Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"MAUREEN Dowd's love of the Hollywood elites continues unabated. The Times columnist and avowed liberal, who has dated Michael Douglas and Aaron Sorkin, is hosting an inaugural weekend bash at her DC home honoring David Geffen. Insiders say she's hoping President-elect Barack Obama will stop by. Geffen helped turn the tide against Hillary Rodham Clinton in California by stat ing in Dowd's column that Clinton was 'polarizing' and 'ambitious' and calling Obama in spirational. Geffen then held several Obama fund- raisers." (PageSix)



"Courtney Love's appalling outfit wasn't helped by strong winds yesterday as she strolled along the street with a pal."

"The Howard Stern Show returned after a two-week vacation without comedian Artie Lange yet again. Monday morning's show opened with the crew mentioning the vacant seat in the New York City studio. Stern spent 17 minutes discussing various things before informing his listeners of the situation, including his parents -- a popular topic. Show producer Gary Dell'Abate informed Stern last week that Lange was checked in to an 'intensive rehab' by his sister and friends. Stern said Lange left him a message over the weekend saying he never felt better in his life and has been sober nearly two weeks and lost 20 pounds -- Lange had swelled up to over 300 pounds. After the two spoke on the phone, Stern called Dell'Abate and was told the experience wasn't quite intensive rehab. Dell'Abate said he would classify the actual experience as a detox, not rehab. The crew surmised Lange is in Miami and likened the experience to a luxury spa. Stern said he expects Lange back on the show Wednesday." (Newsday)

"Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy's son Saif insists on the best. We hear Saif paid Mariah Carey a small fortune to perform at his New Year's Eve party on St. Bart's. One spy says Carey's three or four songs at the Nikki Beach Club set Saif back about $1 million. Moammar's second son is used to writing big checks. Having criticized his father's regime in 2006, he has been involved in Libya's compensation of victims of past acts of terrorism." (RushMolloy)



(Bernie and Ruth Madoff via NYSD via DailyMail)

"Bernie Madoff was beautifully captured in yesterday’s Daily Mail in an excellent piece by Miles Goslett. It’s about his 'likes' and 'loves.' In the interview, the main source of which was his London office manager for more than seven years, Julia Fenwick, 38, we learn that Bernie was what we popularly call anal retentive and/or obsessive compulsive. Bernie visited London two to three times a year. His offices occupied two stories of a Georgian townhouse in an area of Mayfair known as 'hedge fund alley.' It was run as a 'proprietary trading house' investing the Madoff family assets which in 2007 were estimated at $220 million. Last year they negotiated a new ten-year lease and spent a million dollars refurbishing it, including with handmade desks. He liked smoked salmon, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches on brown bread. And Diet Coke. Only." (NYSocialDiary)

"The problem with the new office video conferencing system was the shape of
the wall where the camera was mounted. It was semi-circular. And for Bernard Madoff, the man now at the centre of the biggest alleged corporate fraud in history, semi-circular was beyond endurance. Madoff, whose elaborate £34billion pyramid scheme collapsed last month leaving scores of high-profile casualties in its wake, would sit and stare at the wall in his London HQ all day. can't have that in my office,' he declared. 'I can't live with it. It has to be square.' The wall was duly remodelled." (DailyMail)

"In the interest of drumming up maximal funds—or 'transparency'—Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration Committee has released a chart (to be updated in real time) listing the names, employers, cities, and contributions of everyone who donates money to help make January 20 the best inauguration ever .. Out in Los Angeles, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Berry Gordy and director-producer Reginald Hudlin have all pitched in. From New York, we have Cynthia Brill and Patricia Duff, who each gave $25,000. Ms. Duff's ex, Ron Perelman, gave $50,000, as did Def Jam executive Antonio Reid, Laurance Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Wendy, Citigroup's Ray McGuire, Sally Minard, Howard Milstein (two family members also donated the maximum amount), and five people with the last name Soros (including, of course, George)." (Observer)

"Democratic and Republican House campaign strategists already are plotting for the 2010 midterm elections, as the necessities of early candidate recruitment and fundraising have essentially obliterated the old-fashioned concept of an “off-election” year. The targeting decisions made by these party officials will be influenced by the results of the elections held two months ago, and what lessons they can glean from the outcomes. Special attention will be paid, not surprisingly, to the closest races of 2008. The aim on both sides is to field top-flight candidates in 2010 who can win districts that narrowly eluded their party’s grasp last November ..Of the 10 closest races by percentage margin in 2006, three — all Republican-held seats — flipped parties in 2008: North Carolina Rep. Robin Hayes lost a rematch with Democrat Larry Kissell and Democratic candidates won the seats left open by narrow 2006 GOP winners Heather A. Wilson and Deborah Pryce." (CQPolitics)

"Do you know the Spanish word sinverguenza (seen-ver-gwen-za)? It’s a wonderful word that we don’t quite have in English: a noun meaning 'a shameless person.' We ought to have such a noun. Consider two prime candidates: Bernard Madoff and Roland Burris. And perhaps a third. Bernard ('Bernie' sounds just a bit too casual, given the enormity of his—alleged—crimes) Madoff is of course the sinverguenza who allegedly stole $50 billion of his clients’ money, including some $15 million from the Elie Wiesel Foundation. To use another indispensable Spanish word, it surely takes cojones of the shiniest brass to plunder a Holocaust-devoted charity, when one is oneself Jewish." (Christo Buckley/TheDailyBeast)



"Anyone who watched The Osbournes or the X Factor knows Sharon Osbourne is not a woman to be trifled with. And when a contestant on her American reality show, Charm School, insulted her rocker husband Ozzy, there was no hiding place from her furious temper.Mrs Osbourne launched a glass of juice and then herself at former glamour model Megan Hauserman, who later filed a police complaint for alleged assault." (DailyMail)

"What do you think is going to happen in 2009? Will President Obama put his political capital behind a Middle East peace agreement at the outset? Will the recession turn into a depression? Will Caroline Kennedy get nominated to the United States Senate from the state of New York? Will America go green with gusto? Will Mike Tyson go into porn to pay the bills? Will The New York Times go under? Will Rwanda become sub-Saharan Africa's success story? Will Paris Hilton and Jeremy Piven just go away? Will Showtime's "The Brotherhood" ever get the attention it so richly deserves? Will this year finally be the end of network news? Will politics and celebrity become forever entwined with Obama a mainstay on the cover of supermarket tabloids? Will Howard Stern consider returning to terrestrial radio? What are your predictions for 2009?" (AWEARNESS)

"When it comes to momentum heading into the new year, the Eye has it -- and it's pretty much alone. One year after the writers strike disrupted development and production cycles, the broadcast networks don't seem to have recovered as a group. While CBS is doing just fine, the Big Four have ceded more ground to cable. There's certainly hope for the new year -- ABC, CBS and Fox will all have more firstrun scripted programming than usual -- but they'll face an uphill battle in an industry where new successes are the exception. Only one fall newbie -- CBS drama "The Mentalist" -- can be deemed an unqualified hit, while many returning dramas and nearly all veteran reality shows have taken a tumble." (Variety)