“I don’t know who the hell it was. I like to think it wasn’t me, but it probably was . . . and we had been drinking a little bit. And so somebody says Jalopnik. And I laughed and go, ‘What a weird word — Jalopnik.’
And I looked over and Nick Denton is going like this. And I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘That’s it, I’m registering it. We’re done.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean we’re done, we’re not done. That’s not a name — Jalopnik.’
He said, ‘No, no, no, it’s perfect.’ I said, ‘It’s perfect — that’s perfect?’ And I was like ‘Jalopnik, God I don’t know.’
He was like, ‘No, no, no — we nailed it; that’s it. That’s going to be it. It has a ring.’ More like getting hit over the head with a hammer.
‘Alright, so I’ll think about.’ And I go home and I’m like, ‘I’m going to write for a site named Jalopnik. I’ve got to call people and say I’m from Jalopnik. And I’m like no.”
So send Nick an email the next day and said, ‘We’ve got to come up with a better name.’ And he said, ‘No, no, it’s the name. That’s it. There’s no more thinking about it. It’s the perfect name.’
I was like, ‘Okay. Alright. I’m screwed — totally screwed.'”
— Mike Spinelli interviewed by Freddy ‘Tavarish’ Hernandez (2015)
RE:SOURCES
- Hernandez, Freddy “Tavarish”; 2015. “Mike Spinelli: Peanut Butter Guts! — Part 2.” Offtrack. Posted May 21; accessed September 14, 2020.
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