A few years ago, Vanity Fair columnist and author Michael Wolff announced that he would never dine at the media hotspot Michael's ever again. Did he suffer a horrible case of food poisoning? Get attacked by an elderly socialite with her Hermès handbag? Actually, his outrage stemmed from the fact that he'd been denied his customary table at the restaurant. Now we get to hear the other side of the story: Steve Millington, the general manager of the restaurant, describes the Wolff brouhaha on the Fortune website. And it turns out that quite a few Michael's regulars were pretty psyched to hear they'd no longer have to see him during their lunch hours:

Do be careful if you have a habit of visiting sleazy video stores for anonymous, gay sex. It seems the NYPD is cracking down on the practice, possibly by sending in cops to pose as gay men. [Gay City News via EV Grieve]

Nightlife impresario Scott Sartiano turns 34 today. Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni turns 44. Dan Rather is 71. Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger is turning 52. Architect Zaha Hadid is 58. Novelist Kinky Friedman is 64. Jane Pauley is turning 58. Mega hotel developer Ira Drukier turns 63. Actor Dermot Mulroney is 45. Director Peter Jackson turns 47. Rob Schneider is 45. And Robert Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, is 41.

Nine days ago, Bill O'Reilly landed himself a big raise when he signed a new four-year contract with Fox News worth an estimated $10-12 million a year. So how did he repay this act of generosity on Fox News' part? He devoted a segment of his show to saluting his boss, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, for his charity work. Last night, the "Patriot" part of O'Reilly's "Pinheads & Patriots" segment plugged Ailes' work supporting wounded Navy SEALS. "He's been a quiet, longtime supporter of this very fine charity," O'Reilly says. "And for that he is a patriot." Such a kiss-ass, no? But we're guessing this is what you have to do to when you're making all that money and your ratings are on the decline.

♦ Madonna and Alex Rodriguez were able to fly out to the Hamptons for a "quick and cozy rendezvous" without anyone knowing, but only because Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld picked the couple up (separately) from the East Hampton airport and let them hang out for several hours at their waterfront manse. [P6, The Sun]
♦ With her husband Rossano Rubicondi filming a reality show in Italy, Ivana Trump has been hanging out with a 23-year-old Belgian model named Marius Rusovici. [P6]
♦ Tina Brown and Cathie Black are enemies, apparently, since they "disagreed on just about everything" and "wouldn't even look at each other," at a conference this week. [R&M]
♦ Is John McCain making an Saturday Night Live appearance this weekend? Does anyone care? [MSNBC]

♦ October will go down as one of the gloomiest months in history. [CNN]
♦ Barclays plans to raise $11.8 billion by selling shares to Abu Dhabi and Qatar in order to meet Britain's new capital requirements. [NYT, WSJ]
♦ The banks benefiting from the bailout also owe $40 billion in compensation to employees, just in case you were wondering where your tax dollars were going. [WSJ]
♦ Meanwhile, banking CEOs may be in talks to cap compensation. Or they may just be paying the idea lip service in this sensitive political climate. [WSJ]

Talk about taking backstabbing to a new level: "On Thursday, the owners of Castlewood, a gothic castle in West Orange, N.J., hosted a live jousting competition to generate buzz among real-estate brokers..." [WSJ]

Good news if you're an employee of the Trump Organization! Your exceptionally kind-hearted boss, Donald J. Trump, is giving you an hour off from work next Tuesday so you can go and vote. (Just one hour, though, so don't go making excuses about how your polling station is Brooklyn.) He isn't the only one. If you happen to work for one of the 2,372 companies owned by Time Warner, consider this video by Jeff Bewkes as official notice that you're permitted to skip out of the Time Warner building to perform your civic duty. Not registered? Not a US citizen? See you across the street in Central Park!

♦ A first look at Charlotte Ronson's line for JCPenney, I Heart Ronson, and her new $30 dresses. [Nylon]
♦ Details on the cuts at Men's Vogue: The mag will be published just two times next year and publisher Marc Berger is leaving. The fate of other staffers is unclear. [Mediaweek]
♦ Damien Hirst's latest collaboration with Levi's includes pairs of jeans for $230 and $83 t-shirts. [WWD]
♦ Plastic surgeons report interest in cosmetic procedures is dropping fast. [NYT]

♦ John Dory, the Brit-themed seafood shack by April Bloomfield, Ken Friedman, Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, looks like it's finally opening, possibly as soon as Saturday night. [TONY, Metromix, Eater]
♦ A look inside Center Cut, Jeffrey Chodorow's new restaurant inside the Empire Hotel. [Eater]
♦ Craftsteak and Thom Bar have a few specials in store for election night. [GS]
♦ Momofuku Ssam Bar will cater your Thanksgiving dinner with pork butt and potato puree. [The Feedbag]
♦ If it's any consolation, Tim and Nina Zagat don't think the financial crisis will do much damage to the city's restaurant economy. [WSJ]

Out has a piece online about the gay men on the campaign trail who are covering this year's presidential election. Strangely absent: any discussion of the gay anchors back in the studio. [Out via Portfolio]

Everything you need to know so you can dress up like a socialite for Halloween. [NYO]

Looks like the stress of the economy is taking a toll on the financial news media. CNBC's Charlie Gasparino had a bit of a meltdown on the air earlier this afternoon, as you'll see in this video clip. It starts off playfully enough, but wait for the end to see Charlie's colleagues have that classic WTF moment as Gasparino starts to say something totally incoherent about "shooting the capitalist system." [YouTube via Dealbreaker]

Steve Schwarzman's 60th birthday party last year may go down as the last, great party before the fall. Days after closing on what was then the biggest leveraged buyout in history, the $39 billion purchase of Equity Office Properties, the billionaire chairman of the Blackstone Group invited 500 people to the Armory on Park Avenue for a party that cost an estimated $3 million. A very long list of notables turned up—Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, Barry Diller, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon—as did many of the people who have now become poster boys for the global financial crisis, like former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, ex-Bear Stearns chief Jimmy Cayne. Rod Stewart was paid $1 million to perform for the assembled guests; Patti LaBelle sang "Happy Birthday." And the room was designed to replicate Schwarzman's $40 million co-op at 740 Park Avenue. So does Schwarzman have any regrets now the economy has crumbled and he was depicted as a real-life Gordon Gekko in the relentless press coverage that followed?

Now is not a good time to be in the auction business, especially if your business involved selling overpriced items to people who have just lost all their money in the market. Sales were extremely slow at Sotheby's "Exceptional Wines" auction on Tuesday night: Only 70 percent of the 190 lots were ultimately auctioned off, bringing in $2.2 million, a far cry from the $5.1 million the auction house had been hoping for. Sotheby's isn't alone, of course: Business has been dismal at nearly every major auction from London to New York in recent weeks. But organizers for next week's Impressionist and Modern art sale at Sotheby's are already bracing for the worst, especially after one of the auction's priciest pieces was unexpectedly withdrawn by its owner. Now they just have to hope Henry Kravis doesn't pull out, too. He's planning to unload his Degas pastel of a seated ballerina, and is hoping for as much as $40 million for the work (he paid $28 million for it in 1999), and we all know that financiers need every penny they can get these days.

New York's most expensive real estate listing—an $80 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West—has been pulled off the market. [NYO]

♦ Teen Vogue is opening a retail outlet at the mall in Short Hills, New Jersey. It'll be called "Teen Vogue Haute Spot" and, no, this is not a joke. [NYT]
♦ More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama's infomercial on Wednesday night. [NYT]
♦ Joe the Plumber is pursuing a country music deal and could have an album out by Inauguration Day, although we're going to assume this won't be Barack's musical choice for the big day. [Politico]

As predicted, a "bloodbath" at Condé Nast Portfolio is unfolding at 4 Times Square this afternoon. Silicon Alley Insider has the ugly news that editor Joanne Lipman shared with the mag's staff here. [SAI]

What are the chances the big, fat Wall Steet bonus will go the way of the three-martini lunches (or mortgage-backed securities)? "Slim to none,'' says John Gutfreund, the former CEO of Salomon Brothers and the man responsible for ending Michael Bloomberg's career in investment banking in the early '80s. "They [bankers] are going to have to be a little bit sensitive because politicians, whether they like it or not, are part of their lives now." We'll go ahead and assume this will come as very welcome news to real estate brokers struggling to find buyers for $60 million apartments. [Bloomberg]

It's been a stressful week for Nello Balan. The lawsuit-loving restaurateur had his two restaurants seized by the IRS on Tuesday on account of $1.8 million he owes in unpaid taxes. But it's been two days now, which has given him enough time to settle up with the authorities and re-open his eateries. It's also given him time to pass the blame. As he nibbled on angel-hair pasta topped with scalloped truffles, he told the Post that it was all his accountant's fault, since they made miscalculations and didn't inform him there was a problem until it was too late. Don't worry though: Nello assures us the firm has been fired.