The fawning description of American Apparel founder and noted perv Dov Charney's "meteoric success" in Choate's alumni newsletter perplexed at least one of his former classmates person, who has tantalized us with this tip:
LOCKHART STEELE — Seems like just a few weeks ago Valleywag was musing on the subject of The Rollup. (Oh, wait.) Then today's newsprint brings this: social dogooder-cum-softcore pornographer Dov Charney has sold his American Apparel clothing business to the Endeavor Acquisition Corporation, a small, publicly traded group that's making its first acquisition with American Apparel.
It was weird and off-putting enough when Reuters dispatched tech reporter Adam Pasick to establish a "bureau" in virtual world Second Life. But with the creation of church, of course, comes state — advertising is the bestest new thing in Second Life, which should complete the process of making that magical place just as tedious as the real world. In particular, agency Ad-Option recently built a virtual home for American Apparel, stuffed with scantily clad employees no doubt rolling around in cheap apartments. Now, they're putting together a facsimile of Times Square, set to open just in time for a re-creation of the New Year's Eve ball drop. And oh yes, there will be ads — big garish billboards of every description, for sale immediately to credulous buyers. Probably no room for the quarter-driven porn booths of yore. Can a virtual Meatpacking District be far behind?
Often while we're reading Times boutique critic Alex Kuczynski we worry that something unfortunate might happen to her, depriving us of her genius. Who, we wonder, will fill her boots when she's gone? A quick check in with Harvard's Crimson reassured us that there's a new generation of Special K's out there, particularly one Rebecca M. Harrington, who takes issue with American Apparel. It's an amazing piece of work.
• This three minute, well-disguised "commercial" for Remington might be the most ridiculous display of pubic hair humor we've seen since the 8th grade. [Kontraband via Adrants]
• So everyone loves Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. But there's one real problem: how can you have a show about a show and not have a single Jew on the fictitious writing staff? [Peter Hyman]
• If someone says they have more than enough time to read every word of every issue of the New Yorker, they're lying and should be smacked. For the realists, try a condensed version of articles presented in haiku. [Drunken Volcano]
• Nearly 10% of New York men who say they are "straight" are dipping in the secret shame of assfucking. Of that number, almost 70% are married and 100% are in complete denial. [NYDN]
• It would seem that Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel died of a fatal drug combination, likely involving prescription drugs. Or not. The crew down in the Bahamas is too busy fighting with the press to take a good look at the body. [TMZ]
• The assistant to the EIC of Architectual Digest starts a video blog, in which she'll tell us how to find good design despite, like her, being 25, on a budget, and living in a shoebox. Solution number one: buy a $6000 storage unit. Sigh. And to think, this poor girl probably isn't getting paid one penny extra for the humiliation. [AD]
• American Apparel sets up camp in the epicenter of retro sexiness and legwarmers, the...Flatiron District. [The Real Estate]
• Are you Middle Eastern or Asian? Do you like movies? Then you're in luck, because the CIA wants to indoctrinate you. [Salon]
• Tara Reid decides to have her breast implants removed, and Time Warner decides to have her latest "film" go direct to download. Hardly a coincidence. Without the boobs, she's just a human boda bag. [Defamer]
French clothier Shai has made a name for itself not so much with its products as with its hardcore porn online video catalogs. Porning up your morning is easy — just choose your preferred gender combo, and the selected models briefly repose in a Shai ensemble before stripping and going at it like the pornstars they actually are. (This is about as NSFW as it gets, so consider yourself warned.) Oh yeah, you can actually find out about the clothes during their brief appearance; mousing over the green dots freezes the video and brings up details on the relevant article. Fleshbot was on this months ago of course, but it took the Los Angeles Times to bring us the money quote from our national purveyor of adversexuality, American Apparel. Wonderfully named AA spokesperson Alexandra Spunt quoth:
• Apparently Joe Lieberman has some sort of bet going to determine how stupid voters in Connecticut really are. [YouTube]
• When an outfit like The Nation calls something "the stupidest press release ever" you need to sit up and take note: It's got to be egregiously dumb to stand out amongst all the touts for new bongs and "progressive netroots" conferences. [The Nation]
• American Apparel flack responds to 2005 resignation letter; apparently, Dov Charney is so saintly that if you threw him out of a plane, he'd float up. [Consumerist]
• Philadelphia follows lead of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, bans smoking. Racist cheesesteaks still available. [Philadelphia Will Do]
• Britney Spears has no plans to birth newest Federline in Namibia, decides it's just as easy to sob yourself to sleep here in the U.S.A. [People]
• The Daily News doesn't need a touching quote to make us cry - they can just keep running that unsightly picture of Lloyd Grove each day. [Observer]
• Jack Shafer's not gonna be happy until every single American child is on the drugs. Also, he ran with a tough crowd in high school [Slate]
• Ann Coulter calls for assassination of Pennsylvania congressman; weary nation yawns, wonders who said it first. [ThinkProgress]
• A heartwarming story about respect. [OINY]
• OMG, this is SO. FUCKING. CUTE. [Corporate Casual]
While we always love to see exposé upon exposé of the already over-exposéd skeezy Dov Charney and his American Apparel-branded clothing, we're slightly saddened that this piece in the Guardian falls under the category of "Special Report: United States of America." We don't expect the rest of the world to think fondly of us, but we'd much rather have foreign perception of American fuckitude revolve around the foibles of our Playskool government and not, you know, some random kosher-perv.
• Thanks to the Daily Show, American Apparel becomes the latest victim in the War on Christmas. There's a holiday lesson to be learned here: When you sodomize a reindeer, nobody wins. [American Apparel]
• Fox News's Roger Friedman seems a bit too excited at how gay the Oscars are shaping up to be. [Fox411]
• The best thing about rare color photographs from the Depression? You can see how hard black folk worked, and yet managed to keep their nails matching their bandanas. You can thank the Library of Congress for that one. [Flickr via Vitamin Castercat]
• Even social drinkers have a hard time putting down the bottle. Tell us about it. [LAT]
• Elton John de-Gays his performance a bit by including a video of Pamela Anderson pole-dancing, but it's a bit too hetero for NBC. Nothing's ever good enough for these people. [E! Online]
• Somewhere in Brooklyn, someone has created a brothel with life-size dolls. We're so horrified, we don't even have a joke. [Craigslist]
We are not, as you might imagine, theologians, and thus we've never engaged in the textual analysis (or, quite likely, Google searching) necessary to answer a riddle of Jewish law that's always had us confused: When we repent for our sins tomorrow, does that repentance cover sins committed specifically in 5765 (in which case sins rendered since Rosh Hashanah, last week, will sit unrepented-for until next year), or does it cover sins since last Yom Kippur?
• Have we mentioned lately that we are just plain creeped out by Dov Charney? That's not news to anyone, of course, but we just are. Alex Blagg doesn't care for him either, for different reasons. [BlaggBlogg]
• Katie Couric gets a mammogram — watch free. There would've been a screengrab posted earlier, but the segment destroyed our television. [Today Show]
• The timing of these subway warnings was a liiiitle suspicious, if you ask CBS' "Public Eye," and then they ask someone else. [PublicEye]
• Our brother who won't admit he has a problem says the odds are 4/1 that Mayor Mike will keep it real in the face of terror. [Oddjack]
• Yes, we know Esquire named Jessica Biel the sexiest woman alive. What you may not know is that Esquire is published in the universe where Angelina Jolie tragically died at the hands of Jennifer Aniston over the summer. [CNN]
• Some New Yorkers didn't get the memo: BE MORE SCARED. [Alicublog]
• Paul Krugman shall run afoul of the new corrections policy yet again if he keeps this sort of talk up. [Chase Me Ladies]
• Attention girl in the yellow jacket: Craigslist is searching for you, and the Marines would like to recruit you. [ToTC]
• The true story behind the breakup of Paris & Paris: "Scrabble is hot." [Zulkey]
• American Apparel takes their '70s porn aesthetic and applies it to people who would've been old enough to purchase porn in the 1970's. Vague unease is an underutilized marketing tool. [Spunker]
• What the second-to-last correction here fails to explain is that while Mick Jagger did attend the London School of Economics, he actually studied Literature and History. [NYT]
Spelling is such a subjective thing.
Considering porny retailer Dov Charney's whole schtick revolves around the fact that his American Apparel is made in America, we find the above photo of stock arriving at the new store on 23rd Street to be rather amusing.
