I can't stop looking at this weird Chinese circcus goat. It can walk on a tightrope while carrying a monkey—then stand tiptoe on an urn and twirl.

Previously:
• I Can't Stop Looking at This Weird Chinese Boat
• I Can't Stop Looking at This Weird Chinese Goat
• I Can't Stop Looking at Goatse
• I Can't Stop Reading This Analysis of Gawker's Editorial Strategy
• I Can't Think of Anything to Blog About on My Last Day at Gawker

The following thoughts have flickered through my mind in rapid succession at least once a week for as long as I have worked on the fourth floor of Gawker Media's offices.

• Oh no, the only open bathroom is the one by Deadspin's table. That's "the shitting bathroom."
• I'll just wait for another bathroom to open up.
• [jiggling leg, jiggling leg, jiggling leg]
• Okay, I really can't hold it any longer.
• Aaaughhuighihhh, it's like a diarrhea bomb went off in here. Hold your breath. Hold your breath.
• Even if I lit a match, it wouldn't eliminate this stink. The whole room would just ignite into a gaseous ball of fire, like napalm.
• That copy of Maxim looks suspiciously dog-eared.
• Hey there's a tic-tac-toe board on the ceiling. What's in the squares, though?
• Oh my god, those are boogers. They are playing booger tic-tac-toe.
• I have to get out of this bathroom. Right now.
• Why are there pubes in the sink?
• Is someone in this office homeless?
• That can of Febreze looks exhausted.
• [bursts out of door, gasping]
• Oh no, someone is waiting to use this bathroom. How can I communicate that the horrible stench he is about to encounter is not my fault, when I have only a split second of nonverbal communication available to get my message across? Wait— no— don't go in—
• Too late. He went in.
• Whatever, he's probably flicking his boogers at the ceiling while simultaneously masturbating and pooping, anyway.
• Boys are gross.

Previously: The Poop Prisoner's Dilemma: What Do You Do With an Unflushed Toilet?

Sand through the hour glass, pee through the toilet bowl, these are the bathroom dilemmas of our lives.

When you are a professional rumormonger, people want to tell you things. They corner you at parties and shout other people's secrets. They call your telephone and whisper. They write urgent emails.

They are hopeful; they want their stories to matter. They are crass; they betray trusts. They are rude, greedy, righteous, boastful, vengeful, angry, elated, witty, brilliantly creative, fantastically entertaining, and utterly psychopathic. (Usually not all at once.)

What follows are my favorite unreported tips from three years at Gawker. Some tips went unreported because they are patently fake. Others couldn't be verified. Still others are completely true, but never made it into print for a variety of reasons. Taken as a whole, they provide a portrait of what it's like to rake the muck of the internet, full time.

To enhance the reader's experience, I have given each tipster the name of a historical figure.

A Hollywood Heiress' Blackface Sex Kink

From: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:31 AM

I just heard a fantastic Scout Willis story I'd like to share.

A good friend of mine had sex with her freshman year. Before they had sex, she took out a small container from her bag and asked him to put it on. He asked her what it was and she said: "Blackface." She wanted to have sex with my friend while he was wearing blackface. She carries blackface with her, so that the guys she sleeps with can put it on. So she can have sex with them in blackface.

Ben Mills and the 400-lb Brazilian Hooker

From an acquaintance of amateur pornographer, flesh suspension enthusiast, and penis-tattooed Brooklyn celebrity Ben Mills:

From: Chairman Mao Tse-tung
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:12 AM

i have a porn video of ben mills with 400 pound hooker in brazil , if you can guarantee anonymity to myself i will send it over

From: Maureen O'Connor
To: Chairman Mao Tse-tung
Date: Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:41 PM

Sure. I need to know how you got it, though.

From: Chairman Mao Tse-tung
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 9:20 PM

i shot it on my camera when he was in brazil .

When Courtney Love Fucked Brad to Hurt Renée

This Courtney Love tipster sent reams of documents verifying dozens of previously unreported stories. The main reason I didn't finish reporting them is that Love stories are, as a rule, more effort than they're worth:

From: Ögedei Khan of the Mongol Empire
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 4:02 PM

I am a close confidant to Courtney Love and am in possession of a damning text message that she sent to Henry Allsopp that is quite lengthy and in depth about their relationship, and how she had meaningless sex with actor Bradley Cooper and enjoyed it only because he is the beau of Renée Zellweger.

From: Ögedei Khan of the Mongol Empire
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 3:11 PM

THis was sent to henry allsopp and I was cc'd. The hungarian she speaks of is Andre Balazs. She spoke to me at length of the love triangle between Andre Balazs, Lord Henry Allsopp, and Bradley Cooper and I can do an interview about it as well.

the text I forwarded to my phone upon receipt and I don't have a photo of it, but I can verify in other ways that I was her employee and have much correspondence I could share.

its so warm in this room, so stuffy, im going to open some windows, i want so much for the check to cash so i can paint the place, in lovely farrow ball creamy blues, and i dunno why but i was thinking or semi dreaming about you. Next time we speak i have a question for you, Ill let you talk for an hour, if youd like, but you asked me a tough one, and yes, i overanswered, but not often does anyone ask me, so you owe me an answer to mine, i almost am tempted to ask it in email, maybe ill type it and see what it loooks like in print.... why do you fuck me like a whore>?? why cant you make love? is it just me? can you make love at all? im intensley curious, i know very much that theres ghosts everywhere between us, but it doesnt seem to stop my mind wondering, i know that if we opened up to one another we would become intimate, and i know that if we were to become intimate- its all right and fun in tabloids and telegraphs, oh ho ho, its like a funny cartoon, and you see what a catchy fantasy THAT is, and what an unmitigated disaster, for you certainly. not so much for me, except that you frighten me very much, you arent like ..., your much more like kurt than you know, your helpless like that, and i need a daddy of some sort i suppose i need someone to take care of me, im not speaking of the outside world, im speaking of between me and you alone and with nothing all that much in "common" - its sort of a disaster socially, but i have looked across the bed in the morning and wondered what you would look like there, wondered if i could catch your respect as i know you dont have it for me as an artist which i find to be a shame, it doesnt make me liek you less, yes it does, it pisses me straight off, because there is no way you belong in that spot, if you cant and dont respect my work, but ive seen you there asleep sometimes, wondering to myself? hmm. what an unlikely pairing. yet youve3 never made love to me and i dont even know if youve made love to any woman because i dont know,,,, i think its impossible someone as beuatiofully lovely as you cant do it, i think you hold yourself back from me, and i hate the way you flip flop, when you kiss me and its good you run away, when your just this side of fucked up , its stupidly perverse, and yes i can hang like a whore, a few times, a lot, but sometimes a woman needs to be ravished, needs to just be taken and taken in a way thats beautiful, it advances the story you see, but beyond that, it feels good, it feels right, im very picky about my lovers, especially these days,. i slept with that movie starup and comer bradley thats dating renee zellweger, movie stars love me, i pull so fast with them its ridiculous, and i made him wear a condom ill have you know , i was just doing it to see what someone i barely likes whose very pretty felt like and felt other than smug about fucking, and thats what it was, renee zellwegers boyfriend, almost detached, it wasnt me, it wasnt in this bed anyway, it was at the mercer which doubled the perversity of it, i wish it had been at the four seasons or something, it wasnt very much of anything, he scored , i scored we left , no harm no foul, there isnt a second shot coming for him bradley, BRAD... please what a name, brad acts and struts like every movie star lover ive ever had, on the precipice of the Big Time Cheese Street hes going on, he got to fuck the bad girl and oh ha ha, ig ot to fuck the up and comer, and stab that mewling faced zellweger in the back plus the petite hungarian because he wanted to show off to that lobby, so i went along with it, not to the point of rudeness and vulgarity just to the point that nothing leaked but everyone knew when hed had his second drinkk and asked me to his room,. you know hen, the truth? the real actual truth? i paused, hes very pretty this brad, but hes useless, i jst had to force myself, im in a sexual prime and well, whatever, but i thought of you, i thought of how wed never had each other, in any real way, a few real kisses, thats all, i thought about looking in your eyes when they light up, yep, i could utterly go there . yep. i could. but im the girl, you frighten me because we both have - forgetting the social realities of this fantasy, delusion whatever, - problems growing up, and id have to be the strong one and id have to be that again, but maybe.... oh fuck shoudl i erase all of this now? probably, you loathe these matters spoken of, and i know that, and i do apologise, but deep down i desire it, and i fear it, and i know you fear it even more, and just in case you think i dont know why, i do , hen, i do, so it skims along the surface? where does it go this impossible potential thing? unlesss of course yoru actually deformed and simply can only fuck and cannot make love, which is impossible. you just cant wont make love to ME, but i would to you, which makes it a little lopsided doesnt it? whcih makes me the pathetic one, ewhich im not likely to keep being. its like every day and every minute, but despite the fact that thats never happened, it sort SORT of has, ive seen you and felt you and youve certainly thrown me around in a way that no man really ever has, but you burned, and didnt bend and i didnt know you yet, i never surrendered myself to you, it is a profoudn experience, or at least it dammed well should be,m not in our worlds were told its nothing, but its not true, bradley coopers aside, that meant nothing, i almost said no you know, i almost walked away, the mere act itself should change us, shake us make us see ourselves and each other differently, i didslike this worlds idea that sex isnt about people or relationships, that it is merely a distatsetfulbiological imperitave, that it does not involve hearts or minds or souls but only sticky engorged parts, that sex really isnt that impoirtant, that EVERY ONE IN THE WORLD HAS SEX THE SAME WAY, that it shows us nothing of importance about ourselves or each other and therefore has no place in any discussion, you make me feel unaccountably nervous or unaccountably calm, something shifted somewhere anyway, without sex, making love, whatever, you seem to make me feel good, not all the time, im not weeping joy, you make me smile when i think of you, i think its a slow thing, its a slow thing, it a slow thing and i like the way you smell and i love i do love the grace with which you move, and i love your graces, they are many, and they make me want to learn from them. i think i ll send this to myself and one day i will show it to you henry if and when you ever choose to make love to me, and if and when that happens please know that i have wanted that for a good 6 months now, and wanted it very badly, and i know thew consequences might be diffficult, but i dont expect from you anything you arent willing to give. i trsut in your honour and your courage enought o know that you turn away from the good kisses, because you know and becaus eyou are wiser than me, and because you know the consequences of what will happen, but , and heres the wierd part, when like a ragdoll, i sucked in bed with BRAD - i did make him get me off, and when that happened i almost said your name, it almost came out of me, i certainly thought it. and thats when i knew i had to ask you this very difficult question which ive possibly answered anyway, but when i have seen you on the other side of the bed once or twice ive admired you, ive admired you, ive thought " i shpuld be so lucky" ive wondered if you know, its just a deep deep deep well, you and me, if it is dipped into i dont see the world on fire, i just want to sleep with you. sleeping i mean, in your arms, not to be left like a hooker at 4 am, i want to be comfortable you to be comfortable with our limbs entangled, i want to be home and dry, and learn to understand and even love the cricket, if it doesnt happen, well i think i suppose it miught be a shame. but maybe not, im slightly ambivelent too, you know, mighty mighty ambivelent, but... ok im done you hear me. or you dont , ill save this, if we fell in love, would the world blow up? possibly. but only because were both frightened of it doing so, we have alot more alliances than you think i think. and i think were very very very VERY powerful together. thats what i think. socially, yes its complicated, but you can tame me, id be delighted for you to tame me in fact, as long as you arent cruel to me, id be delighted to be cherished by you, i know that i am,. in your secret heart, but id be delighted by the complexity of it, in fact, its possible one of the most intriogueing things about it outside of you and me ahd our privacy, you can tame me, ill give you that honour that ive passed to no man ever iun doing so, youd better grow the hell up. and i will do same. either way were going to altear the other . either way i guess we already have you showed me that i was not in a love affair but in an abusive nightmare, and i should be embarassed by it, and i am. i wodner what it would be like to belong to you henry allsopp and noone else, and to be loved by you henry allsopp and to have the courage to live up oto all the things you have to live up to. i wonder if i could take it? yes i think if motivated i could,w uld embrace it, your sort of great and awesome, and maybe well see someday, we have alot of ghosts and other loves, and things of that nature between us, but thats kid stuff compared to this. so maybe - you move me is all, something inside of me moved beacsue of you and we havent even made love and i find that to be remarkable. yes i should like very much to belong to you. i think.

Chris Brown and 'The Occasional Femme Queen'

From a gossip industry insider, addressing Chris Brown's gay rumors:

From: Il Duce del Fascismo Benito Mussolini
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: Is Chris Brown gay?

No.

From: Il Duce de Fascismo Benito Mussolini
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: Is Chris Brown gay?

Or rather, just transexuals. "He may mess around with the occasional femme queen from what I hear."

From: Il Duce del Fascismo Benito Mussolini
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: Is Chris Brown gay?

Though another guy says Chris Brown might have fucked around with brother of a friend of his.

The Wisconsin Governor's Secret Love Child

From: Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:26 PM

I have, at this point, what is just a rumor, but it's one from a reliable source and would be a GREAT scoop if it could be verified. Our high school educated Governor Scott Walker is reported to have been tossed out of Marquette University for impregnating a married, 30 year old woman. He is SUCH a family values guy.

From: Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 11:36 PM

Source has ZERO interest in being outed or even speaking on the record. Clue: long tenured faculty member. Scotty's wife can't be (or very unlikely is)"the" woman—she was 30 when he was 18-19 and they aren't that far apart in age. I wish I could give you any more information. I'm not sure if he was thrown out of Marquette or made a deal to leave. Marquette is either a Jesuit or Catholic college—not sure if there is a difference, I plead religious ignorance, and this was in the mid 1980s. Clearly someone made some noise to bring it to the point of his kick out/leaving. Somewhere out there is a[n out-of-wedlock] Walker kid about the same age as you are, though doubtful the last name is Walker.

Nick Denton Dick Pics 4 Sale

From: Walter Cronkite
To: A.J. Daulerio
Subject: Nick Denton's Penis

I have a picture of Nick Denton's penis. How much will you pay me for it?

From: A.J. Daulerio
To: Walter Cronkite
Date: Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Re: Nick Denton's Penis

$45.67

Before determining that the above tip was a fraud, A.J. confronted Denton, causing the latter to avert eye contact and murmur, "Oh no."

The Least Juicy Media Tip Ever

From: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Date: Thursday, July 21, 2011, 3:46 PM

Subject: Lloyd Grove

Just fell off his chair in the newsroom of Newsbeast. For no apparent reason. Was talking to someone, and just fell off his chair. Said "I lost my balance."

My source says, "We are all trying not to laugh."

The White Supremacist Who Robbed the Cradle

A tip about 60-year-old Peter Brimelow, editor of white supremacist publication and John Derbyshire employer VDARE:

From: Anarchist Emma Goldman
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 3:34 PM

Subject: this photo alone should make you want to do a post

brimelow and his very white daughter wearing a very white outfit. that's his daughter, not granddaughter…

"Peter Brimelow (born 1947) […] married Lydia Sullivan, a 22-year old Heritage Foundation intern, in 2007; they had their first child, Felicity Brimelow in August 2010."

Gawker Gets It Twice

From: Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Tue, May 29, 2012 at 04:18 PM

Hamilton Nolan is a Tallahassee oil heir. AJ has two assholes.

I'll Call Her While Pooping

From a person who heard I was leaving Gawker:

From: Pope Alexander VI
To: Maureen O'Connor
Date: Wed, May 30, 2012 at 12:31 PM
Subject: Going away present

I discovered quite by accident recently that I had Ariana Huffington's home number. Perhaps you already have it, but if not: [psyche, I am keeping this one for myself]

The Rest of the Best

And finally, a laundry list of rumors whispered to me at bars and parties, by people who thought said rumors worthy of publishing:

• "Milo Ventimiglia has the biggest dick I've ever seen."
• "Rose Byrne has the driest skin I've ever seen."
• A strange, sketchy rumor about a venture capitalist beating his media darling ex.
• A strange, sketchy rumor about a B-list actress with two assholes.
• A glorious (if perhaps too perfect) story about Dominique Strauss-Kahn hitting on the first lady of an Arab nation during a diplomatic mission for the IMF, then engaging in a frat boy discussion of her hotness with his colleagues.
• "James Franco isn't gay. He slept with one of the girls from America's Next Top Model."
• "Dan Abrams wears a toupee."
• Random Girl: Off the record, my roommate is a slob.
  Me: Why would I want that on the record?
  Random Girl: I know how you work.

Justin Bieber becomes a criminal battery suspect. Cynthia Nixon marries her girlfriend. Lindsay Lohan flees a $40,000 tanning salon bill. David Beckham likes to eat babies. Tuesday gossip is for old times' sake.

• Well-trained song-and-dance boy Justin Bieber is a suspect in a criminal battery case involving a paparazzo. "Several witnesses at the scene" (read: other paparazzi) say the photographer was blocking Bieber's car, and that "after the altercation, a lawyer walked up to the photo and said he could get a lot of money […] and advised the dude to call for an ambulance and file a police report." How big would the payday have to be, to make going down in history as "the guy Justin Bieber beat up" worth it? At least five figures, I'm thinking. [TMZ, image via Pacific Coast News]
• Lindsay Lohan is about to get her kneecaps broken over a $40,000 tanning salon bill. [TMZ]
• Jude Law went to watch a Broadway play, and some lady saw him and literally fainted on the spot. And, though the laws of thermo-romantic dynamics state that if a woman faints at the sight of a man, he must catch her mid-swoon and kiss her back to consciousness, "Law apparently wasn't aware of what happened." Bummer. [P6]
• Kim Kardashian says a British Airways employee opened her suitcase and took "some special items of mine," things that are "sentimental & not replaceable." An old tooth, perhaps. Or a sex tape. [Daily Mail]
• In other news, "Kim Kardashian goes braless at Atlantic City party." You guys are going to click this link so many more times than the other one, I bet. [HollywoodLife]
• Wouldn't it be funny if this headline were literal? [P6]
• David Beckham is one of those people who expresses his appreciation for babies by pretending to eat them. [Celebitchy, Elle]
• As was inevitable for a same-sex couple that met at a gay marriage rally, Cynthia Nixon has married Christine Marinoni. Mazel tov! [NYDN]
• Just want to point out that Hello! magazine has a live countdown to Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee on the front page of their website. They are aware they aren't invited, right? [Hello!]
• Will Smith on what he loves about wife Jada Pinkett-Smith: "She is just absolutely hardcore." Seriously, have you seen her abs? Rock hard core, probably been doing pilates. [People]
• Michelle, Sasha, and Malia Obama went to Beyonce's first post-baby concert and danced to "Single Ladies" in a private balcony they shared with Gayle King. Meanwhile, Beyonce has lost 60 lbs. since the birth of baby Blue Ivy and plans to "get chocolate wasted" to celebrate. Meanwhile-meanwhile, Gawker has lost several hundred pounds of Maureen O'Connor and plans to "hire a new one, maybe another girl? Fuck, who's going to write about moms putting their boobs in the mouths of four-year-olds, now?" in her stead.

  My last day is Friday. Stay tuned for a massive dump of every unconfirmed rumor in the "to do" folder of my work email account, probably tomorrow or the next day, depending on how lazy I feel. What's Gawker going to do, fire me? [Gatecrasher, Us]

Since marrying Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday, Dr. Priscilla Chan has become…

• "The Kate Middleton of Silicon Valley"
• "Tech's Newest First Lady"
• "Not Your Usual Billionaire's Wife"
• "Every Tiger Mom's Dream Child"
• "An Unlikely Style Star"
• "A New Brand of Billionaire Bride"
• "A Lucky Lady"
• A relationship role model

Eight new gay groping claims, two scrotum assaults, and one anus attack later, John Travolta's masseur-gate is in full swing—not that you'd know if you only got your news from The New York Times, which has yet to file a report on the megawatt star accused of manhandling nearly enough service industry employees to field a baseball team.

Noticing the gap between the tabloid press' wall-to-wall Travolta coverage and the mainstream media's Travolta eclipse, lawyer Marty Singer has progressed from attacking his client's accusers to criticizing The National Enquirer and its ilk:

When it comes to claims about my client in supermarket tabloids, consider the source. This spate of recklessly published tabloid stories is just part of a malicious tabloid agenda to boost lagging sales by running outrageous, defamatory stories about my client sourced by people seeking notoriety or a payday.

How easy is it to get an A-list gay sex story into the Enquirer, anyway? We spoke to two men who have attempted it (with varying levels of success) as well as current and former employees of the Enquirer and parent company American Media, Inc. to find out. The short answer is, not as easy as you'd think—but if you succeed, the payday can be pretty sweet.

Robert's Story

Robert Randolph, an L.A. interior decorator, was working on a memoir about L.A.'s gay spa sex scene and thought a tabloid story about John Travolta's bathhouse sex life would help publicize the book. (He later published an excerpt in Gawker.) He sent nearly identical emails to the Enquirer and TMZ:

Hello, my name is Robert Randolph after years and years of witnessing John Travolta along with many other stars behaving badly at public spa's I have written a book about it called "You'll Never Spa In This Town Again" If you are interested please call me at [redacted].

TMZ never responded, but Enquirer reporter Rick Egusquiza replied in minutes.

Egusquiza says the Enquirer's four full-time L.A. reporters take turns manning the publication's 24-hour phone and email tip lines. He estimates they receive one call per hour and as many emails; on a tip-heavy week, he estimates 30 percent of the Enquirer's stories come from the tip lines. Egusquiza's biggest story was John Edwards' cheating scandal; the tip that put the Enquirer on the candidate's trail landed when Egusquiza was on tip duty.

Randolph showed us Egusquiza's response:

Subject: hey there...

Hi Robert, I have worked on similar John Travolta stories in the past. Please call me so we can discuss your book and possibly doing a story. Obviously we would promote your book.

Thanks.

Rick Egusquiza,
Senior Entertainment Editor
National Enquirer

Randolph says the Enquirer did not compensate him. (Egusquiza is unable to comment on payments.) Randolph and Egusquiza both say the spa-goer underwent several interviews, submitted to a series of fact and background checks, signed a contract, and passed at least three polygraphs before his story appeared in the Enquirer. You can read the resulting story here.

"It was tough," Randolph told me last week. "Everyone thinks you just say, 'I've got this story about John Travolta,' and the Enquirer right away pays you. But it wasn't like that at all. It was a rude awakening, but still a good experience. They checked everything I said and did a full background check—had I ever been arrested, medical records, everything."

Asked about circumstances in which he walks away from a story, Egusquiza groans. "I could write a book on all the stories we've killed," he told me by phone. "There's one story that's huge right now—you could probably guess it—we knew it a year ago, but were never able to back it up. A lot of the time we'll report a story, do the polygraph, they'll pass, and we'll still sit on it. We have attorneys on every story, wrangling."

I tried to guess which story Egusquiza knew a year ago (Kanye falling for Kim?) but failed.

Mr. Clean's Story

A tabloid tipster we will call Mr. Clean approached the Enquirer, Us Weekly, The Sun, TMZ, and In Touch with a story about sleeping with a powerful A-list man who is rumored to be gay, despite several high-profile relationships with celebrity women.

Mr. Clean, a bodybuilding Californian who was trying to "break in" to Hollywood, approached all five publications with virtually the same email early last year:

Subject: I had an affair with a well known celebrity

My name is [redacted] and I have a story to be told. I had an affair with [redacted] a couple years ago. I am interested in telling you my experience. I have photographs and other information to support my story. If interested in speaking with me more in detail I can be reached @ [redacted].

After a Hollywood hairdresser introduced Mr. Clean to the A-lister, the men rendezvoused twice in California hotel rooms, he claimed. He said they showered together, caressed each other, and engaged in oral sex. "Showers are kind of my thing," he explained in an interview with Gawker. "I like to be clean."

Though he approached the Enquirer, Mr. Clean's story ended up at another AMI property, Star. Though AMI's publications are competitive with one another ("If I overhear something in the office [from a Star reporter], I'll look into it," Egusquiza says), editors at the Florida-based company occasionally pass stories to each other, usually based on subject matter. For instance, whereas Star follows the stars of Teen Mom, the Enquirer tends to focus on older show business characters.

After interviewing with a senior reporter at Star, Mr. Clean passed a polygraph and signed a $40,000 contract for his story. He would get $5000 up front, and the rest when the story published. See the full contract below.

$40K is on the higher end of Star's purchasing spectrum, according to editor James Heidenry, who was not on staff during Mr. Clean's negotiation and says he knows nothing about it. A more typical payment would be between $500 and $10,000. Receiving some money up front, "as a gesture of good will," is standard.

Before Mr. Clean's final payday, he'd have to take another polygraph. The second time around, Mr. Clean says AMI sent him to a former FBI polygrapher who had been featured on Dr. Phil and Oprah. We're guessing the polygrapher in question is Jack Trimarco; though he told us by phone that he can't discuss specific media clients, Trimarco did confirm that he is the only ex-FBI polygrapher in Los Angeles and that he regularly works for the Enquirer and AMI—as well as Dr. Phil and Oprah. Trimarco is quick to note that he has worked both with and against the Enquirer; actor Don Johnson once underwent a Trimarco polygraph to debunk an Enquirer sex scandal.

Mr. Clean went to the second polygrapher's office and underwent questioning. Shortly thereafter, AMI nullified its contract with him.

A second AMI contract outlined the dissolution of the first. He would return $3000 of his $5000 cash advance and AMI would destroy all videotapes from his interviews. His story would not run. In the end, Mr. Clean made $2000 on a story that would never see the light of day—in an AMI publication, at least.

"The polygraph is an insurance policy that our lawyers like," Star editor James Heidenry explained to me. Star's third editor-in-chief in just over a year, Heidenry was not on staff during Mr. Clean's negotiation, but spoke broadly about the magazine's tactics. "We like to get them too, to be confident with the story and reach a comfort level with it, and to protect ourselves against legal action." If a story failed the polygraph test, "we would ditch it," he concluded.

The AMI employees I spoke to vacillated on the value of polygraphs. One Star employee characterized the notoriously unreliable lie-detection method as "theater," "a prop that, in terms of journalism, means nothing." He echoed Heidenry's emphasis on legal protection: Polygraphs help reporters prove they demonstrated due diligence.

Egusquiza differed. "There are people who have lied on a polygraph, and we know it. But most of the time we don't get to that [polygraphing] stage unless we think there's something there. The liars don't walk in."

Trimarco points out that polygraphs are used only to bolster existing cases: "A polygraph should never complicate things. If there's conflicting evidence, then you go with whatever is best."

After his AMI contract fell apart Mr. Clean continued trying to tell his story (I met him when he offered it to Gawker) but has yet to find a forum for it.

The Inside Story

For me, the most surprising revelation about tabloid media is how small each publication is, compared to how large its cultural impact. Every grocery shopper in America sees headlines written by a handful of editors who manage news staffs that could be counted on one or two hands. Egusquiza, the man who took down a major presidential candidate, was a bartender with a part-time gig reviewing porn when he first swapped gossip with an Enquirer editor at a party, then worked his way up. Nationally, the Enquirer employs perhaps ten reporters.

I spoke to several current and former AMI employees, most of whom acknowledged some factual leniency in their publications. Distinguishing fact from fiction is part of the tabloid reader's game, said one editorial staffer. "You have to know how to read the magazine, you know? Some people don't get it."

A former Star editor told us that, when it came to truth-seeking, "there was a disconnect between what went on in the edit meetings and what went in the magazine." He winced describing the magazine's tradition of hanging blown-up cover images on the walls, forcing the staff to stare down its biggest flops (incorrect baby genders, wrongful wedding guesses) on a daily basis.

The falsehoods, that Star staffer said, were the result of desperation: "With the industry in a downward spiral, there's always more pressure to get those stories [that sell]." Star editor Candace Trunzo, who helmed the magazine during Mr. Clean's negotiation, lamented in 2007, "Each week, people decide on what they are or aren't going to buy based on the cover, and if you don't draw them in with it, you lose that undecided portion of your audience."

Amid lagging sales and in the wake of AMI's bankruptcy scare, Trunzo lost her job at Star mere weeks after Mr. Clean's contract fell through.

Not a single AMI employee I spoke to had qualms about buying stories. Heidenry argued that, whereas People and Us Weekly trade in the economy of PR favors, Star uses cash to incentivize sources.

"Now obviously when something's heavy duty we do a comment call, and based on what they say, that plays into our decisions," Heidenry explained. "But what People and Us Weekly do is trade-offs with publicists. They do soft stuff. That's not what we do."

Ironically, the one thing Heidenry says he will never do is out a closeted celebrity. His rationale is mostly pragmatic: "People sue over being called gay, not over impregnating someone or sleeping with someone straight. That's why Jennifer Aniston is pregnant all the time."

Dharun Ravi, the 20-year-old Rutgers student convicted of bias intimidating and privacy invasion in the Tyler Clementi webcam peep case, has been sentenced to a relatively scant 30-day jail term, The Newark Star-Ledger reports.

Ravi could have faced up to 10 years in prison; in their impact statements, Ravi's parents begged for a short term to diminish the likelihood that Ravi would be deported to India, a nation he has not lived in since he was five.

In her impact statement, Tyler Clementi's mother characterizes Ravi's crime as "malicious and evil." Both Clementi parents said they looked at Ravi's Twitter page in the aftermath of their son's suicide, and found it "painful."

The judge characterized Ravi's crime was not one of hate, but "colossal insensitivity." Still, he noted to the convict, "I haven't heard you apologize once." He said he will recommend Ravi not be deported. Ravi's sentence will begin at the end of the month. [Star-Ledger, image via AP]

Update: Prosecutors will appeal the sentence. They say it is insufficient.

As part of Gawker's ongoing effort to keep readers apprised of innovation in the underwear supplement industry (fart-neutralizing undies, penis-enhancing undies, calorie-absorbing undies, sexy period undies) may I now present Camelflage, "the original visual privacy undergarment" for eliminating camel toe with a labia-obscuring insert.

Excerpts from Camelflage's genesis story, as told by Camelflage's mononymous inventor/president, Shannon:

It all started one day in yoga class...

Cute tight little yoga pants, front row, right by the big mirrors for the whole class to check out my yoga poses, and something else...the dreaded..."cameltoe." That's where the idea for Camelflage was conceived. I looked at department stores, on-line for a solution for this problem. There was nothing.

So, I designed a patent pending women's panty that has a built in flexible, breathable, insert to smooth out her "Labia Majora" AKA "cameltoe." Covering the insert is a Sportek wicking fabric that pulls moisture away from your body and keeps you dry.

I am a wife, mother and now a "cameltoe" advocate! Helping women all over the world feel confident and smooth one Camelflage panty at a time!

Camel toe advocates worldwide salute you and the tensile strength of your undies, Shannon.

[Camelflage, LimeLife]

At home in Nutley, New Jersey, Tanning Mom Petricia Krentcil is living like a regular starlet. Here she is cavorting for the paparazzi, braless and with her clothing askew.

While courting the press, Tanning Mom faced argument from her teenage daughter, who did not approve of the modeling session. The daughter reportedly scolded Tanning Mom, then dragged her back indoors.

Alternate headline for these images: Courtney Stodden, The Twilight Years.

[Daily Mail, images via Splash]

The members of Here We Go Magic were driving in Ohio and picked up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker was director John Waters. Here is their story, as told by guitarist Michael Bloch in an email his record label forwarded to us:

There's a hydro-fracking boom in western Pennsylvania. You can't get a motel room. We had to drive til 4AM, and finally found a Days Inn in eastern Ohio. Getting back on the highway this morning, there was a man at the side of the on-ramp with a sign that read "to the end of Rte 70." Jen wanted to pick him up, but we drove past him. As we passed by, our sound guy said "John Waters." Luke said, "Yep, definitely John Waters." We got off at the next exit and circled back. He was still there. We pulled up, opened the door and asked where he was coming from. "Baltimore," he said. And we said "Get in, sir."

"I wasn't kidding. We really picked up John Waters hitchhiking," bassist Jen Turner tweeted. 'jump' "Mr. Waters is headed across the US. I think we're dropping him in Indianapolis if u want to grab him next," she concluded.

Here We Go Magic has yet to confirm whether the experience of driving around Ohio with John Waters was exactly like the roadtrip in the music video for "How Do I Know." Until we get an official denial, I'd say it's safe to assume it was. [Image via @turnerjen]

We've all been there, posing for Good Housekeeping magazine while inhaling the zesty aroma of a pasta dish so succulent that there's a little movement— ooh— aahh— please turn to page 162 for stain removal tips.

(Well played with that headline, TMZ.)

Poor Dr. Oz, and his much-abused nethers. [TMZ]

Meet Maurizio and Roberto Viel. They are twin brothers who co-own a plastic surgery practice and have performed multiple procedures on one another to increase their resemblance. (Maurizio gave Roberto a nose job; Roberto plumped Maurizio's face.) One surgery they have not performed on each other, however, is their practice's specialty: Penis enlargement.

This is for two reasons: First, the Viel brothers are "comfortable with what nature gave" them. Second, penis enlargement is a very complicated procedure. Robert explained to The Independent that, because penises "have evolved to withstand great stress and changes in size," they "resist almost all attempts to make them permanently bigger." The Independent continues:

Roberto Viel says he has overcome these challenges, and performs about 200 penoplasty operations a year. Sitting at his desk, he pulls out a gold-nibbed pen and draws a penis. It includes the suspensory ligament, which holds up the erect penis. By partially severing it, having accessed it by cutting away a flap of flesh covering the pubic bone, Viel causes the penis to drop, and hang lower by as many as two inches. The length of the erection is not increased, however, and its angle is lower. "If I cut too much it will be like that," Viel says, overlaying his drawing with a drooping outline, "and that's not the best for sex."

Another popular procedures grafting fat from the patient's belly and into his penis, thereby increasing the phallus' girth. That procedure requires one stitch.

In the entrance to the Viels' clinic is a painting depicting the brothers carrying a nude, angelic woman with prominent breast implants. (Painting is behind Roberto at left.) They have practices in London and Dubai.

If you are a TV producer hoping to cast the reality version of Nip/Tuck, please go to the Viel brothers' website, and then email me immediately so I can keep obsessing over these unusual men. [Independent, Facebook, LCAS, images via Facebook, Shutterstock]

Candice is a 31-year-old New Yorker. She met a nice lawyer at a bar and agreed to see The Avengers with him. When she arrived for the date, he was wearing a fedora. The date did not go well.

Afterwards, Candice gave her would-be beau the brush-off via text. He responded with a lengthy message seemingly written for a male friend—in which he griped that his date had been a mere "5.5 out of 10 (average)." Shortly thereafter, he sent a hilariously transparent apology message.

Tragic accidental text, or world's most passive-aggressive "neg"? I'm leaning toward the latter. Here are the messages:

Update: A live dating advice forum has begun in the comments section.

Avowed racist and aspiring butler John Derbyshire is back from literary exile. Fired from The National Review for failing to adequately veil his racism, the Derb has now taken up residence at VDARE, a hate group.

In a column entitled "Who Are We?" the action-packed renaissance man of hate says he is OK with white supremacy:

Leaving aside the intended malice, I actually think "White Supremacist" is not bad semantically. White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with. There have of course been some blots on the record, but I don't see how it can be denied that net-net, white Europeans have made a better job of running fair and stable societies than has any other group.

Non-white supremacy is after all the rule over much of the world, from entire continental spaces like sub-Saharan Africa to individual black-run or mestizo-run municipalities in the U.S.A. I see no great floods into these places by refugees desperate to escape the horrors of white supremacy.

Ultimately, though, Derb settles on a more P.C. moniker for like-minded individuals: "Dissident Right." He says "race realist" or just "conservative" will do in a pinch, too.

Meanwhile, VDARE is raising funds to help pay for Derb's chemotherapy. I support this effort, because if Derb dies then my weird end-of-life interactions with him may necessitate that I write an obituary, and I'm not ready to deal with the strange and frightened feelings this man continually instills in me. [VDARE, image via JohnDerbyshire.com]

For four years, my mother had a crippling fear of death. It started during her first bout with breast cancer. While recovering from her mastectomy, she insisted on driving my father to and from work, so that if he died in a car accident she'd be there to say good-bye. Nobody in our family was allowed to drive in bad weather, lest the vehicles hydroplane and we die. Christmas traditions were banned; anything that reminded my mother of the passing of time reminded her of death. She objected to my teen sleeping habits: "Just lying there all morning, like you are dead. How do I know you are not dead?" Chastised for her morbidity, my mother would snap, "You don't understand."

I didn't understand. Not until she had cancer for the second time, when my mother became the world's most cheerful chemotherapy patient. She had made a full recovery before and was confident she would do it again. She told me not to worry. That was when I became afraid—and had one of those familiar moments of self-recognition all daughters have when they realize they are becoming their mothers.

I realized I was becoming my mother when I became obsessed with death.

To fear death, you must stare into the abyss of human non-existence while believing that you or someone you love is really, truly about to die. With dread, you will obsessively imagine the last moment in which that person is living—followed by a moment in which their entire being vanishes, leaving behind only an embarrassment of flesh, wadded up under a sheet on a hospital bed or slumped against the steering wheel beside a deflating airbag.

The first time my mother had cancer, I did not believe she would die. I'm not sure if I was in denial, or if my subconscious mind had recognized the need for counterbalance in our family dynamic. My main concern was that my mother's transformation into a moody, death-obsessed pessimist might be permanent. I feared she would spend the rest of her sure-to-be long life unhappy.

But four years later, when the cancer returned and took root in my mother's remaining breast, she had no fear at all.

Smiling, she rejected nausea-suppressing medications while nurses marveled at her calm. Giggling, she told me how a particular course of chemotherapy had, as a side effect, awakened an appetite for spicy food for the first time in her life. The toxic chemicals coursing through her veins had actually expanded her horizons. She realized she liked Indian food.

Into the sunshine of my mother's optimism, my fear of death emerged dark and swift. It knocked me down—literally knocked me into my bed where I would lie paralyzed for hours on end, obsessively contemplating death. I imagined the deaths of family members, and what I would do in the aftermath. I wrote frightfully detailed to-do lists for the events of various deaths.

If both parents died in a car crash, I would fly home, take a cab to my parents' house, pay the cabbie, get out of his car, walk up to the porch, set my suitcase on the porch, walk around the house to the place my parents hide their extra key, extract the extra key (note to self: check that key is still there and not too rusty when next at home), walk back to the porch, use the key to open the door, enter the door, shut the door, lock the door. If necessary, sit down next to the door and let self cry.

I knew who to call to get the family finances in order; how to dispose of old clothes; who to invite to various funerals, depending on the nature of my loved ones' deaths. If my brother's girlfriend murdered him, I would not invite as many of their mutual friends. If my mother murdered my brother, I would invite fewer maternal relatives. If I murdered my brother, I would recuse myself from the proceedings.

As a child I had many nightmares. To comfort myself, I reasoned that if I dreamed something horrible, then the horrible thing could not happen in real life. What are the chances that the exact monster I saw in my dream existed in reality? It would be too big a coincidence.

From this dream logic, I extracted a second principle: If I visualized something in vivid detail, it could not come true. It was a reverse-logic The Secret, layered with masochism. If I didn't want to laugh so hard that I wet my pants in front of the boy I liked, I had to imagine myself laughing so hard that I wet my pants in front of the boy I liked. I had to imagine the look of disgust on his face. I had to imagine the feeling of shame.

During the year that I obsessively imagined my loved ones' deaths, I returned frequently to the dream logic of my childhood. By then, however, I knew my thoughts had no impact on reality. If my mother died of cancer, it would not matter whether I had imagined it in detail or never thought about it at all. I would be powerless, and my mother would be gone.

After undergoing a second mastectomy and a year of chemotherapy, my mother made a full recovery. My fear of death receded; my obsessive thinking waned. I came out of the year with a few notebooks full of morbid lists and the knowledge that, one way or another, I was becoming my mother — in fear, in dread, in perverse optimism, and in the inevitability of our deaths.

Illustration by Jim Cooke.

Jamie Lynne Grumet, whose left breast achieved stardom this week by appearing on the cover of Time while inside her nearly four-year-old son's mouth, went on the Today Show to discuss the controversial cover. With son Aram mewling by her side (wouldn't it be great if she'd whipped out a tit and shoved it in his mouth, right then and there?) Jamie explained that attachment parenting "is not for everybody," and that she isn't trying to judge anyone. She also notes that she's getting guff from breastfeeding critics and advocates:

Grumet: I understand some of the breast-feeding advocates are actually upset about this.

Today correspondent Savannah Guthrie: Are they, why?

Grumet: I feel like they don't show the nurturing side to attachment parenting, which is, you know, more—this isn't how we breast-feed at home. It's more of a cradling, nurturing situation, and I understand what [breastfeeding advocates] are saying. But I do understand why Time chose this picture, because it's going to be such a, you know, it did create such a media craze, to get the dialogue.

She's intelligent and frankly quite reasonable. I'm going take Jamie's side on this thing, in part because I find it inspiring that one could bear a child and breastfeed for years on end, and still look that cute. [Today Show]

Meet Aram Grumet. He is one month shy of four years old and he breast feeds. To illustrate a feature package on attachment parenting, Time had Aram stand on a chair and suck his mother's teat while gazing into the camera. The resulting photo will soon be on every newsstand in America.

When I saw this cover, I initially assumed Time had taken a page from Newsweek's stock photo fetish porn playbook. Between Time's boob suck and Newsweek's S&M and royal necrophilia, the waiting room at your dentist's office is now a danger zone for twisted Freudian arousal.

But Aram's photo is not simulated. He is a real boy, and his 26-year-old mother Jamie Lynne Grumet really breastfeeds him and his five-year-old brother. Jamie herself breastfed until age six. As I type this, an image of multigenerational human centipede breastfeeding has entered my mind and will not leave.

The original cover image, acquired exclusively by my co-worker Max Read, was much edgier.

Readers, let us PowWow: How does this cover make you feel? Will it haunt Aram Grumet's* future? Would you rather share a tit with a four-year-old, have S&M sex with a Twilight fan fiction enthusiast, or make love to a British princess' corpse? [Time]

* His last name may not actually be Grumet. It's just his mom's last name.

This month, Vanity Fair's neverending quest to reanimate the corpse of Marilyn Monroe takes the form of "never-before-published pictures" of Monroe. Billed as "The Lost Nudes" on the magazine's cover, the images are outtakes of photos that appeared twice in Playboy—and now Playboy is irate at the suggestion that the photos were "lost."

Vanity Fair describes the photos on its website:

[T]he very next morning, Marilyn was reported dead at 36. One of her final acts had been to return the nude photo to Schiller, which he found waiting for him at his house. She had written, "Send this to Playboy, they might like it."

Playboy retorts on its website:

And, indeed, we did like it. So much that we ran them 48 years ago, in our January 1964 issue, or again in January 2005. Sorry, Vanity Fair. Sometimes when something is too good to be true, it really is too good to be true.

Schiller's essay actually acknowledges that most of the nude photos appeared in Playboy—but not until the last paragraph of the sprawling article:

The agreement for the purchase of the poolside photos of Marilyn with Playboy was concluded in September 1962, but Hefner, not wanting to exploit the circumstances of Marilyn's death, decided not to publish them immediately. He waited until January 1964 issue, which appeared in late November 1963, the week of President Kennedy's assassination.

A Playboy source grumbled by email, "Yeah I'm sure the fact checker buried that in the back of the piece... but they're touting them as lost and exclusive."

By email, a Vanity Fair spokesperson said 12 of their images (mostly black-and-white proofs) had never been published before. Most are similar to Playboy's photos, because that's sort of the way outtakes work. Vanity Fair splashed the "never-published image" at left across two pages of the magazine. Below, the previously published Playboy version, accessed via the iPlayboy archives.

So, technically, neither party is lying. But everyone is splitting hairs, and the moral of the story is that someone needs to smack Graydon Carter upside the head while screaming, MARILYN MONROE IS DEAD, GET TO THE NEXT STAGE OF YOUR GRIEF CYCLE ALREADY. America has been reduced to watching movies about a guy who spent a few days with Marilyn and obsessing over the same few pictures of Marilyn's under boob that we've been obsessing over for half a century. Let the lady rest.

[Vanity Fair, Playboy, iPlayboy]

Previously:

Dear Vanity Fair, Please Stop Putting Old Dead People on Your Cover
Nude Marilyn Monroe Photos: The Gifts That Keep on Giving
Starlets Need to Stop Dressing Up Like Other Starlets for Photo Shoots

After decades of rumored gay bath house orgies and Scientology "cures," John Travolta's sex life is back in the news with sexual battery charges from a pair of male masseurs. Running parallel to the story of John Travolta's rise to fame is the story of his allegedly gay penis' rise to infamy. Now presenting John Travolta: A Portrait of the Actor as the Sum of His Gay Rumors.

1975: TV Breakthrough, Scientology Conversion

Where His Dick Is: Submitting to its first Church of Scientology audits (essentially elaborate confessionals) as the actor converts to the religion from Catholicism. Travolta joined the Church the same year that Welcome Back, Kotter premiered. "Scientology put me into the big time," he said. Years later, Time magazine will report that "high-level [Scientology] defectors claim that Travolta has long feared that if he defected, details of his sexual life would be made public." The Church of Scientology is rumored to peddle homosexuality "cures."

Where His Head Is: Amibitious. Before Welcome Back, Kotter's final season, Travolta will star in 1977's Saturday Night Fever and 1978's Grease.

1983: Totally Hetero in Playgirl

Where His Dick Is: On the cover of Playgirl, in disco movie sequel Staying Alive, and trying to prove it prefers having sex with women. After one film critic says Travolta is on the verge of "turning into a laughing stock," Travolta discusses his gay rumors with Rolling Stone: "They say that about everybody. That's a notorious rumor. They say that about me, Marlon Brando, every male, epecially the first year that you become a star."

Where His Head Is: Successful. In 1983, Travolta dances with Princess Diana at the White House. His star is on the rise.

1990: Gay Bath House Sex, Part I

Where His Dick Is: In the orifices of porn star Paul Barresi from the years of 1983 to 1985, according to a tell-all interview Barresi gives to the National Enquirer five years later. Barresi says he met Travolta at a gym in L.A.: "He wanted to know how much I made for starring in porno movies. I told him four hundred dollars a day. He said, 'Then that's what I'll pay you to be with me.'"

Where His Head Is: Wooing actress and fellow Scientologist Kelly Preston, whom he will marry shortly after the bath house rumor breaks. She will be pregnant during the wedding ceremony.

2006: Male Nanny Kiss

Where His Dick Is: Yearning, one would presume, for male nanny Jeff Kathrein in this photograph depicting the supposedly heterosexual men locking lips on the stairs of Travolta's jet. Six years after this photo is taken, Kathrein's role as a caretaker will be questioned in the wake of the tragic accidental death of Travolta's 16-year-old son Jett. Kathrein discovered the boy after his fatal seizure; the National Enquirer points out that Kathrein—a wedding photographer by profession—participated in a Scientology drug program and was in close proximity but unaware during the teenager's death seizure.

Where His Head Is: In the locker room of Australia's 2006 World Cup team, posing for pictures with superfine specimens of hot male soccer ass, while his PR team issues irate statements insisting Travolta is heterosexual and happily married.

Nov. 2007: Kirk Douglas Kiss

Where His Dick Is: As if to prove that Travolta really does platonically kiss hetero men on the lips, all the time, totally non-sexually, John Travolta's penis does its best to remain flaccid during an on-stage award show liplock with Kirk Douglas.

Where His Head Is: In a wig, hiding male-pattern baldness.

July 2007: 'Plays It Straight' in Drag

Where His Dick Is: Inside a fat suit, pantyhose, and a dress for the gender-bending role of Hairspray's Edna Turnblad. The role of Edna has traditionally gone to gay male drag queens; consequently, Travolta faced a new wave of sexual speculation and accusations Scientology homophobia. The result, according to New York Times film critic Jesse Waters, is a performance that "explores the exhibitionistic and sensual sides of [Edna's] personality."

Where His Head Is: "I'm not playing gay in this," Travolta explained. "I'm playing a woman…. I guess, maybe, if I was in Brokeback Mountain, we'd have another kind of discussion. But this is not that."

2009–2010: Outed Repeatedly by Princess Leia

Where His Dick Is: Getting dragged out of the closet by Hollywood pal Carrie Fisher. In a 2009 column for Out magazine listing ten things gay men should know about straight women, Fisher wrote, "We don't really care that John Travolta is gay." A year later The Advocate asked again about Travolta. "I mean, my feeling about John has always been that we know and we don't care," she replied. "Look, I'm sorry that he's uncomfortable with it, and that's all I can say. It only draws more attention to it when you make that kind of legal fuss."

Where His Head Is: Mourning. Teenage son Jett's death forces Travolta in 2009 to confirm longstanding rumors that Jett suffered from autism—a diagnosis that the Church of Scientology rejects on principle.

Nov. 2010: Gay Bath House Sex, Part II

Where His Dick Is: A tell-all about the gay bathhouses of Los Angeles alleges that Travolta is a frequent and indiscreet participant in homosexual spa sex. Interior designer Robert Randolph describes watching Travolta giving and receiving oral sex, receiving anal sex, and initiating mutual masturbation. Randolph says Travolta visited sex spas "several" times a week: "His taste has changed over the 15 years that I've seen him visiting spas. First he strictly liked black guys. For the longest time if you weren't black, he didn't want you. Then he was into Middle Eastern men. Then it was Mexicans and other Hispanic guys. Then he moved on to Koreans."

Where His Head Is: Socially in flux. Kiss-fectionate nanny Jeff Kathrein ceases to work for the Travoltas, amid reports that he was never identified as a "nanny" before Jett's death, anyway.

Jan. 2011: Boys Only Hotel Party

Where His Dick Is: Less than a month after 49-year-old wife Kelly Preston gives birth to her miracle baby Benjamin, The National Enquirer reports that Travolta has abandoned a "heartsick" Kelly to spend time with three "male pals" at a luxury ski resort. The all-male foursome is spotted "getting the works" at the hotel spa.

Where His Head Is: Occasionally without its wig.

May 2012: 'Reverse Massage' Penis- and Ass-Touching

Where His Dick Is: "Semi-erect," "eight inches," and "unkempt" while grabbing a male masseur's genitals for a "reverse massage," according to a lawsuit made public on Monday. On Tuesday a second masseur came forward with a similar claim: "While he was massaging near Travolta's buttocks area, Travolta would open his legs and spread his butt cheeks open and had a full erection and would maneuver in a way to try to force Doe Plaintiff No. 2 to touch his anus and around his anus."

Where His Head Is: Lawyer-to-the-stars Marty Singer characterizes the accusations as "complete fiction and fabrication."

For reasons nobody can entirely explain, a provocatively dressed Playboy Playmate sashayed across the stage at last night's Mexican presidential debate, causing candidates to ogle openly and igniting some sort of nationwide sex riot, the AP reports.

Julia Orayen has posed nude for Playboy and barely dressed elsewhere, but she made her mark on Mexican minds Sunday night by carrying an urn filled with bits of paper determining the order that candidates would speak. [...] She wore a tight, white dress with a wide, tear-drop cutout that revealed her ample decolletage. The image was splashed across newspaper front pages and websites by Monday.

Orayen's butt derailed the debate entirely. Explained presidential underdog Gabriel Quadri, seen here staring at the lingerie model's ass:

It is impossible not to concentrate your attention on a woman so spectacular.

Berlusconi is said to contemplating a run for the Mexican presidency next. [AP]

A male masseur has filed a $2 million lawsuit against John Travolta, TMZ reports, alleging that a naked and "semi-erect" Travolta offered a "reverse massage" and touched the masseur's penis and testicles during a session at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "Come on dude, I'll jerk you off," the complainant alleges Travolta said.

But then the suit claims Travolta described Hollywood as "controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity." Way to ruin your titillating sex rumor with an anti-semitic conspiracy theory, John Doe. Now none of us can justify believing you, no matter how badly we want to.

Silver lining: "Reverse massage" is a term that will likely come in handy during a future episode of The Client List. [TMZ, image via Getty]

I don't think there's only one conversation you can have about any given topic. You could talk about the substance of Blodget's NYMag article. Or you could talk about the way that article—or any article—lives online. The latter is a more narrow discussion, but also funnier, and the one I felt like starting. I'll leave the discussion of Zuckerberg himself to the tech writers.

Last night at 9:42PM EST, Business Insider CEO and internet aggregation revolutionary Henry Blodget aggregated his own article, thereby shorting out the time-space continuum and causing the grave of Walter Benjamin to go ice cold.

The original six-page article is called "ZUCK! How the Brat Tycoon Became a Brilliant CEO." It bears Blodget's byline and appears in New York. The aggregated article is called "'ZUCK! How the Brat Tycoon Became a Brilliant CEO'." It also bears Blodget's byline, and appears in Business Insider.

On the first page of "ZUCK! How the Brat Tycoon Became a Brilliant CEO," Blodget writes in a first-page-y manner, like so:

If all goes as planned, Facebook will finally pull the trigger later this month on its long-salivated-over IPO. The deal could value the company in the neighborhood of $100 billion, making founder and CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg's own unusually large stake worth $25 billion. It is a huge sum, even in context. Zuckerberg's impending fortune is more money than Wal-Mart's 10,000-plus stores made last year. It's more than Wall Street paid in bonuses to New Yorkers last year. And it has been amassed in only eight years by a 27-year-old who not long ago passed out business cards reading "I'm CEO, bitch."

The Zuckerberg most people know is the one depicted by The Social Network: nerdy, insecure, and shady—in no way a mature adult who's earned such massive wealth. His awkward public appearances over the years have not improved that impression. Zuckerberg may have written the origin—al code for Facebook, the common view of him goes, but the company's success since then—the service is now used by nearly one-eighth of the world's population—has come more despite him than because of him. He was just in the right place at the right time.

But this view sells Zuckerberg massively short. Getting a company to grow as fast as Facebook has is extraordinarily difficult, even when users do a lot of the work. It's even more challenging when you go in having never raised so much as a dollar from investors or managed a single employee, and you're fighting to stay ahead of some of the richest, most aggressive, and most talented companies in the world.

"Mark has done two things in his twenties," a colleague of Zuckerberg says. "He has built a global company, and he has grown up." The second one made the first possible. When early mistakes risked an employee mutiny, Zuckerberg knuckled down and learned how to lead. He made himself the pupil of some of the best bosses in business but had the maturity never to let outsiders sway his overall vision. He got adept at hiring the right people, and, more important, firing senior employees whom the company had outgrown. Appalled at the way he was portrayed in The Social Network, Zuckerberg initially wanted nothing to do with the movie—then, deciding not to let it define him, he rented out theaters in a Mountain View cineplex and bused the entire company over to see it.

"Was he lucky?" another early colleague of Zuckerberg says. "Of course. We're all ridiculously lucky. But you also make your own luck. The world has overlooked how great Mark is as a CEO." He was, yes, in the right place at the right time—but he also has leadership qualities that really set him apart.

As Facebook embarks on its IPO "road show," the question of just how good Zuckerberg is will trail it: His control of the company is such that a bet on the company's stock is a bet on him. Investors will be wagering on an entrepreneur who's committed himself to getting better and better as a leader. But they'll also be betting on one whose commitment to his long-term vision is so deep that he just might drive Wall Street crazy.

When Zuckerberg created "Thefacebook," there were already similar services on other college campuses. Columbia had one. Stanford had one. Yale had one. At Harvard, Zuckerberg's schoolmates the Winklevoss brothers had, famously, been trying to get one off the ground for months. Meanwhile, out in the real world, Friendster had amassed more than 2 million users. There was MySpace. There was AOL, which had established the "friend" concept almost a decade earlier with its instant-messaging system's Buddy Lists.

Today, all those other social networks are effectively toast, while Facebook is closing in on 1 billion users. Why? Because Facebook has executed better. And that starts with Zuckerberg's formidable instincts.

All great consumer-technology products share two attributes, which is that they are cool and easy to use. From the beginning, Zuckerberg knew how to make products that were cool and easy to use. He didn't "overbuild" Facebook, packing it so full of features that people couldn't figure out how to use it. He made "uptime" a huge early priority, only rolling out Facebook to new schools when he was certain that the company's servers and software could handle the traffic load. These steps sound like no-brainers, but they trip up a lot of technology start-ups. Stanford's predecessor to Facebook, for example, was so complicated that it never really caught on. Friendster grew so fast that its infrastructure got swamped: People wanted to log on, but they couldn't. A year later, when Friendster finally fixed the problem, its U.S. users were gone.

The second page of Blodget's article varies widely from the first, in that it is the second page, and thus secondary, in terms of pagination.

Many promising tech companies place too much emphasis too soon on the business rather than the product. They worry too much about "making money." This sounds nuts—aren't companies supposed to make money?—and it sounds especially nuts in the wake of the dot-com bust. But that crash was a product of investors' and analysts' overexuberance (sorry!), not evidence of a fundamental flaw in the tech industry's start-up ecosystem. In a market where ­speed is critical, venture-capital funding allows young companies to move faster than they could if they had to rely only on revenues to fund product development. Entrepreneurs who understand that tend to stick around to make plenty of money later.

MySpace was the last company that had a real shot at stopping Facebook. By 2005, it had more than 5 million users; Facebook hadn't yet reached 1 million. For a while after News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for nearly $600 million, it kept growing, and Rupert Murdoch was lauded as the only "old media" mogul who wasn't a new-media moron. But Murdoch had acquired a flawed service: Rather than forcing its users to interact under their real names—as Facebook did, to the benefit of its social function and its attractiveness as a marketing tool—it allowed them to adopt whatever identity they wanted. Worse, News Corp. was too focused on the business side. MySpace cluttered its pages with ads and underinvested in product development, ­becoming an ad-choked cesspool.

Zuckerberg, notoriously frugal in his own spending, actively disdained Facebook's early business efforts, insisting that ads on the service meet his exacting specifications. Advertising might have been helping to fund Facebook's growth, but advertising wasn't cool. And Zuckerberg wasn't about to let ads ruin Facebook.

Most entrepreneurs are creative and impatient, an often fatal combination—trying to do too many things, they spread their tiny companies too thin. This is one trap Zuckerberg almost fell into. After moving his small Facebook team to Palo Alto in the summer of 2004, he turned much of his attention to building a file-share product called Wirehog. Facebook was going gangbusters, but Zuckerberg wasn't sure it would last; this was his hedge.

Wirehog evolved into one of Facebook's first apps, but it never amounted to much. At the end of that summer, Facebook raised its first real outside capital, and Zuckerberg's focus returned. Focus became so central to Facebook's ethos that in the company's old office, the word was stenciled over a urinal in the bathroom.

As part of Facebook's IPO filing, Zuckerberg, following a tradition established by Jeff Bezos at Amazon and continued by the founders of Google and other iconic tech companies, wrote a letter to potential shareholders. The document lays out his management philosophy and priorities (and relays a warning to a certain kind of stock buyer—which we'll come back to later). The Facebook way, Zuckerberg writes, is to "move fast and break things." It's the last crucial part of his natural feel for the tech business, and it's been critical to his company's success.

When Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook," it blindsided the Winklevosses, with whom Zuckerberg had been working to develop a similar product. The legal settlement Facebook later paid to clean up the resulting mess cost the company millions of dollars, but if Zuckerberg had delayed the launch of his social network—whether to negotiate with the Winklevosses or to perfect the site itself­—Facebook might have missed its window. "Move fast and break things" has continued to drive the company's evolution. Instead of extensively focus-grouping new features, Facebook just rolls them out. Then it listens to users' screams and makes modifications as appropriate. This technique has produced a lot of duds. It has led, on many occasions, to Zuckerberg having to apologize to his users. It has also produced some of the features that, in the minds of users, today are Facebook—such as News Feed. What the critics miss when they blast Facebook for "mistakes" is that the process is deliberate. And it works.

Zuckerberg all but stopped writing code for Facebook in the summer of 2005. At the time, the company had several million users and about 25 employees. It also had plenty of money, having just raised more than $12 million from Accel Partners, at nearly a $100 million valuation. From then on, Zuckerberg became a full-time leader. And in the beginning, he was horrible at it.

Tech-company founders are often young and socially awkward, with "bad hair" (as one Silicon Valley veteran observes), strange work habits, and scant management experience. This makes money people nervous. So for the past couple of decades, the standard playbook has been to have the founder remain CEO until the company reaches a size that outstrips the founder's limited ability to run the business, then bring in a "professional CEO"—an experienced executive—to take over. After the professional CEO arrives, the founder usually becomes a neutered figurehead. (If the founder meddles with the course the new CEO sets, it can lead to the founder getting pushed out entirely.) Companies like eBay and Cisco were built this way, as were hundreds of smaller firms that then sold out to bigger operations, yielding handsome scores for their venture capitalists.

On the third page, Blodget— well— this might be a good moment to admit that I haven't actually read the article, yet. Just copied and pasted.

In recent years, however, a new approach has taken hold. Championed by V.C. firm Andreessen Horowitz, this contrarian philosophy observes that many of the most flourishing and sustainable technology companies have been built by founder CEOs, not outsiders. Microsoft, for example, was for two decades built and run by Bill Gates, another Harvard dropout who knew nothing about management when he started. Bezos had been an investment banker before he launched Amazon in his garage. Oracle is still run by its co-founder, Larry Ellison. And Google's CEO is, once again, co-founder Larry Page.

Many companies that have dumped their founders and gone the professional CEO route, meanwhile, have eventually lost their way: Yahoo, for example, has imploded, and Microsoft has struggled since Gates handed off the company to current CEO Steve Ballmer. And then, of course, there's Apple, which in 1983 recruited the head of Pepsi, John Sculley, to take over, believing that young product visionary Steve Jobs wasn't cut out to steer the company. You know how that turned out.

In industries in which products don't change much—paint, bricks, chemicals—professional CEOs thrive. Companies in these industries don't rise and fall on innovation—they depend on optimization. (Think Coke, which has been selling the same core product for 126 years.) The tech industry works differently. "The nature of technology," Marc Andreessen, the Netscape co-founder who is one of Andreesen Horowitz's chief partners, said at a conference recently, "is that the product is always changing. It's just so rare that you'll have the same product in five years." Apple's recent renaissance began in 2001, with the launch of the iPod. A decade later, the iPod is obsolete, and a staggering two-thirds of Apple's revenue now comes from products it has invented since 2007.

"If you put a sales guy in charge of the company," Andreessen continued, "they'll optimize for the next quarter. Finance guys will optimize the financials." The company's founder will optimize the products—and will often have the vision necessary to drive the company's future innovation. As for the nuts-and-bolts skills necessary to lead a company, those can be learned.

The first thing a leader needs to learn to do is communicate—tell his team where they're going and why. This is especially true when dozens of employees are being hired monthly, each with his own ideas about how to do things and what's best for the company. After Zuckerberg stopped coding at Facebook, though, he didn't communicate—he disappeared. He did so because he hadn't yet learned another critical leadership skill: the art of saying "no."

Having missed out on buying MySpace, Viacom was desperate to buy Facebook. Because Viacom was interested, so was Time Warner. So were Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Zuckerberg had told his employees he didn't want to sell. But he didn't tell that to Facebook's suitors, at least not directly enough. In one classic example reported by David Kirkpatrick in The Facebook Effect, Viacom's lead negotiator, MTV president Michael Wolf, told Zuckerberg that he would be in San Francisco in mid-­December and offered him a ride back to New York for the holidays. Zuckerberg accepted the favor. Then, because Wolf actually hadn't been planning to be in San Francisco and Viacom's planes were booked, he chartered a jet and flew out to the West Coast to pick up his quarry.

While Zuckerberg was getting schmoozed, morale at Facebook deteriorated. Employees began grumbling about the need for a professional CEO. Things got so bad, Kirkpatrick reports, that one of Zuckerberg's senior executives confronted him at 2:30 in the morning in a diner—the only face time she could get. If Zuckerberg wanted to run the company, the executive told him, he needed "CEO lessons."

One quirk of Mark Zuckerberg that frustrates colleagues is that he often doesn't appear to be listening to them. But he is. A week after the diner intervention, Zuckerberg held his first "all hands" meeting. He held more one-on-one meetings with members of his senior team and scheduled an executive retreat. He got better at explaining priorities.

These efforts helped, but they weren't enough to stop tech pundits from howling that Facebook needed to put a grown-up in charge. So Zuckerberg sought more counsel, cultivating a who's who of advisers, including Jobs, Andreessen (now a Facebook board member), Don Graham of the Washington Post, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Accel Partner's Jim Breyer, and Peter Thiel, an iconoclastic investor and entrepreneur who was Facebook's first professional funder. "He's a sponge," one Valley veteran says. "He's always asking questions. ‘What do you think about this? What do you know about that? Who's good at that?' "

Two years ago, at the All Things D technology conference, Zuckerberg participated in a live interview. He walked onstage in his typical attire: blue jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie. But it was hot under the lights. As his interrogators, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal, jumped right in with the touchiest line of questions—about Facebook's incursions on its users' privacy—he began to sweat. That night, all anyone could talk about was how anxious and nervous Zuckerberg had looked.

Now that I've broken the fourth wall and admitted that I am aggregating as thoughtlessly as possible, this blog post has become a "process piece." Aggregation: What Does It Mean in This New Media Economy of Ours, When the Means of Reproduction Is Three Key Strokes and a Click? BTW, here's the fourth page:

But if his delivery was a mess, Zuckerberg's answers to the privacy questions were actually reasonable. Facebook was committed to giving its users full control over their privacy settings. A few minutes later, with Zuckerberg now wiping the sweat from his face with his hoodie sleeve, Swisher asked him, maternally, whether he might like to take it off. (He did.) Toward the end of the conversation, she asked him about the role of the CEO. His answer to this question showed he approaches his job just the right way.

"I've always focused on a couple of things," Zuckerberg said. "One is having a clear direction for the company and what we build. And the other is just trying to build the best team possible toward that … I think as a company, if you can get those two things right—having a clear direction on what you are trying to do and bringing in great people who can execute on the stuff—then you can do pretty well." For Facebook, that last part has proven an understatement.

One of Steve Jobs's famous recruiting techniques was to take potential hires on long walks around Palo Alto while sharing his vision for Apple. A Zuckerberg confidant says he's adopted this tactic and done his idol one better. Near Facebook's old headquarters in Palo Alto is a trail winding up into the mountains. Zuckerberg led recruits up this trail, the source says, and learned to time his pitch so the full "aha" would hit right as the hike culminates in a breathtaking view.

The team Zuckerberg has built at Facebook, one insider argues, is "pound for pound one of the two strongest management teams in the industry," with the other being Apple's. "That did not happen by accident. Mark worked his way through it, position by position."

"Basically, there are two ways to build an organization," a former Facebook employee explains. "You can be really, really good at hiring, or you can be really, really good at firing." Zuckerberg has been really good at firing. "We made some hires that weren't the right ones. And we were pretty good at correcting that quickly. Mark deserves the credit for identifying and following through with that." In other cases, key personnel who were good fits simply got outgrown by the company. It can be even harder to jettison those kinds of employees, whose contributions have earned them the loyalty of business partners and colleagues. But here too Zuckerberg did not flinch.

Sean Parker, for example, joined Facebook in the summer of 2004 as the company's first president. He kept Facebook on track when Zuckerberg's attention wandered to Wirehog and helped raise the company's first rounds of outside capital. Most crucially, he did something that will allow Zuckerberg to maintain almost complete control over Facebook for as long as he wants to control it.

Parker, who'd been ousted from both Napster and a later startup, a digital Rolodex service called Plaxo, became obsessed with making sure Zuckerberg didn't suffer the same fate. In conjunction with raising $500,000 from Thiel, Parker helped restructure Facebook's voting stock. Zuckerberg today holds 57 percent of those shares, which means that no one, including Facebook's board members, can legally force him to do anything. This level of control in the hands of one shareholder is extraordinary, and it's already raising hackles on Wall Street. But it was crucial to getting Zuckerberg comfortable with taking Facebook public, because it means he won't be compelled to take shortcuts to appease impatient shareholders.

For all Parker brought to Facebook, though, his party-boy ways were deemed too great a liability for him to have a future at the company. Within a year of Parker's joining the company, he was forced out.

Parker's departure made room for Owen van Natta, a former Amazon executive hired as head of business development and then promoted to chief operating officer. The 36-year-old Van Natta was Facebook's first real adult supervision. There were 26 employees when he joined, only two of whom were over 30 years old. During his tenure the staff grew to hundreds, and he had helped hire a lot of them.

Van Natta also got Facebook's business engine running, assembling its first sales and finance teams and negotiating an investment from Microsoft in 2007 that valued the company at $15 billion. Revenue increased from less than $1 million to more than $150 million. At heart, though, Van Natta was a start-up guy. He thrived on the loosely organized chaos of a young company growing at hyperspeed. His greatest strength was deal-making, not management. In early 2008, in the wake of the disastrous launch of an advertising product called Beacon, Facebook's senior team determined that the company needed a different kind of executive running the business. So Zuckerberg let Van Natta go.

For page five, let's elevate the conversation: Would you prefer to read a Henry Blodget article for New York Magazine at NYMag.com, BusinessInsider.com, or Gawker.com? Discuss.

"The criticism [of CEOs like Zuckerberg] is that they're overly Machiavellian and don't care about people," says a former Facebook executive fired by Zuckerberg. "But this is really what is required to build a long-term sustainable business." The executive added that while many people canned by Zuckerberg over the years feel screwed over, he couldn't think of any instance in which Zuckerberg was actually unfair. "He is not a bad guy," the executive says. "Maybe he's not a good guy, but he's not a bad guy."

Removing Van Natta made it possible for Zuckerberg to hire Sheryl Sandberg, one of the most important moves he has ever made. (A longtime Facebook exec calls the subsequent partnership between Zuckerberg and Sandberg "a blessing from the gods.") Zuckerberg spent more than 50 hours wooing her away from Google, where she had built and run the online-sales organization. According to a New Yorker article by Ken Auletta, after meeting at a Christmas party in 2007, they had several sit-downs over the next couple of months—first at a café in Atherton, near Sandberg's house; then, because that was too public, in Sandberg's kitchen (at the time Zuckerberg was living in a tiny apartment with barely any furniture). When the tech elite flew to Davos for the World Economic Forum that January, Zuckerberg rode with Sandberg and the gang on Google One—the 767 owned by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The two spent the flight huddled conspiratorially—a fact that did not go unnoticed within Google. In addition to her being phenomenally good at the job Facebook needed doing—building and managing a global corporation—Zuckerberg found another attribute appealing: She was okay being No. 2. Most of the executives Facebook considered for the COO slot admitted that they would eventually like to be in charge. Facebook already had its CEO, so this was a nonstarter.

For some Zuckerberg skeptics, it's the quality and stability of the management team he has built that's made them believers. To attract and retain people like Sandberg, who don't need to work and can work anywhere, he has had to first be a good boss—talented people don't like working for assholes—and, second, to let go of aspects of his company that another founder might have clung to. One former Facebook executive believes that the management blunders Zuckerberg made in Facebook's early years are part of what has made his partnership with Sandberg work so well. The former exec likens this experience to the mistakes he made in relationships before he got married: "All that learning and fucking up in the past is what makes me a great husband."

The Zuckerberg-Sandberg duo has been so successful—annual revenues have increased from $150 million to nearly $4 billion since she came aboard—that it has now become a new model for tech company-building. Instead of replacing the quirky founder with a professional CEO, companies now try to "go get a Sheryl."

When talking about Zuckerberg's most valuable personality trait, a colleague jokingly invokes the famous Stanford marshmallow tests, in which researchers found a correlation between a young child's ability to delay gratification—devour one treat right away, or wait and be rewarded with two—with high achievement later in life. If Zuckerberg had been one of the Stanford scientists' subjects, the colleague jokes, Facebook would never have been created: He'd still be sitting in a room somewhere, not eating marshmallows.

Most Wall Street investors would perform miserably on the marshmallow test. Over the past couple of decades, as the money-management business has gotten ever more competitive, they have elevated the narrowly defined concept called "shareholder value" to an absurdly exalted status. Shareholder value, in the minds of most investors, is synonymous with "today's stock price." If today's stock price is higher than yesterday's stock price, a company's management is said to have "created" share­holder value. If today's stock price is lower, management "destroyed" it. It doesn't matter that the decisions and priorities that boost stocks in the short term—such as inflating this year's earnings by firing people or cutting product-development spending—are often at odds with decisions and priorities that create greater value over the long haul.

Nor does this obsessive focus on stock prices recognize that companies are a lot more than ticker symbols. They create jobs that employ people. They create products that help people. They devote resources to ensure that they'll keep creating this value for decades, despite the fact that these investments reduce their near-term profits. In other words, these companies create societal value. As Warren Buffett and a handful of other investors have often observed, this balanced approach allows such companies to create huge value for some shareholders: the ones who stay put for the long term.

Yowza! Now check out the powerful, page-six-y manner in which Blodget closes his six-page article. Here's the sixth page, in all its page six glory, sixing and paging all over the place:

It often takes decades to build the sort of companies that the best executives and entrepreneurs hope to create. It can take so long that by the time this value is finally created, many short-term investors will have long since jettisoned their positions. In the last couple of decades, no company has better illustrated this than Amazon. After Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos ignored skeptics who claimed that the ­company "couldn't make money," and then, when Amazon finally proved these nay­sayers wrong, he ignored those who complained that Amazon should make more money. All the while, he kept on investing. Five years ago, for example, when Bezos decided that the world was ready for e-books, he poured resources into the Kindle at the expense of Amazon's bottom line.

Bezos's philosophy has created enormous value for Amazon's customers. It has created more than 65,000 jobs. And it has also created mind-boggling value for Amazon's long-term shareholders: At a recent price of $225, the stock is trading at about 130 times its IPO price. But that growth did not follow a straight-upward line. When the tech bubble burst, Amazon's stock tanked. While the company continued to invest in the future at the expense of the present, the stock crawled along sideways for years. Impatient shareholders took losses, then missed out on the windfall when Amazon's share price started to climb in 2007.

The letter that Zuckerberg included in Facebook's IPO prospectus is even more direct about his priorities than Bezos's was. Zuckerberg wrote this letter himself, a ­Facebook source says, and it begins with the following sentence: "Facebook was not originally created to be a company."

Rather, Zuckerberg explains, Facebook "was built to accomplish a social mission—to make the world more open and connected." Then Zuckerberg reveals why he's telling us this: "We think it's important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do." Later, he spells out it out again. "We don't build services to make money; we make money to build better services."

For short-term investors, the letter amounts to three-alarm klaxon: "Don't buy this stock!" Because not only is Zuckerberg declaring that he considers Facebook's social mission a higher priority than Facebook's business and financial mission—a view many on Wall Street would consider treasonous—he also has complete control over the company. All shareholders will be able to do if they disagree with his decisions is complain. And Zuckerberg has long since demonstrated that he's willing to withstand bitching while he executes his plan.

In early April, Zuckerberg did something that started his critics grumbling anew about his stewardship of Facebook. With the then-rumored IPO date only a month or so away, he decided to buy a little mobile photo-sharing company called Instagram that had no revenue and only thirteen employees. He spent $1 billion of Facebook's stock and cash to acquire it—without asking anyone else's permission or advice.

The billion-dollar price tag, many pundits concluded, was clear evidence that the tech bubble was back—an assessment that called into question Facebook's valuation at a critical moment. A corporate governance expert told The Wall Street Journal that Zuckerberg's Instagram move was exactly the sort of situation from which boards were supposed to protect minority shareholders.

But experienced tech executives concluded that the deal was shrewd. For the equivalent of around one percent of Facebook's value, Zuckerberg had bought one of the hottest companies in the white-hot mobile sector, an area where Facebook was weak. He had stolen Instagram out from under an emerging rival, Twitter, and he had eliminated a potential competitor to Facebook's vital photo-sharing function—both of which will protect the company's bottom line as the industry evolves. He had done the deal in a weekend, because he still believes in moving fast.

It's true that in the process, he threatened to delay Facebook's IPO as the company scrambled to update its SEC paperwork. But to Zuckerberg, a minor IPO delay would have been of little consequence. As CEO, he has more important things to think about.

What the hell just happened here? To find out, click some other article. Watch this space. Twitter. Share. Buzz. Obama. Double penetration. Skrillex.

Update: Please join in on the fun of this comment thread, featuring Nick Denton.

[NYMag, Business Insider]