Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Digaman! I’m with you in Rockland...
where you’re madder than I am
where you imitate the shade of my mother...
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey
on the highway across America in tears to the door
of my cottage in the Western night.
O Wired
what have I left out
O Wired
what have I forgotten
O Wired
farewell
with a 300 baud modem
farewell
with the SEC and an empty capture buffer
farewell...
with your sagging New York editors
will your fear of offending advertisers
with your mouth of bad advertorials
with you fingers of rotten cover images
with your arms of fat paychecks
with your belly of Tired Wired and Retired
with your chin of blather and spew
with your voice singing for the unemployed overenthused workers
with your nose of bad karma with your nose of the smell of the punks
of Newark
with your eyes...
  

    
with archie-the-cockroach-like vers libre
  

    
I shall wait for digaman to perform the evisceration of the stunningly
unread jax.
  

    
I meant you, reincarnated bozroach!
  

    
yeah, that was a real howler. an illiterate, to paraphrase archie, is
someone who never had much experience. with literature.
  

    
slip. oh, man. yikes.
  

    
Yes, it was a good one-liner, but it wasn't the only evidence Boswell
offered.

Since I not have seen the actual Well footage since it happened, Gary
can correct me on this if I am wrong. But my recollection of the
Mike/Gerard caper is that Gerard's deceit was stronger than just
saying; " this just in from Louis." He had also forged Louis's email
address in the "from" header (replacing Mike's name)  before he posted
it, and for some reason many people were impressed by this forgery,
thinking this email HAD to be from Louis. I mean, Gerard couldn't have
made it up: there it was. It says it is from Louis to Gerard!

I also recollect Gerard responding to skepticism on the WELL (probably
mine since I had the list of address the email was actually sent to)
in the affirmative, that it really was from Louis-- before he went
silent. But I could be wrong about that part. 

Gary, is the full episode postable, or is it archived somewhere? I'm
beginning to doubt my own memory and would love to see the original
version. 
  

    
Absolutely. Let's get it in here. I don't remember forging any headers
but then again I don't remember much about yesterday.
  

    <scribbled by digaman Thu 28 Aug 03 13:42>
  

    
Wow, quick job of getting poster's permissions.  I thought you'd have to
settle for only a few participants' posts here.
  

    <scribbled by digaman Thu 28 Aug 03 13:42>
  

    <scribbled by digaman Thu 28 Aug 03 13:42>
  

    
OK.  To simplify a blizzard of postings and scribblings around
reposting-permission issues, here is <boswell's> original posting of
Louis' letter:

wired.154.1077: Gerard Van_der_Leun (boswell)  Tue 15 Oct 96
14:50

 
 
 This just in from Lou, although I doubt it is a personal letter:
 
 From: "Louis Rossetto" <louis@wired.com>
 Subject: Press about Wired
 
 Wired Ones,
 
Back in the fourth issue of Wired magazine, we ran a story by
Michael Crichton called Mediasaurus, which took Big Media apart
for being clueless, comparing their defective work product to the
junk coming out of Detroit in the early 80s.
 
So it should come as no surprise to us to find the shoddy, if not
malicious stories that have run recently about Wired and its IPO
in Business Week, MSNBC, the LA Times, and US News. No surprise,
but still not easy to swallow.
 
Once again, we are hampered in our ability to defend ourselves by
the SEC's so-called "quiet period," which forces us to respond
only by referring to the prospectus -- which document the authors
of these stories apparently don't know how to read.
 
What's particularly frustrating about these stories, of course,
is that they are so at variance with the reality of the company
we know. This is a company of great people who make great
products -- and who are building a great business.
 
At Wired magazine, we have just closed the two biggest issues in
our history, with ad pages of 166 and 175 pages, bringing the
total ad pages for the year to over 1,300.
 
At HotWired, monthly pageviews have skyrocketed from 1.8 million
early this summer to over 18 million this September alone, and
third quarter revenue is up 100 percent over second quarter.
 
At HardWired, two of our first six titles have been selected as
Book of the Month Club Alternates. And one, Mind Grenades, has
made the Borders Top 50 bestselling books in America (less than a
month after release) and is already back on press -- an amazing
start for a new company.
 
And Wired TV's first Netizen TV show will air on MSNBC on
Saturday, 2 November, the weekend before the election -- again,
another amazing achievement, especially for a team that didn't
even exist six months ago.
 
It's facts like these which speak louder than clueless reporting.
Jane, Jeff, Andrew and I have been on the road a week now, and
we've made two dozen presentations in 11 different cities. One
thing that we've discovered is that sophisticated investors are
pretty immune to bad journalism -- and they can read the
prospectus. How's it going so far? Let's just say that in a
crowded Fall market for IPOs, a lot of investors are making a
point of coming out to hear our story.
 
So, as Jeff would say, what's the takeaway? The takeaway is that
media envy and ignorance are rampant (no surprise). That Wired is
on track to conclude its IPO and execute its business plan. And
that in the end, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, success is the
best revenge.
 
 Louis
 
 

wired.154.1078: Gerard Van_der_Leun (boswell)  Tue 15 Oct 96
14:51

 
 
        So I guess everything's coming up roses after all.

 

wired.154.1079: Van der Leun (boswell)  Tue 15 Oct 96 15:01

 
 
 
 
        By the way, could someone with a little time on their
        hands fax this entire topic to Nightline. That's a
        fair show and an installment there could go a long
        way towards quelling any investor concerns over
        unfair and envious media coverage.
 
        Make great TV too!
 
 
  

    
My God, 18 million page views for HotWired!!!!

That's gotta be worth something, right?

Louis was right ... to hell with clueless reporting (mine included). Any 
way I can still get in on that deal?
  

    <scribbled by mitchell Thu 28 Aug 03 14:22>
  

    
It's neat to see those postings. Indeed, I followed over to that aged
discussion only to discovered I'd scribbled everything in that topic
and the conference.

Quite interesting to read a hot well topic that you vaguely remember
and find that you have erased everything you said. You get to imagine
what you must have said, and then you think, "Ah, the hell with it."

Still, from the date headers it would seem that I didn't just vanish
from the table for days as diga states above. Even though that would
have been a good idea.
  

    
And wait just a durned minute!

If I scribbled that posting back in the late 90s, what the hell is it
doing turning up here.

I feel a nice hot round of YOYOW  coming on!
  

    
Gail! MOMMY! digaman is playing with my words!
  

    
Oh ssssshhhh.  You asked me to post it yourself.  I'll post here what I 
just wrote to you:


I just used the <unscribble> command, which is available to Salon 
Ultra-Deluxe Superpremium subscribers at $40 the month.  :-)

I saved the whole topic back then, in case historians were ever 
interested.  Pathetically, I'm not lying <grin>.
  

    
and bos, you disappeared after that last post above for days.
  

    
OK, yes, I know I've gotten myself in more YOYOW soup this morning than is 
tolerable.  I was just so excited that I had actually found the historians 
who DID care what actually happened.  :)
  

    
Okay, okay, you're right as usual. I forgot and I forgot to remember.
I told you that I don't remember yesterday... I'm just the Ronald
Reagan of the Well of the Well. Just turn me in my chair to follow the
fading sunset and let me sing:

I don't remember what day it was
I never notice what time it was
All I know is that I fell in love with me
And if all my dreams are free
I'll be spending time with me
Every day's a new day in love with me
With each day comes a new way of me loving me
Every time I kiss my lips my mind starts to wander
And if all my dreams are free
I'll be spending time with me

Oh I love me more today than yesterday
But not as much as tomorrow
  

    

"and bos, you disappeared after that last post above for days."

Wait just a durned minute. That last post was on the 15th, and here I
am again on the 16th and for days thereafter, according to the record
which (I admit is a bit spotty since I scribbled all my responses)
==
wired 154: Wired & Hotwired
#1116 of 1290: Van der Leun (boswell) Wed 16 Oct 1996 (08:04 AM)

(Scribbled by boswell on Feb 13 1998 at 13:48)
==

Was I there or not. Help me with this. My head is starting to hurt.
  

    
Heh.   Anyhoo, I do believe that <boswell's> was one of the most effective 
"media hacks" of that dizzy era.

> My God, 18 million page views for HotWired!!!!
 That's gotta be worth something, right?


Speaking of that dizzy era, this brings back to mind the absolutely most 
nauseating bit of net-biz jargon I ever heard, somewhere in the HotWired
office at that time:

"Firehoses of eyeballs."
  

    
Slippage.