When Jennifer Aniston feels sentimental, she plays her old Brad Pitt phone messages. When Guy Ritchie feels sentimental, he does gay karaoke. When Marc Jacobs feels sentimental, he screws rentboy-style, outside.
New York City's unofficial first lady, Diana Taylor, is celebrating her 54th birthday today. Hope Mike got you something nice! Others celebrating: Tom Brokaw is turning 69. Former Daily News gossip columnist Lloyd Grove is 54. Henry Blodget is 43. Chef Marc Murphy is turning 40. Axl Rose is turning 47. Journalist/author Michael Pollan is 54. Natalie Cole is 59. Rich Astley is turning 43. And Zsa Zsa Gabor is 92. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
He must have learned it on Wall Street. Michael Lewis, the Salomon Brothers trader turned journalist, is, by the standards of newspaper hacks, a financial genius. And now he's got a movie deal.
• Some 3.6 million jobs have now been lost due to the recession. [WSJ]
• BofA chief Ken Lewis purchased 200,000 shares of the bank this week in an effort to convince the world he's bullish about BofA's future. [WSJ]
• Good work, Hank. The Treasury Department overpaid by about $78 billion when it handed over all that cash to big banks last year. [Reuters]
• A hedge fund manager, a brokerage trader and a financial adviser were charged on Thursday for taking part in an insider trading scheme. [DB]
• The feds have also accused two people in the M&A groups at UBS and the Blackstone Group of handing over info to an insider trading ring. [NYP]
• Fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, says he's turned over evidence of several other big frauds to the SEC. [CNN]
• The markets have been up amid speculation the grim unemployment numbers will force Congress to pass an economic stimulus package. [BN]
Newsprint billionaire Peter Brant has reportedly been firing Interview staff left and right, to cut costs. But he still had $50 million for a new 15-passenger private jet, we're told.
Too bad you didn't go into politics. Working on Michael Bloomberg's reelection campaign may be the last cushy job in town. "Aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg hopscotch around the world on two Falcon 900 private jets, where wine and sushi are served. They stay at the Four Seasons in London (about $400 a night), the Intercontinental in Paris ($320) and the King David in Jerusalem ($345). Room service? The mayor pays for it all. Even the laundry. And invitations to dinner parties at Mr. Bloomberg's Upper East Side town house rarely disappoint: Kofi Annan and Nora Ephron are regulars." [NYT]
• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his new girlfriend, Helen May, first met during an Outward Bound trip to Machu Picchu in 2005, according to May's husband, Kevin Ward. "I'm just sorry my wife didn't find someone more substantial. There's way less there than meets the eye." [P6]
• Etta James says she "didn't really mean" the stuff about Beyonce; she's still "miffed" at Obama for not inviting her to the inauguration. [NYDN]
• Kelly Cutrone inked a deal with Bravo for a new reality show. [P6]
• Russell Simmons is reportedly dating model Julie Henderson. [NYDN]
Miley Cyrus and her buddies here are all squinting and pulling their eyelids, but they're not racist, she explained on her blog. Just being goofy and Oriental, LOL.
Michael Phelps continues to face the grave consequences of smoking a bong. He's suspended for three months by swimming's national governing body,which means no financial support. Ouch, we guess?
The Wall Street Journal will never be such a toy to Rupert Murdoch as the mogul's cash-bleeding, score-settling New York Post. But at the moment it does seem an indulgence.
The Nob Hill Gazette, a San Francisco "society" publication, has come up with a list of area eligibles, including a wife beater and more than one gay man. Hard to be a straight woman here!
James seems awfully sore that Beyonce got the Inauguration nod instead of her, and made no bones about that fact at a concert last week in Seattle. "I can't stand Beyoncé," she muttered to the audience. "She has no business standing up there singing that song." James also threatened violence toward the singer and claimed that Obama was "not my president," a Secret Service-tempting taunt that the audience, so ready to hoot at Beyoncé, knew less what to make of. Beware, Miss Knowles: when the full moon wanes, and a suddenly-itchy leather bustier signals your transformation from Sasha Fierce back into the terribly ordinary Beyoncé, Etta James will be ready to pounce!
There's two sides to every story of a superstar's verbal smackdown of a futz-happy DP. If we're to believe Radar, Shane Hurlbut—the berated cinematogapher in question—was a set terror the crew was glad to see humiliated.
