Remember John Kerry? Apparently he ran for president in 2004 or something. Anyway, he's celebrating his 65th today. Mos Def is turning 35. Faded '80s actresses Teri Garr and Donna Mills are 64 and 66, respectively. British chef Marco Pierre White is 47. Motley Crew bassist Nikki Sixx is turning 50. And Jermaine Jackson is 54.
• Donny Deutsch has been caught fooling around with a married woman. Or at least that's what hedge fund manager Andrew Sandler claims, who hired a private detective to follow his wife Lisa around and eventually scored pics of the two of them making out. [P6]
• Jennifer Aniston appears naked on the cover of the new GQ, and in the accompanying article she says her relationship with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is like an "insane Bermuda Triangle." Meanwhile, Brad admits to the new Rolling Stone that he fell in love with Angie while he was still married to Jen. [NYP, Daily Mail]
• Rachel Zoe's rep says the only reason she's been looking so thin lately is because she "just got over the stomach flu." Right. [OK!]
The economy might be imploding, but Tumblr is RICH! The microblogging service/hipster nerve center raised $4.5 million in a round led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, which means the company is worth $15 million, on paper, even though it doesn't make any money, at all. But next year it's going to start selling some "really sexy" add-on features, founder David Karp told All Things Digital. Oddly, Karp's friend/ex-girlfriend Caroline McCarthy hasn't posted this news to her CNET social-network-news blog yet. So we guess the breakup wasn't amicable?
• The House approved the auto bailout bill yesterday; what will happen when it gets to the Senate is still up in the air. [NYT]
• The number of Americans filing new unemployment insurance claims last week jumped to a 26-year high. [CNN]
• Stocks slipped in early trading as investors waited to see if the auto bailout gets Senate approval, and because of discouraging economic data. [CNN]
JCPenney's new terrible, stupid prison ad is probably the future of advertising, sadly. It's been released as a five-minute internet video and was created by Saatchi & Saatchi, the same firm that kinda-but-not-technically created a "yay teen sex" ad for the retailer earlier this year. This seems to be the same sort of play: controversy=attention. And it's working! All Saatchi had to do this time was film some loser husbands crawling around like dogs, in a dungeon, ruled by women. (Yes, it's after the jump.)
The rumors appear to be true: Newsweek will amputate up to one million copies from its 2.6 million circulation, according to Wall Street Journal sources, and no fewer than 500,000. There will be an unknown number of layoffs, announced Thursday, to be achieved through voluntary buyouts like the 111 from last spring. But the biggest change at the 73-year-old magazine: It's going to become a whole lot more like Washington Post Co. sibling Slate, with contrarian, gimmicky or otherwise grabby headlines that wouldn't be out of place on Digg.
It's so passé to be a vapid consumerist spendthrift. Even Barney's warns that conspicuous consumption will probably get you "branded an idiot," for God's sake. But most socialites can't help themselves; if they stop setting huge piles of money on fire, they'll get frostbite, in their sick little hearts. This fundamental tension between fashionable goods and fashionable austerity has, at last, been resolved, by traveling showrooms, blackmarket house parties and secret shops, all for the uber rich. Times Styles has the lowdown:
In the self-involved world of Silicon Valley, finding a suitable mate outside the industry is inconceivable. Dating at work is par for the course. So congratulations are due to Philip Kaplan and his new fiancée for defying local convention.
There weren't too many signs of doom and gloom at Google's holiday party last night. The shindig at Penthouse 15 on West 37th Street featured "top shelf liquor (but no shots), filet mignon, and had the sickest game room set up," reports ChiChi212, who somehow managed to sneak her way into what was supposed to be a staff-only event. "There was a moving screening room, a game room with every console imaginable, karaoke. I mean these people were not kidding." Guess not! Unfortunately, she also says the room was filled with "tons of socially awkward people," which is probably because Google decided to schedule separate holiday parties for its engineering and sales staffs. (This was the one for the engineers, obvs.) And it was still a step down from last year's fête, which took place at the Rainbow Room and cost $300 a head. Still, most companies aren't exactly breaking out filet mignon for their employees this year—if they're having a party at all, of course—although you can always refer to this handy roundup that The Business Sheet put together if you feel like reliving the lavish holiday parties of years past.
Welcome to another group-live-blogging hour filled with possibilities — although my watching along won't be one of them. I'm stuck in a Bravo-free hotel in Vegas this week on business trip, so my quest tonight will be a quixotic one: hosting the live-blog of a Top Chef episode (starting at 10 Eastern) that I can't watch. But that's probably apt, because impossibility seems to be a theme tonight. Consider, for example, this list of highlights from last week's live blog:
Between the bobbing and the "under-the-table propositions," this looked like possibly the most intriguing Times Thursgay Styles story ever. But it turns out to be a fairly pedestrian, non-sexual piece about outlaw stylists secretly snipping at discount "hair parties." It does feature an "interesting" hairdresser who is still charging $1,900 for a housecall. At that price he better throw in a blow dry. Multiple blow dries. The best goddamn blow dries you've ever experienced.
