We'd previously teased today's El Coyote throwdown between "Yes on 8"-donating manager Marjorie Chrisoffersen and a crowd of gays hungry not for quesadillas but for vengeance; now, word has come out about the confrontation, and it sounds like things went not so well. The blog Shut Up! I Know! has a first-person account:
· The Entrance Band, The Growlers, and Golden Animals at SPACELAND, The (International) Noise Conspiracy are at El Cid, Lupe Fiasco at Club Nokia. · The 40th anniversary of the legendary Monkees' movie Head calls for a brand-new 35mm print screening at The Egyptian. Amply manboobed Monkee Davy Jones and bandmate Peter Tork will be in attendance for a Q&A! · OK, not all Canadians are maniacs: It's Super 8 Film Nite: The Project8 Collective at Echo Park Film Center. "A group of small-format filmmakers with an interest in developing our local Vancouver film community by presenting an alternative to the mainstream narrative production industry."
This just in: CNET founder turned angry Internet commenter Halsey Minor promises he will "get it up"! "It," in this case, being the Landmark Hotel in downtown Charlottesville, for which he has promised $7 million of his own money and obtained $24 million in promised financing from a bank. There's the hitch: The bank has stopped lending money, and no one was paid for September. Minor says he's "furious" and is getting a lawyer. Local publication CVillain.com wonders, though, if the bank yanked its loan because Minor somehow violated a covenant of the construction loan. (Photo via CVillian.com)
While we think this town is probably big enough for both of us, we admit that the right-wing outlet Newsmax spooks us a little with its encroaching "celebrity heathen" beat. The coverage is perhaps best exemplified today by the feature "Hollywood's Top 10 Atheists," a bracing survey of Angelina Jolie, Keanu Reeves, Woody Allen and few other wretched infidels whose names might even surprise you.Take Bruce Willis for example (whose "conservative credentials often are exaggerated," according to the author), Ian McKellen ("Tom Hanks' co-star in The Da Vinci Code," we're reminded) and Jodie Foster, who is, of course, a lesbian and thus thoroughly godless by default. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are outed as agnostics, meanwhile, and the feature ends with the obligatory bone-throw in the direction of God-fearing GOP actor emeritus Jon Voight. Like you, we wondered what the real Newsmax angle might be here — if maybe they really are turning a new celeb leaf, or if this was Plan B after "Hollywood's 10 Jewishest Jews" simply proved too unwieldy a subject to whittle down on deadline. But after a second, closer, read, we think we get it: Straight-up bitterness. And not of the post-election variety either, but something far more ingrained: "You'd think hollywood stars would drop to their knees every day to give thanks for their fame, fortune, and beauty," the author notes. Maybe so, but his kind are technically responsible for The Love Guru, so let's just call it even for now, OK?
Is Jerry Yang the Barack Obama of Yahoo? Most employees at the flailing Web giant associate their fearless leader with hopelessness, not hope. The person who created these fliers, featuring Yang and cofounder David Filo, is either a wickedly vicious satirist, or a hapless true believer. Can you suggest a better caption in the comments? The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: trisomy21, for "But I need the Mac to find Cyprus on a map!" (Photo by Yodel Anecdotal)
YouTube has never been this exciting. And I don't mean the puppy videos. The video-sharing site is frenetically experimenting with every imaginable form of advertising, from prerolls to rollovers to overlays. There's even that staple of late-night television — headache pills! For this, we can thank Ben Ling, the product manager who recently returned to Google from Facebook to figure out how to make money on YouTube. But surely the most absurd ads we're seeing right now are the adaptations of Google's familiar text ads displayed on Web search results. A blog post featuring two cat-with-head-trapped-in-bag videos — a staple of YouTube users' contributions to the world of cinema — has ads "by Google" slapped on top of them. In Japanese.
As though it wasn't bad enough that Raffaello Follieri's ex, Anne Hathaway, is now being wooed by some common actor, the Vatican-swindling Follieri has been forced to deal with another unpleasant surprise: prison is totally gross! Currently serving out a four-and-a-half-year sentence devoid of flashbulbs and fast cars paid for with Becoming Jane money, Follieri's lawyer is now attempting to get the con man moved to someplace a little more minimum security. Marvel at Follieri's sad, sad description of prison life:
Expat socialite and prodigious homosexual writer Gore Vidal has agreed to write an illustrated memoir that will be released next fall. The book, co-written with Vanity Fair editor Ann Schneider, will be different from his earlier memoirs in that it will be replete with photographs from Vidal's archives. Since we probably won't be able to afford the book when it comes out, enjoy the glorious archival images of our abbreviated version.Publisher Abrams calls the book "a scrapbook of Vidal’s considerable library of mementos, documents, photos, and records" that will take readers through "six decades of American social history," and has scheduled it for release in November of 2009. Vidal's already published two memoirs on his favorite subject, but with the wealth of photos out there, we don't have to wait that long for the illustrated version.
Jeff Jarvis, former TV Guide and People TV critic and founder of Entertainment Weekly, is now an internet expert. He was one of those guys who became internet-famous back when there were like six bloggers, all of whom were guys whom 9/11 turned into HAWKISH ACTION HEROES, and they all brayed about the Islamist Menace and felt quite proud of themselves for being former liberals who grew balls and for some reason none of them went away? (Another one of those guys is Nick Denton!) Anyway! Then he became an internet futurist, which means spending a lot of time gloating about the death of print and babbling about the future of media gallivanting around to conferences and "consulting" and just wasting everyone's time with obnoxious writing and simplistic evangelizing for a miserable digital future. Now he's in an immature fight with Ron Rosenbaum, who is much smarter than he is, if also old and blinkered, about THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM. It's fucking bleak. Rosenbaum just took him down in Slate, partly for his new book about Google that happens to be just made up of things Jeff Jarvis thinks about Google. Here is the important part of the rant:
Anthony Michaels was told by Classmates.com, the world's most annoying social network, that his old school buddies might be looking for him. Michaels upgraded and paid the gold membership fee. In exchange, he found out a harsh reality: No one was actually looking for him. Michaels is now taking Classmates.com to court for fraudulent billing practices. Anthony, maybe you should use Facebook to round up some friends and make it a class-action lawsuit! [Wired]
What with the economy and all, Christmas is totally going to blow this year. Especially for those of you (us?) in the media industry. The precious holiday was already partially ruined when the Hearst Company cancelled their historically awesome annual Xmas bash, and now Condé Nast is following suit. A tipster tells us that their annual Holiday Luncheon has been shut the heck down. Probably because every company everywhere is hemorrhaging money. Why Condé itself axed dozens of employees just yesterday. The real shame in all of this, though, is now we won't get the valuable "who sat where" insight into the magazine giant's power structure. You see, whoever sits closest to head honcho S.I. Newhouse at the Luncheon is deemed to be the boy or girl du jour. No coal in their stockings! Because we would never be invited to such an event we've had to rely on the Post's Keith Kelly's annual kremlinology. Now how will we know where everyone stands?? (Though we can make a guess: everyone stands to get laid off). In lieu of the shindig, we imagine that Vogue editrix and Big Table mainstay Anna Wintour will quietly drink spiked eggnog in her office, thinking back on better days. When Christmas still meant something. Even to those on the brink of catastrophic financial collapse.
You'll have to forgive us for being a little too preoccupied with events going on in our own backyards to notice what's been going on lately up in America's tuque, Canada. Let's see: last we checked in, a Chinese immigrant on a Greyhound bus that boarded in Edmonton had decapitated and cannibalized another passenger on a desolate stretch of highway—definitely one of those instances where all the universal health care in the world isn't really going to do much good. Now comes news of a Dexter-obsessed, suspected killer living in the same bloodcicle wasteland, named Mark Andrew Twitchell.Some background: An Edmonton local named Johnny Brian Altinger went mysteriously missing early in October after setting up an internet date with a woman he had never met. Cops seized a screenplay by filmmaker Twitchell in which a male killer who works in a forensics unit (just like Dex) lures "a cheating husband to his death through an Internet dating scam in which he pretends to be a woman." In the story, the husband is decapitated with a power saw. Twitchell was arrested on Halloween night, on suspicion of having enacted out his murderous fantasies on Altinger in his garage (pictured). Told of the development, Dexter EP Melissa Rosenberg admitted the gruesome crime confirmed her worst, "our lovable leading serial killer has finally reaped what he's sown!" fears:
In the wake of his apocalyptic predictions for the online-advertising market, Nick Denton, the owner of Valleywag publisher Gawker Media, read my offhand quip about how I would soon be writing Valleywag as a column for Gizmodo or Gawker, whichever will take me" as a brilliant business suggestion, and he's taking me up on the idea. (Gawker, as it happens.) Nick, I was joking, but if you really think I have such keen insight into how to manage your Web properties, why not make me a strategic consultant to Gawker Media instead — and give me a hefty raise while you're at it?
David Fincher Practices His Oscar Speech: "It was like getting my first rim job," the director reportedly explained Monday night when asked about his experience making Benjamin Button. Somewhere on the Paramount lot, meanwhile, Fincher champion and big spender Brad Grey raced to brush a funny taste out of his mouth. [The Hot Blog]
The Underground at Facebook has four reviews: 5 stars, 5 stars, 5 stars, and one guy who dares ask what's up with reracking the dishes? The secret to success seems to be executive chef Josef Desimone, a steal from Google who brought several of his buddies over. Valleywag scored spy photos of the place in August. I confess I'm eyeing that plate of sushi and my résumé right now. Sheryl Sandberg can't be all that bad to work for, especially right after lunch. (Photo by donn l.)
The liquored-up consensus at San Francisco watering hole Joey & Eddie's last night: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is actually kind of hot. Musk, who drove up in one of his electric car startup's Roadsters to speak to me yesterday, is divorcing sci-fi novelist wife Justine and has taken up with a British actress, Talulah Riley, whom he squired to a party earlier this year at Tesla's Silicon Valley showroom.Riley told the Daily Mail that she "fell in love with Elon because of our mutual love of physics." Perhaps it was "physiques." Those British accents are tricky. Justine Musk's comment on the 23-year-old Riley, in her LiveJournal: "She is not blonde, and I do find this refreshing." (Photo of Musk by Robert Scoble; photo of Riley via Daily Mail)
Everyone's wondering how the new presidential children, Sasha and Malia, will survive the cloistered, scrutinized life of the White House. In fact, in a Daily Beast interview today, FDR's grandson Curtis Roosevelt—who spent a dozen of his childhood years living there—said, "I hope the Obama children are sufficiently prepared to have some grounding and some identity of their own... I hope it helps protect them to some degree from the specialness that affected me all my life.... I was FDR’s grandson, and that was my identity." That's why we're slighting worried that the girls have been invited to be on the wildly popular kids' show Hannah Montana.We don't want to be a buzzkill—it's probably their favorite TV show, and going on it would be every kid's dream. On the other hand: this is how it begins. We don't want them running away and sneaking out, like Amy Carter! Even 16-year-old Miley Cyrus demonstrated her wisdom on the matter, telling Access Hollywood, "I think that would be really cool and if anything, have them visit the set." Yeah. Just have them visit the set.
Supporters of Proposition 8 have something of a homophobic patron saint in Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen/orange juice-spokeswoman whose spunky brand of hatred is revived for a new generation in the upcoming Milk. Archival footage features some of her more winning moments ("If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters" is in there somewhere) from the campaign for Proposition 6, which in 1978 would have allowed for the firing of openly gay public school teachers. But that was then, we're hearing — Anita Bryant is saved! (Sort of.)Marc Malkin called up Bryant's ministry in Oklahoma to see what the 68-year-old firebrand thought of Gus Van Sant's new film. A man identifying himself as her second husband, Charlie Dry, commenced stonewalling against the gossip's inquiries, though we think we spot a glimmer of hope between the grumpy Bible-Belt lines:
"Something has changed in the last year or two," Slate's Ron Rosenbaum says of Entertainment Weekly founder turned professional conference-goer Jeff Jarvis. "It's the callous contempt for working journalists that grates. It's a contempt for the beautiful losers." True, it's puzzling to watch new media pundits spit in the faces of all the sad, doomed newspaper reporters whose careers are being eroded by the Internet. Rosenbaum goes way longer than Slate ever lets me write, so I've pull-quoted his best 100 words:
