Artists of the Year

Michael K

Though I revere Michael K, I know almost nothing about the man. Here is what I do know: He's part Asian and all gay, and he lives in New York. He's the voice of DListed, the celebrity gossip blog I want to marry. DListed is the best of its genre because Michael K's take on the material is the funniest. He can be dry, like when he posts a picture of Ice T's astonishingly shelf-assed wife with the commentary, "Coco is truly an elegant lady." He can be pithy, like when he observes, "Amy Winehouse is one of those 'can't-get-clean' types." And he can be vicious, like when he discusses Rupert Everett and concludes, "And I thought I was a bitter fag."

He's also a workhorse. Long after the last post at What Would Tyler Durden Do?, new material pops up on his blog. Even Nick Denton gives his minions the weekend off, but DListed keeps churning it out. Where Perez Hilton is self-promotional, Michael K is self-deprecating. While the hetero gossip bloggers bore with their endless worship of Jessica Simpson, Michael K rolls his eyes and puts up another picture of Pete Doherty, confessing, "Yes, I'd hit it."

Of course, you could argue that gossip is trash, that the paps and publicists and wannabes and has-beens are all contributing to the decline of American culture, and that this kind of prurient entertainment is dirt thrown on the coffin of our national discourse. Well, you probably waste your time on sports websites and have mint issues of dumb comic books in a box in your closet. Don't front. Go to DListed and learn to be entertaining while you still can. It's only a matter of time before Scientologists kidnap its host and relocate him to a Thetan-extraction facility deep in the Mojave Desert.

Sarah Askari is the music editor at City Pages.

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City Pages' 2007 Artists of the Year:

• Stephen Colbert
• William E. Jones
• Diablo Cody
• Matt Sciple
• Christine Boyka Kluge
• Marjane Satrapi
• Ernest A. Bryant III
• Sheletta Brundidge
• The Writers Guild of America
• Jim Denomie
• Myron Johnson
• Alex Jones
• Christopher Hitchens
• Paul Dickinson
• Twin Cities playwrights
• Philip Pullman
• Craig Zobel
• Al Franken
• John Grider
• Bon Iver
• Ben Olson and Emma Berg
• Michael K
• Latisha Jones & Patricia Hampl
• Valve
• The Owls
• The Body Carto­graphy Project