A Little of The Old In and Out

In: Blind Items. They never went out. Ben Widdicombe of the Daily News' Gatecrasher serves up some pipin hott scoop, but, of course, without the main ingredients, and so, blindfolded, we fumble into the night:

"Which fashion editor is complaining at cocktail parties about having to airbrush track marks off the arms of a supposedly saintly super­model"?

A new Gia? Fuck if I know. I have no idea who this is, I could say the name of someone in the fashion industry that is considered sainted by editors, but I'm pretty sure that she is not shooting up, as she is happy with her ex-firefighter husband, living in JFK Jrs old pad, but smack and supermodels make for one hell of a story, no? Frankly, though, I wasn't even aware that the term "supermodel" was even still in use. Supermodels qua supermodels properly belong to the 80s, that Gilded Age that we shall never quite see the likes of again. It was an age of supply side economics and it's attendant materialism, one that presaged the inevitable victory of The West over the Soviet Union, where the women wore big hair, and the Boomers sold out and went into advertising. The frosty, cheesy trumpet blast of the Dynasty theme song was a clarion call to captalist excess. Ahh.

What the fuck were we talking about again?

Oh yeah, the blind items. Excuse my trailing, it was the crank I just inhaled before signing on:

"Which blind item shouldn't you read over breakfast? The one about the married Hollywood star who had to delay filming of a movie because he got a nasty, nasty eye infection from his male assistant. You don't want to know."

I was going to say Tom Cruise on this particularly disturbing piece, right after I got "crank sick" but Tom's not married, not anymore anyway, and it's just not him. So, I have no idea once again; guess amongst yourselves.

Out: P Diddy's Fashion Week Party will be hott, as if we don't already know this. According to British Vogue:

"SEAN COMBS is going to launch New York Fashion Week with a party to celebrate the opening of his first flagship store on 41 Street and Fifth Avenue. The rapper and fashion designer, who hired ex-Ralph Lauren designer Max Wilson to create his womenswear collections this week, is bound to put the city in the party mood with a flash of his signature bling. And the store itself is already creating quite a buzz. 'At least 50 people a day stop by the construction site to ask when we are going to be open,' Greg Anderson of InSite Development, Inc, which is putting the store together, told Elites News ... The first of a series of stores for the label, which generated approximately $300 million in sales last year, the shop will appeal to Puff's casually dressed rap fans as well as those keen to wear his impeccably tailored Sean John suits. 'We are currently working on a number of exciting projects, including the premiere of 475 Fifth Avenue, ' said Charles Sopriano, vice president of retail for the label. 'We have spent considerable time developing proprietary product categories for this store. In addition to our current clothing lines, we will also offer a full range of sunglasses, men's accessories, small leather goods, fragrances, men's grooming products and an exclusive line of home d�cor and accessories.'"

A full range of sunglasses is cool, but sometimes, just sometimes, life throws you uncool moments, like when, recently:

"Hip-hop mogul Sean 'P Diddy' Combs and supermodel pal Naomi Campbell were knocked overboard into the Mediterranean sea over the weekend.The British beauty invited fellow seafaring celebrity pal P Diddy to spend a few hours on her yacht, off the coast of Spanish Balearic party island Ibiza, when an unknown yachtsman on another vessel struck the boat, sending the two stars into the sea.An onlooker says, 'They were knocked clean off the back off the boat and into the water.' Neither of them are people you would particularly like to cross and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the other boat didn't stick around to say sorry.'"

Splash! Don't you hate when that happens? Getting pitched into the Mediterranean, and all.

In: Neil Strauss. Have I been hard on him? Oh, fuck yeah. But I only really ride the ones I secretly like, and the new Rolling Stone Magazine, which I'll call (airquotes) "the Neil Strauss issue," he's the hott journo. I call it that because Strauss' book with Jenna Jameson is in excerpts, and Strauss interviews the new urban Tom Cruise.

In his no holds barred interview with Tom Cruise, perhaps the best one in print, he uses the new Tom Cruise press Glasnost as an opportunity to ask bone-tinglingly personal questions, questions that would make a gynecologist blush, and when Tom thinks he has deftly avoided the axe, Strauss drops the hammer. Here are some acute observations on The Tom:

"There are few questions that Cruise won't answer, but there are many that he won't give a direct answer to. The general rule is that the more difficult the question, the longer the silence before he answers. These periods of silent contemplation tend to mean that the answer will be a deflection to another topic. And the last line will be a firm and resolute statement, so that it seems as if a meaningful answer has been given. For example:

"I ask, 'Since your parents' divorce affected you to some degree, were you worried that your breakup would affect your kids?'"

The Corsair actually cringes ... he is really cringing, people:

"One second, two seconds, three seconds. 'When it comes to divorce, it's . . .' Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds. 'The important thing with a child is that you love them, you protect them and you help them to grow and find out who they are. And as a parent, it's my responsibility to help them to become independent and get all the knowledge and a broad view of the world and life. I know that Nic absolutely agrees with that. And that's what's important: being there.'"'

The key to the Straussian philosophy, not to be confused with the Straussians, is that Neil dissects Tom first and then writes down Tom's response, allowing the authoritative Tom to prove his diagnosis accurate, which is rhetorically pretty fun to read and very, very snarky indeed. Check it out.

Out: Down to the Wire! Roll Call writes of the Colorado Senate Primary: "Despite being heavily outspent by brewing magnate Pete Coors in the run-up to Tuesday�s Senate Republican primary in Colorado, former Rep. Bob Schaffer�s allies believe he is within reach of pulling off a major upset. "

Goddamn! Does every election this cycle have to go down to the wire, in the last hour? I'm having heart palpitation over this one.