The PEN15 Club

As I write this, our site traffic has never been higher. We’re talking nearly twice as high as its last highest day, and the day isn’t even over. Why? Because thousands of people are Google searching terms related to Bea Arthur – specifically the insult hurled at her by Jeffrey Ross at Pam Anderson’s roast – and finding this post about the incident near the top of the search results.

Folks, I wrote that months ago. Will someone please tell me why in God’s name there’s a sudden interest in Bea Arthur?!? Seriously, I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t learn why all of these people from different IPs, and using different search terms, are all finding this page.

And because my colleague Rob is kind of afraid, I’ll pass on his words: “All I know is that I’m staying away from Betty White from now on…”

Mystery Solved: Apparently Bill Simmons of ESPN wrote a column yesterday referencing the “unprintable” comment made by Jeffrey Ross about Bea Arthur at Jerry Stiller’s roast last year. Which only means that we had a couple thousand sports fans Googling the remark and finding our little gay place on the web. Do you think any of them stuck around? It’s like throwing a fistful of tacks at a strip of flypaper and seeing which ones stick. Gay, gay flypaper.