The best place to work in America is becoming like every other big corporation. Google, at its heart an overgrown advertising agency, is most famous for its lavish perks. Now those are disappearing.
Leave it to the Fox Business Channel to figure out a way to tie the Plaxico Burress brouhaha to the economy at large, but the network managed to pull off just such a feat yesterday when a business reporter turned up to list off 5 people who shot themselves in the foot over the past year. Coming in at No. 5 on the list: Blackstone founder Steve Schwarzman, who made the list for the lavish 60th birthday party he held last year, not surprisingly. "This guy is crazy!" the reporter explains to anchor David Asman when he asks why Schwarzman made the list.
Today's Dining section of the NYT is dedicated to drinking and the "cult of the cocktail," which is sort of like Martha Stewart hosting a show live from a dive bar. I mean, there's an honest-to-God listicle in there about 8 Bartender Philosophies, and something about alcohol and bundt cakes. The most puzzling bogus trend piece, however, is about the popularity of the college-girl and manchild drink called the White Russian, which was apparently drank by a character in the excellent but ten-year-old cult move The Big Lebowski. That fact serves as the big news peg, as cult followers of the film regularly gather to imbibe what one enthusiast calls a "big boy milkshake."
Bankrupt electronics retailer Tweeter closed all its stores yesterday and fired its employees without warning. But it appears some naughty ex-employees have had their revenge on Tweeter's executives—by hacking the company's web page and placing a humorously profane photo and message upon it for all the public to see! Oh ho! It seems the tables have turned, eh? Click through for a screengrab of the shocking political metaphor that has prompted Tweeter to pay all its employees what they're owed a few people to chuckle, then hit the bong again:
Citigroup isn't the only financial services company seeking to sell off its lavish corporate jets as the economy heads south. We've learned that the insurance giant Travelers (which, coincidentally, was once part of Citigroup) is heading down precisely the same path and put its Dassault Falcon 900C up for sale in just the last couple of weeks. The price? It's listed for $27.5 million, although keep in mind that it comes with "custom-patterned carpets" and the interior is finished with black nickel. The jet is currently located at Connecticut's Bradley International Airport and a local brokerage, Guardian Jet, LLC, is handling the sale. You can see what $27.5 million gets you—and read about how many satellite phones and microwave ovens come with the purchase—after the jump.
Remember when the "No On..." California's Proposition 8 (a ban on gay marriage) campaign was struggling for money and support and then, eventually, lost, effectively setting California back 20 years? That was fun! You know what was also super "fun," according to its press release? The making of the new "No On 8" Funny or Die Adam Shankman-directed musical written by Hairspray tuner Marc Shaiman, that he sheepishly and folksily admits he wrote "six weeks later than he shoulda." Um, yeah. So, pardon us, but why the fuck did any of these people involved—Jack Black, John C. Reilly, the ever-smug Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Chalke, among others—bother to throw this slapdash bit of "duhhh" together, way too late, and then try to congratulate themselves for it?
Can Tina Brown and her newfangled "website" The Daily Beast singlehandedly provide refuge to all of New York's talented laid-off writers? Ha, no, of course not, not even a glimmer of a chance. She'll be lucky to get through the next two years without burning through tens of millions in start-up funds and flaming out like the Talk magazine of the internet. But there's no reason talented laid-off writers can't get a piece of that sweet monetary pie while it's here! The Observer notes that Tina's passing out freelance bylines to many deserving newly unemployed vets of dead publications like Radar and the New York Sun, like a blond Brit Santa with a media fetish. And the pay is not bad! Not by recession standards, at least:
Sarah Jessica Parker and son James surveying Christmas trees in the West Village ... John Mayer leaving Sony's offices on Madison and 55th ... Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Suri getting out of an SUV outside their apartment ... Kate Winslet walking into the "Times Talks" event on West 41st Street ... Michelle Williams and Spike Jonze holding hands outside the Gotham Independent Film Awards at Cipriani Wall Street ... Britney Spears heading into her birthday party at Tenjune, and Alessandra Ambrosio leaving the party a few hours later... and Peaches Geldof wrapping her face in a scarf to avoid having a photographer take her pic.
Yesterday you all thought that the cig puffing tween star was none other than Taylor Momsen, also known as Jenny Humphrey on the Peabody Award-winning PBS miniseries Gossip Girl. I'll allow it! Today we have: a singer worried about a sex tape, a secretly overweight R&B lady, a celeb with alternative dating habits, and a TV star who's secretly fired.
Dressing Michelle Obama for her husband's inauguration on January 20th will be one lucky fashion designer's dream come true: As images of the Obamas are beamed to every corner of the globe, her outfit will become instantly iconic. A long list of famous designers submitted sketches to WWD of the dresses they'd like to create for Mrs. O, and we're guessing they all spent a good deal of time thinking through every last detail. One thorny matter they all seemed to struggle with: what color to depict Michelle's skin. As you'll see from the gallery above (click here for a larger pic), some designers, like Monique Lhuillier and Rachel Roy, opted to entirely side-step the historic fact that our new First Lady will be African-American by not breaking out the brown pencil at all. A couple of people, including Carolina Herrera, contented themselves with a few vague tawny strokes, while others (Lacroix, for example) were apparently so delighted to finally get to use their darkest sketch marker that they went a little, um, overboard. One thing almost everyone agreed on, though? That Michelle has the waist of a 12-year-old girl.
Odetta, the awesome blues and folk singer whose work was a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement and an inspiration to Bob Dylan and many others, has died at the age of 77. She began singing in the 1940s, and "In 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. anointed her 'The Queen of American folk music.'" Okay? She was also Rosa Parks' favorite singer. Not much more needs to be said, except that her music was off the chain. Three clips come tumbling down like Jericho, below:
♦ Spanx CEO Sara Blakely and her husband, Marquis Jets co-founder Jesse Itzler (left), have gone into contract to sell their 14th-floor condo at 15 CPW, less than a year after they picked up the place from Smart Flyer owner Michael Holtz for $8.5 million. The pad was most recently listed at $9.85 million. [Cityfile]
♦ Morgan Stanley managing director Guy Metcalfe, who paid $9.35 million for a five-bedroom apartment at 15 CPW in October and then re-listed the spread for $16.5 million just two weeks later, has now dropped the asking price to $13.75 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
♦ Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy sold her 24th-floor apartment at 400 East 51st Street for $3.8 million to newly-appointed Novartis CEO Rober Pelzer. [NYO]
Ever wonder what time Donny Deutsch wakes up and goes to bed? Or what he eats for breakfast? Neither did we! But the folks at Success have compiled just about every Donny-related detail imaginable in the magazine's December cover story. (For the record, he goes to sleep at 11:30 and gets up at 7:30am, and has "breakfast an hour later at a nearby restaurant, where six egg whites with American cheese await him.") Also? He's partial to Earnest Sewn jeans and Gucci loafers, but you probably could have guessed that one. [Success]
Remember Tricia Walsh-Smith, the former wife of theater mogul Philip Smith, and the woman who became an internet sensation when she took to YouTube to recount her messy divorce and her former husband's fondness for Viagra and porn movies? Tricia came to mind when we read the news last night that Philip Smith was named the new chairman of the Shubert Organization, "perhaps the single most powerful position in the theatrical world." The promotion suggests the tabloid frenzy earlier this year didn't put much of a dent in Smith's professional rep, something he was clearly concerned about when the couple appeared in court this summer. (The judge said Tricia's YouTube videos represented "a calculated and callous campaign to embarrass and humiliate her husband.") But we thought we'd check in with Tricia and gather her thoughts on her ex-husband's big promotion. Here's what she had to say via email a few moments ago.
The eternally youthful Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto turns 53 today. Happy birthday, Michael. Julianne Moore is celebrating, too: She's 48. Actor Brendan Fraser is turning 40. Daryl Hannah is turning 48. Legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is 78. Last but not least, the Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne, is 60 today.
♦ Hockey star/former Vogue intern Sean Avery was suspended from the NHL indefinitely yesterday following "inappropriate public comments" about ex-girlfriend Elisha Cuthbert. "It's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds," he said referring to Cuthbert's relationship with fellow hockey player Dion Phaneuf. [NYP]
♦ Britney Spears celebrated her birthday and album release yesterday by lip-synching her way through a performance on GMA and then heading off to Tenjune, where she partied with the likes of Heidi Klum and Lance Bass. The comeback may be short-lived: She's still abusing prescription drugs and is "plagued by insomnia and shaking fits," at least according to the Star. [The Sun, ThisIsLondon, Star]
♦ Blake Fielder-Civil, Amy Winehouse's estranged husband, just got out of prison. But now it looks like a return trip is in store. [Mirror, Daily Mail]
