Something old, someone new....

According to a little birdy, Kevin Hoffman, the newly appointed editor of City Pages, is having difficulty making friends at his new post -- and not only because of the rugby player's haircut. Though the paper has long been known for historical features, apparently Hoffman just killed an in-progress cover story, stating that he does not "want to cover anything old." We can only hope that instead of such lusterless old poo, Hoffman will bring the razor-edged journalism to the CP for which he is so widely revered.
Related:
Hoffman on Underwear Dance Party.
Hoffman on "nippling."
Hoffman on Rover, the morning-show host for WXTM-FM 92.3 Xtreme Radio.

Do the Jerk!

In the words of a wise IT guy, "At some point, the bullshit gets so thick that you have to flush the toilet," so let's flush:

Lawyer circle jerk!
We were delighted to get an email from Bruce Brugmann with an update from his paper about the contention that New Times Village Voice Media has been selling ads below the cost of producing them. Since we know that alternative media coverage in the alternative media is second in reader popularity only to girl-on-girl action, we felt compelled to report. From the Bay Guardian: "The New Times Newspapers, the 17-paper chain now known as Village Voice Media, has changed attorneys and retained Kerr and Wagstaffe, a local (San Francisco) law firm, in the Guardian's predatory pricing suit against the owner of the SF Weekly and East Bay Express...This is the third set of attorneys for the company. The first was the Silicon Valley firm of Fenwick and West. The second was the San Francisco firm of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, with Garrett Rasmussen from Orrick's Washington, D.C., office."

Mobius circle jerk
Golly, we couldn't help but notice that a snarky, navel-gazing blog felt the urge to call out a snarky, navel-gazing writer. Is this the fourth dimension of head-up-ass media circle jerking? Oh, wait, no – this is!
PS. The whole strikethrough gag with the name was totally ours first, fucktards novel.

Commie circle jerk
We were pleased to see that OC Blog was so moved by the fact that our beloved Commie Girl found employ after jumping from the OC Weekly. Those two weeks of unemployment must have been rough, but we've heard whispers that more OC Weekly departures might be iminant. For the record, it was the Register that announced Schoenkopf's departure from the paper and then hired her, just in case you were keeping score.

Circle jerking reprise (with a side of retard)
It took us quite a while to figure out how to respond to the recent village voice article on retards fucking by editor Dave Blum's former student, Mara Altman. Well, we still don't really know how to. Of course, at least Gawker was there, ready to pounce!

Flush!

Tales of Hoffman

The Twin Cities' Star Tribune reports that City Pages senior editor and writer Britt Robson abruptly resigned yesterday, leaving the paper after 10 years of loyal service. The latest ewe to wander from the New Times Village Voice Media flock, Robson told the Star Tribune: "Somebody from Denver [New Times Village Voice executive Andy Van De Voorde] hired somebody from Cleveland [30-year-old lesbian marriage pioneer Kevin Hoffman, above] to run a paper in Minneapolis. I saw that as a repudiation of the way we do things at City Pages and as a repudiation of the kind of work I do there."

The influence that the second somebody, 30-year old incoming editor and X-Men zealot Kevin Hoffman, will have on City Pages is remains to be seen, though from the young turk's astute knowledge of the region, we have high hopes. Besides, who but another brilliant Columbia grad could write this?

If ever someone personified Winston Churchill’s famous phrase — "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" — it must be David Dunn, the 28-year-old North Olmsted waiter who perpetrated what may be the most baffling hoax to emerge from the rubble of September 11. Even now, several months after he first fooled Cleveland’s daily newspaper and garnered worldwide attention, no one — perhaps not even he — can say for sure where the truth ends and the lies begin. His story has more skins than an onion and has produced just as many false tears.

Read more: The Bloodwrath Hoax, Cleveland Free Times.

A squeeze of the hand

With a nod to an old Slate feature, we hereby present that notorious tour de force of self-love, the New Times Village Voice Media epic about the gray whale, all 436 parts, as autosummarized by Microsoft Word:

The median was 400 bullets per whale. Formed to subdue the rapacious commercial whaling industry, the International Whaling Commission in 1986 imposed a moratorium on whale hunting. Gray whales are bottom feeders. Last year, more than 300 gray whales washed up dead. In 1997, 1,520 gray whales were observed in birthing lagoons.

Whales are highly evolved mammals. Hunting whales is what gives us pride. Without the gray whale, these people will die. Aridjis calls the gray whale "an icon for democracy."

The whale, after all, remains but a whale.

There's 100 Western Pacific gray whales. Photographing the whales is relatively straightforward. Gray whales tend to calf every other year. There are very few gray whales.

The gray whales were easy targets. Seventy years would pass before the gray whales could recover from the devastation of commercial whaling.

The Makah wanted to hunt whales again.

"Let's go whaling."

Several gray whales were in the area. The whaling canoe began tracking a 30-foot whale that appeared to be feeding. The whale was stunned.

"It's not his whale. It's my whale."

The whales appeared normal. We must eat whales. Five whales require less strict rationing. Dead whales became dinner-table conversation.

Unless the victims are whales. For years it was whales, whales, whales.

(Ferociously anti-whaling Mexico banned whaling in the 1960s.)

Whale watching has led the way.

Whale watching trips. Only the whales.

Spit, sweat, sod and....silence?

Imagine our disappointment when we ran to newsstands for a replay of that -- how should we say it? -- totally bitchin' essay by New Times Village Voice Media wussy-webmaster-turned-sod-covered-badass Bill Jensen, to find it absent from our fav year end poll, Pazz and Jop. As if we weren't crestfallen enough, Bob Dylan won the darn thing and was pictured doing a James Byrd Jr. on the the TV on the Radio guy.

What, pray tell, happened to that essay?
So glad you asked.

прощание

In the OC Register's breathless play-by-play of the OC Weekly's demise, Frank Mickadeit reports that Commie Girl, Rebecca Schoenkopf, was escorted from the building after giving two weeks notice.

According to Mickadeit: "Her dream job would be editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly somewhere – but she said she is not applying to any of the Village Voice-owned publications."

The sad news was confirmed on the Commie Girl webpage.
Schoenkopf's departure follows on the heels of editor Will Swaim.