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February 28, 2005
 In a run that lasted even shorter than the Jim J. Bullock & Tammy Faye Bakker talk show, I decided to quit Gridskipper a couple of weeks ago and my last day was Feb 18. This hasn't been made public formally (who really cares?) but since they finally took my name off the site today and the story behind CheapTickets pulling their ads from the site a mere three days after the launch coincidentally broke this past Friday, I figured it was about time to announce it here. Oddly, the two events are not related. Gawker Media head honchez Nick Denton tells his side here. I'm writing to tell everyone now it's all a bunch of GODDAMN LIES!! What went down was the worst train wreck of an advertising/editorial arranged marriage and I was the abandoned teen who got peer-pressured into subway surfing and decapitated in the process. Acts of whoring, deception, and betrayal were so grand and soulless that HST is still spinning the barrel of a six-gun in his grave....wait, that's all bullshit. It wasn't like that in the least. Take Two. CheapTickets had concerns with some of the racy stuff in our archives before we even launched. I actually didn't know anything about it, including who the sponsor was(!!), until a few days before launching. I didn't think we even had one. That's quite a testament to how much Nick separates editorial and advertising, or maybe how little he trusts me with such info. (Okay, maybe it's the second.) Nick gave me no direction other than to write the site how we discussed it all along. Right out of the starting gate we got the feeling CheapTickets reps were quickly growing more uneasy with the material. How did Nick and managing editor Lock (on his first official day of the job) assess the situation? They gave me the greenlight to go even bluer. Then I figured if we were gonna lose an advertiser then I might as well blow the sexcalibur sword out of the murky waters for good. On Wednesday February 2 (day three) I think I wrote every post with a fuck or sex reference. I really have no idea what ultimately pushed the envelope to give the advertiser wrist-slashing paper cuts, but I'm thinking these two caused the most pain. In any case, that was the rare day I actually had "fun" doing the site. The truth of the matter is I didn't like writing the site at all. Nick and Lock loved what I was doing (so they told me, perhaps to keep me off the ledge) and encouraged me to stick with it. I tried, I really fuckin' tried but the service journalism aspect of travel writing bored me to no end. I don't know what the hell I thought the site was gonna be, but I envisioned something else and maybe if I stuck it out I could have made it that but the material was too much of a stretch for me to feel "obsessed" with it. They understood and there were no hard feelings. I have no doubt Gridskipper will succeed and be wildly popular. Someone more gung-ho than me deserves to do it. So what now? Is this my requiem for a failed blogger? I don't know what comes next but I have some ideas. Yes, ideas are cheap and it's execution that counts. My track record is a little spotty but I hope to figure something out that doesn't involve joining a religious cult, enlisting in the military, or working as a farmhand. I have neither the talent, fame, or audience to pull off a Kottke but if you want to send me $30 anyway, feel free. Stay tuned. Mr. T Experience - "Game Over" (3.95 MB) Krucoff.com powered by Removable Hype. Copyright © 2004 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, hunting tips, and family gossip. |
