When it rains, it pours, and right now, PhillyMag would seem to be in the throes of a major personality crisis. And if it’s not pondering what God hath wrought when the pubeless are getting waxed, it is that other Job-like trial the magazine has been enduring for a while now: The web. But for a brief, shining moment, PhillyMag seemed to have a line on the whole blog thing with one A.J. Daulerio, who penned The Daily Examiner for the mag. Until last Friday, when Dude exited gracefully on his way to Deadspin.com, which is pretty much the best sports blog ever invented. While we’re often harsh on the ‘Mag, Daulerio did great work on the Examiner and his voice in these parts will be missed. After the jump, we try to get A.J. to say nasty things about his old employer and cajole him into writing some posts for us. We’ll see how it goes.

OK, so is your tenure as a Philly blogger now officially over?

Well, I still live here. And I’m sure that my Deadspin posts will be more 215-centric than any other writer over there. But, no, I don’t see myself getting a part-time job at Phillyist or anything like that.

It’s too bad “Phawker” was already taken. What did you learn during your time as the PhillyMag blogger? Friday’s posts on The Daily Examiner were way, way light on Doogie Howser-esque parting comments.

I learned a lot, actually. We’ll leave it at that.

C’mon, I’m not letting you off that easy. I know you don’t wanna talk shit, but “I learned a lot” is all tell and no show.

Well, for one thing, I was under the impression that they gave all bloggers Infinitis to drive to Atlantic City with on the weekend. That is apparently not true. Couldn’t even expense that shit!

Oh no you didn’t!

Anyway… Let’s see. I think there was a real problem with finding a happy medium between the “Philly mag audience” and what I (or anybody who’s blogged for a living) was used to doing. Blogging, as you know, is only effective if the author actually cares about what they’re writing about. Some days, it was hard for me to find those things based on that rubric. Okay, most days.

I can imagine. Again, I know you don’t wanna scorch the Earth here, but isn’t that emblematic of PhillyMag’s whole disconnect with this entire City? Because what you just said goes as much for the readers, I believe, as the writers.

Well, I don’t know about that. Obviously, their readership extends outside of Center City and they do cater to an audience that is more suburban-based than,say, yours. I’ll cop to being a little disenchanted and disinterested by some of the stories that were thrust upon me (there weren’t that many, though) but I genuinely liked working there. Did I feel a little out of place? Of course. But that’s more a reflection on my background as a writer and not neccesarily the magazine. (Read: NOT BITING)

Fair enough. So does this mean you can feed us a fucking post here now every once in a while, you miserly bastard?

Certainly. But do I have to write about Man Man?

No, we totally have that one covered. What will you be doing at Deadspin?

It’s a work in progress. I’ll be doing some straight blogging stuff, but the position also entails me actually going out and covering events, doing some reporting, interviews, etc. etc. I think it’ll actually be very similar to some of the stuff I did over at the Daily Examiner. And waiting for an insult in 3…2…1…

It’s gonna be a long wait, pal. You were the only decent thing on that whole website. I wish you luck, and please, check in. A lot. Be our Kramer.

Of course. See you at the Locust Bar. Thanks for your support.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 12:23 pm.