Meeting Fake Steve Jobs

So last night Veronica, Niall and I went to the Fake Steve Jobs reading at Books, Inc. in the Castro. We show up, and, well, FSJ describes it best: “I recognized Veronica right away. I had to stop — for a moment I could not speak. If it weren’t for the nitroglycerin tablets that I keep in my pocket at all time, I might have keeled over. How do I describe the effect she has on me? Folks, Veronica Belmont is beautiful on Internet TV, but that is nothing compared to how she looks in person. She friggin glows. She’s incandescent. Ryan, standing beside her, still seems to have no idea that their relationship is doomed.”

It’s kind of funny how this guy — like so many bloggers — just kind of breezed in and rattled the cages of both piss-taking tech journos and high profile tech moguls. And his dealings with Forbes should be taught in journo school: during the day he was asking his editors for a long overdue raise and promotion (which he was denied), at night those same editors were courting the still-anonymous FSJ over email. Dan does seem to get that FSJ has a half-life, though. Forbes has a year deal with the blog, but it didn’t sound like he’d want to carry on with it forever — which is probably for the best (although I know a lot of people hope he will). Sometimes you need to end things before it’s over, you know?

Me? Some self-inflated part of me likes to think I gave Fake Steve his big break (and started the whole stupid “Real whatever with Fake Steve” meme — here, here, here, and here, and so on). But let’s face it, the wit and humor that hooked all the early-reading tech insiders was pretty irrepressible, and classic satire needs no help.