A Little of the Old In and Out

In: New York Times and About. Although The Corsair never got the buzz on what the fuck About is really about (it all seems so dodgy), nor did we understand why Primedia ever acquired the company (for an insane $690 million in stock; those were fevered days, amigos, fevered days), my old boss, Jason Calacanis thinks the $410 million match between The Old Gray Lady and Slightly Worn Starlet is a good one:

"Bottom line: The NYT buying About.com is like a contractor/designer buying a fixer upper house: they have skill the turn it into something great in a short period of time and either flip it again or own a really great house ... Congrats to Martin (Nisenholtz) for pulling this off ... this will be looked at as the moment the New York Times because a major player in the Internet industry. Yahoo, Google, AOL, and Microsoft are the real losers here, I'm shocked they let About.com slip away given what their base of users and advertisers could have done for the About.com brand."

Perhaps. Meanwhile, now that the millstone is off from around the neck of Primedia, their stock is soaring, while the New York Times is falling, for the trime being at least.

Out: Out: 50 and Em. They make their living through the spoken word, but when these two communicate ... well ... words fail them. Literally. According to IrelandOnline:

"Superstar rappers 50 Cent and Eminem talk to each other on the telephone daily, even if they have nothing to say. Despite their badboy reputations, the stars have become such good friends, they spend hours gossiping to one another on the phone each week.50 Cent says: He'll call and I'll say: 'What's going on?' and he'll say: 'Nothing.' I'll say: 'Well what do you want?'"

The Corsair wants a greater literacy to prevail in this society. The Corsair wants some quiet time, alone, with Angelina Jolie and Nicole Ritchie and a good casket of Madeira. The Corsair wants many things ... but we digress: can someone send these latter day Boswell's and Johnson's over there Hooked on phonics? They have need.

In: The Kos-Dean-Perle Nexus (hey, it's a slow day, guys). Kos (link via Wonkette) attended a debate with Howard Dean, the new DNC Chair, and Richard Perle, a man who can only be properly construed as "the hungryman's Prince of Darkness." As you can imagine, Kos' inner wonk was fully erect at the prospect of an unpleasant encounter with Perle, who, by the way, can only do nighttime chats because ... the sunlight ... burns:

"The highlight of the night for me came in the form of two incidents right after the event. As my wife and I left the theater we rounded the block to head to our car and came upon Richard Perle. He was with only one other person and I made eye-contact and scowled at him. I scowled at Richard Perle! Whoopee! (I resisted the urge to ask, 'How's your lawsuit against Seymour Hersh going?')

"Then, even better, only a few feet further on I came across the Doctor surrounded by a small crowd of well-wishers. I said 'Governor, may I shake your hand,' rendered the question moot by sticking my hand out at him, and received a firm handshake for my troubles. Chairman Dean looked right at me and said 'Thank you.' No, thank you"

Thank God Kos resisted the urge to spontaneously fellate the former Governor of Vermont. That would have been an awkward moment.

Out: Michael Wolff. We like Mike, he's a damn clever writer, by all accounts a swell guy, and quite often he has a kind word about this site. That having been said, Michael's not having a very good media week. First, the monumentally irrelevant NYPress knocks the wind out of him, intimating:

"Wolff has all but ceded his once ubiquitous role as the country's most interesting media critic/enabler; his move to VF was lucrative but stilled his voice. Writing maybe eight times a year from the monthly, with stories that are often dated, is a far cry from his weekly perch at New York, constant talk-show appearances and regular appearances in the gossip columns."

Then, the most excellent FishbowlNY takes a swing as well, connecting, reporting that Wolfie got Iwantmedia to take down his diatribe about the Wall Street Journal:

"Wolff, reached via email, tells Fishbowl, 'It wasn't an interview. It was a talk I gave that somebody recorded and then transcribed. Beyond being purloined, it was poorly transcribed, unedited, and not meant to be a piece of written work, so I asked that it not be published.'"

Okay, Michael gets CP points for using the word "purloined" in a sentence. He could have said "filched," he could have even said "stolen," but the man has flava, he desired the extra syllable, the dude is frisky. Michael Wolff is like a cat that way.

In: Michael Bolton. Stereogum today makes the bold assertion -- and we can't tell if it's a joke, haha, or if this is the real deal -- that none other than Michael Bolton will be producing Kevin Federline's new album. A considerable pause. No word yet on whether or not Federline will be "purloining" -- we can be hip media insider too -- the old Motown catalogue for material, raping the African-American musical legacy, just like his new Centaur-like master did in his mellower, mulleted incarnation.

Out: Naomi Campbell Time. Heidegger's melancholy inquiry into the elusive nature of Being and Time entirely failed to account for the subjectivity that is Naomi Campbell Time (TM). We believe, however, that Einstein accounted for it in a now lost manuscript entitled, "On the Idea of Time on the Catwalk."According to British Vogue:



"NAOMI CAMPBELL has been blamed for holding up some of London Fashion Week's major shows because she just couldn't make it on time. The British supermodel had tempers flaring in the photographers' pit at Julien Macdonald when her late arrival held up proceedings for over an hour. 'The photographers are fed up with her,' admitted one snapper. An hour's delay before the Gharani Strok show on Monday was also blamed on Naomi. 'I think [she] probably woke up and decided she wasn't in the mood to do it,' co-designer Nargess Gharani told IRISHEXAMINER.COM. 'By the time her agent had talked her into coming, everyone had been waiting for her for ages. We were almost at the point of going ahead without her. I was thinking to myself that she just wasn't worth the hassle.'"

Who are you kidding, Nargess Gharani, did you see that fucking picture? That is a galactic scale piece of ass. Naomi's always worth the hassel. Call us?

In: James Wolcott. The Corsair got backed up in his James Wolcott reading, so we read a few posts from the wry. urbane Wolcott, and it was kind of a surprise -- did we just see what we thought we saw? -- when we found this little chestnut nestled within:

"Steve Gilliard enlightens me that most Thai go-go boys are gay. This explains some of the innocent 'misunderstandings' that occurred during my recent fact-finding tour of Bangkok; I thought those lissome lads just wanted to be my 'friends.' Oh, well, I'm sure the Euros I tucked into their slingshot briefs were wisely spent."

Hmm. They love you long time.