A Little of the Old In and Out

(image via carlcoxphoto)

In: David Fucking Gregory. This guy rocks. You have to hand it to this man; you have to applaud him, and not so much for the insouciant head of hair ... but specifically for his gargantuan moxie. We've always wanted to compliment someone on their "moxie," and now we have. It takes a set of brass balls to do this, according to the Washington Times:

"President Bush yesterday oversaw federal preparations for aiding emergency efforts in Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Rita, and then flew to Northern Command in Colorado to coordinate the military's role in relief operations ... As the powerful hurricane changed course toward the east, FEMA officials decided to reposition the trucks and search-and-rescue teams closer to the projected targets of the storm ... A few hours before the White House made the decision to scrub the trip, Mr. Bush bristled at NBC News reporter David Gregory's assertion that the presidential entourage would hamper preparations and his shouted question, 'What good can you actually do?'"

David Fucking Gregory -- whom we predict will inherit Tim Russert's much-coveted Meet The Press position when Big Tim decides to leave -- becomes, invariably, a part of a lot of the stories he covers. Why? This is not done intentionally, mind you; it occurs organically, because, well, he does his job.

David Gregory is an aggressive questioner to power. Not many Washington journos do this. That is rare in these days when reporters, lobbyists, pols all attend the same Sally Quinnish swishy dinner parties and their kids all go to the same schools (Sidwell Friends, St Albans). In a day and age when that nebulous quantity "the media" is regarded as going to bed -- sometimes, quite literally in Washington -- with the figures that they cover, David Gregory harkens us back to an age when the press was considered The Fourth Branch of Government, an unofficial check and balance against the Masters of the Universe. David fucking Gregory: Laissez le bon temps rouler!

(image via epochtimes)

Out: Gerhard Schroder. Gerhard Schroder is not a man, he only believes himself to be a part of the genus (The Corsair Averts his Gaze). That is the only way The Corsair can explain why -- at the time of this post -- The Motherfucking Chancellor of Germany is not stepping aside, conceding the results of a democratic election that, however narrowly, he actually lost! Says The Old Gray Lady:

"According to people around her, Mrs. Merkel is playing what one of them called a 'quiet and patient game.' She believes that Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der, who has insisted on remaining in office even though his party narrowly lost the election, will increasingly be rejected by the German public. Eventually, she hopes, Mr. Schr�der will be forced by members of his own party to acknowledge that he has been voted out of office and step aside."

Now, step aside Mr. Schroder; don't make this whole episode any more embarassing than it already is.



(image via yahoo.movies)

In: Noah Baumbach. Seriously, don't get The Corsair off on discussing Noah Baumbach's complicated films. The Corsair has been a rabid fan of Noah Baumbach films ever since the penultimate scene in "Mr. Jealousy" when Eric Stolz is remembering, bittersweetly, his ex-girlfriend to the emotionally pitch-perfect song "To Ramona," by Bob Dylan. (The Corsair sips a mature Madeira)

And we ceased occupying the smart cosmos of mere admirers of Baumbach's psychologically rich craft and veered into the realm of rabid full-fledged fan after watching Kicking and Screaming (Which, incidentally, premiered at the NYFF in 1995) on DVD a year later and the sublime cast which included a script by Baumbach and acting by Stoltz, Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton and an incandescent Olivia d'Abo. Indiwire's Blog The Reeler writes of this year's NYFF:

"Yesterday, Philip Seymour Hoffman dropped by with director Bennett Miller to discuss their film Capote. Since the film screened at Telluride and Toronto, critical buzz places Hoffman in the Best Actor Oscar race's early lead, but perhaps it is just my malfunctioning suspension of disbelief that prevented me from getting with his lisp and half-determined hardest-working-man-in-literature affectations. He is great as Capote the social animal, but as Capote the author�capsized with ego and alcohol�I could not take Hoffman as seriously as he (and Miller, for that matter) appeared to take himself.

"Filmmaker Noah Baumbach�a Brooklyn native and occasional Wes Anderson collaborator�made an appearance this morning to discuss his own festival hit, The Squid and the Whale. I plan to write more when the film opens Oct. 5, and while I would hate to insult Baumbach and his cast (including Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney and a frighteningly selfless Owen Kline) by diminshing their brilliant work, one of the reasons I enjoyed Squid so much was precisely because it is the type of great film I always see behind Wes Anderson's facade of pretense and irony and style and the other wispy stacks of shit he stuffs into his movies."

Tee-hee: He used "facade" in his film review (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). We still have love for Wes, though. More here.



And now ... young, wet bitches. (image via lifestyle101)

Out: Charlotte Church, Voice of A Sailor. The pseudo-Opera star was more the voice of a salty truck driver than the soi-dissant voice of an angel yesterday at a webchat for The Sun, saying, in part, to Jason from the Czech republic when asked about the authors of a salacious new tell all book about her, "It's just pathetic, I'm so angry. I want him to get a job and f*** off out of my life!

"He is a piece of s***!

"That's how I feel about both Steve and Kyle. I call them Piece Of S*** No1 and Piece Of S*** No2.

"I actually punched Kyle when he sold his story to the News Of The World. I found out on the Saturday night before the paper came out on the Sunday.

"I saw him in town and just said 'you are a piece of s***' and walloped him!"

We don't actually blame you for momentarily popping the fucking geeks, we blame you for the gratuitous use of asterisks.



Pope John Paul II, in green, with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (image via reuters)

In: The Secret Diary of a Cardinal. As Condi Rice chuckled and said -- quite adorably, we must add -- when confronted with The President of the United States' pee-pee note, "Oh, my goodness ... there are no secrets." And there most certainly aren't; not in this information age. There are no secrets, even among the secret of secrets -- the Holiest of Holies -- the College of Cardinals voting on a new Pope. According to the Times of London:

"THE secret diary of a cardinal locked into the conclave that chose the new Pope was published in an Italian newspaper yesterday.

"Under Vatican rules, cardinals taking part in a conclave to elect a new pope are bound by rules of secrecy during and after the vote. Those who break their silence face excommunication. Lucio Brunelli, the Vatican reporter who obtained the diary, said that he hoped there would be no witch-hunt to find the anonymous cardinal.

"The account confirms that reports at the time of a possible Latin American papacy were correct.

"According to the diary, Pope Benedict XVI � formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger � was elected on April 19 in the fourth round of voting with 84 votes against 26 for Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of Buenos Aires."



(image via afan)

Out: Bodyguards. While the steroidal institution of bodyguards is definitely "Out" (There were far too many of the "knuckle draggers around the city last week for the UN's summit), Absolute Magazine's article on the subject by Bethanie Horne is on point. She writes:

"In the music industry ... (bodyguard) size matters. What Maybach would be complete without at least one seven by four passenger? What's a P Diddy red-carpet entrance unless the word entourage can make it into the press the next day? Diddy is a famous employer of big, black bodyguards, but as he has become the hip-hop equivalent of Old Money even he's been taking a subter approach.

"'He's way more mellow these days,' says a friend in the industry. 'Now he's doing that classier thing where it's impossible to tell who are his friends and who are his bodyguards."