Table of Contents
Introduction Jill Rooney Carr ix
Foreword Ta-Nehisi Coates xi
1 Early Freelance in Minnesota
New Home Isn't Pretty, but I Came from Hell Anyway 3
Fishing Trip to Boundary Waters 10
Drinking and Flying 16
Faegre's "Women Who Run with the Wolves" 34
Brian Coyle's Secret 38
Even in Facing AIDS, Coyle Served Truth and His City 51
2 Family Times
Because I Said So … 57
3 Twin Cities Reader
Prodigal Clown 79
Paranoid or Positive? 89
IR Queer 100
Still Life with Alien 110
Indictment City 121
Jackpot City 125
Public Dis'course 128
4 Washington City Paper
Andrew Sullivan Out at New Republic 133
Good News Traveling Too Fast 135
Gored 141
Sidney Blumenthal 145
Sally Quinn on Vernon Jordan 148
Kids Say the Darnedest Things 151
Road Trip 156
Crash Course 161
Death March 165
People (Not) Like Us 168
Who Asked You? 172
One Last Hitch 177
Goodbye to All That 181
Oral Exam 198
Oh Say, Why Can't We See? 203
5 Magazines
Slower Than a Speeding Bullet 209
Details Reborn 218
Me, Me, Me™ 224
Who Needs Writers and Actors When the Whole World Is Your Backlot? 225
The Futility of "Homeland Defense" 229
A New Mask 236
18 Truths About the New New York 238
Gathering to Remember 244
That's All, Folks! 246
6 New York Times
Neil Young Comes Clean 251
Both Hero and Villain, and Irresistible 263
At Flagging Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture 269
Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself 281
When Fox News Is the Story 285
Deadly Intent 292
Been Up, Been Down. Now? Super 296
Before They Went Bad 303
Calling Out Bill Cosby's Media Enablers, Including Myself 309
All Hall the Helix 314
View, Interrupted 317
Breaking Away, but by the Rules 320
7 All the Rest
The Wrestler 327
Press Play 330
All That You Leave Behind 342
Cats 355
Untitled Essay 362
The So-Called Artist's Lifestyle 365
Acknowledgments 376
Credits 377