Jay McInerney at the Old Gray Lady?!

The excellent gossip reporters Rush and Molloy (wouldn't the story of these guys make for a great Miramax movie? I love these two) report that Jay McInerney is in the running to do a column for that Old Gray Lady (slut!):

"Most restaurants would be thrilled to have a famous name like Jay McInerney walk through the door. But what if the writer were there to pass judgement on their chicken salad for The New York Times?

"The 'Bright Lights, Big City' author is hotly rumored to be in the running to succeed the paper's just-retired restaurant critic, William (Biff) Grimes.

"Grape buff McInerney has written a book about his wine cellar, and used to be the wine columnist for House and Garden magazine. "

Well, here are my thoughts on Jay, dated November 19, entitled:

Jay McInerney Slurps

In which, young Mwangaguhunga wrote rather snarkily:

"I have two recurring dream-reality issues. One is that I believe that there was a cartoon once in which Laverne and Shirley are trapped on an island with a pig as a marine sargeant. Everyone tells me there was no such thing, but I am sure it is not a dream, this was an actual cartoon. Am I going crazy?

"Anyhoo: the second issue is that Jay McInerney was actually a wine columnist for House and Garden. This book of his is a collection of his columns and is surprisingly bad.

"Like his mentor, Norman Mailer, McInerney thinks that because he can write he has the authority to write about anything .... anythang ... even subject matter of which he clearly has no grasp. He goes on for 278 pages -- a hellish duration, to be sure, to be trapped in the mind of an amateur -- expecting us to fork over $24.95 so that he can associate himself under the category fine wine in his own inimitable gassy verbiage. What a pedestrian technique of self; donning the garb of the oneophile without the requisite study and learning.

"To know the meaning of a good belly laugh, The Corsair suggests that you read McInerney's chapter on port. His philistine take on that venerable spirit combined with his limited vocabulary only suggest that either his tastebuds never left the Bennington dining hall or his ambition just exceded his grasp of the grape.

"Jay, why don't you just admit you don't know what the fuck you're talking about?"

That was written back on November 19. Let's hope he has more to say on food than he had to say on wine in that godawful book way back when.