Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

Isn't Mal his third wife?
Yes. Third. He came from England to Penn already married. Once in the US he got a new wife and a green card. He would have had to maintain a marriage to an American citizen for approximately 2.5 years to get his permanent green card, but once he had that in hand, they were free to divorce.
 
Second? Unless excavations for a motorway extension prove otherwise?
No, I believe she is number 3. He had one in the UK and then the second was American which got him his greencard. It seems he has only had opportunistic marriages.

First wife was from a more affluent family so upped his standard of living, wife 2 was also more affluent and got him a greencard and the third had niche fame and a house in Oakland. We’ve never heard a peep from his ex-wives. I get the idea they’d like to pretend he never existed.

Lilly seems like the only serious romantic partner he’s had that isn’t more affluent and successful than Joe, but she not only had his baby but is now housing him. Two years ago I thought at least Lilly was getting something out of sleeping with Joe, living in Brooklyn, trips, etc…that table flipped fast. Now she’s his broodmare and landlord. Sad.

Joe is adept at using women as a means to end.
 
Joe's picture and caption from Instagram:
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If he thinks that is huitlacoche, it will make my week. Bring on the rotting cornsilk quesadillas, Joe!

EDIT: Update on the last feast at Maison Retard:

Fucking hell, that's just ear rot. Some types are relatively harmless (although disgusting), but others contain mycotoxins. I am not any type of expert but I am hoping the mold in the picture is aspergillus which is usually relatively harmless. But there are other similar-looking molds which (for example) contain a toxic carcinogen called fumonisin.

Joe, I know you probably still read this thread: please do not attempt to feed your baby the rotten corn slop. Just throw it away, no harm done. Just keep the putrid black corn slime away from the baby!
 
Joe’s attempts at cooking reminded me of this whole scene- from the turgid way he dresses, to the grandiose, inedible dross he assembles. I’d love to see Gordon critique his “dishes” lmao.
Like the fArM tO tAbLe asshole from Kitchen Nightmares where Gordon said he was fucking HUNGRY, so he went to the local diner in town for REAL food.
 
It came up first on Google and seemed to have the highest ratings and a long history. It seemed safe to assume they’re as lazy as I am when it comes to researching corn mazes.

In other news Tard Baby is offering a hefty 20% discount on an annual subscription ($80 down from $100) on reading her diary entries about her pretend son and assorted comedy stylings.

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link | archive
Knocking 20% off won't be enough to lure more subscribers if the majority of her writing is like that highbrow meets lowbrow cringe fest I skimmed until my eyes rolled back in my head. Mashing up Waiting for Godot + Who's on First + The Odyssey... hoo boy. So clevah.

She should offer Joe made gourmet meals (buffet style, of assorted twee tapas) with the illustrious polycule and Baby Rocco instead. It'd probably be more lucrative. People are always willing to pay to gawk at freak shows. With cool and unusual snacks provided. "BYOB!"

$100 (or even $80) is pretty steep for a Substack sub. Most (non investing) ones that are written by much more recognizable names are $50-$60ish.
 
Knocking 20% off won't be enough to lure more subscribers if the majority of her writing is like that highbrow meets lowbrow cringe fest I skimmed until my eyes rolled back in my head. Mashing up Waiting for Godot + Who's on First + The Odyssey... hoo boy. So clevah.

She should offer Joe made gourmet meals (buffet style, of assorted twee tapas) with the illustrious polycule and Baby Rocco instead. It'd probably be more lucrative. People are always willing to pay to gawk at freak shows. With cool and unusual snacks provided. "BYOB!"

$100 (or even $80) is pretty steep for a Substack sub. Most (non investing) ones that are written by much more recognizable names are $50-$60ish.
I wonder how many paid subs she has
 
I wonder how many paid subs she has
Enough that she had to move into her husband’s girlfriend’s small home in Lansing and work as a nanny. She apparently had a wage job in NYC before they moved.

I have to believe there would be tiers for her substack subs. I can’t see many people paying $100 or $80 a year for access to the same tripe for years (but with new baby stories instead of more cute dog articles).

Interesting that before Joe she was an independent writer who owned a home in Oakland. Narc troon husbands are more expensive than a coke habit.

I wonder if she had some notion that marrying a tenured Berkeley professor would offer some security in life*, not just debt and humiliation?

Literally, I can’t think of a more ideal job for a spouse who is a writer than tenured English professor. (Ok maybe hedge fund manager, but you get my drift, for Mallory an academic spouse would have been a perfect fit providing a stable income and benefits. This had to be part of her calculus when she started dating Joe. He would have known it and used it too.
 
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I have to believe there would be tiers for her substack subs. I can’t see many people paying $100 or $80 a year for access to the same tripe for years (but with new baby stories instead of more cute dog articles).

The Tiers of a Clown:
tiers.png
For days when images won't load:
  • Monthly - $4.80, down from $6
  • Annual - $52, down from $65
  • Founding Member - $200 or more, no discount
  • None - Occasional free public posts
The annual 20% off lasts only for a year. You renew at $65. Well, you don't, but somebody surely must.
renew.png
Source: https://www.thechatner.com/subscribe?coupon=a4538799

Substack takes 10% of subscription revenue plus about 3% in processing fees.
 
EDIT: Update on the last feast at Maison Retard:
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If you'll recall, Joe's chicken was roasted with dried kiwi (which he thought would taste like dried lime, a classic Persian ingredient), and topped with "julienned dried kiwi." That's what those ragged brown strips are. He didn't fucking peel it.
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I'm not a huge fan of dried kiwis but every time I've seen them they've been sliced into chips, not ground into rubble like that.

Also, it seems that Chef Joe, who holds a PhD in English literature, doesn't know what "jammy" means.
 
The Tiers of a Clown:
For days when images won't load:
  • Monthly - $4.80, down from $6
  • Annual - $52, down from $65
  • Founding Member - $200 or more, no discount
  • None - Occasional free public posts
It's just her, right? It's not a newsletter with contributors like Bari Weiss' Free Press, or even like Glinner's, it's just one crazy lady who doesn't even live in an interesting city anymore. She's trapped in an attic in a small house in the middle of nowhere, caring for someone else's kid.

She should rename it "the Yellow Wallpaper" and make it explicitly about how Joe wants to "help" her by slowly driving her insane. Otherwise...

Enough that she had to move into her husband’s girlfriend’s small home in Lansing and work as a nanny. She apparently had a wage job in NYC before they moved.
She was a big signing for Substack about 2-3 years ago. I remember talking to someone I know about Substack as a platform around that time, and she'd never heard of it. Substack was paying people like Mal big money so they could have a draw to the platform. They gave her something like $400k because she had an established audience. My understanding is they considered they'd take the subscriber revenue up to that $400k, and she'd keep whatever was on top of that number.

She REALLY shat the bed. I have NO IDEA how they burned through that, let alone Joe's Substack money (they signed him for a smaller amount - which I'm sure he chalks up to the "wage gap" since he's the real woman and so much more tragically highbrow than Mallory). She could've bought another house somewhere and rented it out and always had income. I also have no idea why she hates the idea of being a landlord...renting from a person you know is way better than renting from a nightmare corporation. If work screws up your check one week and you're dealing with a person, especially a leftist woman, maybe they don't charge you a late fee. But a corporation will nickel-and-dime you to death. She just has REALLY fucked up her shit. Mallory has squandered so much goodwill and so many opportunities that it's absolutely unreal to me.

And then of course the job she chose - she was working as some kind of caregiver for $18/hr. Not teaching a writing workshop where 20-25 aspiring writers with trust funds pay her $200 for 4 hours of wisdom. Which she could then rinse & repeat every 3 months. Not giving talks at the 92nd St Y to promote her Substack - not even crawling back to Slate and pitching them a few pieces. Apparetnly none of THAT occurred to her (who TF reps her, because whoever it is let her really devalue her brand).

Instead, she told the world how badly she fucked up and exposed herself as someone who has so little self-worth she went right to caregiving instead of ANY more lucrative option. Even like writing term papers for cash would've been smarter. C'mon Mal WTF.
 
Instead, she told the world how badly she fucked up and exposed herself as someone who has so little self-worth she went right to caregiving instead of ANY more lucrative option.
Huh? It’s one of the few things I actually respect Mal for. They fucked up, didn’t have any money left and someone needed to face the music and actually work, and she did it. Had she had a more lucrative option I’m sure she would rather have done that but they were broke for real.

Also, caregiving is something I respect in and of itself, unlike all the other dumb shit the throuple does. You should try it sometime.
 
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I really badly want to know how many paying subscribers they both have. I'm sure its laughably low, and I could use a chuckle. Does anyone know how to get that info? I could only find articles about top earners. (love to see the notoriously transphobic Blocked and Reported made the top 20, with $550000 per year)


Also who the fuck at Substack thought Mal and Joe were worth that much in signup bonuses? And were those advances or straight up payouts?
 
Also who the fuck at Substack thought Mal and Joe were worth that much in signup bonuses? And were those advances or straight up payouts?
They were advances. It made some sense in the climate of the time, because Substack was getting a lot of flack from troon world over providing a refuge to Graham Linehan and other terfy types. Musk hadn't taken over Twitter yet and Substack was much more lonely as a platform that gave more latitude to anti-trans speech. Mallory and Joe's deals (and the accompanying New York Times puff piece) were essentially marketing/PR expenses.
 
They were advances. It made some sense in the climate of the time, because Substack was getting a lot of flack from troon world over providing a refuge to Graham Linehan and other terfy types. Musk hadn't taken over Twitter yet and Substack was much more lonely as a platform that gave more latitude to anti-trans speech. Mallory and Joe's deals (and the accompanying New York Times puff piece) were essentially marketing/PR expenses.

Thanks, this makes it make more sense. And if it was an advance then from my understanding Mal and Joe won't see another dime from substack until they make over the advance, IF they ever make that much. LOL
 
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