Gawker Gone Wild

So, I just got back from an event here in San Francisco hosted by WIRED editor Chris Anderson and had an odd moment when I asked him about his rehab after I read it on a Gawker story about the Napster relaunch party. Here is the note which seems real to me:

Wired editor Chris Anderson is evidently back from Betty Ford, no more trips to the powder’ room for him. Our spy also reports: “Dot-com launch parties are supposed to be sexy. Did we learn nothing in 1999? A tandoori chicken buffet simmering over sterno lamps should not be the hottest thing in the room.”

Turns out Gawker.com was “joking.” Of course, the three people I’ve talked about this also thought they were serious. Anderson wasn’t thrilled when I discussed it with him either. Gawker.com is repenting:

Letter from the Editor: Reading Comprehension#
As Elizabeth Spiers used to always mutter into her Dramamine and tonic when she was the editor of Gawker, explaining a joke immediately renders it not funny. No problem here; most of my jokes aren’t funny to begin with.

In reference to a few very curious emails from people with either bad reading comprehension or no sense of fun, let me state for the record that Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, is not actually a coke addict, as I have repeatedly reported.

Also, Cindy Adams does not eat human babies, no matter what I’ve said. You may in fact find one or two other things I’ve facetiously said on Gawker.

So, Chris Anderson, cokehead? Nah. He’s just your everday magazine editor, with feelings and thoughts and a love of shiny blinking things. In fact, he may have a serious problem with compulsive gadget fondling. I have also heard that he owes 200 grand to a really mean bookie. Oh and he once turned green and all his clothes split off his body and he killed a kitten with his bare hands in front of me. Other than all that stuff, a totally normal kind of dude.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.