidens. If they only knew. At least one of them deserves it, though.
Q: Would you ever have a drink with Julia Allison?
A: She doesn’t drink, except, you know, when she does, which is often. I actually suspect habitually. I have no desire to know her personally, as I now know enough about her to realize there is little of interest inside her. She wants to be famous, no matter the cost or collateral damage, and in my mind, that makes her as interesting as Paris Hilton.

Blind items.

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:53:00 -0400

WHAT 20-something who blogs about her lip injections boasted via proxyblog about getting carded. [Ed. Note: she doesn’t even have a NY license, which is sort of a perfect metaphor.] My guess is that it was an 18-and-under party, or the doorman thought she resembled a certain unrelated actress, albeit with much more sun damage.
Let me see if I understand correctly. She disapproves of people carrying distinctive bags at private parties, but designs unmistakeably tacky fanny packs for the wrist for a living. She posts photographs of people without their knowledge to slag on their obvious desire to brag about their designer purse, but posts videos of herself, describing in painstaking detail each and every label she is wearing. And, after only 54 pages of blogging on tumblr, she was schooled on the followers feature and can’t believe how mean and critical other people can be.
WHAT “dating expert” has a business plan to infiltrate the Zuckerberg family via the side door window of the affable younger sister? The tipsters say that she is confident she can elbow the elder Zuckerberg’s girlfriend out of the proverbial pursed pose picture, if she can only score an invite to the sister’s wedding.
[Ed. Note: Our Lady of Introspection has really demonstrated her range in her efforts.]

Photo

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:47:57 -0400

No one enjoys cold turkey.

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:44:30 -0400

To take the edge off, a few quick parsings. This is my long kiss goodnight, and I will use tongue:

The elusive Forbidden Side of Our Lady’s face! Now, this is only secondhand, and purely anecdotal, but I have it on decent authority that Ehren Kruger attempted such a daring shot while working at Fox News, and the trauma of it resulted in The Ring.
If we haven’t heard from Brian Van in a few days, do NOT browse his Tivo. I saved it. Save yourselves.
Let us take a moment to survey the look. Wristbands that were hipster edgy two years ago? Check. Dallas Cowboy cheerleader earrings? Check. Improbable tranny hair? Check. Chipmunk cheek pursing? Check.
When you really think about it, BJ tool is a pretty apt description of Our Lady’s fashion sense. [Update: reblogged here and elsewhere, since the Handmaiden of Passive Aggression ~~deleted her dig~~ caught her Freudian slip.]
This is the same fashion expert who can’t spell Donna Karan and who can’t even spell seam. A tradgedy of a preformance, really. Behold the value of a USC degree.
And what of Leven? Poor, sweet, innocent Leven. She had a sister for less than week before her ~~fameball chasing sibling~~ publicist scrubbed any mention of her sister Mary from Leven’s Wikipedia page.
I wonder who is paying or sending sexy dirty chats to Jimmy Wales.

More to come, including answers to your emails and wildly awesome tips from the tipline. Jesus, you folks waited until the end to bust out the good stuff.

Winding down.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:15:06 -0400

Internet, our time together is coming to a close. What started as an experiment on a cold January night has morphed into a most excellent and entertaining writing adventure: what would happen if you parsed a pathological narcissist (and later, her Handmaidens) and turned her mirror on her (and them)? Would she (or they) ever shut up and listen to objective criticism, or would she just dismiss it as haters on the internet?

I think we all have our answer. It did nothing whatsoever, and never will. As the Mediabistro piece made clear, her narcissistic personality disorder developed early, remained untreated for decades, and shows no signs of slowing down, particularly with her current posse of hangers on. While I know Our Lady of Introspection is unaware of her surroundings, I can see the shark overhead, fully extended, and, like most of you, I will watch it belly flop spectacularly from the sidelines. Jaws has headbands and really bad extensions.

It is like I am Morgan Spurlock, and all I want, at this point, is a free range, organic chicken. Too many additives are unhealthy, and reading Our Lady and her homecoming court is like eating at a mall food court every night. In every sense of the analogy.

I am utterly bored with my subject(s), and for these girls? Boring, irrelevant and banal is the death knell. In internet years, I am middle-aged at nearly three months old — as are they.

As this experiment comes to a close, I will try to answer your emails and questions, even from the almost dozen haters (out of hundreds of emails). Parsing baugher, if you will. I have plenty queued up on the tipline, but you are welcome to submit your query. Always held in confidence and no personal details will be revealed.

This is what happens when a trust fund girl from California gets...

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:00:00 -0400

This is what happens when a trust fund girl from California gets together with a trust fund girl from Texas (who designs fannypacks for your wrist) and a trust fund girl from the Chicago suburbs (with a profound case of pathological narcissism). This is their version of New York. Suburban Girls Gone Wild.

It was difficult to imagine that anything could portray life in Manhattan less realistically than Sex and the City, but it has now been done. This is SATC, the Nickelodeon version.

Parsing, part deux. The hangover edition.

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:44:00 -0400

The Mediabistroarticle was a near perfect antidote to the ridiculous Gray Lady’s puff piece on the Pink Lady. It was disheartening to witness the Paper of Record become USA Today, at least insofar as they ‘report’ on current entertainment trends, but I will still read the Week in Reivew. For now.

The mediabistro piecehad a much more objective tone, and was clearly better researched. I found myself wanting to compare notes with the author, as I suspect the omitted details of the story closely resemble the baugher tip line: ex-boyfriends who have finally rid themselves of their freakishlystalky ex, former professors and GU administrators who have yarns (and yarns) to spin of a disruptive and largely hated student, and old friends with long and detailed memories of a narcissist in the making.

The common denominator is that Our Lady of Introspection is tolerable, not necessarily likable, in person, she is desperate to promote herself (and that energy is toxic), and that she is striving to become the Paris Hilton of the internet. I am not going to parse the entire article, but it does give a startling portrayal of someone who is addicted to attention. If you are fascinated by such narcissistic pathology, have at it. I read it twice and was cringing both times. The author and I clearly share the same perspective of Our Lady of Introspection, and the foregoing bullets represent the money shots:

She works so hard for the money:

For Fashion Week, Allison is taping video interviews for Star’s Web site. It’s been going smoothly: except for the moment she grabbed an actor from the television series Lost and asked ‘Can you give us any hints what’s going to happen next season?’ The actor grimaced and answered, “I was killed off last year.”
Don’t worry, we’ll just fake it. I guess I should call my agent, I really have no idea what this is about”
In October, I received a frantic call from Allison asking me if I could give her the 411 on “Joe Toro” and “Steinbrook.” When I suggested maybe she should decline, she shouted back, ‘No fucking way!”
I just want to tell you how much I love The Girls Next Door,” says Allison.
“Yes, but,” says Hirschorn (head of VH-1, who was taking a meeting with her)
“It is really my favorite show, says Allison, her head bobbing up and down. “I’m hooked.”
“Uh,” says Hirschorn.
“No, seriously,” I love it,” insists Allison.
“But it’s not on this network,” says Hirschorn.

She is an avowed attention whore:

I’d wear prom dresses every day,” says Allison. “That is my look. I love for people to look at me all dressed up.”
Approaching eleven, Julia was grounded for backtalking and her birthday party was canceled. Undaunted, Julia snuck out of the house, rode her bike to her parent’s country club, and persuaded the club to set aside a private room for her. She threw a surprise birthday party for herself the next day trekking in a bakery cake on her Schwinn.
I like being seen as attractive. I also know that I have an expiration date. Maybe seven years.”

Her ‘friends’ know the score:

“Julia’s been a natural disaster since I met her,” says Osgood, one of her best friends and a potential running mate on the reality show. “Julia appreciates how rules are important in society. But she can’t appreciate how they might apply to her…..Even then, she was saying ‘any attention is good attention.’”
“I remember when digital cameras first came out, Julia saying ‘this is going to change my life and save me so much money,’” says a high school classmate.
“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.”
Then we got in a shouting match and she told me if I ever tried to censor one of her columns she would make sure I never get another job in journalism. At that point, I said ‘you’re fired, get the fuck out of my office.’”

Let’s meet the family’s perspective:

Our son Britt’s exactly the opposite,” says [her mother]. “He’s studying to get a PhD in physics at MIT. He’s really quiet.” She laughs a little. “Now that I think about it, maybe that was a reaction to Julia taking up all the oxygen.”
She’s taken off like a rocket ship.” Her [father] laughed a bit. “The only problem is at some point the rocket ship comes down.”

And finally, she is an admitted prick tease who trades in suggestions of sex for paid trips. She tries to project the confidence of a sexual woman, but she demonstrates no desire, use, or capacity for that kind of intimacy. Quite frankly, she has to be a cold lay, unless there is a camera on her, which is surely forthcoming. Sex is just a necessary evil and a bargaining chip to garner fabulous stories that she can then share with a bunch of strangers on the internet in an attempt to prove, once and for all, that she matters.

Weekend warrior parsing, part uno.

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:06:52 -0400

Christ, so much content to parse. There is a 6000 word piece on Mediabistro, the always amusing ramblings of the Handmaiden of Passive Aggression, and some (dare I say) bipolar-like twittering. I will start the parsing with the more vocal member of the Homecoming Court.

The impassioned defense of Our Lady of Introspection seemed very sincere. It isn’t like Mary is tipping the baugher line about her friend Julia - hell, quite the opposite situation exists.
And yet. It is disingenuous to screech ”I’m sure it seems like Julia Allison is a persona not a real person. NOT TRUE! ” when Julia herself freely admits she promotes a caricature of herself and, indeed, interviews that “I love being a caricature,” says Allison … I’m creating the caricature so it’s totally fine. I love watching how people react to what I’ve created.”.
If people are skewering her caricature or persona, doesn’t that mean, by the transitive property (ask Scrunchy about that) that she isn’t being attacked personally? Doesn’t it also mean that the Pink Lady loves reading baugher? Doesn’t that render your whole defense meaningless and outsidery?
See, I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to reread the question and think about your answer before you speak. Actually, that is just really good advice for you generally.
“Often a little too loud and aggressively social, Julia has a difficult time containing her enthusiasm.” This roughly translates into “Julia embarrasses the hell out of me on a regular basis,” but the more interesting angle is when Mary got in the business of reviewing her friends like an elementary school teacher. I find myself in the unfamiliar territory of defending JA, as she would never say anything like that about Mary. At least not publicly.
Well, wait. Allison’s friend Mary Rambin has now joined her. As with all of Julia’s friends, Rambin views Allison with equal parts affection, amusement, and a desire to blow dart her with a lethal potion…..Julia then hipchecks Rambin out of the frame’s sweet spot.. I stand corrected. Simpatico!
“It’s really unfortunate because she ALWAYS has EVERYONE’S best interest at heart. ” Like, by way of a totally hypothetical example, revealing the personal and professional confidences of her ex on a website she knows is hostile towards her in an effort to garner favor with people she doesn’t know. Her current non-hiatus from blogging is surely owing to her tireless efforts to serve the less-fortunate at soup kitchens. She is probably growing those extensions for eventual donation to cancer patients.
“Julia is fucking smart. You can see it in her writing. She really would have made an amazing lawyer because her arguments are always accurate and perfectly constructed.” Yeah, I can totally see how you would think that, but she doesn’t care about winning. Just likes the sound of her own voice.
I suspect Our Lady didn’t authorize this picture as it shows the Forbidden Side of her face. And while you say you are “not sure how people find time to constantly write mean commentary about her,” you might want to take a look at the number of pages on your blog compared to others before you talk about other people constantly posting . Sure, math is hard, but that whole thinking before speaking thing? Good advice. You like advice.
Oh, and while I am here? How is Leven?

The view is not pretty.

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:02:00 -0400

I am under a deadline to send this cargo out on the Underground Railroad, so forgive the lack of pithy introduction and let us proceed to a quick parsing:

I now appreciate the visionary business acumen in describing their next business venture as an online version of The View . This is the online equivalent of watching Elizabeth Hasselbeck (in the form of the maniacally braying laughter of Our Lady of Introspection) react to the subject being more interested in Sherri Shepherd (played by the always pleasantly oblivious Meghan), while Joy Behar (Mary) barks completely uninteresting questions about what he is wearing. They so need a Whoopi and Barbara to complete the circle of unbearable.
Maybe they found their Barbara Walters? Name dropping, insidery perspective. Needs a little more self-assuredness and an inexplicable accent, but a solid formal audition nonetheless.
Wait, does that make me the Whoopi? I decline the position. Lay down with dogs and resultant fleas and all that.
Note to Matt White: You need to hire the publicist for Leven Rambin. That last name might seem familiar. You will thank me later.
Evidently, some people don’t enjoy sharing the ~~limelight~~ camera time This is becoming painfully obvious.
You know how some mean people insinuate that the Pink Lady often talks out her ass? Well, thanks for the visual.

It takes (an East) Village.

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:09:27 -0400

It seems our Lady of Introspection is on the hunt, digging tirelessly to unearth the real baugher. To wit, one of the tipsters received this accusatory email from our Pink Lady ~~today~~ yesterday:

You’re obviously intelligent, and a talented writer. You’ve gone to great schools, you have a [redacted] degree with honors. You seem to have a great job [redacted].

So why waste your time writing about me?

You’ve never met me. I doubt you’ve met any of my family, friends, or colleagues. And yet, you continue to write about them - every day, without fail, as if you’re part of our lives.

You’ve decided you know me, from my photographs, videos, from my online writing. You’ve decided - I don’t know why, exactly - that you have a right to judge my life.

You don’t.

Drawing conclusions from bits of online data is your prerogative - but writing about them anonymously, in a consistently nasty, obsessive way - that’s going too far.

And honestly? You’re scaring me.

Please stop.

Thank you,

Julia Allison

The recipient of this screed is a wee bit complicit in the publishing of baugher, but alas, there is an Underground Railroad of folks who are willing to upload these ridiculous parsings. Correlation is not causation, Scrunchy. I have taken a few Jason Bourne-like steps to thwart your cunning Star Magazine journalistic skills.

And while I am here, may I parse? Yes? ONWARD!

Have you met the family, friends, and colleagues of Britney Spears, or Brtiney herself? No? Well, how is is it that you offer your judgments on her life, on television and for a living, yet are indignant when others do the same to you, another publicity hound, for sport and entertainment?
I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to reread the question and think before you answer.
Do you not judge the celebrities you are paid to opine about from online bits and pieces, such that you think you know them?
Again, I need you to reread the question and think about your answer.
Is parsing the public antics of a self-professed attention whore obsessive and nasty? Are you obsessive and nasty for professionally gossiping about people you have never met, but read about online?
Hell, reread the damn question, and get that hair out of your face, too.
You are scared of someone who you think reblogs and parses your manic content, but has never come anywhere close to threatening you? [Ed. Note: she sent this email to someone who lives across the country.] Going out on a limb here, but you think you have a lot of stalkers, don’t you? That must be why you publicly chronicle your whereabouts on an hourly basis. You are a victim in your own mind.

Fact checking after the fact.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:54:48 -0400

NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: Really? The MacAir emails were legitimate? That seemed too over the top to be believable.
baugher: Yes, and they were published despite the strong reluctance of one party to the conversation to have any ongoing association with the other party to that conversation.
NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: Would you have published it without consent?
baugher: Absolutely not. It took some convincing conversation to get permission, as one of the parties to that conversation is not as committed to garnering attention from that relationship as the other party, who mentions it at any and every opportunity to promote herself.
NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: But she got dumped by him, and on the internet! Why would she keep bringing it up?
baugher: But that wasn’t how it happened. Julia got pissed off at Jakob’s aloofness and dickish behavior offline and called him out on it online on their very ill-advised blog. He didn’t publicly respond to her, and thereafter, they broke up privately. He went on to hook up with other women, including her best friend’s younger sister, Leven Rambin (an actress on All My Children, who was formerly a friend of Julia’s and who is now estranged from her much older sister, Mary Rambin, a Julia hanger-on who clearly resents Julia). Scorned Julia guest-blogged on Gawker, whose commenters are notorious for being hostile towards her, and in trying to garner favor with them, she dished on her ex’s private business, including revelations about his departure from his job and innuendoes about his mental health. When that went over badly with the commenters, she decided to play the victim who was dumped and cheated upon. When I published the please buy me the Mac Air emails, she announced that her blog was ruining her life and was on hiatus from the internet. That didn’t stop her from twittering hourly and posting pictures and videos of a calculated, more wholesome self. She didn’t stop blogging, she just stopped posting hourly on her blog. Look, this girl gets paid to go on television and lie about celebrities on behalf of a supermarket tabloid. She just brought her work home with her when it came to her own bad press and made up stories that the NYT apparently swallowed hook, line and sinker.
NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: What? Do you have sources for all of this?
baugher: Seriously, did you folks do any type of research on her before you published your “Julia is the new Carrie” story?
NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: Well, everything she said checked out, and she invited the reporter into her home.
baugher: How well did that strategy work out for you with Margaret Jones, aka Seltzer?
NYT Reporter who shall remain remain nameless: I wasn’t involved with that, but your point is well taken.
baugher: Wasn’t anyone a little afraid of getting caught in her freakish hair extensions? Those things have taken a life of their own. Cousin It meets that freaky clown from Polergeist.
NYT Reporter who shall remain nameless: She has hair extensions?
baugher: Holy hell. You have a great night. Sleep well in the knowledge that you killed my faith in the NYT.

Scrunchy pulp fiction.

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:04:00 -0400

Christ, I so want to believe in the ongoing relevancy of the NYT, but they are making it so difficult. If they aren’t reviewing a fake memoir, or publishing stories about call girls who aren’t, they are writing puff pieces on a rich girl with bad extensions who thinks she is living the life of a fictional character. Thankfully, if the NYT is getting around to reporting on a ‘trend,’ it is long since over. Since the reporter doesn’t appear to be in the business of fact checking, well, allow me to retort:

“She frequents sleek and buzzworthy bars with her girlfriends. She has danced at Bungalow 8, the celebrity-rich club in West Chelsea. She has devoured cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, and she can sprint in five-inch heels.” All of which were relevant over a decade ago, like 4 Non Blondes. And I don’t believe she can sprint period, let alone in heels. The only thing she chases is attention and she clods after it like a horse. That is about the only way she is Channelling Carrie Bradshaw.
“If Carrie Bradshaw were coming to New York today,” Ms. Allison says with no hint of self-consciousness, “she would be me.” Had the reporter done her research, she would have known that the Pink Lady has no self-consciousness or self-awareness. And that Carrie didn’t come to New York, she was from New York*. Our Lady of Introspection is a suburban Midwestern girl playing dress up in NYC to the SATC soundtrack. She’s the girl who wears the scrunchy, in the form of bad Elvira extensions. YOWZA!
Asked how it feels to end a relationship in public like that, Ms. Allison nods her lovely head and gazes into the distance. “People were preying on my pain,” she says, her voice not quite cracking. “It was hell.” Yes, Our Lady was a victim of people preying on her, and certainly not someone who announced on Gawker the private professional and health matters of her ex-boyfriend after blogging about their breakup around the clock. You have no idea the hell she suffered.
“Ms. Allison lives alone in a small studio in Hell’s Kitchen “the size of my toenail,” as she puts it.” As opposed to the more spacious place she lived in, rent-free, on her ex-boyfriend’s dime, for nearly a year. Carrie bought her apt from her ex when they broke up. Scrunchy that.
“I think you should be able to make a living doing something that really appeals to you without being judged.” Being a professional gossip really appeals to the Pink Lady, except for, you know, the whole “people preying on her pain” part.
Most emailed? Nope. Most blogged? Nope.
You would think the Pink Lady would know something about makeup for the camera, and that excessive blinking is indicative of lying. You would be wrong.
Of course, you would also think the reporter would fact check the representation that the Pink Lady has surrendered her ‘pink encased loaded weapon’ for ‘Silent Reflection Time.’ You would be wrong about that, too. Welcome to the new New York Times. They report, you debunk. Thereafter, they will publish an awkwardly worded correction that nobody will read, but the schwag bag from the SATC movie publicists will have been totes worth it.

*[Ed Update: A JA loyalist schooled me that the Carrie Bradshaw character was not, in fact, from New York, as it was implied once (in 94 episodes) that Carrie moved to New York when she was 17, and therefore only lived in NYC for half (but not all) of her character’s life. The tipster’s superior knowledge of Sex in the City** is duly noted (your Pink Lady jacket is in the mail), and the author’s egregious factual error is left intact for the reader to mock relentlessly. My readers deserve fact-checking skills that are above the NYT variety and this is my awkwardly worded correction that nobody will read.]

[** Ed. Update, Part II: Damn, the loyalists are uppity about SATC accuracy. Got ANOTHER correction that it is Sex AND the City, not Sex IN the City. Same standards apply regarding the author’s shameful and regrettable error.]