A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Coke's Make It Real Campaign. Our favorite New York Social Chronicler, Our guy David Patrick Columbia of NYSocialDiary notes:



"Coca-Cola celebrated the launch of the new 'Make It Real' campaign at Marquee. The event highlighted Coca-Cola's recent partnership with two of the new generation's prominent creative forces, street artist Shepard Fairey and fashion designer Jennifer Nicholson."

Also at the party was the ever skankinescent indie film fungus Vincent Gallo, who, in a rare picture, appears to have found someone not underage. Brava. Her bewitched deer-in-the-headlights look, however, suggests that Count Gallo has only started feeding off of her young, nubile, actress platelets. The winter gear covers up entirely the harsh vampiric puncture wounds no doubt inflicted wantonly by the undead. Haul ass, baby!

Also, alleged "cracktress" Natasha Lyonne (sorry, Parker Posey) to be regaining some color to her cheeks ... and is losing her trademark malnourished "concave ass" look (Charmed, I'm sure) -- so ubiquitous, when appearing, skraggly, on the streets below 14th street all of last summer ...

Out: Mohammed Al Fayed. No one ever accused Al Fayed of having a sense of taste which overrides the bottom line. But the "Phoney Pharoah" has come such a long way from selling Coca-Cola on the streets of his native Alexandria (Averted Gaze). He's got "kult-cha"! According to Rush and Molloy:

"Members of Local 6 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union are flying to the U.K. to demonstrate in front of Harrod's, whose owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed, wants to open a store in what's now the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza hotel.

"Members of the Coalition to Save the Plaza Hotel oppose the new owners' plan to turn the landmark into luxury condos and retail space."

Nice. Smooth move, Ex Lax. Wikipedia notes, "(Al Fayed) was involved in the cash for questions scandal, having offered the Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith money for asking questions in Parliament. He provided MP Jonathan Aitken's bill from the Ritz Hotel in Paris to Peter Preston at The Guardian, thus destroying Aitken's libel case against the newspaper and resulting in a perjury conviction for Aitken. He has a long running feud with Private Eye magazine, which, dubbing him the "Phoney Pharaoh", has often reported his alleged business malpractices and heavy-handed methods of dealing with staff at Harrods and in his other business ventures." A "classy" guy, to be sure; Mohammed always knows to blame "the hounds" when he passes gas at the dinner table.

In: Simon Doonan. ... "In" which we learn what Tina Brown has known for so long, namely, that Simon Doonan gives good "acid social observations." To Fashionweekdaily, The Doon dishes on Barney's, where we've always suspected so much more goes on than the conspicuous consumption of shoes:

"'Girls go to Barneys to snag a husband because rich guys will be there. They might date a starving artist from Brooklyn, but they want to marry a guy with a hedge fund. When they see the men heading over to women's clothes, where there are no changing areas, they strip down to nothing to show off those Bikram bodies, and coyly slip into their Marc Jacobs shifts. We've had to remove customers from the premises for indecent behavior and flaunting themselves inappropriately.'"

And, re: fashionistas:

"'There are the major fashion players who don?t want to be recognized discount shopping. They arrive in full disguise with burkhas, you name it. They have some kind of bizarre snobbery?it's hilarious.'"

Oh, Anna, why?

Out: Sumner Redstone, Electronic Gamer. Sure, methuselan media titan Sumner Redstone strikes The Corsair as the type of man more likely to be found engaged in a quiet game of "whist" (Averted Gaze) after his nightly sleepytime cocoa, but apparently for the sake of the shareholders at Viacom, the old boy likes to "get his game on," so to speak (wink, wink), in "the digital arena," according to iwantmedia, from Businessweek:

"It would be hard to find a video-game enthusiast more unlikely than Sumner Redstone. The 81-year-old chairman and CEO of Viacom made his fortune in theaters, then built an empire by buying such traditional media assets as the Paramount studio, CBS TV, and book publisher Simon & Schuster. But last May, Redstone increased his stake in Chicago-based Midway Games, taking control of the company that makes the successful video game Mortal Kombat but has been a longtime industry laggard, with $276 million in losses over the last four years."

Work those shot reflexes, Sumner! Right here's where you start paying ... in sweat!

In: CNN's Blog coverage. We're not kissing ass here (seriously), as the likelihood of The Corsair showing up on CNN as a talking head is unlikely, despite our long, lush Ugandan eyelashes that would look so fetchingly well on the small screen. Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources, however, as well as that cute CNN Blog reporter, Jacki Schechner, have done, arguably, the best "blog reporting" around. Reporting on what the blogs are saying is goddamn innovative for any news outlet, and, it seems, that they have somehow harnessed -- however slightly -- the vitality of the voices on the web. Is the blogosphere, like, a "beat" now? Quelle horreur!