Gawker

"New Moon" Single-Handedly Saved the Movie Industry this Weekend [Trade Roundup]

Adrian Chen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:27:35 -0500

Anyone dreading another entertainment news cycle dominated by "Twilight," shut your eyes now: The sexy vampires of "New Moon" came, they saw, they earned $258.8 million worldwide last weekend. There is no way to avoid writing about this.

•"Mind-bending" is what the LA Times calls the worldwide "New Moon" total. And the domestic take of $140.7 million was $38 million more than any other film not launched during the lucrative summer months. This time around, ticket sales appeared to be bolstered by more adult women looking to escape their dreary lives through the seductive portals of sweet Edward's hazel eyes. "New Moon" led a strong weekend overall, during which "The Blind Side" with Sandra "blond" Bullock posted a surprising $34.5 million. Mind officially bent.[LA Times]

•The real stars of Sunday's American Music Awards were the backup dancer who performed fake oral sex on Adam Lambert and Jennifer Lopez's ass, which cushioned her when she fell on it. But there were some awards, too: Taylor Swift won artist of the year, favorite female pop-rock, country and adult contemporary artist, and favorite album for her CD "Fearless". Michael Jackson posthumously won four awards, including favorite male pop-rock and soul-R&B artist. [LA Times]

•Not to be outdone by vampires, werewolves are poised for a comeback: Indie producers Joel Kastelberg and Etchie Stroh are resurrecting 1981's werewolf flick "The Howling". But where will they find a werehunk as hot as Taylor Lautner? [Variety]

•Oprah is producing "a sexually charged hourlong series pilot about a woman who leaves her seemingly perfect marriage and children in Santa Monica for the underbelly of L.A., where she indulges her secret fantasies and desires." It will be on HBO and seems like a perfectly natural progression from her daytime television talk show. [Variety]

•James Cameron's 3D crazyfest "Avatar" will not be 3 hours, as had been previously speculated. It will be a very modest 2 1/2 hours instead. Rip off! [The Wrap]

•Nooooooooooooo!!!!! Cougartown halted production last week ""in order for Courteney to deal with a private family matter." Nobody knows when filming will resume on the cougar-acclaimed sitcom. [Hollywood Reporter]

Nobody Knows What to Do with a Female Teen Killer, Other Than Watch Her Creepy Videos [Hobbies: Killing People]

Azaria Jagger — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:17:05 -0500

As Alyssa Bustamante's cache of "Jackass stunt" videos resurface on YouTube, Missouri's penal system finds itself at its wits' end trying to accommodate a rare beast: the violent female juvenile offender.

Court proceedings for Bustamante—a 15-year-old who confessed to what authorities characterize as the premeditated slaughter of a 9-year-old neighbor, then led them to the hidden corpse—have so far focused on how she will be tried and where she will live. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the options are limited:

Missouri's nationally respected juvenile justice system has no secure place to put a 15-year-old girl accused of a violent murder.

It's a system that was built for boys.

"This is real different for all of us," said Bill Heberle, deputy director of the Division of Youth Services. At Bustamante's certification hearing, Heberle testified that the state doesn't have a secure facility—meaning one with fences and locked gates—for girls.

... "We simply don't receive that many young girls that are committed to us for a heinous crime," Heberle said. "Our girls tend to be more violent toward themselves."

Bustamante certainly has exhibited violence toward herself, including a suicide attempt two years ago. While the Missouri juvenile justice system tries to puzzle out what to do with an alleged female thrill killer, the internet is busy rubbernecking at Alyssa's exuberant "Jackass stunt" videos, wherein she imitates the exuberantly male MTV series of yore. Bustamante's YouTube account has been the source of much commotion—it was there that she listed "killing people" as a "hobby," and the Associated Press described a video clip in which where Bustamante shocks herself on an electric fence, then coaxes her brothers into doing the same. At the time, the clip was thought to be lost to the black hole of disabled YouTube accounts. But, like everything unfortunate on the internet, it has miraculously found its way back to the limelight:

An internet archivist reposted several of Bustamante's videos—which range from Good Charlotte tributes to swimming pool splash-a-thons with her brothers—and Gawker commenter TheLemon posted it here, which means we just crowdsourced a murder investigation. All in all: a wholly 21C case of twisted psyches, horrifying violence, eerie internet detritus, and institutionalized gender norms.

Jennifer Lopez Falls on Perfect Ass During AMAs [Ouch]

Adrian Chen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:58:37 -0500

Jennifer Lopez just fell during her performance at the American Music Awards, which now gives everyone an excuse to care about this poor-man's Grammys.

Ouch. Feel better, J. Lo!

Incidentally, here is the complete list of winners from tonight's American Music Awards:

Best Falling On Your Ass: Jennifer Lopez
Best Song Which Jennifer Lopez Performed, During Which She Fell On Her Ass: "Louboutins"
Best Body Part Upon Which Jennifer Lopez Fell: Ass
Best Cheek of Ass Upon Which Jennifer Lopez Fell: Right, Left (Tie)

(Video via Mediaite)

The Senate Health Care Bill and the Stupid Politics of Printing [Polidicks]

Adrian Chen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:50:31 -0500

Ugh: So, Single- vs. double-sided printing is now a health care issue. Republicans are lugging around copies of the health care bill to protest "big" government (HA)—but they are unsustainably printing single-sided to make the bill look bigger!

Politicians frequently use props to help the American people understand them even if they happen to be watching CNN with the volume down so they can hear when their microwave pizza is done in the next room. In the health care debate, the bill itself has been a popular prop for opponents (mainly), and this weekend they dragged out huge blocks of paper in advance of a vote on whether to hear the bill in the Senate. (On Saturday, the Senate voted 60-39 to bring the bill to the floor.) Writes the Washington Times:

The real star of the health care debate this weekend has been the 2,074-page bill - a physical manifestation of the size and scope of what's at stake as senators consider the overhaul of one-sixth of the nation's economy.

"It's a massive increase in government, as shown by this bill," Mr. Ensign told a reporter off the floor later, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the stack of papers that comes in at more than a foot tall.

Wow, over a foot tall! If only there was some way to make it exactly half that tall... Wait, Mr. Ensign, you did print double-sided, right? Because that's not what New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall says:

"You only have print on one side, which isn't even the way we print them up around here. I've had mine printed up on both sides, so I use both sides of the paper. So they've made an attempt here to make it look a lot higher than it is," he said.

Mr. Udall said when the official print of the bill arrives, the type will be much smaller as well, and said at that point it will amount to "an average-size book."

Republicans here are acting like desperate undergraduates trying to meet a page requirement for an essay about the Sociology of the Bicycle: MARGINS: 3.5"; FONT: 25pt; SPACING: 2.999. GRADE: C-

But still, Udall should really just let the GOP throw out their well-insured backs carrying a millstone they so giddily fashioned from printer paper, looped with twine and hung around their own stupid necks. Don't play the printing game; otherwise pretty soon the whole health care debate will descend into a never-ending stream of tricks meant to make the bill bigger or smaller depending on one's political affinity:

TO: All Democratic Senators
FROM: Sen. Tom Udall
SUBJECT: Health Care Bill Printing

Fellow Senators,

As you may know, Republicans are currently unfairly inflating the size of our health care bill via printing only on one side of the page, and using a ridiculously large font. This is such a good and clever idea that we must fight back.

Allow me to introduce Yiskah. Yiskah—who I met through my Au Pair—is skilled in the ancient Turkish art of rice writing. Tomorrow, each of you will be given a copy of the health care bill written on grains of rice, which should fit in a small Ziploc bag. Please display these grains to the media and constituents to reinforce how efficient, healthful and multi-functional our bill is. Shake the bag around a bit. Throw it high into the air to emphasize the compactness of the bill. If need be, cook the rice and feed it to a homeless person. (Photo op!) Just make sure you contact Yiskah for another copy.

Best of Luck,

Tom Udall

Next week: We will read the entire Senate health care bill twice and conduct an in-depth, 20-year cost-benefit analysis of the proposals contained therein.

Move Along, Folks, Nothing to See Here. Just a Minor Radiation Leak. [No Big Deal]

Adrian Chen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:45:26 -0500

Ho hum. Another day, another radiation leak at the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Why are we even bothering to report this? It's so insignificant as far as these things go. ("These things" being radiation leaks.)

[Huge yawn.]

What were we talking about, again? Microwaves or something? Oh, yes, the radiation leak at Three Mile Island—that not-too-far-away nuclear power plant where in 1979 a partial meltdown scared the crap out of everyone. Saturday afternoon, an airborne radiation alarm sounded at the facility. According to CNN:

Tests showed the contamination in Saturday's incident was confined to the building itself, and none was found outside, Exelon said. There was no threat to public health and safety, but the workers were sent home because they could not continue until the area was cleaned, Bill Noll, Exelon vice president, said in the Saturday statement.

One worker was found to have received 16 millirem of exposure, and others received lower levels of contamination. The annual occupational dose limit for workers at Exelon plants is 2,000 millirem, the statement said.

Such an adorable and harmless little radiation leak. I mean, 16 millirems? That's about as much radiation as you're exposed to if you stand too close to Lady Ga Ga's hair. In fact the leak was so insignificant that Exelon, the power company which runs TMI, didn't notify state officials until 5 1/2 hours after the leak occurred.

So, continue with your lazy Saturday evenings, readers. We hear the Curb Your Enthusiasm season finale is going to knock your socks off!

(P.S. ALL SUPERSECRET SURVIVAL ARK TICKET-HOLDERS REPORT TO YOUR NEAREST SUBTERRANEAN ESCAPE POD AND PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE DEPARTURE. BRING YOUR GUNS. THE TIME IS NEAR. WE REPEAT THE TIME IS NEAR.)

British Sunday Times Writer Who Thinks New York City Pretty Much Sucks: A Formal Response [Cultural Divides]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:00:00 -0500

Oh, hello there, Stephanie Marsh of the Sunday Times. When you write an essay called "New York has lost its edge," and you live here, it's okay. When you're writing from London...

The question presents itself: What the shit do you think you're talking about, lady?

Her two big examples are the John Varvatos store at CBGBs, and the Whole Foods on the Bowery (which is the articles kicker). Great. She mentioned two places within three blocks from one another. Yeah, it sucks that CBGBs is dead, but that place sucked when it was dying and hey, at least Varvatos kept some of the original walls. It could be another Chase Bank, but, whatever.

Here's her thesis:

The problem for those who would like to see a return in New York to its edgy past is that Manhattan, as more than one New York-based blogger has claimed, is still "a gated community for the rich". The cultural critic Julian Brash has complained that under Bloomberg the citizens of New York have been turned into consumers - it is a place where everything is about what can be bought and what can be sold.

Okay, fine. Manhattan's really expensive, blah blah blah. Bankers run everything, blah blah blah. Everything in New York can be bought. And? This city was built by hyper-capitalists, it's why there's so much goddamn money here. Old hat. Certain things about New York absolutely suck and will always keep sucking worse and worse. And let's get one thing straight: people have been saying things about New York sucking for as long as New York's been around. If you read Monocle magazine, which this essay is basically ripped out of, this is like, every issue. This has long been the party line of travel press types—especially ones from abroad—for at least three years. I mean, if you really want to go back, I believe Rolling Stone called New York the Hot Dead Zone in their inaugural Hot List issue. In 1998. Saying New York is no longer edgy hasn't been edgy in forever.

The sequel to this piece is when she inevitably says that Berlin is starting to get really, really hip these days too. Pretty much anybody who went through Ellis Island and didn't stay probably had some sentiment along the lines of "this place sucks." According to the Daily News, one of our presidents basically told us to stick this city up our collective asses (look where he is, now: dead).

But—and I'm sure others have their reasons—I live here because, quite frankly (A) there's still nowhere else in America like it, and like many other people here, I have some sick/awesome compulsion that makes this grind of living here that much more attractive to me than anywhere else and (B) it's still got better stuff than everywhere else in America. Yeah, fuckin' stuff. Awesome stuff.

Now.

Can we quickly go over the reasons London—a nice city, sure—sucks compared to New York? Great:

Your food sucks. It all tastes like ass until American chefs take two months to do better what you've spent hundreds of years sucking at.
The service in your restaurants sucks, because you have to instruct people how to tip by putting a mandatory charge on their tab, like many other countries that do this. Which is the wrong way of doing this, which is why every server you will every have in London will probably be an asshole.
Your theater sucks. War Horse—no, really, War Horse—is the best thing you have up right now. Anything good you have on the West End came from us. And don't bring up fucking Billy Elliot.
Your nightlife is just stupid. Pubs close at 11, our bars don't close until four. Who goes to bed at 11? Are you serious? So you guys open up clubs that close at 2AM that have two kinds of people in them: the kind who get unceremoniously drunk and piss on everything, or the places Prince Harry goes. And who wants to go there? Also, you only play American music. You think Kings of Leon are the Second Coming of Christ. The Kings of Leon play our bar mitzvahs, goddamnit. By the way: most of those rappers you guys play on repeat (and not even the good ones...50 Cent?!) still live in New York. Our clubs and nightlife might have their issues, but they blow yours out of the water. You guys wouldn't know what to do with The Beatrice Inn if it crawled up your nose in a $100 bill.
Nobody knows where anything is in London. Seriously. It's like the worst parts of the West Village for an entire city. Everything is higgly-piggly or whatever dumb word you have for it. We live on a grid. A grid. You guys have the dumbest civic planning this side of kids eating Legos.
OH. Don't get me wrong. Our subways suck, for sure. But at least they're supposed to work after midnight, and don't cost half our income to ride. Also, an Oystercard? That just sounds stupid. Who's running your design schemes, Lewis Carroll? Stupid. Oh, and, you wanna talk about EDGY? How about our D-Trains getting stabby again, edgy? Exactly.
You guys have never had a nice day of weather in the history of the universe. Seriously. The only person Madonna has to compete with for causing a scene is the fucking sun. It's yellow, it's in the sky, sometimes, it...nevermind. Have you even been here in September? It's like Central Park is trying to get in your pants and get you off, the weather's so goddamned nice.
Oh, and the pound is stupid-expensive. Like everything else in your city.
Your tabloid newspapers make the New York Post look like The Paris Review.
And Whole Foods on the Bowery, sure, Whole Foods sucks. But it's in a pretty great location, and, fuck that, you know what sucks worse? Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's suuuuuuuucks. Which goes back to your food sucking.
Do you have Brooklyn? Do you even know what a Brooklyn is? No, not David Beckham's son. You're stupid, shut up. [Quiet Moment: The article didn't mention Brooklyn once, but didn't refer to Manhattan exclusively. Go figure.]
London's celebrities are all on Big Brother and fucking suck. They're mouthbreathing idiots. They make Tinsley Mortimer look like Jackie Kennedy.
You guys have soccer—yeah, I called it soccer, goddamnit—teams. Multiple ones. Great. We have two baseball teams (including the 2009 World Series Champions), football teams (Including the 2008 Super Bowl Champions), hockey teams (I'm sure they Won Something Great recently), and a basketball team. All of them except for the Knicks could smash every London soccer player. Nothing else, just "smash" them.
There is one—and only one—good song about Foggy London Town. There are as many songs about New York as there are New Yorkers, and most of them are awesome.

Anything else? Oh, yeah, did Samuel Motherfucking Jackson just buy an apartment next to your boss? No? Exactly.

Shut up. New York is awesome.

Vampire Weekend! Twlight: New Moon Sucks Big Money from Wallets Worldwide [Vampires]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:30:00 -0500

Behold the power of the sparkly vampire. How much money do you think Robert Pattinson's dead-eyed stare brought into the people who birthed Twlight: New Moon into this world? Well, you're probably short a few million.

Try $140.7 million on for size. Let that sink into your neck and suck your will to live and/or be any other movie.

[New Moon is] the third biggest three-day debut ever, according to early estimates from Hollywood.com Box Office. ("The Dark Knight" still retains the record for the biggest weekend debut with $158.4 million, and "Spider-Man 3" is second with $151.1 million.)

Good to know: Bats > Spiders > Sparkly Vampires.

80% of Twlight: New Moon's audience, according to the same report, were women. The other 20% breaks down like this:

10%: Pissed-Off Boyfriends
6%: Vampire Fetishists
3%: Overprotective Fathers
1%: Pissed-Off Gays

Sadly, the nu-vampire trend shows no signs of dying out any time soon. Twilight's basically trying to take over pop culture entirely, and pop culture is losing the war against Twilight. They even signed up hipster culture to be a part of this thing with indie rock bands on the soundtrack. These people are good: lure in early-adopters with crossover music that they're in the closet about enjoying (read: Death Cab for Cutie), and get them to "ironically" enjoy going to see Twilight movies until puff-paint shirts of Bella and Edward start appearing in Urban Outfitters everywhere. Genius.

So: what comes after the sparkly vampires in this weekend's box office take? $100M? $75M? $50M? Nope. But at least it involved a Vanity Fair writer.

Sandra Bullock continued her stellar year, with her true-life sports drama "The Blind Side" clearing an estimated $34.5 million for second place.

Michael Lewis! Attaboy! You took a, uh, nibble out of the sparkly vampires with the high fructose-sweetened version of what was pretty good source material. Now all we need to do is get Michael Lewis to write a screenplay about how vampires could be more profitable if they just cut the Mormon abstinence bullshit and got straight to Rated R-type bloodsucking (read: sex, gratuitous violence) while recruiting for their ranks cheaper vampires who'll suck more blood over the long run, and we've got a competitor. I've even got a great title in mind: Bloodsucking Blind Moneyballs. And it can star this guy:

Bad News: Newspaper Circulations Going Up! [Print Is Dead]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:45:00 -0500

Circulation rates going up! That's great! Print's dying and someone's succeeding! THANK GOD. Except, not. While circulations go up, fewer people are getting newspapers circulated to them. How?

For example, the charmers at my hometown paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, saw an increase in circulation this year by 6.6%. Which is awesome! Except: strange. Because Vegas' economy is in the toilet, having been crippled by foreclosures and joblessness. Why wouldn't these people just go online and get that shit for free? Funny you'd ask, because weekday sales dropped by 12,000 copies.

So. About that increase in circulation. Is the mob fixing numbers in Vegas again, or what? So old-school. Here's how this works: back in April, the Audit Bureau of Circulations changed their rules to let numbers look better to people who look at circulation rates, like ad buyers (and media reporters). The standard-change was bad. Like, disingenuous. Which is how the Review-Journal went up in circulation this year.

The change happened because the price the newspaper was charging for the online replica — it costs print customers an extra 50 cents per week — hadn't been high enough to qualify as paid circulation until the ABC's April change. That let newspapers define their paying readers as anyone who spends at least a penny for a copy. Previously, a newspaper copy had to sell for at least 25 percent of the basic price to qualify as paid circulation.

Right, so, by that logic, $1 could potentially equal 100 copies, and $100 equals 10,000 copies. Here's where I'd write that that's five times the amount of copies of the LVRJ distributed in Vegas, but I can't, because we have no idea how many copies are actually distributed! Fun. How do advertisers feel about this runaround? Raging mad, right? Um, kind of. One advertiser thinks the numbers are "less credible."

You really have to do your homework now and ask newspapers about how much double counting is going on,'' said Allison Howald, U.S. director of print investment at PHD Media.

The rage doesn't come across quite like I was expecting it to.

Hopefully, "less credible" is a kind euphemism for "complete bullshit," or some advertisers are going to wake up one day and start asking questions about why the 200,000 eyes they were promised on their quarter-page actually only amounts to a third-grade arts class making paper machete hats. You'd think these sketchy practices are limited to sleazy gambling towns like Vegas, though, right? WRONG again. Wall Street Journal, you guys will be transparent, right?

Nope. WSJ spokesman Robert Christie wouldn't respond to the AP's questions for quote on the new rules, including whether or not their numbers included digital subscriptions.

Including the print side, the Journal's total circulation edged up by just 0.6 percent to 2.02 million. ''We followed the ABC's rules and methodology,'' Christie said

Right, so, newspapers: more fucked than previously statistically "proven."

I'm forgetting where I read about the guy who used to steal ATM receipts of trashcans to impress dates with his huge bank account. This reminds me of that.

NYT Editorial Board to Goldman Sachs CEO's Apology: Shove It [Wishful Thinking]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:12:37 -0500

Watching the NYT get feisty telling anyone to stick it up their ass (and use words like "absurd"): fun, even if it's Lloyd Blankfein. They end their editorial with the Bureau of the Public Debt's address. Wishful thinking. [NYT]

This is How Your Major Label Pop Records are Made: By Stealing [Pop Culture Aneurysm]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0500

So, there's this band, Owl City, and they have songs, and teenagers like them. The song is basically a complete ripoff of the Postal Service, a great act. Given the chance to speak? More music dumbquotes to the Times, GO:

When asked about the similarity, Mr. Young said the Postal Service was never a model yet he considered the comparisons an honor. But he also wasn't too shy to note that he has profited from the other band's recent absence. "They released a record in 2003, and that was it," he said. "There was really nothing to compare it to until some one else came along and wrote the next chapter. Maybe that's this record. Maybe that's this band."

Yeah, except, the people writing the next chapter are not you, but desperate label heads and A & R guys who either need a hit or a new job, and so they take it from indie labels and manufacture the most malleable product they can into something marketable for mass consumption. UGH. Please. No.

Let's do a quick compare/contrast. The Postal Service, produced by indie label Sub Pop:

And Owl City, plucked from MySpace obscurity for a Major Label Deal:

Note that basically everything is the same, except one is overproduced. And that's how major labels get all of their hit acts, six years later. It's the difference between home-brewed sweet tea and the stuff they sell in cans at bodegas. Meanwhile, this kid should be read the riot act and met with sharpened Pitchforks. Instead, the New York Times profiles them with words like this:

"Fireflies" is pensive yet bubbly, with Mr. Young's guileless voice expressing mom-friendly sentiments like "I'd get a thousand hugs/From ten thousand lightning bugs."

Mom-friendly? Yes. Pensive?

pensive |ˈpensiv| |adjective| engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought

Not so much.

Scoring Sunday's Nuptials: Gawker Weddings Get All Gangsta [Altarcations]

Phyllis Nefler — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0500

Awww yeeeah. Did you know people are rapping at weddings? You KNOW what this means. Phyllis Nefler's gonna throw down on some sick rhymes over Robert Woletz-produced beat of the NYT's Weddings & Celebrations. Let the beat build, Phyllis:

It was a clear black night, a big first date

Walter G was in the sheets, tryna consummate

His skirt for the eve, but she left in a huff

Rollin on his side, chillin all alone.

He hit the East Side, up to old Club D's

on a Mission tryna find Mrs. Walter G

Seen a group full of girls, pals from Trinity

All those skirts knew what up with IBD.

Oh, sorry about that! You caught me right in the middle of working on a toast for an old pal from tennis camp who is getting married soon. I thought in lieu of a graceful anecdote about the fun we shared at Windridge back in the late 80's I'd call him out via "verse" about the night he first roofied his fiance.

Because did you know that there is "a growing collection" of wedding toasts that are "sung, or even rapped"? It's true: an editor at Brides.com used to hear about this five times a year, and now it's three to five times a month! It's all the fault of YouTube, or the fact that we were "raised on" Family Guy, even though Family Guy first aired in 1999 and so anyone who was "raised" on it is currently like 14 years old.

But I digress. I'm more worried about the woman whose friend decided to base her toast on "'Eleanor Rigby' by the Beatles because that is her favorite song." Yeah, she changed the words, but do you really want people on your wedding day reminded of something whose original lyrics include phrases like "all the lonely people", "buried along with her name", and "no one was saved"?

Anyway, I'm just amped because I don't have to change the …getting' high like every day lyric for my friend's toast! This is going to be great. I can't wait to be a YouTube sensation.

***

One thing is for sure: the wedding of Bess Rattray and Paul Gartside should be soundtracked by a choral arrangement of Cape Breton Lullaby (anyone else have to sing that song in seventh grade chorus?) This wedding announcement is interesting beause it somehow miraculously manages to combine East Hampton, sailing, and Vogue magazine in a not-annoying way.

Rattray, a "freelance magazine editor in Shelburne, Nova Scotia" and the scionne of the East Hampton Star publishing family that is "one of the oldest in East Hampton and includes several generations of whalers" was taking a sailing class in Maine while there to write an article for Vogue. Everything about that last sentence makes you jealous, admit it! Looking to find someone to chaperone her on a sailboat, she found "laconic Welshman" Paul Gartside, a naval architect who was teaching a class on boat design.

Several days later, after Gartside invited Rattray to join him in a regatta, they parted ways and he returned to Vancouver Island. But seriously, fuck you youngs and your sexting: you're not going to seal the deal unless you actually seal an envelope:

Neither believed their interaction was more than a brief flirtation, but after returning home they each received a note from the other expressing great pleasure in their meeting.

The notes crossed paths in the mail, and three months later it was Mr. Gartside who crossed the continent as he embarked on a different kind of voyage.

How baller is that? They got married in Nevis. They really don't make freelance writers the way they used to. And last year they adopted an Ethiopian baby. Someone needs to acquire the film rights to these people. I'm seeing Meryl, or maybe Emma Thompson, I'm seeing John Slattery in a fisherman's sweater …

Mia Feldbaum and Mark McGoldrick also met over water sports, only in this case it was a canoe trip in the Yukon territory and one of them was paralyzed from the waist down.

The "combustible fuel of alcohol, drugs, and trouble" of McGoldrick's adolescence left him paralyzed (there's a copy editing error in the lede of the Times piece, see if you can spot it) but also inspired him to travel the world and graduate cum laude from Harvard Law. The pair met when Mia was leading the 800-mile canoe trip — "Mark and Mia met tough," remarked Mia's father. "They had grizzlies, floods, mud, big snags in the river."

The couple survived all those things, and also survived this small bit of creepinees:

When the canoe trip ended, the group boarded a van headed to Edmonton, Alberta, where Mr. McGoldrick would depart.

"She's driving through the night and everyone else behind us is sleeping," he recalled. "I was reciting poetry to her, very softly."

Unclear on whether it was the poetry of a wedding toast RAP.

Moving on, guess how old this woman is!

Freaking SIXTY. I mean, not bad, right!? I want what she's having, even if what she's having is minimally invasive.

That's Susan Mendik, who is really short and loves golf and one time she got stuck in Palm Beach, where she winters, on Valentine's Day in a snowstorm and she ended up meeting up with Moe Tarkinow, whom she had been fixed up with previously, and the proposal story kind of confuses me because I guess he had custom chopsticks printed up with with the name Suzy Tarkinow on them and gave them to her during her 60th birthday dinner and "the whole place erupted" but then she mentions that the next morning after she thought about it "I knew it was the right time and the right man" but does that mean she actually said "Let me think about it" at the time in front of the erupting room? Because if so, imagine how the servers must have felt!

Elsewhere this weekend, a bride named Rainbow would have a nondenominational wedding; the "founder of PhemPhat Productions, an entertainment company in Toronto that promotes women in hip-hop and produces the annual Honey Jam concert" must really have gotten all the good wedding toasts; I know it's traditional but I still think it's awkward for just the bride to pose for a picture; this man, as far as I can tell, loitered at college bars looking for younger women … and it worked!; this mother of the bride is named Phyllis Meller and she is a wedding planner - email me, Phyllis, so I can interview you!; and this bride is an aggregate composite sketch of what every dietician I have ever met looks like.

Oh, and I'm not going to watch the video this week, although I do admit that the teaser in the print section of the paper telling me that "Mr. Buxton later proposed over a rigged game of Boggle."

This week's matchup:

Emily Theriault and Luca Laino

• The couple were married at The Racquet and Tennis Club in New York, a fancy club where old men swim and then pad down the hallways totally in the nude: +2
• The couple met at Dartmouth where they both received MBAs: +7
• Both are investment bankers: +2
• The bride is a VP and the groom is an associate: -1
• The groom's father is an opthalmology professor at Cornell medical school: +1
• The groom went to Camp Trin Trin: +1

TOTAL: 12

Helen Bailey and Farhad Manjoo

The bride graduated magna cum laude from Yale and received a medical degree at UC-Davis: +7
The groom graduated from Cornell: +3
The groom writes about Facebook and Kindles and Y2K for Slate (his advice on blogging: "Don't expect instant fame" and "Don't worry if your posts suck a little". Duly noted!): +2
I am a Slate fangirl: +1
The bride's father is a senior Lockheed Martin engineer: +2
They both wear power-nerd glasses: +2

TOTAL: 17. I just want to know what password Manjoo uses for his registry.

The Return of Pay Per Post and The End of Twitter: Internet as One Long, Subervisive Ad [The End Is Near]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:00:00 -0500

Remember the moment you knew MySpace was doomed? It came in the form of obnoxious ads. Which your Twitter stream is about to be. So: are you making that cash, or being cashed in on? Pay Per Post is back.

Today, the Times runs a trend(ing) piece in the business section on how Twitter users are making serious cash Tweeting ads. Like, serious cash. How much?

Meet John Chow, a guy who makes money telling people how to make money online with his blog. Basically, imagine an infomercial about making infomercials. That's this guy, who's described as a "blogger and Internet entrepreneur." Watch, he makes money:

Mr. Chow treated his 50,000 Twitter followers to a photograph of his lunch (barbecued chicken and French fries), discussed the weather in Vancouver and linked to a new post on his Internet business blog. Then he earned $200 by telling his fans where they could buy M&M's with customized faces, messages and colors...In October, Mr. Chow's income from Twitter ads was around $3,000. "I get paid for pushing a button," he said.

$200 bucks. For telling people about M&Ms. Since the Times doesn't, let's take a look at what that Tweet looked like:

He's got the designation of it being an ad in two characters, four if you count the parenthesis. He puts the designation of it being an ad after he places the link, so visually, your awareness doesn't come into play until you've been given the chance to get to/click on whatever's being sold. And four characters out of 88 comes to about 4.54% of the message. It looks subversive to me, and I know it's an ad, but then again, I'm not dumb enough to follow this guy in the first place.

Yet advertorial content is a time-honored tradition in all kinds of publishing formats! Including this one, where we place "sponsored ads" everywhere. But these look like out-and-out endorsements, followed by the designation of it being an ad. And if you attach them to hashtags and @feeds, you can more or less just harass and molest the flow of information coming in to Twitter. Just like when you could see HOT XX NEKKD AMATEURS being attached to Twitter messages that were coming out of Iran after their elections a few months back, by automatic spam bots. Brilliant.

So: what's the defense for completely subverting and messing with the user experience on Twitter? Enjoy this:

"We don't want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network," said Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. "All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us."

Kind of sounds like the way vampires work, right? Once you're done with getting your blood sucked, you become one of them because you need more blood. The reason people left MySpace en masse (besides the fact that Facebook offered a cleaner interface and unanimously better user experience) was because of the gross, nonstop barrage of advertising, which Facebook has thankfully kept to a tolerable minimum. What's to stop your Twitter feed from becoming just one, long, advertisement if the people and trending topics you follow are being turned into ad-vampires left and right? And do people even really care that much?

One problem is that many Internet users eschew the idea of these ads, saying they commercialize authentic dialogue and undermine people's credibility. "It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience," said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he "unfollows" people on Twitter who send him ads.

Exactly. So who's to blame for all of this, really? When Twitter goes to shit, and like a bad strain of drugs, everything you touch comes from the same gross source lacing it with their nasty advertorial additives? This assclown, snake oil salesman Mr. Ted "The Murphman" Murphy, he of Pay Per Post, a company basically everyone in Silicon Valley regards as straight-up evil.

They're not wrong. Pay Per Post was having users sell other users on products with no disclosure that they were ads. Whoops! The Times article catches up with Murphy, who's now doing Izea. Which is how Julia Allison ended up shilling for Sea World. But Murphy's reformed! He's better now! He knows he made a mistake!

Ted Murphy, the C.E.O. of Izea, now a 30-person business backed by $10 million in venture capital, said the company initially "made a big mistake" by not setting disclosure standards for publishers and advertisers. Today, ad networks promote their standards; Izea's ads on Twitter are typically demarcated with signifiers like "#ad" or "#sponsor."

Right. Except, whoops, not all of them:

The Times piece wraps up like so, as they chat with people running Likes.com, which, I don't even care to know what it is, really. All of these people are gross and lecherous. Here:

"We are trying to limit it, to prevent people from losing their following," said Bindu Reddy, a former Google product manager who started the company with her husband, Arvind Sundararajan, a former Google engineer. "We know people are queasy about this."

Right! But probably not as much as Twitter is, or should be. It doesn't appear that they're doing anything to even take a cut of the product being moved under their hood. Amazing that the most money being made on Twitter isn't by Twitter. Their product goes down in value to them because it's becoming an ad network.

But who's even dumb enough to follow Julia Allison and John Chow? Won't they catch on to the con being run on them? Well: the same people who watch bad TV, for one thing. Philo Farnsworth probably thought his invention was going to make the world a way better place, too.

Meanwhile, spambots and assclowns like Ted Murphy's zombie army who're getting small bucks will attach themselves to hashtags and your @feed like leeches. Big brands won't care whether this hurts what people think of their product—however much we want it to, or however marginally it will—because this creates awareness. And to think, it's all because of a guy who likes like Ted Murphy. Look again. Right?

Nothing gold can stay, Pony Boy. Unless we can get everyone to do this:

Who is Gawker Media Overlord Nick Denton's New Neighbor? [Awesome Things]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0500

I must've inadvertently done a rain dance to the gossip gods yesterday, because here at Gawker Weekend HQ, Christmas is here. Not often do I get too many O RLY?! moments like this. Everyone, meet my boss Nick's new neighbor:

OH YES. Nick's new neighbor is Samuel Motherfucking Jackson. You know there was a movie made about this, right? [See above. It was not the one where Samuel Jackson gets EATEN by a MOTHERFUCKING SHARK.] Like, they gave this to me, on a Sunday. Holy shit, I'm never asking for anything ever again.

I mean guys, I don't know, all I see is "sitcom" potential written all over this. Wait, the item, the fucking Page Six item is so classic, I'm dying here. Breathe, Foster. Okay, okay. Let's handle this like adults. Look:

We hear the seller, Wall Street dude Eric Gross, got such a kick out of Jackson buying his pad, he may have accepted the bid, despite it being a tad lower than a nonceleb offer of about $4.1 million. Let's hope Jackson doesn't have any secrets, though. It'll be hard to keep them from the only other neighbor on his floor — Gawker guru Nick Denton.

BAHAHA. Oh, come on. You think that glee was because it was Sam Jackson, or did he get a "kick" out of this because it was Sam Jackson living next to Nick? [Former Gawker Intern Turned Page Six Reporter] Neel Shah, PLEASE tell me you wrote this. This is going to be a beautiful wellspring of material. Sam! We have a tips line. If Nick puts his motherfucking recycling in the motherfucking trash, you know exactly who to call.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Would Rather Be Alone and Drunk Than With Twlight, Thanks [Gossip Roundup]

Foster Kamer — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0500

RobPatz and K-Stew are doing it, a lot, instead of promotions. Jay-Z doesn't want to piss off Beyonce. Christie Brinkley: psycho. Diddy: birthday boy. Marv Albert Vs. 50 Cent? Fight of the year! Presenting your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup:

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart decided to opt out of going to The Box for their New York New Moon premiere after-party, instead opting to go to Avenue, where they could sit around, drink vodka, drink beer, get trashed, leave, go home, and do it. Robert Pattinson's psychotic, obsessive stalkerfans, are you listening? Tune your teenage to mid-30s adult ears to this: Rather than hang out with Kellan Lutz and the rest of their cast, you know what they're doing? They're going home and doing it. Now, I know, I know, you all think Kristen Stewart is the most evil thing in the universe and that she should die a fiery death while Rob realizes who the real lady of his life needs to be: you. You should probably get used to the fact that (A) this will never happen because you're not movie-star good looking and she is, (B) the love you do find will be some kind of settlement, (C) and they will probably work in middle management, and (D) they will not be a blood-sucking vampire, they will just suck at your will to live. So! While Robert Pattinson enjoys ditching his Twilight castmates for getting drunk and doing it with Kristen Stewart, you're getting prepared for life! #NotAfraidToBeServicey. Psychos. [Page Six]
Okay, Boris and Natasha-esque Rush and Molloy, you done did good on this one! Today the Daily News gossip duo focus their moose-and-squirrel sights on Christie Brinkley's fourth divorce, from Peter Cook, which ex-husband Billy Joel is being a mensch about and stepping up to her defense for. Unfortunately, this is being countered by a former Brinkley maid, Alzirene Vianna, stepping out and giving details for. This shit is too crazy. Highlights: Christie never encouraged her daughter to call her dad, Billy. Christie told her then 8 year-old daughter that she basically needed to stop fucking up her relationship with Kristie's new mans. Christie used to kick doors when she was locked out of rooms by her husbands. Christie was a pillhead. Christie used to throw stuff at husbands leaving in cars from inside their house, via window. Basically: Christie Brinkley is insane, and on her fourth divorce because of it. [NYDN]
NICE. While every guy in the club the other night after the Victoria's Secret fashion show was clamoring to get a spot next to some of the hotness, Jay-Z gave explicit instructions to keep him away from them because he didn't want to piss off Beyonce. The man's got respect for his lady, yo. If I were with Beyonce, I would, too. Jay-Z's gonna be the one guy not to fuck his good thing up. Nice. Alternate Take/Conspiracy Theory: Jay-Z worked very hard to stay away from models at the Victoria's Secret show to get his publicist to plant an item that could be corroborated with other accounts and placed in Page Six so Beyonce would let him off the short leash he's on to go kick it with models. Yeah, but again, the problem with this theory is that Jay-Z's married Beyonce. [Page Six]
Best random fact of the day: Andre Leon Talley wears size 16 shoes. Yes, they are bespoke. [Page Six]
OH COME ON Page Six. Today's front story is such boring bullshit (they put Patz and K-Stew in the second spot). They open up with this awesome lede about how, wait, just, read this: "They say practice makes perfect. When Mark Consuelos tried out for a permanent role on the ABC soap "All My Children," his behind-closed-doors rehearsals with future wife Kelly Ripa paid off big." So you're thinkin, oh, man, maybe they had some kind of secret closet conspiracy sex or something, awesome, Evil Kelly Ripa is the shit, except, not. Nope. It's just the story about how their rehearsal scenes for soaps were better than everyone else's because they'd done did it before. Like, sex. Except I guess sex in Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' world involves lots of bare-manchest making out, heavy breathing, and speaking in expository plot points between breaths. Oh, and the people holding the rehearsals didn't know. This is top story material? Really? Related: Soap Operas make you stupider. Anything that Gossip Girl can make look functionally braindead is, on some level, an impressive feat. [Page Six]
Richie Akiva, the guy who owns Butter and 1OAK, which are big clubby clubs that famous people go to, is having a big Thanksgiving celebration at Butter for all the clubby club people who stay in town to go eat and drink at because their families hate them because they're club rats. Kidding! No, but really, I hope they stuff their turkey with ketamine. I'd stick around for that. [Page Six]
Diddy threw a $3M birthday party at The Plaza. There were lion-tamers and fire-breathers and clowns and magicians and probably a few druglords or two. JK, you guys. There were no lion-tamers. But there were lots of people and, oh wait, what's this? Security was tight and even Tyrese Gibson and "Twilight's" Kellan Lutz had to talk their way into the VIP area. Is it just me or is Tyrese talking his way into more and more security areas these days? Anyway. I hope Diddy got all the cheesecake he wanted for his birthday. [Page Six]
Cross-dressing perv Marv Albert and Fiddy Cent did or did not have some kind of run-in on the Kimmel show. What? I don't know. How the hell does a rumor start about Marv Albert getting into a fight with Fiddy Cent's entourage? There are at least 21 questions about this kind of thing, none of the answers do I give a shit about knowing. [NYDN]
Oprah announced that she's leaving The (Talk Show) Game, and now her best friend Gayle King is gonna try to steal the crown. Don't forget to kiss the ring, Gayle. [Page Six]
Olympic swimmers! They're just like us. They like to smoke weed and sometimes mess up their taxes. Whoops! Michael Phelps, dude, face outta the bong for one sec. Take it to H&R Block, you know? [TMZ]
Tyson Beckford drove his motorcycle in circles and then went home. [Page Six]
Apparently, it's 1995, because TMZ is making OJ jokes again. [TMZ]

Okay, so, techinical problems aside, we're all feeling much better today! And also, I'm so excited for the next item, I can't even, well, just, okay. Hang in there for one moment. Some things are just too good for the gossip roundup, you know? YOU KNOW. Also, big ups to Jay-Z for being good to Beyonce! Sometimes, people do good things and don't go rub up on models and make a point of it, whether it's because he wants Beyonce to know explicitly or not, right? Right. Here's a good cover of Beyonce's "Halo," let's get this Sunday started.

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin]

Saturday Night Special [Saturday]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:15:00 -0500

We've survived through another wonderful, crazy Saturday. Seriously: crazy kids, crazy rock stars, crazy politicians, and just straight-up crazies. Glad we made it out okay. Here's your SNL open thread.

Tonight's SNL: Dave Matthews Band and Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Uh, what movie is JG-L promoting, and didn't DMB's new album come out a while back? And I'm pretty sure this isn't a re-run, so....

Okay, seriously? This feels wrong. And not just in my ear.

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's pretty great. He is! And if you're drunk enough and with people who will not shame you for knowing the words to "Ants Marching," so is the Dave Matthews Band. And really, how much more could they screw the pooch on this show after last week? I almost kind of want it to be terrible just so I have an excuse to rip out the juicy SEO-happy headline SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: LORNE MICHAELS IS JUST FUCKING WITH US, NOW. But I kind of don't because I'm one of those people who shamelessly believes in this show to one day be good again. Hey, at least I'm not a Cubs fan. Also, Seth Meyers has a nice Sunday routine. Hopefully you all do, too, and it involves coming here and clicking on everything a million times.

OH. Before I forget. You should all vote for my New Yorker cartoon so I can win and take a tour of their offices in my Weekend at Bernies costume. No, seriously: this is art, and we can do this together, people.

Tomorrow! Altarcations at 2:30. SNL Digest. Kids who have to take Prep Tests in Kindergarten. And a very, very, very special treat. Until then, a nice song to take us out. By someone who isn't a (possible) date rapist. Thankfully, just a drunk, like the rest of us.

John Mayer Interviews Now Lead to the Same Conclusion: He's (Probably) a Date Rapist. [American Psychos]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:15:00 -0500

No, seriously. John Mayer songs are great! Have you listened—like, really listened—to "Daughters"? That's a song. But why does John Mayer think it's awesome to give rapey quotes?

It's fine for someone to be quirky, and John Mayer certainly seems to be better than your average pop star, and/or prettyboy singer-songwriter. There's no reason for him to be giving rapey interview quotes.

You know that scene in Bull Durham, where Kevin Costner is coaching Tim Robbins on what to say to the press? This is it:

Exactly.

Stick to the press lines, John Mayer. Or at least don't come off as rapey. And the thing is, it's not like he even has to come off as rapey.

Fact: He is smart! Blues guitarists are notoriously sharp people. He can play mean blues guitar. Which takes brains and talent. When he isn't making his rapey guitarface.

Fact: He has done funny things that aren't rapey before. Like walking around in a bear suit before his shows screwing with his fans. Or riffing with Dave Chappelle.

Now, remember when he told New York Magazine that he'd basically rape Jada Yuan (or Mark Graham)?

....the next record will have that concept.

What concept?
More political things, worldly things.

Such as?
Nothing rhymed with public option.

You don't always have to rhyme, though.
I'm going to forcefully sodomize your editor.

Ha ha, so funny, except there's truth in every joke, John Mayer. We'll excuse it because if you have a good sense of humor and forget that there's truth in every joke, John Mayer, it can be pretty goddamn funny.

Now, a few weeks later, and John gets profiled by New York Times pop music writer Jon Caramanica, who is the man and writes great stuff. So you should know not to be a pervy-sounding maybe-anal-rapist when Jon Caramanica is interviewing you, John Mayer, and get on your game, and try to be taken relatively seriously, because you could get a very, very great piece of press in a big publication by a talented pop music writer, right?

Caramanica's lede, in a piece called, John Mayer Just Has to Please the Girls:

"I should be having sex with more girls." This is what John Mayer concluded, using slightly more colorful language, last Sunday night at his anonymously modern apartment in SoHo.

Okay, so,
lives in a sparse modernist apartment,
makes jokes about anal rape (or "forcible sodomy"),
thinks he should be having sex with more women,
is a famous rock star.

Oh, and this:

"It's crazy to me that in my head, that being 32 and dating women is going to get me in trouble," he said, talking faster as he went along. "I can't even explain to you how terrible that feels, that I equate dating a woman with punishment, shame, guilt, disappointment, reproach, reprimand, persecution. It's a nightmare."

Who has these issues? John Mayer has shame about dating women and getting in trouble? No. Fucking no! Telling young, female New York reporters you're going to anally rape their editors will get you in *trouble! From where does your "shame" come from John Mayer? HM?! Are you hiding something?!

Hopefully, John Mayer is not Patrick Bateman.

That said, Caramanica's piece ends like so. You be the judge:

At the encore, though, he let the public invade the private. "They say I'm a womanizer," he complained. "I say I haven't met enough women." The crowd cheered. Shrieked, really. Maybe things weren't so bad after all. "Cute girl," Mr. Mayer said, pointing into the sea of eager faces. "Cute girl. Cute girl. Kuh-yoot girl."

*John Mayer is welcome to tell me he will forcibly rape my editors, since all seven of them are all older men, and I see the humor in that. All seven of them.
**There is maybe truth in every joke, John Mayer.

Sarah Palin Now Pissing Off Everyone : Fans Boo Her, Martha Stewart Calls Her "Dangerous" [VideUhOh]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:15:00 -0500

Evil Twin-spawning Sarah Palin isn't catching any easy breaks lately. Should she? Better ask her fans who, oh wait, are now booing her. And when Martha Stewart calls you out, damn, you know you've set some kind of bar.

Not exaggerating. Martha Stewart got asked by CNN why Sarah Palin's polarizing. Martha calls her "boring," "confused," "a dangerous person," and a "real problem." The best is when Martha throws down on a patronizing "good for her" when told about her book sales and then, after, "I wouldn't watch her if you pay me." SHOTS FIRED!

And then there's this wonderful clip. Palin dipped out of a signing early, and got booed by her fans, who were pissed that they didn't get their books signed. It goes without saying that Palin's fans sound just as patently insane hating her as they do loving her, but hey, you can't put lipstick on an neglectful idol, or whatever. Or you can, but, she's still gonna stiff you for a book signature.

This sounds like the worst book tour ever.

...As opposed to former New York Times $25 and Under food writer Peter Meehan and Momofuku Cookbook chef David Chang's book tour. Which goes something like this:

WHY was somebody calling me? Didn't they know I was still DRUNK from the night before? It was 5:00 a.m. Tosi explained to me what was going on. I had to get to Ssam Bar to pick up her and Gabe, a cook who'd be coming down to help us, and head to LGA. I was fucked up. Tosi wanted to kill me. I was literally falling over in a drunken stupor like Dudley Moore in Arthur. My life had two-day hangover written all over it. Arrive at airport at 5:50 for a 6:30 am flight and magically got on. For some reason, the flight got delayed for four hours... but it was all news to me: I pilled myself out, so I came to on the runway in Memphis.

See, Sarah Palin! If you're gonna do the book tour of a dangerous person who doesn't give a shit about pissing people off, there's a right way, and a wrong way. As far as signing books goes, if you ever need help, don't be afraid to ask. We might know a thing or two about it to help you on your way.

[Photo by Shealah Craighead, via the Going Rogue Facebook Group.]

And the Bony, Terrifying Hand of Black Friday Beckons [Consumerism]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:30:00 -0500

I will refuse to acknowledge this season's hot trend in toys, electric Chinese hamsters, with anything but the following: 1. These forty words. 2. #WeHateYourKids. 3. Sigh. 4. #RichardGere. That is all. Are we done? We're done. Thank you. [NYT]

Glenn Beck's Scary Blueprint for World Domination in 2010, Unveiled: "The Plan" [Wtf]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:45:00 -0500

Glenn Beck's talking up some scary plan for 2010 lately. It's scary because Glenn Beck is talking. And today, Glenn Beck unveiled his 100-year plot to fundamentally change America—and democracy—as we know it. Glenn Beck is fucking insane.

So: we got teased yesterday and this morning with two great pieces on Glenn Beck talking in his strange, voodoo-esque language on whatever way he plans to molest and exploit the minds of whoever will lend him an open ear to aim his ideological piss into. The first was the aforementioned Politico note, which quoted Beck teasing his big ideas on his show. But this was fun! Remember that scary 9/12 Project that was presumed to have gone away because only crazy people listened to crazy people and hey, there can't be that many crazy people who are that organized. We call those cults, and there are lots of them, sure. But they don't represent any kind of frightening majority. Because crazy people need crazy leaders with power and a platform and there aren't really any of those out there as completely insane as the 9/12ers are, right?

Christine Drawdy, a Florida event promoter involved in the tea party and 9/12 movements who is listed as the travel coordinator for the 2010 march, said the permit for the march is in the name of The 9.12 Project's administrator, Yvonne Donnelly. Though Drawdy stressed that Beck "is not the leader of" the 912 movement, she added "all he has to do is say something, and they'll jump."

And by 'jump,' she means, kill people.

Brian Stetler at the New York Times also talked to Beck before today. Stetler's a sizable dude, not someone I imagine can be easily intimidated, nice as he is. Really, he could probably bounce a guy Glenn Beck's size easily.

That said, I imagine he'll be sleeping in the fetal position tonight:

"We'll be looking for ways to get people involved in politics," [Beck] said. "I hear people saying, ‘O.K., now what?' They're calling their representative, but it's time to get more proactive."

Right. So. What was Beck's big plan? He unveiled it today, starting with his website, which is the image you see at the top of this post. One more thing before we get there, though. This video, taken at a Borders yesterday, of Beck teasing out The Plan.

"We're gonna be asking of you some big things." Funny, I've been told the same thing by my bosses, but the first thought that went through my head never involved any kind of civil war and/or revolution.

But hey, Beck: he's just passionate! No way could this entire rollout involve the guy cashing in.

No way could all of this buzz, this entire thing, all of this talk about "community organizing"—taking The Dirty Word of President Barack Obama's past and platform, and putting it to their own new, awesome, terrible uses—no way could Beck be leading his flock into spending some cash.

Funny, then, that they found out that The Plan was for them to spend more money on Glenn Beck, The Brand. Observe his two key points from the manifesto written on his website:

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

Kinda sounds like a cross between Avon and the Left Behind series, right? Except with scarier salespeople who have drier hands.

Yeah, Glenn Beck's got a plan: for the next 100 years, he's gonna keep writing books and making TV shows, and his fans are going to keep buying into both of them. It's kind of genius. His entire multimedia empire is predicated on one, long, 100-year plot arc: that the main character will make viewers'/listeners'/readers' lives better so long as they're with him every step of the way. The man will make references to revolution, to change, to bringing everything back to a fundamental state. The beautiful irony he has to see and embrace—in order for this to have worked as long as it has—is that the only real movement he'll be making is into better cars and larger houses. The kinds that are far away from the rabid zombies who salivate at every vague allusion to blood and violence Mama Bird spits out like discarded pieces of chewing gum for them to suck every last grain of sweet flavor out of. The kind, if provoked, and unleashed, are as much as a threat to anybody as they are to him. A "random act of violence" is never really that random, is it? Especially when the word "radical" gets thrown around over, and over, and over.

More than anything, this guy is a threat to the proliferation of rational thought. Beck knows that there're people in the world who listen to this kind of nonsense without processing it any way but through their emotions, because they're tired, hungry, scared, or angry, and maybe, sometimes, rightfully so. Then again, so are most of us! But when you have an asshole like Beck running the con, one thing leads to another, and shit like this happens. Believe me, nothing would bring me more joy than to watch Glenn Beck get the Downfall-meme treatment after his empire of exploitative bullshit comes crumbling down under the weight of the inevitable rise of the truth: that this man is a crook, a fraud, a shyster, and a very skilled, sophisticated con artist. But who wants it to get that far?

Glenn Beck does have one up on Hitler in terms of likability: a decent Kermit impersonation. I'm pretty sure nobody with such an affection for Muppets can possibly be capable of anything too terrible.

Then again, evil, as we're all aware, is a scary, subversive force, and comes in all forms, at all times, with little to no discretion. Beware.

[Top image via Glenn Beck's website. Bottom image via Bert Is Evil.]

Which Upper West Side Personality and 1983 Obama Roommate Needs a Memoir-Writing Assistant? [Blind Items]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:30:00 -0500

Blind items! They happen. Especially in Craigslist's depths, where inanity prevails in the form of, among other ways you never wanted to consider possible, job listings. So we want to know: which "highly visable" former Obama roommate needs an assistant?

The listing, preserved here for posterity, goes like this:

obama upper west side (West Village)
Date: 2009-11-20, 6:01PM EST
Reply to: job-ub4ww-1475290617@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

ATTN: I'm getting a lot of sarcastic emails. Don't bother sharing your wit with me: it's been done. And done. This is an UNPAID internship intended for a STUDENT and is a RESEARCH position that will give him experience and position on a prestige project. If you can't afford to work in a role that offers credit only, but no renumeration, this isn't for you. If you're the sort of person who has the spare time to respond sarcastically to Craigslist postings, this REALLY isn't for you. Thanks.

I'm working on a memoir, set in 1983, when I lived with Obama for a year.

The memoir is about my life and about what New York was like in 1983, and how we lived then, but Barack is obviously a player in the story. This is not a tell-all, it's a friendly, gentle and literate book.

I work full time in a highly visible career and would like to work with a research assistant to help me stay focused.

This is you:

You live in Manhattan and can visit the Village frequently.
Your living situation is stable, as is your personal life.
Your income is stable.
You can work with a six month window. (ok, maybe a year. it depends.)
You are a fantastic and empathetic listener.
You're creative and imaginative and a fine writer. You can shape material.
You don't drink or use drugs. No psychological disorders I have to deal with.
You are in a graduate writing program at NYU or Columbia.
You want an opportunity to work on a visible book.
You are dependable, timely, punctual and highly motivated to succeed.

This is an internship, not a paid position.

I have already begun, finally, this week, after thinking about it for a the last year. Now is the time. My agent is waiting on the first 100 pages. Let's go.

* Compensation: non-paying internship
* This is an internship job
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
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PostingID: 1475290617

So: who do we have who needs an "intern" who is also in a graduate writing program? Or, otherwise: which Upper West Side asshole friend of Obama's hepcat days is now enough of a square to need an unpaid slave to help write their feeder-fish book and expect to be paid in the form of, maybe, a thank you in a book that has yet to be written on one year of Obama's life?

Have you applied for the job? You got any guesses? Shoot us an email or throw it in the comments. We'd love to know, 'cause, you know: we've got questions, too.

The 99th Percentile Bowl: 2009's Harvard-Yale Game, A Compiled Air-to-Ground Report [Awesome Things]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:30:00 -0500

The Harvard-Yale game's a storied tradition for Ivy League grads who enjoy comparing degree sizes/names. For everyone else, it's an opportunity to watch America's Prestigious Ivy Grads try to act like normal football fans, which they can't. So: what happened?!

First of all, the only people besides Harvard-Yale grads who have anything invested in this ritual are their hangers-on, asshole bloggers (me), or sports writers, who think they have a really great narrative on their hands by writing the same narrative they do every year. Watch. This year's filing by ESPN, penned by one Mr. Tom Lakin:

It is, after all, the 126th installment of a tradition that began back in 1875 with a 4-0 Harvard win. In the years since that first meeting, the legend of The Game has grown. Perhaps best known is the 1968 contest in which Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie an undefeated and heavily favored Yale squad — a result immortalized in The Harvard Crimson student newspaper by the famous headline "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29."

In 2008:

Before two of the nation's oldest universities had a field to play on, they were eager to prove which school was superior in the rough-and-tumble new sport of football. Since 1875, the Harvard-Yale rivalry has emerged simply as "The Game."...And with Satuday's tilt at the Yale Bowl the first time since 1968 both Yale and Harvard come into The Game unbeaten in league play, the rivalry game will determine the Ivy title.

And in 2007:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The current Yale and Harvard players have heard all about the tradition of the venerable rivalry and are preparing to make some history of their own. Meeting No. 124 is Saturday and the stakes are as high as they get with the Ivy League title up for grabs. Both teams enter with 6-0 conference records. The last time that happened was 1968 and Harvard famously rallied from 16 points down in the final 42 seconds to tie Yale, spoiling Yale's perfect season.

So, yeah: basically, the same shit every year. Big old tradition for people who don't normally care about football to care about football. These people don't have time for football! Between all the awesome regattas and going to one of a handful of schools getting a degree from now maybe matters, football's mostly bullshit to them until they own a stake in whatever team is smashing the Bears this week. To the rest of us, it's interesting only if you've really seen Big or The Dark Knight that many times, and there's nothing else to watch on TV. Because the Harvard-Yale game, as far as football goes, sucks. This is not an opinion so much as it is a general consensus.

This young gentlemen seems to think this year's hyperbolic announcing of the Yale-Harvard game might be a bit much.

As in, straight-up stupid. Because, yes, going to a game in New Haven is just like seeing a game anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. You don't need to watch football or sports or even have been to the south to understand this. One palpable difference is: at the Harvard-Yale game, this guy has a better chance at scoring than either of the teams.

Needless to say, the situation in the SEC is slightly different. Like security! At Old Miss, they have issues with people wearing costumes. I mean, sure, Yale has people in "costumes."

But real football games don't mess with things like facepaint, or the asstacular body suit pictured above. Oh no, these guys go all out:

Woah, there, buddy! Went a little over the edge with your sporty spirit, no? Just slightly. KKK guys, showin' up to Old Miss games. At least the Ivy crowd would pick up on this kind of irony, and dress as Marxists, or something. What'd security at the Yale-Harvard game look like today?

OH ZHHOOOZHOOPUPPY.

Yeah, but Ivy Peeps can get hard, too, motherfuckers.

When they're not busy farting out the inevitable air of disappointment over the uninitiated. Observe the sad and sober:

A first-time drinker's disappointment, maybe? Next time we suggest an ether-soaked cloth. Because this isn't exactly the riotous assembly the rest of College Football gets to see every Saturday. Oh no. This is something else. The easily intimidated should gird their loins:

Who's skiing, today, right? The most accurate assessment might come via comparative basis. Granted, your high school football team may not be running world economies, but at least they can run an audible.

There is, however, culture to be had! And Yale-Harvard has a competitive spirit, to be sure. While inflatable bulldogs loom over alumni old and young, the youngest are trying to get drunk enough to black out—but inevitably puking—while rumblings and remembrances of competition not yet had or had too often result in the vicious pejorative shouting of whose school is better. It results in things like this. NSFW, especially if your work has a thing against assholes being incredible assholes and bad apings of The Departed:

And astute observations!

In SECspeak, this translates to EAT SHIT AND DIE YANKEE even though a rival school might only be thirty minutes north of another. Lost in translation, again and again. Other dispatches emerge:

I'm not sure what that means, but then again, I didn't go to Yale. Or Harvard. But I bet it has something to do with the enormous networking opportunities that present themselves at these things. Next year, I'm dressing as this guy and not leaving until I've closed a lower rate on my Visa. Or at least my dry cleaning bill.

But in the end, a winner must emerge. And today's winner was a come-from-behind defeat by Harvard. Let the celebrating begin. With Batman fans:

The Dark Knight would like you to get home safely, you second-rate sissies! A 14-10 victory IN YO FACE. More! The Harvard Law Dean of Students' Twitter Feed would like to feed into your insecurities over and over and over Yalies. Even they gotta get in on the action:

And Yale fans, like any good sports fans, prepare to riot at the failure of their warriors. Cop cars, turned over! Terrible taunting! Emotionally scarring and physically dangerous situations, yes? Yes!

We all have our own private consolations. Because, really, though, all college football ends in the same result, no matter who it is winning, no matter your school, your degree, your color, age, race, sexual orientation, tax bracket, building clearence, byline or birthright, we really truly are all the same when it comes to the endgame of a football victory: some straight-up homoerotic manlove, as fans rush the field.

Granted, these fans won't be getting arrested today, like everyone else's, but then again, they're not tearing down goalposts, either. Hell, they might get to play on "special teams" for an hour or two. A higher, deeper education, indeed. Note the young man in the left-hand corner of the picture, though: he knows, oh yes, he knows the truth of the situation. Yale-Harvard games, like their students, are just different. In the best ways possible.

Who's Tucker Max Blaming For His Movie's Failure Now? [Failures]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0500

Oh, Tucker Max: he gave sleazy Encyclopedia Brotanica-eque website AskMen.com an interview. Given the chance to speak freely, he starts his egomanical blame game all over again. This time, blame: Middle America, The Man, His Artistry, and His Producers. Awesome!

Yeah. He went there.

He starts opining about how he wishes he had a different strategy—like to start in one city, as Paranormal Activity did—thus ironically echoing the same ethos of The Man Running Hollywood that he later rallies against: find the thing that just performed really, really well, and try to capitalize on its success. Which, whoops, too late.

See, but Max doesn't think he's The Man. He thinks he's The Artist. He's one of The People Who Create. And the people who fucked up his movie chance to become the next E.T. are not. No, really:

Look, here's what people who don't create don't understand, is that once you take money from the machine, the machine owns you. And I was just never ever going to let that happen.

Kinda wish I were an artist, so my art could be 'relevant,' bro. He goes on: he doesn't hate on Big Movies because he's an Indie Movie Guy, because, you know, Transformers would make a stupid indie movie, right? So he's an indie guy. And there's no way he could've sold this movie out to be funny, no way. He just didn't let it go down like this, man. He would've had to stab someone if they put Seth Rogen in his movie. Not happening, no way.

This movie, if we had sold it to [FOX] Searchlight, they would've put Seth Rogen and Dane Cook in it, and they would've cut all the f*cking balls out of the jokes, and they would've brought in some sh*t bird to rewrite the script who would've had Tucker have a girlfriend and this and that, and then it's like they own everything, they may have fired me… I would've stabbed somebody if they had done that. They would've fired me off the movie because they own it — I don't own sh*t anymore, but then I'm the one who has to live with all their creative decisions.

Creative decisions! Like where to put the balls in the movie. Spielberg had the same problem with the girl in the red coat in Schindler's List, which he originally wanted to call Nazis Are Fucked Up, Yo. When you make a Big Studio Movie, you only get so much creative control over the ball jokes, you know? Max goes on to cite another problem as the opening of the film in small cities liek Carbondale, Illinois, a memory that provokes him to rage: "They just don't know the f*cking movies!" But he saves the best for the people of Darko Entertainment, Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's production company, who produced the movie.

Now, come on. Donnie Darko's a great movie and say what you will of Southland Tales, but at least there's more to say about it besides "it sucks," something many movies (like Tucker's) can't move past. Why, Richard Kelly, did you let this guy into your house?

Well, hopefully, lesson learned. Especially after this bullshit:

Darko [Entertainment] gave us all the creative freedom we could've ever wanted with the budget we had, but once the movie was done, they made a lot of decisions distribution-wise that I would not have made. A lot of things.

How about: your movie is poop, the original product is started out as was poop, you are poop, and if anybody ever lets you work in Hollywood again, they, too, are poop? Nope. Because Tucker's got dreams, man. Big ones:

Another book, Assholes Finish First is coming out next year and then English release [of the film] is New Year's — UK release. Those are the next two big things.

1. Because the British don't think we're doltish enough.
2. Because, lesson learned, Assholes Definitely Finish First. In the race to the bargain bin. Which is where all Tucker Max material will continue to land.

Meta. Bro.

Color Me Impressed. [Noonanisms]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:15:00 -0500

Can Peggy Noonan drink coffee and type her Thanksgiving sermon simultaneously? Find out!

The Long Island Tween Justin Bieber Riot of '09: Pandemonium, Arrests, Terror-Tweeting [Riots]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:45:00 -0500

Do you know what a Justin Bieber is? You should: the 15 year-old star was read the riot act as 3,000 fans/parents descended on a Long Island mall, where his appearance had to be canceled. Fights! Chaos! Teenagers! RIOT!

When Dante talks about the Inner Ring of the Seventh Circle of the Inferno, I believe he was referring to something resembling the above photograph. Ughh.

So, yeah: 3,000 people show up to a Long Island mall for a signing this kid's having at an Abercrombie Kids. Madness breaks out, people have to go to the hospital, they've now pressed charges against a senior V.P. at Island-Def Jam for not Tweeting the cancellation of his appearence. Seriously.

Police arrested a senior vice president from Bieber's label, Island Def Jam Records, James A. Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating. He was in custody Friday night, pending charges that could include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration, Smith said. "We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message," Smith said. "By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."

I wish cops would arrest me for not Twittering. Fantastic. Who's this kid again? He does this little song and dance:

Somehow, in this story, Usher is the Charlie to his, uh, "angelic teen dreaminess" or whatever, except why are teenage girls always crazy about teenage guys who look like girls? Maybe Zac Efron gets the exception card because he was in that Burr Steers movie with Matthew Perry, but still, like, the Carter Brothers? And they all act kinda hip hop-y [Except, again, for Efron: patterns!]. And early Justin Timberlake? And I mean, let's not even start on Hanson. The middle one? Are you kidding? Can someone please explain these things to me? Also, isn't the whole You + Me thing a bit tired? They should've really consulted MTV's in-house playbook before dropping that one.

Anyway, this kid, this 15 year-old Canadian kid, caused this scene:

Not exactly the reaction I had after the first time I saw the "You Oughta Know" video, but still, understandable on some level, right? WRONG. Because people were hurt. This is where G-12 Protests and Tiger Beat meet in the middle. I'm impressed, but also, kind of disappointed rubber bullets weren't at least threatened. Or even better: that they'd burn this entire Long Island mall's supply of Juicy Couture velour tracksuits. That would've stopped 'em dead in their tracks. Riot cops gotta pull out at least a few decent stops. Next time, call me. I know how to handle these things.

Anyway, a record exec is in jail—yay?—and a star is made, but whatever happened to the days when shit like this was all just A Hard Day's Night? He should learn, even though, apparently, the psychotic teen beasties of Long Island take a little more to be stopped than some clever hiding, in their great tradition of senseless consumer thuggery. Rage on, kids. Rage on.

Viva.

[Photo via HaveUHeard??]

Michael Lohan and Jon Gosselin Actually Formed a Coalition of the Azzwizzards [Gossip Roundup]

Foster Kamer — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0500

Kind of like a Harry Potter book, right? Michael Lohan's now Jon Gosselin's contracts expert. Nothing but squares at the Daily News. Robert Pattinson hates his life. Carrie Prejean: monumentally stupider than previously imagined. Here's your Saturday Morning Gossip Roundup:

So, wait, when did Michael Lohan become a contracts expert? Oh, that's right: when he started representing Jon Gosselin. Yeah: that's what they were doing hanging out together all those times. Lohan was representing Jon Gosselin. Jon Gosselin elected Michael Lohan to represent him. First of all, I don't care if Michael Lohan is offering to pay your cable bill in person, you do not elect Michael Lohan to represent you in any way, least of all in any kind of contract dispute. This is a guy who can't pay his child support which is probably like $15 a month, I mean, fucking really, Jon Gosselin. We kind of thought you were a lunk before but this is absurd. The agreement was in some kind of management capacity, and Lohan brought the documents to Zombie Radar, because that's where you go if you're the Deep Throat in contract negotiations between TLC and Jon Gosselin. You go to Zombie Radar. [NYDN]
Robert Pattinson is slowly having his soul sucked from his face because of Twilight. TMZ has the proof. Of course they do. [TMZ]
I know, I know, you're not supposed to use this word. Can we, just this once? No? Whatever, I really don't care. My ear hurts. Carrie Prejean is retarded. How retarded? Really retarded. I mean, besides being a complete ignoramus and misanthrope, she's so retarded that she can't even fill out her own questionnaire for the Ms. California pageant, so she had the guy she boned on the sex tape help her out with some of the questions. Synergy! One of the questions she needed help with was If you could have lunch with any one (1) person, who would it be and why? Like, you need HELP with that question? If my job were to sit around all day and answer questions like that (instead of solving the philosophical mysteries of the universe, as I'm doing right now), life would be pretty swell. Can I answer this? I would like to have lunch with Joey Bishop over some well-cooked steak. And then I'd like to ask him who he was and why nobody knows who he is and discern whether or not he had enough talent to be in The Rat Pack. That is all. [TMZ]
Hey, so! Remember that time ESPN denied sexual misconduct in the workplace? Right, like, every one of them. And then remember gossip jock sister site (and we do mean sister) Deadspin reporting on all those juicy ESPN sexual misconduct rumors that they'd been holding in their pocket forever? Turns out they were right. Katie Lacey, SVP of Marketing, was fired after ESPN had a change of heart on her longtime affair with ESPN's programming VP, David Berson, who was having an affair with Lacey. Jay Mariotti has yet to be fired for his love affair with being an asshole. [Page Six]
I don't know if it's my computer or what but seriously, look how the Daily News gossip pages came up this morning:

I mean, it's not necessarily gossip, per se, to note what a bunch of squares the people at the Daily News are, but when even the tech guys are messing with you like this, you've got problems. John Mayer reference? Maybe they're hiring. Just a thought.
Speaking of assholes at newspapers, stupid narcs, at stupid newspapers! Get this: Gov. Paterson's stepdaughter Ashley Dennis (pictured) was gonna have a bunch of her friends from Ithaca College come rock the Gov's mansion with Jell-O shots and beer—which is bad form, everyone knows you follow Jell-O shots with actual shots—in an invite that called the place "FDR's Polio Poolhouse," which, I don't know if that's official, but I like it! I would like her to come up with a crafty name for my apartment. Anyway, her party got canceled (or as the government would have it NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE, #conspiracytheory) because word of the jam got to a local newspaper. Mellow: harshed. [Page Six]
Honestly, I have no idea what the fuck is going on today. Read this story. Seriously. It's about some West Wing acctress I've never heard of defending the honor of J-Lo and Marc Anthony's dog as a "Lassie" and not a "Cujo," which is what I feel like I'm about to transform into. Seriously, everything's broken, the Daily News gossip pages are squares I have to interpret, and I feel like there's a cosmic dick in my ear and it hurts. Wrong side of the bed? More like wrong side of the universe. [NYDN]
Okay, seriously Warner Music Publicity? This is absurd. Nobody knows who this Katherine Jenkins person is, or what she sings, or why we should be so crazy-excited about her. Who is this person, why is she sooooo big in England, and why should we care? Go! Damn. Time's up. We still don't care. No, but really, look at this quote from "iconic" Warner Music Publicist Liz Rosenberg: "I call her Leg, which is short for legend." Well, I call her "WTF," which is short for "One could theoretically spent ten minutes trying to write this item up trying to convince themselves to look up some of this person's music to find out who she is and not bring themselves to. Why?" Seeing as how that just happened, it works, right? [Page Six]
Oprah's quitting and some of her celebrity friends like Ellen are sad. But oh, hey look, MORE OF THESE GODDAMN SQUARES.

[NYDN]
Ha. Sporstcaster Len Berman visited NBC for the first time since being fired in April to promote his book on Today. He ran into Barbara Corcoran, and she threw down a pretty solid diss on Len. You need to read it to get the set-up, suffice to say Page Six also took the time to find the right photo of Berman before going to press with this one. [Page Six]
Another woman was stalked by the supreme creep who stalked Erin Andrews and made those peephole videos and she had to deliver testimony via a four-page statement that was read in court. Meanwhile, I know, I know, eye-for-an-eye justice is philosophically bad, because we should be humane (or something). And we should be. But this guy should, if convicted, have to spend the rest of his life with his dick in a peephole-sized vice. Honestly? I hate people. Also, this story is kind of sort of important to read and these squares are making me very, very irascible. This is not an enjoyable experience. [NYDN]
Ed Koch had an 85th birthday. Ed Koch is old. The only thing Ed Koch could do to celebrate not being extinct was to make a bunch of shitty jokes at the expense of dead New York mayor Abe Beame. What's so funny about Beame? HE WAS A SHORT JEW HAR HAR. Not reported: when Ed Koch ceremoniously shit out a Brontosaurus Egg and gave it to Sardi's for research like he does at the end of every 85th birthday. [Page Six]
More great news delivered via the Associated Squares that make this all the easier to write about: a South Korean supermodel was very, very depressed, and hung herself. She was beautiful. Her name was Daul Kim, and she blogged about her depression before this happened. [NYDN]
Can we talk, for a second, about the best sighting the New York Post has ever published? No comment needed. This is just art. "Natalie Portman leaving the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue smoking a cigarette and wearing Ray Bans." Okay, comment: #SWOON. Related: Who doesn't leave the NYPL like that? New York is cool. [Page Six]
Enough with the hashtags already, right? #Wrong. Go away. Anyway! Apparently Tila Tequila, she of the short-lived MTV reality dating programme A Shot At Having Your Own Unique, Obscure STD with Tila Tequila—it's like Top Gear, but they test drive different strains of herpes—apparently had some kind of freakout on her live streaming broadcast page where she stripped and spoke in tongues or something. Now she's blaming it on her ex-boyfriend Shawn Merriman, who she tried to get convicted of domestic abuse. Shawn Merriman probably doesn't even know Tila Tequila's name anymore. Harsh, right? Kinda probably true though. [NYDN]
Nick Cannon doesn't go anywhere without Mariah Carey who is now his bodyguard. The Emancipation of Mimi apparently involves the imprisonment of Nick Cannon. Also, Ben Silverman grew a beard to distinguish himself from Ricky Van Veen, and Vanity Fair was there to get all the action. [VF]
Ha! Remember the scuzzy fuckball paps that tried to infiltrate and mess up Britney Spears' life? Yeah, well, he's going to jail for 45 days on charges associated with being a scuzzy fuckball and Brit-Brit is still fabulous. Don't call it a comeback, bitches. Mess with the gays' icons and they'll get you put in the slammer, for serious. Speaking of: when is the inevitable batshit craziness of a Lady Gagadong and Brit-Brit collab joint gonna pop off? Needs to happen. [NYDN]

Okay, well, this day's going to be nothing but strangeness, apparently. Have you ever seen someone blog with an ear infection? You're about to! I feel like I'm leaning exactly 23 degrees to the left. Here's a song, let's all get funky and just try to ride this one out, I guess. Happy Saturday!

[Image via Bauer-Griffin]

The Levi Johnston Playgirl Photos Are Out [Levi's Johnston Watch]

Brian Moylan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:06:15 -0500

Here's your first peek at the Levi Johnston photo spread that just went up on Playgirl.com [NSFW]. There's 20 photos in all and, as we said none show the whole package, so to speak. One more picture inside.

This is the first set of photos that the magazine is releasing on their website. All but six are in black and white and several show his bare bum, but none show what is in front, though he is posed in a shower obscuring his famous baby maker with a towel. It's all very classic beefcake, with a handful of shots on a Manhattan rooftop, and the rest in all wet and wild in the shower. He looks very sexy, though his body doesn't look as worked out as you might think, especially after all the hype about the time he's been spending in the gym. More pictures to come next week. We can't wait to hear what Sarah Palin has to say about this over the weekend.

The Week We Went Rogue [Week In Review]

Pareene — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:30:00 -0500

This week, everyone was naked and fighting in public and also there was a book no one read but everyone kept talking about.

A pornography company offered a famous beauty contest loser lots of money to distribute video tapes they already possess of her masturbating. Google has scooters. And hellishly lengthy weddings. Adam Lambert wants to lick your gross vagina. He will turn back into a pumpkin if he appears too gay, obv. Ivanka Trump does not like it when you point out that she and her husband are terrible businesspeople.

Goin' Rogue is a wonderful read, as long as you don't actually read it. (And please don't judge it based on its skin. Though you should judge Newsweek for cruelly taking a publicity photo Palin arranged to present herself in what she thought would be a flattering light to one audience and presenting it to a less fawning audience. It is sexist to think she looks ridiculous! Also it is sexist to be Nicole Wallace!)

January Jones is the worst. The word of the year is still "barely rewritten press release." Make sure to buy someone on your list the popular "Twilight Vampire Guy Sock Puppet." The weirdo playboy guy is maybe a front for some sort of private security firm. Everyone at AP has been laid off. Lady Gaga was on Gossip Girl. No one wants to see Naomi Watts' stupid stroller ever again! Growing up in Canada, young Graydon Carter loved nothing more than his beloved sled. And Eddie Haskell. It is still totally fun to be a dictator's son. Malibu estate! Rodeo Drive shopping sprees! Whee!

Nowadays we can't even bother to pay attention to the scripted-for-the-cameas mock fights between people we aren't sure we're supposed to know why they're famous when they happen right before our very eyes. Thank god we have our faith to guide us. Our faith that god will kill the president, because we dislike him. It's on a t-shirt and everything. Brooklyn Decker is the real-life name of a real-life human who is on tv. The Hills is apparently Apartment 3G. Michele Bachmann's still got it! You probably shouldn't advertise booze with pictures of people driving. Mississippi: still racist after all these years. Haaa McDonald's doing the McCafe thing again. (There is totally an untouched McCafe McDonald's somewhere down in Gowanus or something. Bleeding edge!)

Barry is so skinny and it worries Matt Drudge so much. Texas banned marriage, which seems fair enough. Page Six is going after this naked teenager from Alaska, for some reason. The obvious Top Chef finalists became the official Top Chef finalists. Facebook is getting sued for all the money in the world. The kids on the Glee show are still singing. Sing sing sing. I dunno. People seem to be pretty into it? Limelight is going to be a shopping mall. HAH.

People keep putting Sandra Bullock in movies!

James Franco won all the National Book Awards because he is dreamy. Oprah decided to kill the concept of daytime television. Courtney Semel is not a very nice friend. Fox News won't stop digging. Someone, somewhere, actually wrote something truthful on their YouTube profile. (It was a murderer.) Restaurant owners are dicks, especially ones who email everyone to yell at them. Don't look at Jude Law. 30 Rock was just OK last night. Thank christ this season of Project Runway is over, though.

Hope you all enjoy your Florida Honeymoon! Just don't venture too far from home, because you will end up stranded.

Just Shoe It [Pic Of The Day]

Brian Moylan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:28:34 -0500

[Parisian women give their feet a real workout today while competing in a "Race on Heels" where they must run around a 50-meter track in high heels. Image via Getty]

Kreepie Kats in: "NO ONE in Twilight _EVER_ has sex with ~Anyone~! It's like Behrle's Collyer Brothers' Homage/Apartment Every Night Since Last June!" [Kreepie Kats]

behrle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:15:02 -0500

Jim Berhle's cartoon kitties face a bleak Oprah-less future where the only thing left on TV is European soccer and trailers for sexless vampire movies.

Hidden Forces Baffle the Twitterati [Twitterati]

Ryan Tate — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:04:47 -0500

Neel Shah got his scandal-phone returned; Kevin Marks got retweeted by ghosts and Al Yankovic was surrounded by nobodies. The Twitterati were haunted, in a good way.

Neel Shah, Page Six gossip and former Gawker and Radar-ite, was glad his phone didn't end up with the likes of his present or past employers. (He should be.)

Tech pundit and Berkeleyite Andrew Keen articulated an ideology of what might be called, if you're avoiding Rush Limbuagh-isms, "femifascism."

British Telecom's Kevin Marks hopes that's an iPhone you're discreetly working in your pocket.

Singer Weird Al Yankovic does this every time he flies.

Wired's Dylan Tweney is bookmarking your comments for future reference, haters.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

CafePress Is No Longer Officially Okay with Praying for Obama's Death [Indecision]

John Cook — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:09:38 -0500

CafePress has reversed itself for the second time and discontinued once and for all the sale of "Pray For Obama: Psalm 109:8" merchandise, which is Christian code for "pray for Obama to get killed by God."

CafePress pulled the merchandise earlier this week when people pointed out what the prayer meant, but they quickly restored the items, telling Gawker in a statement yesterday that the slogan was in line with "current public discourse and our determination of what it is fair political commentary."

They've changed their mind. The CafePress blog announced today that Psalm 109 items are banned again:

Last night we posted a poll on our blog, read through the emails we've received and weighed the nature of the calls we've received on the topic. In the process we also learned that many of the original designers of the Psalm 109:8 designs had already decided to remove them on their own.

General consensus has proven that the design does point to a broader interpretation of the Psalm and thus has been deemed inappropriate for sale at CafePress.

Psalm 109 is a "Cry For Vengeance." Verse 8 reads: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office"; it goes on to ask God to kill the supplicant's enemy and make beggars of his children. So some sneaky Christians thought it would be funny to sell T-shirts bearing the slogan at CafePress, because Godless liberals wouldn't know that it was really a prayer for God to kill Barack Obama for being Muslim.

The online poll's respondents found the slogan "overly inflammatory and inappropriate," 76% to 22%.

[Via Politico.]

Milkshakes With Radicals [Culture Wars]

Pareene — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:48:52 -0500

Islamic extremists with posh British accents sound so reasonable! Sharia law? Sure, you know best!

The Fallacy Behind Efforts to Save 'Public Service Journalism' [Print Is Dead]

John Cook — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:38:32 -0500

Newspapers are dying, which means there will never be any more investigative journalism and politicians will screw whomever they want. But it's OK, because "innovative" new "partnerships" like the Chicago News Cooperative are here to produce real journalism.

The lofty rhetoric surrounding the launch of outfits like the CNC, a MacArthur Foundation-funded news organization run by former Chicago Tribune staffers, is based on the notion that genuine public-service journalism—the expensive boring stuff that results in legislation—is at risk as for-profit newspapers crater. In the words of CNC founder and former Trib editor Jim O'Shea:

At a time of declining resources in newsrooms across the nation, journalists must adapt to new technologies and devise some creative, innovative ways to fulfill our obligations so we can hold our government accountable to citizens and restore to our journalism the standards desperately needed in these troubled times.

Newspapers can't afford to live up to those obligations anymore, so nonprofit-funded outlets like the CNC need to step into the gap. So what sort of hard-hitting "accountability journalism" can we expect from these new creatures? The CNC has contracted with the New York Times to produce an insert for the paper's Chicago editions purporting to bring Chicago readers the sort of shoe-leather that the bankrupt Chicago Tribune can't afford to produce anymore. It debuted today, so lets have a look.

The lead story, by former Trib reporter Dan Mihalopoulos, is precisely in line with what news alarmists say will be missing if and when we lose newspapers: Internal documents from the company that the city of Chicago sold its parking meter business to last year show that it is making boatloads of money, and that the city would have done better just to keep the meters for itself. Bravo!

Now for the rest:

A trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, where we learn that "young people (under 30) tend to enjoy modern art."
A 195-word story about a stay-at-home dad who tried to join a play-group for his infant son, but couldn't because it was for moms only.
A 156-word story about the Chicago Bulls' "circus trip," an annual tour that the item doesn't really explain but has something to do with Ringling Bros. and the Bulls losing. Here's a Sun-Times blog entry on the matter, published two days ago.
A column from Jim Warren wherein he visits a food pantry.

Some of this is perfectly useful, but is it going to save journalism? Does a recitation of the Bulls' woes count as holding "our government accountable to citizens"? Is the MacArthur Foundation fulfilling its mission of creating a "more just, verdant, and peaceful world" by subsidizing stories about dads getting barred from mommies' groups? Is this what all the fuss is about?

The problem is that yes, newspapers underwrite important, expensive journalism that in many cases falls through the cracks in the pageview-obsessed, run-and-gun environment of online publishing. But that's perhaps five percent of what the average paper does. Maybe ten or fifteen. But it's a fraction. The rest of it is rewriting press releases, spouting opinions, reviewing things, and telling people what's on television and when—things the internet is exceptionally good at. CNC has loudly proclaimed that it is going to take up the slack and "restore" journalism's "true values," but, to judge by its first outing, all it's doing is creating a mini-newspaper—one solid story surrounded by a bunch of fluff that you could get anywhere. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with fluff, it's just that no one is raising alarms about the lack of quality writing about art museums and sports and opinions about poor people as newspapers decline.

If the idea of nonprofit journalism and innovative ways of paying for and distributing important reporting is going to succeed, it's going to have to actually produce important reporting. And if former newspapermen are going to lay claim to journalism's future by launching projects aimed at restoring its values, they ought to come up with something better than one good muni story.

UPDATE: Jim Schachter, editor of digital initiatives for the Times, writes in to make a good point that we hadn't considered—the Times asked CNC to provide a mix of serious and fluffy stories. So it was the Times, and not CNC, that wanted the mini-newspaper. We still don't understand why the MacArthur Foundation has to step in to help pay for the fluff the Times is asking for, or where that fluff fits into the CNC's journalism-saving rhetoric. But good point nonetheless:

Perhaps your dart is a bit misaimed. We asked the Chicago News Cooperative to give us a mix of content, because we're trying to come up with a formula for adding local news to The Times that prompts people to keep their subscriptions or start one if they're not buying our paper now. The tough story at the center of today's report, about the parking meter deal, is representative of what CNC means to be about. And, to be fair, so is Jim Warren's humane and pointed column.

I'm expecting to see a lot more afflicting of the comfortable and comforting of the afflicted from Jim O'Shea and his crew over the coming months.

Horrible Restaurant Owner's Charm Offensive Includes Screaming at Us [We Get Phone Calls]

Gabriel Snyder — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:31:35 -0500

To make the point that he is not the asshole that his Glengarry Glenn Ross-ish email made him sound like ("you bunch of fucking children"), restaurant owner Vadim Ponorovsky called to scream at us.

After we posted the email tirade that Vadim sent the waitstaff at Paradou (for failing to collect enough customer email addresses), he has been complaining loudly to New York food blogs like Grub Street and Eater and to weekend editor Foster Kamer at his dayjob at Blackbook. His main complaint to us was that he's now at the receiving end of the kind of vitriol that it sounds like he dishes out regularly to his employees. And while he regrets calling his staff "fucking lazy motherfuckers," he stands by the rest of his email as entirely within his rights as a boss. Let's take a look at some of that:

Youre probably sitting there saying "How dare he speak to me like this. How dare he not have respect for me". Youre right there also. I have absolutely no respect for any of you. Why? Because every fucking day, all of you continue to show that you have absolutely no respect for me or Alex. So if you dont respect us enough to do the little that we ask you to do, then GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING LAZY DISRESPECTFUL ASSHOLES!!!!!

Anyway, in the snippet of my phone call with Vadim that you can listen to above, he argues that it wasn't fair that we didn't call him up before posting his email and first listen to him explain what a great boss he is. It doesn't include the part of our half-hour chat where he compared us to Hitler and warned Ravi Somaiya, one of our new night editors, "to keep an eye over his shoulder." Add: Just for the record, Ravi did email him asking for comment and never heard back.

That said, even if Vadim's a nightmare to work for, it's no reason for folks to call up the restaurant making death threats (his wife answers the phone, apparently).

We offered to post verbatim whatever Vadim writes up. He said he'll work on it over the weekend.

Update, 7:45pm Vadim emails and, as promised, here it is in its entirety:

The Truth About Zoos: Poop. (And Pee) [Advertising]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:21:13 -0500

From Rhett & Link, the guys who brought you the ad that all ads should probably be like, comes this new spot for the Central Florida Zoo. Their relentless honesty requires it to focus totally on excrement. [Adfreak]

What Is Going on with Tinsley Mortimer's Love Life? [Mortified]

Brian Moylan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:07:48 -0500

The Tinz just wrapped shooting for her reality show and it looks like her showmance, Prince Casimir Wittgenstein-Sayn, has gotten the boot for a new beau. Who's the lucky guy? Former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis. What?!

Maroulis is currently starring in hair band jukebox musical Rock of Ages on Broadway. Tinsley went to see the show last night, and a tipster sent pictures of her and the star looking like they're about to kiss to Guest of a Guest. ConstanTinz were first spotted togetherlast week hanging out at Touch, a midtown club not far from the Rock of Ages theater. Tinsley had her camera crew in tow, so maybe they were catching this auspicious meeting for a suitable end to the first season or a great start to the second one. Now that the cameras are gone and they're still hanging out does this mean it's real love? Oh, Tinsley. Tell us it's not so! It's been a downward spiral ever since breaking with Topper. Next thing you know, she's going to be running around town with Levi Johnston. Oh, too late.

Nikki Finke's Cut-and-Paste Method [How Things Work]

John Cook — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:39:49 -0500

Nikki Finke OWNS the Oprah Winfrey story. She broke the news that Winfrey would leave the show three weeks ago. And she got the transcript of Oprah's announcement up on her site bright and early this morning. By stealing it.

Finke posted embedded video of a small portion of Winfrey's remarks at 9:45 a.m. California time, roughly an hour and forty-five minutes after Winfrey announced on her show that she was calling it quits after next season. She also posted a much fuller transcript of Winfrey's speech. Winfrey's show doesn't air until 3 p.m. in Los Angeles, so where did she get it?

From the Chicago Tribune, which posted the transcript at 10:19 a.m. Central time, or just 20 minutes after Winfrey's announcement. How do we know? Because, a tipster points out, the transcript Finke posted features the same bracketed commentary—"[Her voice grows thick with emotion]"—and typographical irregularities, like double quotes within double quotes. Finke didn't cite the Tribune or—more important—link back to the paper's Watcher blog, which actually did the transcribing. She just copied and pasted without attribution.

Of course, Winfrey's words aren't proprietary to the Tribune. She said them on television. But someone actually did sit down and replayed the speech over and over while actually typing out what Winfrey said. A link wouldn't kill you, Nikki.

Saturday Update: Finke has emailed to explain that she had no idea where the transcript came from before she posted it on her blog, which she says is a somewhat regular occurence. And somewhat bizarrely she accused the Tribune's Watcher blog of lifting it from some other source. She has still not given The Watcher a credit or link. Here is her email:

I actually wound up receiving it several times in my email from a bunch of different emailers. (Again, how do we know it was ONLY the Tribune's?) I did my best to authenticate it. Yes, every so often I get something from another publication sent to me without any labeling. And when I put it up, the writer or company tells me and I credit them unless they want me to take it down. Happens most often with photos.
But I actually credit a LOT (whereas Variety and the LA Times rarely do...)
This was really a cheap shot by John.

Albany Foodie World Is All About Punching [Albany]

Hamilton Nolan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:35:07 -0500

Steve Barnes (pictured), the Albany restaurant critic who was assaulted by a professional mixed martial arts fighter last year (probably) because of something he wrote, reports today: Albany restaurateurs are going to punch each other.

John DeJohn, who owns four Albany eateries including the new Pearl Street Pub, and Joe Schaefer, co-owner of Savannah's, located two blocks from the pub, are scheduled for a three-round boxing match...
"I'm going there not just to win but to take out a lot of rage and aggression I have toward certain people," says Schaefer

Also maybe a good night for Steve Barnes to look for a suspect in his beating: an Albany restaurateur with a violent streak.

Obama Joins Truman, Reagan, and Clinton In "Immediately Failed Presidencies" Club [Polls]

Pareene — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:31:45 -0500

It is a good thing the American Constitution calls for instant run-off presidential elections the minute the "winner" dips below 50% approval, or else we would be stuck with the most unpopular president in American history for years to come.

Thankfully Sarah Palin may now take her rightful place as America's "Commanderin' Chief" because Barack Obama is polling at 49% in the daily Gallup tracking poll. As Gallup notes, this is an unprecedentedly fast drop in presidential approval, not counting the three post-war presidents who dropped below 50% faster than him (Reagan, Ford, Clinton) and the one who also dropped below 50% after 11 months in office (Truman).

One of the fastest and most effective ways for any president to boost his approval rating (besides starting a war or botching his response to a terror attack) is to score a major legislative victory. So, with "centrist" and Blue Dog democrats spooked that Obama's low numbers will negatively affect their own reelection bids, look for them to attempt to obstruct and delay any legislation the president champions, in order to drag down everyone's numbers even further in the hopes that eventually elections will just be "called off."

The primary reason for the president's declining approval is, of course, the economy. Specifically jobs. Americans know an economic "recovery" without jobs is no recovery at all, so, once again, look for Blue Dogs and centrists to become incredibly terrified of the idea of spending any further government money on jobs programs of any kind, as we all know that's why FDR was a one-term president, because of his socialism, and how much it made Americans hate him. Jobless Americans are much, much more concerned with the abstract concept of "fiscal responsibility" than they are with material concerns like health care, regular employment, and "having enough money to feed themselves."

Gothic Girl [Open Caption]

Brian Moylan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:23:01 -0500

[Taylor Momsen predictably wore black (but an unpredictably long skirt) at the The Cinema Society screening of The Twilight Saga: New Moon in New York last night. Image via Getty]