A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Ben Widdicombe's Blind Items. According to the Gatecrasher's Don't Shoot the Messenger, "Which TV and Broadway star was overheard at Fashion Week offering a fan tickets to her show? The girl's face fell when Miss Star promptly asked for her credit card number." Hmm. Bernadette Peters? Li'l Kim? Ed Begley, Jr? Fuck. Who?

Out: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The ascencion of Howard Dean to the DNC Empyrean means that these two incompetent windbags are going to have some real competition as to who actually speaks for the future of the party to the various party consituencies. Anyone who believes that Dean is going to "know his role," (The Corsair softly chuckles at the political naivete) and stick to the shadows of the grass roots has got to be kidding themselves. Dean will see this as his mandate and expand to fill any perceived message vaccums in the Party, but with Scorpionic subtlety.

According to TheHill:

"Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean had his first formal meeting Thursday with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) since his ascension to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairmanship has become a certainty.

"Dean, who is expected to be elected DNC chairman on Saturday, declined to give specifics about the noon meeting, saying that the three party leaders had a 'positive conversation.'

"'Obviously, we have a lot of work to do,' Dean told The Hill."

And we're going to get Harry Reid a backbone (The Corsair gets animated) ... and Nancy Pelosi a blood tranfusion (pumps fist) ... and John Kerry a clear picture of reality ... eeeYAAAhhh!

In: Disney Wars. We love The Defamer, the tonic antidote to sunny Hollywood bullshit and "Summer Blockbuster by Committee crowd." Defamer really blew us away with this acute little observation on how surprisingly well Disney Wars is selling in, ehr, "strategic" neighborhoods in LA:

"People were buying multiple copies? There are a lot of obsessive Disney fans out there, huh? If we were into spreading rumors, we might muse that the books are almost selling faster than Michael Eisner can say, 'Buy me every goddamn copy of that book that you can get your hands on!' But you know us, we�d never spread a rumor that we can�t confirm."

Fucking excellent!

Out: Christos' Gates. At various times The Corsair has described the Christo-Jean Claude collabo as "boobs ascending a staircase," and other choice, tasty morsels. This morning we passed by Central Park to see the monstrosity that is The Gates. Mayor Bloomberg's comparisons of this piece of shit to Beethoven's 9th and Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel made things actually worse (if that is possible), as The Old Gray Lady reports:

"'I can't promise,' (Mayor Michael Bloomberg) added, 'particularly since this is New York, that every single person will love The Gates,'but I guarantee that they will all talk about it.'"

So then, the One Night in Paris porno is Art?

"'And that's really what innovative, provocative art is supposed to do,' he added, as Jeanne-Claude and Christo sat next to him.

"... Asked often yesterday to explain the meaning of the project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude emphasized that its meaning would have to be found by those who walked through the 7,500 gates, spread over 23 miles of walkways.

"'It has no purpose,' Jeanne-Claude said. 'It is not a symbol. It is not a message. It is only a work of art.'"

A fucking scam if you ask me. We actually long for the days of Rudy Giuliani's louche, tasteless, Cow Parade debacle. Rudy had all the taste and savoir faire of a Nigerian whore, but at least he was pure in his child-like simplicity regarding the Arts.

In: 80s Nostalgia. Does the fact that the NYTimes wrote an article on 80s nostalgia mean that it is officially dead? It usually does. The discussion of 80s nostalgia infects the Old Gray Lady's Arts and Leisure section, drawing in the very cool Michael Hirschorn:

"'The 80's nostalgia boom is real, but it's not broad,' said Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president of programming for VH1. 'It doesn't apply to everything and not in all ways. It applies to a specific kind of Gen X, self-mocking, slightly ironic thing. For this group of people, you can't give them straight nostalgia of the sort of baby- boomer, 'everything was wonderful and great when we were kids' feel. People Gen X and younger know that things weren't that great. We never thought that Motley Crue was saving the world. We identify with them passionately, but with a certain wink."

Too true. We were born with the ironic remark on hand in case the obstetrician fucked things up. But, re: Hirschorn, a guy we like, have worked with -- wouldn't he be an interesting choice at Viacom to revamp the chronically 3rd place, CBS Early Show?

Michael Hirschorn deserves quite a bit of credit for the cultural importance of the VH1 brand, perhaps more than any other suit, and he has his finger on the clitoris of a demographic that the CBS Early Show should be going after. Michael has a background in hard news journalism and entertainment, which, we believe, could be just what the distantly third place show needs to compete with Good Morning America and NBC Today Show. Just a thought.