insidery

8 posts

Where Are We Going, And What’s With The Handbasket?

We’re here because we’re smart and funny and lovable. All of us. We like talking about issues of the day, books and movies, and bitching about our spouses or lack thereof. We give each other advice and support. We post pictures of hot guys and gals, posh rooms and clothes, incredible shoes and cars. There’s a recipe exchange. Can’t find a backsplash tile? Post a picture of it and someone will track down the manufacturer. What should you wear to a summer wedding? Post your budget and preferred hemline and I bet you’ll have it narrowed down to three by lunch. How to deal with a bitchy coworker? Everything from going to HR to toxic tahini will be suggested. Did your kitty die? The Rainbow Bridge ends right here. (PS – when you’re ready, rescue another kitty from a shelter, k?)

If Crasstalk was a party, it would be A-list. Not because we exclude others, but because we include them. Yes, most of us are liberals from a social standpoint, at least. But a rational conservative wouldn’t be given the side-eye. Just no bigotry, plz.

Being told that we are worthless to
Gawker, despite the fact that we have enriched everyone that works there both monetarily and intellectually, had to hurt a little. I know I was offended. But there’s some satisfaction:

We know that Gawker will now be a place more akin to a zoo because we aren’t there. Congratulations, Nick! You said we made this place a ghetto and were peasants. Now you have feces-flinging angermonkeys instead. Hold onto your banana, and good luck posting another Peyser hit piece.

I will never ever again have to deconstruct a moronic post made by a whingy-whiny above-the-law social misfit who got a well-deserved speeding ticket and therefore thinks all cops are bad. Also, my efforts to educate people about how to behave during a road stop to reduce the likelihood of getting a summons will now only be given to people who deserve it. Though you all probably know this already.

We won’t be limited by comment boxes.

Creativity will be encouraged.

We can actually do something about trolls rather than trying to shame them.

No more Cheetos and Black Swans and Spartacus ads slowing pages as they load.

And best of all, we won’t be lining the pockets of people who treat us with contempt.

Welcome.

The Crassting Couch: Masterclass

This may or may not become an ongoing series, depending on what info I can get away with posting about showbusiness without blowing my anonymity or getting in hot water with industry types. I figured I’d start out with something quite tame: the great Bette Davis discussing the biz with Dick Cavett.

After the recent incidents with Spider-Man on Broadway with actors getting flung about like so many water balloons at a sugar jonesing 4-year-old’s birthday party, I do agree with Ms. Davis’ assertion that it is important for actors to be very firm in stating what they will or won’t do, otherwise producers will absolutely take advantage of you. I understand all too well the burning desire to land roles – any roles – but at some point you remember your dignity and begin to fear for your sanity and safety, and realize that it’s not worth sacrificing anything for what is sometimes only dubiously called “art.”

And isn’t the internet magical? Ms. Davis talks about late-night television giving her a second wave in her career. Now clips like this live online for as long as there is server space to keep the tide rolling.

We are Billy Graham’s favorite writer!

Thanks to the fact that I switched to a ridiculously common WordPress theme, I was able to Google image search the dimensions of the header photo and got tons of random images from people’s goofy sites.

I was going to grab one from a Jew-fro’d lawyer who looked suspiciously close to Sean Penn’s character in Carlito’s Way. But like my pappy always said:  If you’re going to blatantly steal, try to steal from greatest writer in the evangelical world. He’s probably much less likely to sue you than the Rosenbaum Law Firm of Jersey City, N.J.

We need to dress this place up a bit

We have to look our best

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking we need to dress this place up a bit. The free theme we’re using is a bit too plain and there are bunch of issues I’m seeing:

  • The kerning in the headlines is way too tight (letters are running together).
  • The name of the user who posts a comment is impossible to read.
  • The sidebar is kind of boring and appears to have some sort of margin issue that I’m not exactly sure how to fix.
  • There’s absolutely no color other than white.

So here’s how you can help us win the the internet: Let’s all try to spend a few minutes looking for the best WordPress theme for how we want our site to look and feel. If you’re not sure where to look, just start with a google search for “Free wordpress themes” or something similar. There are tons of sites dedicated to distributing themes.

And try to think about how you want the site to function. We could just pick another basic, simple bloggy type theme or it could be a theme that gives the site a more “magaziney” feel like The Awl. If you stumble across a theme that you like, please post it in the comments. Then I’ll see if I can put together a list of themes in one post and we can vote on which one we like the best.

Housekeeping

Now that the site is up…

– I basically just picked the first half-decent WordPress theme (template) that looked clean and simple. I’m not crazy about it, especially how small the commenter’s name and avatar are. We can either pick a new template or customize this one if there are any web designers among us.

– WordPress uses Gravatar.com for its avatars. So if want an avatar, go there and log in with the same email you used to log into WordPress. It’s really quick and easy to do.

– PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE change your password. The one I sent to you is just a default password and the site will be much more secure if everyone has their own unique password. And obviously make it a reasonably strong password, not “1234.” Don’t be a Sarah Palin.

– If any of you are experienced with web programming, php, apache, mysql, etc. PLEASE let me know. I could use some help with some of the back-end setup.