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The JUNKINESS staff: Darci, Dennis and Matt

In 2006 I co-founded a blog with Matt Tobey and Dennis DiClaudio. Our mission was to cover the day’s news through a sarcastic and silly lens. It was called JUNKINESS and it claimed to be “for addicts of news, gossip and heroin.”

For a year we posted 8-10 times daily, trying to cover the same political, entertainment and world news that every other blog was covering, and determined not to make the same jokes. At some point Dennis joined the Witness Protection program. Then we recruited help from funny blogger friends like this guy and that guy and this guy. We took a lot of pot shots at Stephen Dorff. It was a blast.

And then it ended.

I found an old email thread today that documents the time just before Junkiness, when Dennis, Matt and I were trying to decide on a name for our new blog baby. These are some of the names we tossed around:

• MindPoop.com
• Ameritard.com
• MorrisDayAndTheTimes.com
• FilthFlarnFilth.org
• Flazzum.com
• AreYouThereGodItsMeTheNews.com
• AmericanIdle.com
• YouSnoozeWeNews.com
• HotButter.com
• ChocolateBabies.com
• TheBeesPajamas.com
• JawsFive.com
• Jeebity.com
• Gubbler.com
• Swazzoo.com
• Jubbly.com
• Malachi-Crunch.com
• WordBurglars.com
• BeverlyHillsCops.com
• Stinkface.com
• WelcomeMatt.com
• DeftLeftists.com
• DoinIt-TheWebsite.com

I’m pretty sure I disliked the name “Junkiness” at first, but looking back on the alternatives, man am I glad I lost that fight. (Also I’m pretty sure we would have chosen Filth Flarn Filth if that URL wasn’t already registered).

Once we decided to be Junkiness (Internally we referred to our site as “J-Nay”, just as we referred to Matthew McConaughey as “Matty McNayNay”), we needed help designing the site. I twisted the arm of talented designer and friend, Kevin Bauer, and this transcribed IM conversation was the creative direction we gave him.

• Do we do a drug-type logo that incorporates something else?
• I was thinking like junk food, like a candy bar logo or something
• Scrap yards, junk heaps, garbage cans, junk yards, scrap heaps
• A racoon
• A junky racoon
• A raccoon shooting up and eating a hamburger
• A racoon looking heroin chic
• How about a racoon guzzling a big bottle of soda with the name Junkiness on it?
• I want him to be sitting on a hamburger wrapper
• What if the racoon has big eyes with red swirls in them like someone who is strung out?
• What if the raccoon is Jewish?
• I want there to be tipped over garbage cans in the background with gay porn
• I can supply that
• LOL
• What about going the whole other way
• What whole other way?
• Using something elegant
• Junkiness spelled in caviar?
• A raccoon with a 18th entury powdered wig on and a monacle?
• What about a wolf sucking a goat’s teat?
• A teen wolf
• What about something wholly non-related?
• Like a picture of Corey Feldman spanking Corey Haim?
• An airplane eating a giant turtle?
• A mountain lion watching Survivor?
• A piece of felt clipping coupons?
• A sea horse shitting a bowl of soup?
• A can of soup
• The cast of Hello Larry in scuba gear
• A compact disc going down on a racoon
• The Poseidon upside down in a gravy boat
• Julius Sumner Miller jerking off a raccoon with Steven Hawking’s hand
• The moon reading the Bible to Robert Loggia and a penguin with three boobs
• A vampire Martha Stewart kicking President Bush’s knee in the balls
• Why don’t we just give Kevin the name and see what he comes up with?

This is what Kevin came up with (which was perfect)

Miss you, J-Nay.