2008 Corsair Pirate Awards



Welcome to the Fifth Annual Corsair Awards: The Pirates (French hunting horns blast). This blog is 5 years old? Crazy. It is hotter than an Oscar because the presenter is far cuter than anything to come out of Tinseltown. You may want to hit the refresh button as we will be adding on posts as the day progresses, reliving some of the wildest moments of 2008:



The Averted Gaze Pirate: Barry Diller. Usually Diller is the recipient of the studious, hungry stare, the kind that says: please fund my project. At Tina Brown's duplex, for example, we imagine this silent ocular communication takes place. Also: at Barry Diller's annual Coldwater Canyon picnic/Satyricon. But at Sun Valley in July, Mrs. Rupert Murdoch couldn't be bothered beyond a certain point. From TheHollywoodReporter:

'"Several hundred major media execs at Herb Allen's annual retreat in this remote Northwest niche thought they could get away from it all ..

"... IAC chairman Barry Diller had been keeping a low profile at the conference until he almost ran over Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendy on his bicycle.

"'Where are you going, Wendy?' he asked.

"'I'm going to get some yoga pants,' she replied.

"'What are yogurt pants?' Diller queried.

"'No, yoga pants -- you know, to do yoga in,' she said.

"'Yogurt pants,' Diller persisted.

"Murdoch turned and went on her way."

One can almost hear the Averted Gaze, from across the distance of time. [Image:NYTimes]




Woman We'd Like To F*ck Pirate Goes To: Padma Laksmi. This is, to be sure, the most prestigious Pirate Award. It is also an award that we hold most solemn. We'd like to take a moment to share our "appreciation" -- and we don't mean that in a Blagojevician manner -- for Padma Lakshmi, the unbearably sexy host of Bravo's Top Chef. Our appreciation comes in the form of a proem, if you will, composed with love (An arching of brows; a clearing of throat). Dear Padma: I liked you in that hot black dress/ On that that minky fur with naughty bits/ I'm sweeter than a duck confit/Goddam, I'd like to Suck your ..." You get the idea. Honorable Mentions: Naomi Campbell. Helena Christensen. Lucy Liu. Taraji P. Henson. And Governor Jennifer Granholme.




The What Goes Well With Dark Meat Award: Mike Tyson. After biting off a significant portion of Evander Holyfield's ear in their infamous fight in 1997 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Tyson admitted to filmmaker James Toback in his documentary, "I went home alone, and I sat there, and I drank some liquor and smoked some weed and fell asleep."



Goodbye To "Bromance" Pirate: Playgirl Magazine. The oily pop-cultural residue and the seedy public-restroomish aura of Playgirl will be sorely missed, if only for the raw comedic value. We resisted the urge -- no matter how powerful -- to make auto-fellation jokes on the sad occasion of Playgirl's "folding." Playboy, of which Playgirl is vaguely derivative, is more like the big, stupid fratboy expertly navigating between competing kegger parties, "The Gentleman's C," March Madness and Spring Break (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). And while Playboy arguably gets some B-List celebrities slightly past their expiration date to pose in the buff -- Joan Collins, LaToya Jackson in her prime and Farah Fawcett, Playgirl -- and how does one say this nicely? -- struggled. RIP, Playgirl. Now where will gay men go to see straight rockers getting naked for what they think are middle-aged housewives in the boonies?



Douchebag Of The Year: Jeremy Piven. If only for continually using what he learned in yoga, which is holy, to spice up the shallowest of scenes, he should be considered douchy. Add to the mix the fact that Piven pulled out of a Mamet play, causing a decline in ticket sales, under the dubious medical explanation that he was suffering from "mercury poisoning" from "too much sushi." Sushi, or "douchy"? [Image: TimeInc]



Image of the Year. "Woody" is not just his name it is his present state of being.



Annus Horribilis Award: Kanye West. Hipster-rapper Kanye had a bad year, the modelizing notwithstanding. His performance at Bonnaroo is referred to unfondly as "The Kanye Debacle," his latest and most emotionally revealing album was ill-received, and his blog posting is either lazy or angry (depending on who you believe). We're pulling for him in 2009, though. Fer realsies.



Triumph of The Trailer Award: The Palin's of Wasilla. Babies whose names are verbs. Unwed teenage mothers. Moose stews. The high hair. The unprotected sex. Extreme fertility. Governing vindictively. Extravagant shopping on the public dole. Evangelical Christianity. Lack of intellectual curiosity, especially on internationalism. The oily attraction to extreme masculinity. Why are their private lives so messy? Do we really need to be all up in their bitch? And, finally, are the Palins the missing link between man and beast?



Bad Choices Award: Anne Heche. Remember the reptilian Anne Heche? This year we learned that "The Hechetile" -- aka, "Celestia" -- who has never had a problem getting work in the industry, couldn't pay July's spousal support for her cartoonishly lazy ex-husband Coley Laffoon (guess the laughs-on heche). Awkward! Somewhere Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres are clinking classes of a crisp Chablis while softly chuckling into the candlelight.



Feud Of The Year: Spike Lee Versus Everyone. For a multimillionaire father of smart-looking children with successful filmmaking career, Spike Lee sure is an angry little bastard. Or, at least, he always seems to get angry -- as if on cue -- as the opening date of his films approaches. Hmmm. This year, among others, Spike feuded with the Clintons and Clint Eastwood. The Clintons we can possibly understand (we didn't much like them during the primary cycle), but who feuds with Clint Eastwood? Clint is an elderly, Jazz-loving American icon who has never really fucked with anyone. That's just cold-blooded. Honorable Mentions: Harvey Weinstein versus Nancy Pelosi. Harvey Weinstein versus Bravo. And Sharon Stone Versus China. Dowd and Geffen Versus The Clintons. Geffen Versus Sumner.



Cause He's A "Classy" Guy Award: Quentin Tarantino. When not injecting ambitious auditioning starlets in the ass with syringes for his dark jollies, the squidlike Quentin -- ever the classy film director -- is opining on the virtues of the finer things in life. From ArtForum:

"'One glance at the guide to the dozen or so venues for Provincetown’s Tenth Annual International Film Festival and I felt lost at sea ... At a reception that evening held in the Schoolhouse Gallery .. Quentin Tarantino, honored with the 'Filmmaker on the Edge' prize, ' in Tarantino movies were evidence of a foot fetish. 'No,' Tarantino replied. 'That’s just good filmmaking.'

"As fans surrounded Tarantino, I couldn’t help but recall his response to another question earlier that day. When asked, 'What’s the best gift a fan has ever given you?' the filmmaker responded: 'Pussy. It’s a gift that doesn’t stop giving: There’s pussy, and there’s the memory of pussy.' And, unfortunately, there’s the memory of Tarantino remembering said pussy."

Did we mention that Tarantino doesn't take calls from his mother? Like we said: Classy. Honorable Mention: Roger Stone (Eew).



Buffoon of the Year: Berlusconi. Italiam Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi can only be properly construed as profoundly "buffonish." Basta!



Creepeiest Maneuver Pirate: Hulk Hogan. What could possibly be creepier than a bronzed "dadager" massaging the buttocks of his teenage daughter (see above)? Fucking her friend. Only male models and right-wing archbishops come off creepier than "The Hulkster."



The Archie Bunker Pirate: Pat Buchanan. Life has not been kind to Pat Buchanan. President Ford never did appoint him as Ambassador to apartheid-era South Africa, as he recommended. His pathetic philosophy of blood and racial kinship and nostalgie de la boue is quietly disintegrating before his beady eyes. Not with a bang, but a whisper, racist fuck. The Klan is on the run, with membership thinned to almost extinction. Israel is in a position of strength in the region. And, we cannot fail to note, the President-elect is indeed a Negro (Averted Gaze). What, pray tell, an aging crypto-Nazi fuckhead to do? Retreat into his stash of old, mothball-smelling copies of the Saturday Evening Post? Buy up old DVDs of "Masterpiece Theater"? Drink an egg-creme real fast and hope for brain freeze? To add insult to injury, Pat doesn't even have an heir! The world is goin-ta-hell-in-a-handbasket and there will be no future Buchanan Crusader Knight to stand athwart the progress of the brown people! If Pat Buchanan weren't a columnist of some marginal influence, he would be wearing a couch in Astoria threadbare with a can of suds at the ready while watching the game on an old teevee ranting sourly about Rocky Marchiano. Instead, he is an MSNBC commentator and -- mirabile dictu -- a panelist on the always entertaining but increasingly irrelevant The McLaughlin Group.



Most Despicable Act of Conspicuous Consumption: Kimora Lee Simmons' Million Dollar Hairpiece, hands down. This blog has been particularly hard on premeditated acts of hyper-materialism -- real gut-level behavior -- and the financial collapse, perhaps, is our vindication and a turning point in American self-realization. America in the five years that this blog has been up and running, began to resemble ancient Rome, chucking the gumption and frugality that we earned through our pioneer origins. And no one more embodies that lack to geometric balance with relation to the soul in the direction of a despicable materialism than that noxious gassbag Kimora Lee Simmons, who actually commissioned a million dollar hairpiece. Instead of a check to the various charities dealing with the genocide in Darfur. She thinks it looks just fabulous. Asshole.



Public Intellectual Of The Year: Fareed Zakaria. Do Empires in twilight conjure their own biographers? If so, the Owl of Minerva is swooping dangerously low. And if there is any justice in the world, President-elect Obama will name Fareed Zakaria as Ambassador to Pakistan, where his nuanced and orderly mind can mend fences. We would miss him greatly as the host of GPS -- the best show on television, better even than "Dexter" -- but a mind like that ought to be in service to the country. The list of diverse statespeople and intellectuals that have crossed the threshold of his salon is beyond impressive. [Image: Observer]


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Tantrum of the Year: McCain Versus Bumiller. Politically, it was -- in the short term -- smart. Senator John McCain blew up at New York Times reporter Elizabeth Bumiller when she asked him on his press plane about the rumor that Senator John Kerry offered him the Vice Presidency in 2004 (he did). Bumiller, poor dear, was just doing her job, but Team McCain spun it as another New-York-Times-Socialist-Rag milkbone for the right wing pitbulls to gnaw on. It was a perfect storm of McCain's legendary temper and Bumiller's welcome to the McCain plane, not knowing how to gently massage the question when speaking to Senator Batshit-Crazy.



End of the Trend: And the "End of the Trend" Pirate goes to -- Manskirts. There is nothing that is going to get The Corsair -- ever -- to put on a gossamyr Prada skirt above our pants, bouncing down the street on our bandy-legs. No percentage! What are they drinking in Milan?



End of the Trend (Honorable Mention): Socks with High Hells, also by Prada (for further reference, see the poor dear above).



Loser Of The Year: Rudy Giuliani. There are so many honorable mentions for this one: the condom-averse John Edwards, sociopath Bernie Madoff, Client #9 -- but no one, no one began the year with so much alleged potential. Remember how hot "Giggliani" was at the dawn of 2008? After September 11th, 2001, he toured the European capitals slurping fine wines and collecting honorary titles. The accolades afforded Rudy the cover to quietly snip that fucking embarrassing outer-borough combover that was never copacetic. He collected political IOU's in the 2004 and 2006 election cyles. He was supposed to win the GOP nomination, wallpapering his racially dubious record as NYC Mayor. Chris Matthews all but sucked Rudiani's flaccid cock nightly on his MSNBC chat show. But what all the Kool-Aid drinking talking heads forgot -- silly rabbits -- but this blog knew full well was that Rudy had to run in the Republican primary. And this blog watched, with great joy, as his sea-to-shining-sea flamout rode, brokeback, into Florida on rickety tires (It was all so "SchadenfRudy"). We chuckled softly as Governor Crist double-crossed him -- Rudy aides were "visibly shaken" -- and endorsed McCain, effectively ending what we always knew was a quixotic run for the Presidency. We hope Rudy is using his time out of the arena getting in touch with his inner minority right about now (Averted Gaze). Loser. Honorable Mention: Mikheil Saakashvili.