The Sleaze 3/18/99 By Jill "The Diva" Stemple

PAIN, TORTURE, AND WORLD SUFFERING: Are all more important than the fact that Sleaze has been delayed for a week, so get off my back already. Geez. I gotta tell ya guys... I am getting pretty burnt out. After the insanity of the Sublebrity party last Friday and the New York Underground Film Festival this past weekend, I needed a couple of days to get my head back together. Plus, I gotta tell ya that this whole running the show yourself thing has been sucking. I have took a good long look at the numbers this week and come to the dispiriting realization that if you divide the amount of hours I have been working by the amount of money I have made on this site since its inception - the total would come to about fiddy cents a day. Meanwhile, I have already called in every favor I have ever been owed to get design work, lawyering and business consulting for free and people are sick of not getting paid. I am pissed off that it is so hard to make money in this blasted medium and no faceless corporation has volunteered to just give me millions of dollars in start-up costs because they think that this weird Internet thing is the future of entertainment. I am frustrated and I am taking it out on you. Which is not fair - but that is life. I just need to refer to the old adage - ya get what ya pay for. I have resisted attempts to take the site pay-per-view (and I do love all of the sweet, wonderful people who have sent me checks with notes like "here's twenty bucks - now write every day you sorry bitch"), and the site is still free, so bare with me when I have to take a few days off to work a temp job and make rent. I know that doesn't to fit the Diva image, but my landlord doesn't really give a shit. Whoopee. Welcome to the glamorous world of start-up Internet business. Doesn't it make it more exciting when you log on and ya don't know what you are gonna get?? Hmmm... maybe not.

As for the future of The Sleaze.com, I don't really know what to tell ya. However, I do know that something's got to give. Whether that means getting bought out by some corporate entity (and suddenly writing mysteriously positive celebrity profiles) or going weekly so that I can do more freelance writing - I don't know. I just don't have the luxury of losing thousands of dollars a year and making it back when I take the company public and earn millions in stock options. This is a cash a carry operation and the cash is just not carrying it. There was a fascinating cover story on Amazon.com in this week's NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, and one of the quotes just crystallized the entire dilemma for me. It said, "The problem with most Internet business models is that they are attempts to get around the fact that it is not yet clear how to make money from the business." When I read that quote the clouds parted and the heavenly choir began to sing. Even AMAZON.COM (yes, we are an Amazon affiliate, but I am still going to criticize them) is losing money on the Internet right now - so how the hell am I supposed to make any??? Of course, it would definitely help if all of the deadbeats who owed me money would ever pay up, but that is another story altogether. Enough bitching about poverty. We've all got problems, but I just wanted to share my bad mood with you and explain why I pulled a RODMAN for the last couple of days...

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 08:37:59 -0500 (EST)
From: night
To: diva@thesleaze.com
Subject: entertainment weekly is your newest 'source'

are you embarrassed?

Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 16:02:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Jill The Diva Stempel
To: night
Subject: Re: entertainment weekly is your newest 'source'

Not at all... why should I be??

They steal shit from me all the time, and I totally credited them for the quote.

What's up your butt?

/JILL

Jill wants to know about my butt.

---

Diva's busy trying to get money out of her readers. Call it a hunch, but we think she's delivered to us her home address. Read Below & Go visit!

The Sleaze
12/28/98
By Jill "The Diva" Stempel

SPEAKING OF NEEDING YOUR HELP... One of my main sources of frustration over the holidaze was being broke due to the fact that I am have already invested a lot of money into the new site and I have been having trouble getting advertisers. Apparently they all think that "The Sleaze" is too controversial a title for a website!??! Which, I think is absolutely ridiculous when you consider that the top news story this year centered on a blowjob. I mean, give me a break!! But, whatever. The good news is that I have just landed a fabulous sponsor for our Best of Sleaze 1998 edition and I am incredibly excited about Sleaze's future next year. ...

OTHER EXCITING ADVENTURES IN SLEAZE... While I am waiting for the kickbacks from Amazon to roll in, many longtime Sleaze readers wrote in over the holidays to suggest that I follow the example of my esteemed Internet colleague HARRY KNOWLES from AIN'T IT COOL NEWS and ask my readers to just send me money directly. While this smacks of anti-Diva like behavior, my friends have convinced me that if he can do it and he doesn't even have to pay rent (he lives with his Dad for god's sake) it ain't such a bad idea. It is far more democratic than charging everyone and thereby denying some less fortunate readers access to their Sleaze. Instead, I can just ask the readers who have some extra cash and have been entertained by my column over the years to fork over some end-of-the-year funds in order to keep the Sleaze alive and running smoothly until we get bought out by some huge, evil corporation for several million dollars and I can retire to my newly purchased mansion in the Caribbean and post the column from there. Don't worry, when I finally DO cash in, all of my longtime readers are invited to the bloody huge disco party I am going to throw in Madison Square Garden with an eight hour open bar and FATBOY SLIM manning the turntables. How does THAT sound!??! I personally can't wait... but in the meantime feel free to send cash, cd's, liquor, cigarettes (preferably Dunhills), anything sellable at a pawn shop, spandex hot pants, diamonds and furs to the following address:

Jill "The Diva" Stempel
c/o The Sleaze
52A Carmine Street
Suite 539
New York, NY 10014

I wish I could say it was a charitable organization and you could deduct it from your taxes, but it isn't and you can't. Thanks in advance for anything you send (and don't forget to order all of your books through the Amazon icon on the Sleaze homepage)... it would make 1999 a very Happy New Year for Sleaze!!