A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Elizabeth Spiers gets Carter. We love us our dark Lizzie Spiers, the OG of the blogosphere, switchblade at the ready issuing extreme justice ... with prejudice. Today, she puts the oily Graydongate story into perspective:

"If Carter doesn't want to be taken seriously as a journalist, this presumably isn't a problem. But Carter's dogged crusade against the Bloomberg administration (despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Vanity Fair's readership doesn't live in New York and probably doesn't care about civic affairs in Manhattan) would seem to indicate otherwise--and even more so, his recent tirades against the Bush administration.

"Carter clearly wants to have his cake (Fauchon, truffle) and eat it, too."

And those pesky National Magazine Awards that Graydon cares so very much about. How does he expect National Magazine Awards if Vanity Fair itself is not taken seriously as a magazine. The Corsair will refrain from mentioning the lack of African-Americans on the cover of said magazine.

Thanks Lizzie, for breaking it down.

Out: Those 70s dorks. That 70s Show is just the right thing to watch after midnight, when you've just come back from the bars, or clubs, drunk, with the spins (not that The Corsair would know, uncomfortable silence). But Those 70s "stars" (ahem) are not so copacetic, according to the Page Sixers:

"NOTE to celebrities: Ditch your entourages! 'That '70s Show' stars Danny Masterson and Wilmer Valderrama showed up at Bungalow 8 late Tuesday with several drunken guys. One man dressed in a suit took offense when the club's renowned doorman, Armin, showed the group to a table and placed his hand on the man's arm. The drunk snarled: 'Get your hands off me!' before 'flipping out,' according to the club's owner, Amy Sacco. Armin quickly subdued the would-be pugilist and tossed out the entire group. 'Danny and Wilmer were great and had nothing to do with it,' Sacco said. 'They were embarrassed by their friend.'"

Pickleheads! But don't you love how club owners defend stars? The Corsair, not a star but celestial in appearance and intellectual scope, is 86ed in ever bar and club in Hell's Kitchen and the East Village.

In: Greg Lindsay. In today's Gothamist interview, Lindsay cops to a pretty cool story involving him, David Bowie and Sarah, the Ultragrrrl:

"A few years ago I was leaving work at Inside.com with our intern (the infamous Ultragrrrl) when we were caught in a sudden summer downpour. We sought a cab on 10th Ave., and while I was hailing one, she pointed to a man on the far side of the intersection and asked 'Is that David Bowie?' She called to him to share our cab, which was headed uptown. He got in, and sure enough, it was him. We played it infinitely cool -- idly chit-chatting, pretending he was just like us, or we like him, or something. We got out first and began jumping up-and-down screaming after the cab disappeared from view. I mentioned this story to one of Ultragrrl's friends a few months ago, and was told she edits me out of the story when she tells it now."

People change, Greg.

Out: Lapdances, they add up. According to the folks at TheSmokinggun.com, those lap dances are murder on the credit card bill:

"Faced with a whopping $28,021 bill from a Manhattan strip joint, a business executive has filed a lawsuit claiming that he was grossly overcharged for a recent lap dance and Champagne bacchanal. In a State Supreme Court lawsuit, a copy of which you'll find below, Mitchell Blaser alleges that he is being swindled by Scores, Gotham's leading gentlemen's club. Blaser, 53, was partying with a pal last December and racking up the lap dances and very pricey bubbly (he expected an American Express bill in the two grand range). But the club says that Blaser ran up the 28k tab by ordering five magnums of Clos Du Mesnil Champagne, at $3,200 a bottle, and partaking in hundreds of $20 lap dances. Scores contends that Blaser, chief financial officer for the American division of the giant Swiss Re insurance outfit, signed receipts for every purchase."

Hundreds of lap dances? That's a whole lot of glitter and baby lotion on the trouser leg, gangster.

In: LA.com's blog. Today they write:

"Jeez Louise, will megasuccess mess up certain stars� heads, or what? Until very recently, this blonde�s every project could be guaranteed to be utter crap. As for her messy personal relationships--honey, let�s not touch them with a ten-foot cattle prod. But when her career nosedived, it seemed the jolt she needed to come back down to Earth. She'd scorched plenty of people along the way with her crazy mood swings, mind you, but when the road got rough, she suddenly acted so nice, so angelic to everyone, many wondered whether she�d turned over a new leaf. (She actually considered selling her old LA manse and lying low in a Hancock Park guesthouse!) Now, though, TV�s given her career a jolt, and she�s gone right back to being a screaming, self-centered harpy spending fortunes on closets full of clothes, fretting about whether she should buy her own plane and gobbling up houses around hers to wall herself into a private compound. Like anyone would want to get near her unless they absolutely had to."

Ellen Degeneres?

Out: Madonna:

"According to The Sun, Madonna is back to her old "shock the bourgoisie" ways:

"MADONNA is planning her most shocking stage performance yet � by being 'executed' live on stage.
Backstage insiders have lifted the lid on the Queen of Pop�s explicit new Re-Invention tour, which hits the UK this summer.

"And I can reveal Madonna pushes the boundaries to new limits � even by her outrageous standards.

"Fans at the shows will see:

"Her being 'frazzled' in an electric chair.

"Images of corpses of people slaughtered in Iraq beamed on to a huge video screen.

"Simulated steamy lesbian sex as Madonna tangos with a female dancer.

"A parade of scantily-clad pregnant women while she sings Papa Don�t Preach.

"One source reveals: 'This show will make people�s hair stand on end. Madonna has pulled out all the stops to make it her most controversial yet. The electric chair scene is breathtaking.'"

Madonna trying to shock people? Who knew.

In: Plump Washington Square Park Freaks. According to Lloyd Grove, the Apprentice 2 cast hired a wierdo to help them promote Crest in Washington Quare Park yesterday, And things went wrong. Horribly wrong:

"It was, in fact, a disturbing and unnerving scene not calculated to enhance any brand - not Crest, not 'The Apprentice' and not Trump.

"A spy tells Lowdown that after handing out tube after tube of the decay-preventing dentifrice to passersby, the 'Apprentice' team enlisted a plump 51-year-old woman to haul the unsightly empty boxes back to a nearby truck and haul back armsful of sparkling-new boxes.

"For this, they offered her $20.

"As the woman lumbered from the table to the truck and back - 'working her a- off,' says our spy - she was overheard mumbling, "I have to do a good job for Crest."

"After about an hour, she had worked herself into a beet-faced, sweaty daze. At one point she tumbled over and began to roll around on the ground, chanting "Crest! Crest!" over and over.

"'It was just spooky,' said our spy."

(The Corsair softly chuckles at the image of a plump freak working her ass off; sips his Cutty Sark gingerly, continues reading)

"Finally, while the 'Apprentice' folks stood by watching, an off-duty EMT worker and an onlooker picked up the distressed woman and carried her back to the truck. But as soon as they had deposited her in the driver's seat, she started to shake - 'It looked like she was going into cardiac arrest' - and suddenly passed out cold, falling limp into the passenger side.

"When she finally awoke after a full three minutes, she promptly vomited and demanded, 'Where's my money?'"

I suppose it would be wishful thinking to imagine Trump waiving his short fingers into the Grenwhich Village breeze, standing among the dealers of shwag dime bags of really bad weed, saying, to all those present, in that louche outer-borough accent that reeks of garage sales in Massepequa, "Yer Fiyad!"

Out: Dennis Hastert: the Speaker of the House is an Ass. Hastert, who got out of the war on a bad shoulder, lectured John McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war, in a Korean prison:

""If you want to see sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda (two Washington area military hospitals). There's the sacrifice in this country. We're trying to make sure that they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong not only militarily but economically. We want to be able to have the flexibility to do it. That's my reply to John McCain."

What an ass!

In: Blogger Drama! OldHag is causing mayhem once again. A cyberstalker, one KvnJms (Kevin James?), went after Maud Newton with his site Fraud Newton.

The site had all the fragrance of some wierdo shit. Apparently, KvnJms hosted it on the Foundation Center's web site. After a spirited discussion, Maud chimed in:

"Hi everyone. Someone I know did the site because he thought it would be hilarious. It didn't make me laugh as much as it made me want to kill myself. It's a pretty accurate takedown of the self-indulgent bullshit I post all the time. I didn't have the nerve to tell the creator that it induced suicidal impulses. He seemed to want me to link to it, so I did.

"Evidently his company was less than thrilled with the traffic and took it down."

Blogger drama!

Out: Bush Slipping. According to TheHill.com:

"Republican members of Congress are growing increasingly concerned over President Bush�s sinking approval rating and the souring public mood over the war in Iraq.

"At the same time, many members say Bush�s poll numbers are also affecting them by coloring public opinion about the economy and other issues more directly linked to their own re-election prospects.

"A recent Gallup Poll showed Bush�s job approval at 46 percent, the lowest of his presidency, and a Zogby International poll earlier this week put his job approval number at 42 percent, also the lowest of his presidency. Not since Harry S Truman in 1948 has a president won a second term with an approval rating below 50 percent."

In: The Burberry fashion show benefiting the obstetrics and gynecology wing at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Jessica Seinfeld and Sloane Barnett rocked Cipriani last night. Fashionweekdaily quoted Burberry CEO Rose Marie Bravo, "It�s absolutely wonderful. Look at the turn out�it�s amazing. I�m so thrilled we were able to support the hospital and all the great work it does. And the weather certainly cooperated didn�t it? Everybody should go out and buy a Burberry umbrella today."

Kate Betts, Pamela Gross, Sophie Dahl, Princess Michael of Kent and Lally Weymouth (former flame of The Nation's Marxist Alexander Cockburn), among others, noshed on Bellinis and chicken salad alla Cipriani followed by chocolate souffl� with cr�me anglaise.