Fresh Loaf

That’s how one commenter on Manhattan gossip blog Gawker.com responded to a New York Times‘ want ad seeking a researcher for its Atlanta bureau.

The fuss arose after the Times elicited five pitches from would-be applicants on JournalismJobs.com — and gave rather explicit instructions on what not to pitch: “Please do not submit ideas concerning dog fights, cock fights, or the Confederate flag.”

I think that’s kind of funny. To me, it speaks to an exasperation with journalism applicants perpetuating Southern clichés. Or something like that.

Gawker saw it differently — as an affront to the South:

To help ensure you are not a hick, the Times has asked you to pre-pitch five stories NOT involving anything the Times has ever covered before (you do take the Times right? It’s only $665 per year in trashy zip codes!), and also NOT about cliché things only of interest to the poors.

The Gawker comments that ensued are priceless. They’re also as disparaging as Gawker claimed the Gray Lady to be (e.g. “nobody in Atlanta can read”). Gawker accuses the Times of condescension and elitism, and Gawker’s readers respond by being condescending and elitist. Oh, the irony.

Best of all — or, depending on your POV, most depressing — are the comments that liken the average Southerner to one John Fitzgerald Page, the Buckhead “douchebag” immortalized by Gawker and honored with a No. 5 spot on CL’s most recent Least Influential list.

Basically, we Atlantans are either illiterate or wear really bad shoes. To New Yorkers, I don’t know which is worse.

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Atlanta fifth Least Influential Person and notorious online dater John Fitzgerald Page is back.

(photo by Joeff Davis)

Yesterday he posted a video guide to online dating on MySpace.

Before you ask, yes, he’s kidding.

Hats off to John. The video is very funny. I suspect, however, the people who make sport of beating up on him online will find something nasty to say.

Be sure to watch the final scene and the credits.

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Recent Creative Loafing cover star John Fitzgerald Page appeared on CBS this morning.

Atlanta’s 5th Least Influential Person got to tell his story to “The Early Show’s” Julie Chen, but only after a voice-over actor read painful excerpts of his infamous Match.com letters on-air.

“Any regrets about the e-mail?” Chen asked.

“No, I don’t have any regrets. I should be able to correspond with people as I wish,” was the reply.

Ugh.

Watch the full video here.

(Sombrero tip to Brooke Hatfield for sending me the link.)

(photos by Joeff Davis)

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The countdown is over.

CL’s complete list of Atlanta’s 11 Least Influential People is now available online.

Enjoy.

Or don’t.

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Gawker.com yesterday declared Buckhead resident John Fitzgerald Page the “Worst Person in the World” and “a colossal, mindbogglingly douchey douchebag.”

The 36-year-old actor/model/Ivy League grad/financial consultant earned the monikers after Gawker saw an angry, self-aggrandizing missive he sent to a woman who rejected him after a brief online flirtation on Match.com. Gawker also ridiculed Page’s personal website, JohnFitzgeraldPage.com.

“I think you forgot how this works. You hit on me, and therefore have to impress ME and pass MY criteria and standards – not vice versa . . . don’t blow it with the next 8.9 on Hot or Not, Ivy League grad, Mensa member, can bench/squat/leg press over 1200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense, has an MBA from the top school in the country, lives in a Buckhead high rise, drives a Beemer convertible, has been in 14 major motion pictures, was in Jezebel’s Best dressed, etc.”

— Page’s response to a woman who rejected him on Match.com, as reproduced at Gawker.com on Oct. 11

Stalin. Hitler. Bin Laden. John Fitzgerald Page. Somehow, I am ranked at #1. My crime – murder? treason? pedophilia? rape? No, worse. A woman winked at me on the internet. I sent her an introdutory email. She tried to rescind her initial wink by saying we weren’t a “personality” match . She ascertained that from my first email without ever speaking to me. Here is my crime. Instead of just letting her float away, I let her know that I feel that if you approach me, you should meet my standards and listed facts about myself.

— Page declined CL’s request for an interview, but after we spoke he posted a long response to the hubbub on his personal website, JohnFitzgeraldPage.com.

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