The publisher of the St. Augustine (FL) Record is asking readers to gather in the paper's offices each night to help proofread pages. "A nice dinner for two to the person who helps us catch the most typos and errors," she writes. God, that is humiliating. Related
The publisher of the St.
What Is a Kennedy Doing Weedsplaining Pot's Dangers to Barack Obama?
Patrick Kennedy—former congressman, son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy—got on MSNBC last night to tell Barack Obama that, contrary to the president's recent statements, marijuana is terribly, terribly dangerous. It was a bizarre message. It was even weirder, considering the messenger.
Last week, Obama made waves when he acknowledged in a long New Yorker profile
Not so, Kennedy argued on Monday's Hardball With Chris Matthews, in weird fashion. He was there in his capacity as a co-founder of something called Smart Approaches to Marijuana, and here's what he said:
Most of us know about this issue anecdotally... I think the president needs to speak to his NIH director in charge of drug abuse, Nora Volkow, because [she] would tell the president that, in fact, today's modern, genetically modified marijuana, so it's much higher THC levels, far surpass the marijuana that the president acknowledges smoking when he was a young person. So that he is wrong when he says that it isn't very harmful...
If you have a predisposition to addiction, this is going to be a gateway… I was lucky, Chris, I got in and crashed early because I used harder drugs. Marijuana is insidious. You could be using it for most of your life and not wake up to the fact that you're on a slow train to nowhere. And that's the damaging part about marijuana for our country.
Bully for Kennedy for being upfront about his own battles with addiction. Upfront, but not entirely honest. And as a result, he's not very honest in how he attacks the president.
Yes, it's true that Kennedy was addicted to cocaine and Oxycontin. He went to rehab for other prescription drugs, including Ambien, after a car crash in Washington. He also went to Alcoholics Anonymous, with a congressman as a sponsor. In calling himself "lucky" for not having gone down a pot-paved road, he seems to miss two points: First, his real luck was having the financial and family resources, available to very few, to afford both hard drugs and drug addiction treatments. Second, it's pretty easy to become addicted to harder stuff even if you never touch the herb.
In fact, if there was a gateway drug in Kennedy's life, it may very well have been alcohol, and that was the crux of Obama's statement: not that pot is harmless, but that it's no more dangerous than booze. And the science on that point seems to agree with the president.
Led by a characteristically rambling Matthews, Kennedy never really answers this point—except in this weird elision, in which he complains about the power of the alcohol and tobacco industries:
I mean, if the president feels alcohol is worse than tobacco, what's he prepared to do? And I'll tell you, the president won't be able to do a thing. Why? Because alcohol is too powerful an industry to change. And right now, we have a chance to stop another for-profit industry from targeting our public health.
Leave aside the fact that Kennedy's family wealth is built in no small part upon liquor importation during Prohibition. Here, the former congressman's argument seems to be: Oh, well, we have these huge vice industries that we can't possibly rein in! They're already an unchangeable fact of our lives! Do we really need another such industry?
That is unbelievably defeatist talk from a former Democratic legislator, who knows firsthand the evils of drink, and the power of regulation. What accounts for Kennedy's rage against a legal weed industry and his acquiescence to the booze and cigarette makers?
As Reason's Mike Riggs points out, it might help to know that as a congressman, Kennedy earned thousands in campaign contributions from those latter industries—and that after Congress, he co-founded SAM with Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to Obama's first drug czar, and a man known alternately as pot legalization's "Enemy No. 1" and "the quarterback of the new anti-drug movement"—a label Sabet proudly includes in his SAM bio.
In fact, despite its name SAM appears to be committed to continuing criminalization of marijuana use above all. Its sparse list of affiliates includes Drug-Free Hawaii, a Maryland county-level "partnership for alcohol and other drug abuse," and a Missouri group that "seeks to halt to any legislative efforts to legalize the use of marijuana." SAM's online presentations include "Marijuana and the Teen Brain" and "But What About the Children's 12 Provisions to Prevent A Marijuana Industry from Targeting Children."
SAM is not organized as a traditional non-profit, so no immediate details about its finances were available. But if its purpose is to rebrand and renew the anti-legalization movement, cutting against the grain of public opinion, it might want to find a better spokesman than Patrick Kennedy and a better message than his confusing tangle of personal anecdotes and misremembered science.
Here's video of the full, surreal MSNBC segment, including a Kennedy cousin and a purring Matthews:
Former Virginia Governor Indicted on Corruption Charges
Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, have both been indicted on federal corruption charges related to their acceptance of more than $160,000 in gifts from the CEO of Star Scientific, a Virginia dietary supplement manufacturer.
U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente delivered the 43-page indictment in Richmond on Tuesday afternoon, ending months of speculation about the extent and seriousness of the McDonnells’ ties to Star Scientific’s former CEO, Jonnie Williams, Sr. McDonnell, whose term as governor ended in early January, admitted in July 2013 that Williams provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and loans to him and his wife, but denied he used his power as governor to favor Williams’s company.
The couple’s attorney responded to the indictment charges with a statement attributed to the former governor:
I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship. I never promised – and Mr. Williams and his company never received – any government benefit of any kind from me or my Administration. We did not violate the law, and I will use every available resource and advocate I have for as long as it takes to fight these false allegations, and to prevail against this unjust overreach of the federal government.
The charges introduce even more uncertainty into the future of McDonnell’s political career. Prior to a comprehensive Washington Post investigation last year, the Republican had been considered a leading contender for higher office—including President—on the basis of his clean reputation and Virginia’s economic success during his tenure. In August 2013—after the Post revealed his ties to Williams—the Romney campaign chose McDonnell to announce that Paul Ryan would join their ticket. He was also rumored to be on Romney’s shortlist for a running partner.
[Photo credit: Associated Press]
This 8-Year-Old Dancer on India's Got Talent Is Amazing
Eight-year-old Akshat Singh is a contestant on India's Got Talent. Judging from this video, the other contestants might as well quit now.
Backflips, splits, breakdancing: the kid does it all. And he's been at it for some time. Here's a video of him from when he was five.
[h/t the Daily Dot]
Woman Tapes Encounter With Teacher Who Allegedly Molested Her
When the statute of limitations for sexual abuse came up before one California woman could work up the courage to report her abuser, she took the matter into her own hands. A California woman identifying herself as Jamie, claiming that a teacher had molested her, said she recently found the teacher's phone number and confronted her. Jamie taped the whole conversation.
The now-28-year-old Jamie claims the abuse began when she was just twelve years old. Her video of the confrontation, posted on Friday, has already garnered over 397,000 views on YouTube. "The stature of limitations has already run out," Jamie explains in the video, "so she gets away with everything that she has done. So I decided I'm going to call her to get some answers from her."
The former teacher, who is now an assistant principal at a high school, seems understandably shocked at the voice from the past. "I was only twelve years old when I met you," Jamie tells her. "Do you realize that you brainwashed me and manipulated me and that what you did was wrong?"
Though no one has confirmed whether the woman on the other end of the line is truly the former teacher, many news outlets have linked the video's spread to the resignation of a local vice-principal. The Los Angeles Times reports:
Alhambra Unified School District Superintendent Laura Tellez-Gagliano said school staff received an email with a link to the video on Friday and immediately reported it to the Alhambra Police Department.
Alhambra police contacted Jamie and verified the authenticity of her claims in the video before referring the complaint to the Riverside Police Department, according to a news release.
Later that day, Tellez-Gagliano said, Alhambra High School's vice principal of student services, Andrea Cardosa, resigned.
Full video below.
CEO Lex Fenwick Out at Dow Jones
All good things must come to an end. The Chief Executive Officer of Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones, Lex Fenwick, is leaving the News Corp subsidiary, according to an announcement posted on the company’s website. Fenwick joined Dow Jones in 2010 after 25 years at Bloomberg LP, and oversaw the development of DJX, a product designed to compete with Bloomberg LP’s wire service. Fenwick was also the subject of an ex-Bloomberg employee’s unhinged resignation letter. The pertinent bit:
{Fon Lex fen} *Former CEO* …I'd love to smack the heroine needle out of your arm and shove it up your purple suited arsse you loud mouth tasteless family size bag o' douche…no wonder you're always screaming at everyone, you probably need a fix you amy winehouse hermaphradite bbc walking fashion fopa….quiet the fuk down, join narcotics anonymous, and stop wearing suits that match the neon colored rooms of the building….peter g. Runs the show, everyone knows that, fukin court jesture…and soomee, rock on…done
News Corps’ Chief Operating Officer, William Lewis, will fill in for Fenwick until a permanent replacement is found.
[Photo credit: Getty Images]
Opposition leaders (claiming that the Ukrainian government has been deliberately provoking violence
Opposition leaders (claiming that the Ukrainian government
Lena Dunham Helps Some Dude Sell a Couch on Craigslist
Some guy who likes Girls needed to sell a couch in Brooklyn on Tuesday. So he posted a picture of his couch on Craigslist, comparing the giant piece of furniture to the perpetually nude Lena Dunham. Because if you're going to buy a used couch on Craigslist from some guy in Gowanus, it's best that it resemble a famous person you've never met.
But while the couch may or may not be similar to Dunham, the insufferable ad sure is:
Selling a classy beautiful sexy REAL and relatable couch that's comfortable. This is basically the Lena Dunham of couches. This is just..like a couch I don't know why everything needs a label like we're fruit or something and you just have to pick them off or sometimes you swallow them and don't even notice.
Is it OKAY for us to talk about a regular and normal couch being sexy? Can we recognize that?
It's a real couch being a real couch and we don't see much of that in living rooms. Finally, a couch that is just like a couch you know or grew up with but it's new and it's okay for this couch to be pretty and sexual and everyone doesn't have to freak out about it. I think that couches get stuck in a vortex of comfort vs. sexuality and it's all just...life. And we need to get over it.
$200 it's yours. Got it Macy's for over $800 less than two years ago.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
Soon after putting the ad on Craigslist, Mickey Dwyer, the poster, reached out to Dunham on Twitter, asking for help getting rid of microfiber Dunham clone:
.@lenadunham Will you help me sell my couch? I have less followers than you and need it outta here. http://t.co/KI29PhAF0z Thanks. #couch
— Mickey Dwyer (@mickey_dwyer) January 21, 2014
And what do you know? Dunham retweeted Dwyer's request because that's just what a sexy, regular couch would do.
Lena Dunham, ladies and gentlemen! Saving the children and couches of Brooklyn, one RT at a time.
No word yet on whether or not the couch has sold, but there's always a chance prospective buyers could see the couch in person and decide they aren't into it
[h/t Buzzfeed. Image via Craigslist]
Suspect Shares Police Facebook Status About Him, Is Quickly Arrested
A police department got a lucky break earlier this week when an accused criminal accidentally shared the department's Facebook post about his status as a fugitive. Police arrested the man less than an hour later.
Police in Freeland, Pennsylvania have been looking for Anthony James Lescowitch since July 14, when he allegedly committed several crimes, including aggravated assault. On Monday night, the police department posted the following message to their Facebook page:
For reasons that aren't clear, Lescowitch then shared the status, which the department immediately noticed. From USA Today:
An officer pretending to be an attractive woman then messaged Lescowitch, according to police. Lescowitch refused the offer of a drink but eventually agreed to meet for a cigarette, and was arrested at the agreed-upon location.
Not long after the arrest, the Freeland Police Department updated their status.
As of Tuesday, Lescowitch remained in jail. He faces a preliminary hearing Jan. 29 on charges including aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct.
[via Uproxx]
Comedian Trolls the Drunks of the Long Island Railroad
The birthplace of the beer-filled aisle slip-and-slide, the LIRR has long been a fertile ground
So Corey Cohen's new LIRR series, "Off-Peak/Late Night," seems like a long time coming. The comedian, armed with a e-cigarette he pretends is a microphone, just asks a few questions and lets semi-coherent drunk Long Island be semi-coherent drunk Long Island.
"Uh, the meaning of life, I would say, is uh, fuck bitches, get money."
Drunk or sober, however, New Yorkers seem to know their politics. Cohen can't get anyone to comment on Obama shutting down the George Washington Bridge
But in the process, he does invent a new sport: drunk luggage rack racing.
Patti LaBelle Calls Out "Little Heifers" Unfit To Be Called Divas
We already know that there are several things that Patti LaBelle does not give a fuck
That word is used so loosely that I don't even consider myself a diva. I always considered myself a woman who sings her heart out and who gives 120 percent. "Diva" is a word that I wouldn't wanna call myself because it's so loosely used. It's not cute anymore...because all these little heifers who can't sing are called divas! It doesn't mean anything to me and probably to some of the other ladies who have been doing it for as long as I have: Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick. You know, I'm speaking for me - I don't know if they like to be called divas - but I know I wouldn't call them divas, because it's not in good company...Now you can look up to [so-called divas], but you might not see what you wanna see. A hot mess! People who are doing it and doing it with about 40 people on stage with them to hide their pitifulness - that's not a word, but you know what I mean.
(Actually, pitifulness is a word, or was, I guess. If Miss Patti says no, then the answer is no.)
These veteran performers can teach us so much about expanding our lexicon of epithets. "All these little heifers" is my favorite mean thing someone has said about someone else since Dionne Warwick called Nikki Taylor a "hussy" on The Celebrity Apprentice.
What else does Patti LaBelle not give a fuck about? A brand of water apparently. Here is her answer to a question about her trademark honesty getting her into trouble:
At this show in - oh, I don't know where I was this past weekend - but I said something that was totally gross and my son, who's my manager, stands in the back and watches everything, and when I come off (stage) he kills me. He killed me. "Mom, how could you say that?" I said, "It just slipped out." It was something about drinking water. It was something about a particular kind of water that I hate. I was just dissing the water but (he said), "Don't talk about it, because they might sue." Chris, I do a lot of things that after I do them I say, "Why?"
Don't we all, Patti?
One last thing: Here's what Miss Patti says she'd do if elected president:
I would let everyone gay who wants to get married - no matter what city, what country, what state - say "I do." That would be my first order. Everybody say "yes" to gay marriages.
So, uh, let's make Patti LaBelle president, then. The information in this post is literally all I need to put my full support behind her.
[Image via Getty]
All Bloody Hell Is Breaking Loose in Ukraine Today
The anti-government protests in Kiev
All three of the protesters died Wednesday, as fires raged across the city and police brought in armored personnel carriers to clear the ramparts, according to Reuters:
Two of the dead men perished from bullet wounds, Ukraine's general prosecutor said, and the third died after plunging from the top of Dynamo football stadium while fighting with police.
In an attempt to disperse the crowd, forces under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich used creepy geolocating technology to send an ominous text message to the phones of everyone near the protest zone: "Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance." The government recently criminalized participation in such protests.
[AP Photo: A protester points a handgun during a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine, on Wednesday.]
Rob Ford: The Dancehall Remix
From our friends at Animal NY. Bumbaclot.
Sheryl Sandberg Is a New Billionaire
Thanks to Facebook stock closing higher than ever, Bloomberg reports the company's COO
Sandberg has liquidated a large chunk of her even larger stake in Facebook, but there's still a whopping $750 million in shares on her plate. Add that to the few hundred million she's made from stock sales, book royalties, and already being rich before she worked at Facebook, and you can definitely say Sheryl Sandberg is doing just fine.
"Did she do a billion dollars-worth of work? I don't know,"David Kirkpatrick, author of "The Facebook Effect," a history of the company, said in a telephone interview. "She had the good fortune to land in the right place where her talents could really be applauded."
That inevitable run for office will be well-funded, for sure.
Photo: Getty
Cop Avoids Charge for Shooting Unarmed Young Black Man Who Sought Help
A North Carolina grand jury has decided not to indict a Charlotte police officer arrested last year for manslaughter after he unloaded 10 rounds from his pistol into a former college athlete who'd sought the officer's help
Members of the grand jury said there wasn't enough evidence to indict Randall Kerrick, 28, of the felony charge, asking prosecutors to refile the case with lesser charges, according to NBC News. But prosecutors say the entire grand jury wasn't present for that vote, and they want to try again for manslaughter.
Kerrick earned infamy last year when he shot Jonathan Ferrell, 24, a former Florida A&M football player, 10 times in the middle of the night last September. Ferrell had crashed his car in what police called "a pretty serious accident," and he was reportedly seeking help while in distress. After a nearby homeowner called police, Ferrell staggered toward the officers who arrived on the scene. That's when Kerrick shot the man. Again: 10 times.
According to NBC:
George Laughrun, Kerrick's attorney, told The Charlotte Observer that Kerrick "feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders."
"He's extremely relieved that the grand jury members saw fit to keep an open mind and not listen to all the propaganda on all the things he did wrong," Laughrun said.
At risk of prejudicing future jurors, here are a few things it sounds like Kerrick might have done wrong:
- Aimed his service weapon, took its safety off, and pulled the trigger.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Pulled the trigger again.
- Probably pulled it a few more times, since he likely didn't hit Ferrell with every shot.
Outside of that, yes, Kerrick probably did everything right.
[Photo credit: AP]
Bill Cosby Will Return to Primetime in New NBC Family Comedy
It was announced on Wednesday that Bill Cosby has signed a deal with NBC to star in a new half hour comedy. According to Deadline, Cosby and producer Tom Werner are currently meeting with writers on the off-season development project.
The description of the show is as expected:
The new comedy will be built around Cosby, who will play the patriarch of a multi-generational family and, like the comedian's previous family sitcoms – Cosby Show and Cosby on CBS —will channel his take on marriage and parenting
The 76-year-old actor expressed his interest in doing a family show last year, telling Yahoo TV that viewers are longing for a return of wholesome television:
"They would like to see a married couple that acts like they love each other, warts and all, children who respect the parenting, and the comedy of people who make mistakes. Warmth and forgiveness. So I hope to get that opportunity, and I will deliver the best of Cosby, and that will be a series, I assume, that we could get enough people week after week after week to tune in to, to come along with us."
With the low ratings and the looming cancellation of The Michael J. Fox Show, execs at NBC had to act fast to fill their flailing comedy lineup. Because if audiences didn't take to a show starring an aging and beloved NBC sitcom star last year, maybe they'll take to a show starring an aging and beloved NBC sitcom star this year? Worth a shot!
[Image via AP]
Watch Noel Gallagher Talk Shit About Old Oasis Videos
If you thought Oasis videos were terrible, you're not the only one: Even Noel Gallagher, the band's guitarist and principal songwriter, thought they were shit, or some of them at least.
Never one to hold back, Gallagher shared his scathing opinions on the DVD for 2010's Time Flies Oasis retrospective, and they were recently compiled by a bored YouTube user. Some of his better zingers include:
"Who fucking watches videos these days? No one."
"A bag of shite, that. What a waste of an afternoon."
"I have to say about all these videos: If you needed four guys to walk around in slow motion, we were the best at that."
"Oh, I was fucking drunk in this video."
Sadly,
there's no commentary from his brother, Liam.
[h/t Vulture]
Breathtaking Photographs from the Fiery Protests Rocking Ukraine
Two months of largely peaceful protests in Kiev, Ukraine, turned violent today
[Protesters prepare to clash with police in central Kiev on Wednesday. Image via Efrem Lukatsky/AP.]
[A protester points a handgun during a clash with police in central Kiev on Wednesday. Image via Efrem Lukatsky/AP.]
[Footage of the protests was streamed on EspressoTV earlier today. Image via @nycjim/Twitter.]
[Protesters clash with police in central Kiev early Wednesday morning. Image via Evgeny Feldman/AP.]
[Protesters clash with police in central Kiev on Wednesday. Three people have died in clashes between protesters and police, according to medics on the site. Image via Sergei Chuzavkov/AP.]
[A protester throws a Molotov cocktail during clashes with police in central Kiev on Wednesday. Image via Efrem Lukatsky/AP.]
[Tires burn in the street, set alight by protesters in clashes with police in central Kiev on Wednesday. Police tore down protester barricades and chased demonstrators away from the site of violent clashes. Image via Sergei Grits/AP.]
[Protesters in Kiev burn a Soviet flag during clashes with police on Wednesday. Image via @MSR_int/Twitter.]
[A protester waves a Ukrainian national flag in front of police line in central Kiev on Wednesday. Image via Sergei Grits/AP.]
[lead image via Darko Vojinovic/AP.]
Betas, a Struggling Silicon Valley Comedy, Deserves a Chance
If Betas
It's important because startups and the emotion-deficient quasi-humans who create them make for terrific new narrative fodder that's still underused in Hollywood. The Social Network proved that a story about a vengeful nerd and diluted equity could be enormously compelling. But Silicon Valley-focused follow-ups have been slow: A (very shitty) Bravo reality show, an impending Mike Judge project on HBO, and now, Betas, which orbits around four struggling San Francisco geeks and their nascent dating app, BRB. Betas is able to make a story of four young men struggling to build and secure funding for a startup entertaining. That alone is a feat! But it's not enough.
I was excited to dig in to Betas—free for all Amazon Prime subscribers—because of what I thought it might be. Startups have become just another part of the American economy—no less mundane than the paper-supply company featured in The Office. But "startup life," such as it is, is still unexplored and unmocked. And what a shame! The characters should write themselves, and there's no shortage of idiocy to borrow. This is what Betas could do so well—be the first show to give Silicon Valley the skewering it deserves.
It doesn't, yet. Betas is uneven to the point of frustration. Its plotlines veer sharply from the spot-on (an investor's decadent party, hackathons, the conniving press) to the pointless, silly, and convoluted (an amateur wrestling league).
The two male leads, the cofounders of BRB, are played immaculately by Joe Dinicol and Karan Soni. Dinicol's Trey and Soni's Nash are emotionally stunted best friends and Stanford dropouts. That should sound plenty familiar. The former fancies himself a sort of behoodied David Karp pseudo-stud, certain his derivative app is going to be the next mammoth. The latter is a quivering, shy, petrified, and doubts the merit of BRB and himself. (He's probably right!) The pair would look natural onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt, and their characterization is one of the few things Betas' creators have nailed: the co-founder personality voids, barely equipped for business and poorly equipped for life.
The other two protagonists, also working on BRB, are either dead weight or in need of serious recalibration. Hobbes (Jon Daly) is funny, but out of place. His racist-loser-sex-addict schtick doesn't jibe with the rest of the techie dullards (who hired him?), and his stream of zingers wears you down. He seems like he was photoshopped into the cast from another show to keep Betas lively, as if the creators weren't confident enough to have a crew of authentically weirdo startup folk—but Hobbes is more obnoxious than anything else.
So too is Mitchell (Charlie Saxton) is a nebbishy mistake of a character, whose painful dialogue sounds algorithmically generated, ripped from awful Reddit memes and things your mother guesses you text your friends. No one alive is so awful that they say "cray cray" and "mad props, yo"—hearing both from one character will make you consider canceling Amazon Prime.
Resist that urge. Struggle through the mediocre parts of Betas, the lazy caricatures and forced references, and there are rewards. The Jordan Alexis character, reporter for tech gossip rag Valleysmash (heh) and apparent Alexia Tsotsis clone, is the demon blogger my peers and I deserve, although none of us are as charming or attractive. Venture capitalist George Murchison is every self-important white asshole elder of Silicon Valley, right down to inviting Moby to his gauche parties, and falling for the premise of BRB.
And if there's one thing that makes me doubt the whole of Betas, it's that we're asked to back BRB, too. The amount of cognitive dissonance you'll encounter when the show pushes you to hope these kids succeed with their very obviously bad startup might be too much for you—it was for me. Through the whole of the season, we get plenty of lovely jabs at coddled tech bullshitting—the complimentary Red Bull and beers, the hideous offices, San Francisco coffee fetishism—but never at BRB itself. These are manchildren, babies who've been given a shot at making a dumb app for lazy people into a big business.
That deserves to be laughed at more than any of the dick jokes or ethnic cracks, but the show never goes there. We're treated to lots of app references shoehorned in to standard sitcom jokes, and superficial slaps at the Valley, but startups per se are never sufficiently lampooned. When they are—as with a stolen electronics dealer who scoffs at being paid in BRB equity, or office mates working on crowdsourced tequila—the show sings. When tech is just a prop, Betas bores.
But there's greatness and talent here, and a sharpened second season would feel less like a poor man's Big Bang Theory and more like the cutting, vital show this could be. The first season just wrapped up, all eleven episodes are available, and you should try them out. Say what you will about tech, but at least we're alive at a time when you can easily skip around through the good parts of an inconsistent show.
Napster Cofounder Shawn Fanning Is Allegedly a Deadbeat Dad
When Jessica Wigsmoen first met Napster cofounder Shawn Fanning at a party at Sean Parker's West Village party house, she didn't think it would end like this. "I lived in New York, I had a really good life," Wigsmoen told me by phone last week. "I met this guy who acted like prince charming." Now, she claims Fanning is denying child support for their 2-year-old daughter, Scarlett.
Last week, Wigsmoen launched a public crowdfunding campaign called "Scarlett Fanning survival." It has only raised $235 of the $100,000 goal. On Facebook, two days after sharing the crowdfunding link, Wigsmoen posted what she claimed was a screenshot of her bank account. The balance was less than $134. Yesterday afternoon, both of those Facebook posts were deleted. But the crowdfunding campaign is still active.
Fanning's executive assistant Vita Angiulo is aware that I have been trying to reach Fanning for nine days. Angiulo has not returned requests for comment sent last week regarding Scarlett's paternity or whether Fanning has been delinquent in child support or recent phone calls. However, there are numerous photos of the three of them on both Wigsmoen's and Fanning's Facebook pages, including one in which Fanning describes Wigsmoen and the infant she is holding as "my two loves," as well as photos of them in the delivery room.
On Giveforward, Wigsmoen's plea says she has been unable to receive financial support and that Scarlett has been deserted by Fanning. She does not mention his full name or occupation. It's not clear why:
Scarlett is 2 yrs old..we've been unable to receive monetary support from her father. We need emergency help to afford basic survival means.
After numerous attempts , we've been ignored by her own father who is well aware of our need for monetary support. She is only 2, and our tries have been ignored. She has been completely deserted by her other parent, who she does not even know. She did not have a Christmas as we were unable to afford one. It's come down to us selling the only means of transportation that we have, and now unable to afford diapers, child care, clothing and every other basic need a very intelligent and well loved toddler needs. Please help in any way you can as this is truly an emergency. at this point in time we are even unable to afford legal representation to amend this situation...
These are unexpectedly public and disturbing allegations against a serial entrepreneur and investor, who became a household (or at least a dorm room) name during the rise of Napster, and continues to travel in some of Silicon Valley's wealthiest circles. Snocap, the company he started after Napster, was reportedly sold at a "firesale" price of $5 million in 2008. He then sold Rupture, a social network gaming startup, for $15 million to Electronic Arts the same year. Fanning is also the cofounder of Path and Airtime. According to Crunchbase, he's made at least two startup investments since April and is also an investor in very promising companies like Square and Uber.
On the phone last week, Wigsmoen, who works as a model, sounded exhausted and out of it; her stories meandered. Fanning had not responded directly to her attempts to contact him, she said, even though he was aware of the campaign: "He's not answering, he's lowballing me."
Public records show only one Jessica Wigsmoen in the United States, who has lived at an address on 19th Street in Chelsea, which she mentioned to me on the phone. Criminal records databases also show a spotty history for Wigsmoen from a decade back, including a number of infractions and misdemeanor arrests related to speeding tickets, driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license, as well as one infraction in 2001 for assault with a deadly weapon. She was arrested for burglary in 2005. It also appears Wigsmoen was recently arrested for a DUI in Las Vegas.
Wigsmoen told me she was introduced to the Napster cofounders through Eric Lerner, an entertainment lawyer, who happens to be a "confidant" of Sean Parker's. During one of her visits to the so-called "Bacchus House," which Parker purchased for $20 million in 2011, Parker introduced her to Fanning. According to Wigsmoen, Fanning asked, "'So what do you think of me?'"
Wigsmoen thought he was "kind of a douche," and told him so, she told Valleywag. Soon after Wigsmoen says she got a call from Fanning saying, "'You know what? Thank you, nobody has ever talked to me like that before.'" She's not the first model Fanning has dated. In 2008, he was linked with Playboy model and professional poker player Jennifer "Jennicide" Leigh.
When I asked Wigsmoen if there was any way that Fanning—who was infamously screwed out the Napster deal by his uncle John Fanning—wasn't paying child support because he lacked the funds to do so, she said no. "Parker gave him an $8 million check not that long ago, a year ago," perhaps related to Airtime, she explained, adding, "I know that didn't do well." According to Wigsmoen, Fanning receives $800,000 each month, although there was "a scam" with one of the companies he invested in.
Wigsmoen described Fanning's relationship with Parker as "frenemies." "I'm like, 'Can't you ask Parker for a loan?' I knew that would piss him off," she told me.
Wigsmoen claims she has drained the money she saved from modeling gigs to support herself and Scarlett: "I spent $50,000 that I made before I met this loser and that's all gone."
The last I heard from Wigsmoen was via text on Sunday. She told me she had been hospitalized for nearly two days from exhaustion, dehydration, and stress, and that she had a seizure. "Didn't know it was possible," she wrote, "but if Shawn doesn't pay child support soon not sure what ill do." We were supposed to speak again Monday, but I have not been able to reach her despite numerous attempts.
This is not the first time Wigsmoen has alleged that lack of child support has left her and her child stranded. The screenshot below is from June, 25, 2013, although it was later deleted.
During our phone conversation, Wigsmoen made a number of allegations not just about child support, but also about alleged drug use that Valleywag has not been able to verify. "I'm beyond tired of covering for him," she texted me later. On the phone, Wigsmoen said she permitted his playboy lifestyle, until she was worried for Scarlett's safety. Sean Parker, Fanning's two-time cofounder, was arrested for felony possession of cocaine in 2005. The book All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster mentions him taking ecstasy on one occasion and smoking marijuana, but the book describes it as very casual use many years back.
According to Wigsmoen, Fanning's contact with his daughter has been very sporadic. He flew them out to Los Angeles, but didn't stop by to see his daughter until the fourth day of his visit, half an hour before they had to leave for their flight. "He's never sent her one gift, not even for her birthday," she said. On one occasion, Wigsmoen said Fanning's assistant booked her and her daughter a room at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, but didn't tell her the incidentals were not being paid for—so she was stuck with a massive bill. "He's not interested in getting things itemized," she said.
Wigsmoen said she was still trying to contact Fanning, who was "pissed off" and threatened to sue her. "I'm tired of the no response and asking people for money. That doesn't feel good."
In May, Fanning sold his penthouse at The Infinity in San Francisco for $3 million. Last year Downloaded, a documentary about Napster featuring both Fanning and Parker, premiered at the SXSW Film Festival. According to Facebook, Fanning is currently in a relationship with Jeni Ivey, a self-employed Singer /Composer/Musician/Songwriter.
To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.