Back in 2011, A.J. Daulerio got me fired. A chance encounter with my BFF QT, ten toes to Jesus, ended up on the front page of Deadspin, and lo and behold, I was fired faster than you can say friendsicles. That story has now gone down in the annals of internet infamy, but two lessons endure.

1) Never put anything on the internet.

2) People in Hollywood will never tire of doing very stupid things.

Given the fact that I clearly haven't learned lesson #1, let's move on to #2, shall we? Defamer is back.

Hollywood is where you go when you want to recreate yourself—this is, after all, a town predicated upon the fact that there's good money to be made by concocting an alternate reality that we all want to believe like hell could be true. It's witness protection without the feds. And it's not just the actors and writers who feed off the fairy dust being sprinkled from Olympic to Ventura, beach to Barnsdall. It's the entire fragile ecosystem of managers, agents, producers, network and studio execs who surround them—everyone trying to make a dime off a dollar of someone else's creativity - that buy into the Don Draper myth that you can be whoever you say are, provided you're willing to say it the loudest.

And that's where Defamer comes in. There's a whole world of Hollywood far more lurid than anything a paparazzi's crotch-cam might capture at just the right angle, and those are just some of the blanks we're here to fill in. It's the tales of the agents in the post-Ari Gold era, still trying to live life like it's an Entourage billboard, all while turning up their noses at the latest draft of the Entourage the Movie script. It's the deranged rantings of misogynistic writers, and all the horror stories you've heard whispered amongst your 20-something friends who moved to L.A. to "make it" and are one dropped call away from having a nervous breakdown and moving back home to Poughkeepsie where people may still scream at you, but at least with good reason.

But above that underbelly, there's also a lot of good—or, well, not awful—to come out of this town. In an era where summer now means flop begetting flop at the box office, and the best shows on television require an internet connection to be viewed, there remain a few people out there who continue to buy into the myth of creation: that the right story, told by the right person, can save us all. Or at least save our jobs. (The smart money is on Michael B. Jordan, but I'm still holding out hope that Greg Daniels finds a way to course-correct and begin injecting brilliance into the mundane again.) And we're here to cover them too. Everyone loves a hero.

I may not get it right all the time. I stand by the fact that According to Jim was one of the finest television programs to grace the air waves. I still contend that the fact that my email manifesto being sent out to a group the size of a powder puff football team was no excuse for it being splashed across blogs everywhere. And that's why we're doing this together. The stories that deserve to be told—you're living them. So write us an email, leave a comment, send up a flare: the SVPs with nasty tempers who just keep failing upwards, the photos of junior execs having their medical marijuana delivered via messenger right to the mailroom, the crackdowns on the illicit screener trade threatening to derail your entire Christmas gift list...we want them all.

Until then, I'll just be sipping lattes and reporting on Winona Ryder's new dog, while hoping that A.J. doesn't get me fired. Again.

xo,

Beejoli

Please email all tips to tips@defamer.

[Gif by Jim Cooke.]