One can really fall in love with journalism all over again when it's done right. In a follow-up to Keith Kelly's "it's January 2nd and I got nothing" item on Conde Nast bathroom habits, blogger Andrew Krucoff has interviewed staffers of Teen Vogue and Allure, both users of the same nasty shared Conde Nast restroom.
· Star's Joe Dolce defends Bonnie Fuller and thanks Britney. [IWM]
· Page Six's Richard Johnson reflects on 50; party to be held January 15th at the Marquee. [NYO] and [NYP (2nd item)]
· Newsday lays off 26. [Newsday]
· Publisher Robert Gregory leaves Rolling Stone for Maxim. [NYP]
· NYO's Peter Kaplan and NY mag's Michael Wolff continue catfight. [NYDN]
· NY mag art director David Matt leaves for Men's Journal. [Keith Kelly]
More Martha from last night. A reader writes:
· Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick sign on to make musical film version of "The Producers," cuz the first one wasn't very good. [NYDN]
· Star magazine's $100,000 wedding photo released. [NYDN]
· On the cover of Vanity Fair, Gwyneth Paltrow and the headline, "And everybody's forgotten that stewardess movie." Madonna adds, "I have this fantasy that I'm going to end up living in the English countryside with her and we are going to ride our bikes to visit each other." [NY Post]
· Rudy Giuliani's step-daughter, Whitney Mayer Nathan, 18, and George W. Bush's niece, Ashley Bush, 14, prepare to "come out" at an international debutante ball in Paris. Also, the Washington Post details the trials and tribulations of the Bush twins. [NY Post] and [WaPo]
· George Harrison's family sues doctor for creating media circus and engaging in "offensive, insensitive, bizarre and inappropriate" acts. [NYDN]
· "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" to be exported worldwide — like a big gay flu. [Hollywood Reporter/Reuters]
· Michael Musto isn't pussy-footing around in 2004: "Which scandal lady broke up with that incendiary actor partly because he was desperate to have group scenes involving him, her, and hookers, who he wanted to ram dildos up his butt? (I guess that's where she draws the line.)" [Village Voice]
Hey, this Martha Stewart trial sounds just like regular shitty jury duty — and not even any home-baked products from the defendant! Our tipster on the inside writes:
· Britney's ex-husband on Access Hollywood: "And we wasn't really wanting anything to be official, you know, like the official marriage thing."
· The new ice for real Scotch drinkers: chilled granite.
· Fluxuries fashion updates and message boards.
· Some fools try to rename pit bulls "New Yorkies."
· Will Bonnie Fuller launch the new glossy Star magazine with the Britney Spears wedding pictures? She shelled out $100,000 for exclusive rights. [NY Daily News]
· Former restaurant critic William Grimes turns his nose up at yesterday's insults from Le Cirque: "Objectively, my wife is very attractive." [NYP]
· Felix Dennis, publisher of Maxim, Stuff, Blender, and The Week, sent his favorite underlings to his house in Mustique. "When you are at Felix's you don't have to do anything," says a spokesman — except leak details to the tabloids. [NYDN]
· Scarlett Johansson recalls the good times with Colin Firth: "Colin kept saying I looked like a peeled egg. He also said I looked like a Q-Tip. He'd stick little Q-tips with happy faces on the makeup mirror." [Scoop]
· Erika Christensen and Clay Aiken dwell on their childhoods. One was spent in a Michael Jackson video, the other propably should have been. [NYT]
So many famous and not-quite-famous people died in 2003. Very sad. But clearly the Reaper needs to do some clear-cutting in New York — you try and get through midtown on a Monday afternoon. I'm looking at you, Carson Daly.
· Ben Affleck turns on Harvey Weinstein, and confuses street musicians with prostitutes: With Good Will Hunting, Matt and Ben "were a very successful marketing hook for Miramax, and they used it... It felt a little bit like we were whoring our friendship, like a guy out there with an organ grinder and a monkey." [NY Post]
· The New Yorker loads up an ark with two copies of every issue and floats it to Kansas for digital archiving. What, they don't have a scanner at Conde Nast? [NY Mag]
· Jessica Simpson elaborates on her wedding night: "Even though having a sex life with Nick [Lachey] would have been fun, something about our wedding night was so magical. So magical! He pulled me out of my dress, and the dress was just standing there on its own because it was a Vera Wang masterpiece." [NY Daily News]
· Ethan Hawke purchases an antique Chinese wedding bed on his way to divorce court. [NY Post]
· In The Producers, Nathan Lane takes a shot at Rosie O'Donnell's Taboo. In response to why one should not invest their own money in productions, Lane says, "It's taboo. Taboo. Get it?" [Fox 411]
· A power struggle at In Touch; executive editor Steve LeGrice and Photo Editor Donna Bender fired. (Employees expect more firings.) [Keith Kelly]
· Le Cirque: You won't always get your "usual table." [WWD]
· Weekly men's mags to launch in UK. [Guardian]
· The last old-school PR man in Manhattan. [NY'er]
· The stale age of rock crit: "Somebody's got to break this cabal going on with publicists and artists." [Boston Globe]
Sightings are provided by readers. Send yours to tips@gawker.com
· In a very strange Page Six item (on a very slow news day), it is revealed that social climber/video artist James Tully had a four day affair over Christmas with the inimitable former Details sex columnist Anka Radakovich, that Tully once "briefly dated" Ann Coulter (not a claim most men would make in public), and that now Anka has moved on. "She hasn't returned any of my calls. I really feel kind of betrayed," whines Tully. I'd love to hear her side of this. Or, you know: never hear about it again. That'd be good too. [NYP]
· Liz Smith lashes out after being teased and denied by Ben Affleck's handlers. [NYP]
· Ethan Hawke makes out with some girl on some unspecified night. [NYDN]
· Allure staffers mock sloppy Teen Voguers in shared Conde Nast bathroom. [Keith Kelly]
· FoxNews is gunning hard for NYT's Sharon Waxman, author of troubled Michael Jackson/60 Minutes article. [Roger Friedman]
· Wendy Jensen poached from Us to Bonnie Fuller's Star. [Page Six]
· The Actor's Studio comes back for a new season of terror and cruelty directed at Bravo viewers. [Low Culture]
Yahoo! and Google have compiled their top search requests from 2003. At Yahoo!, the stats you care about: Britney beats Paris who beats Christina. But contrast Yahoo!'s requests with Google's — Britney reigns absolutely supreme as the top search at Google.
Listen: I'm bailing out of Gawker a little early today. I've got to get an outfit together for tonight that'll shock, horrify, and/or get me laid. (Fine line!) That and I'm dying of this illness that all of you already had and finally coughed up on me. Hey, thanks for that!
· The best awards in media are announced: the Pappu-litzers. This year, includes "Biggest narc, non New York Times scandal category: Whichever Vanity Fair employee called the nicotine police about the smoking that s been going on there." (Which reminds me: I'm offering a carton of Winston Lights to the double agent who correctly dishes me the name of the VF narc. That goes double for you, Graydon.)
· The ladies of the Black Table make New Year's Resolutions. (Sample from Blaise: "Stop fucking women. They're as bad as men, so stick with the cocks that come naturally." That's sweet.)
· No more late night drunken street-treats? The war on Manhattan's vendors.
· Rich Girls v. Silver Spoons.
· And, of course: with the knighting of her paramour, we must now call her Lady Tina Brown! Shriek!
· NY Post's blind items: Amanda Lepore is a meth-head? John Kerry is a womanizing date-snatching he-whore? [NY Post]
· Tom Cruise loves Kiehl's. NY Post]
· Celebrity parties to crash, and Cameron Diaz resolves to wear a bra more in 2004. [NYDN]
· WWD's Jacob Bernstein says Star publisher David Pecker has shitty reading comprehension. [NY Post]
· Foot- and tooth-loose Chloe Sevigny reportedly sucked Vincent Gallo's dick right out of the William Morris Agency. (Actually, we doubt that Chloe was ditched from William Morris over Brown Bunny: that would be a wildly delayed reaction.) [NY Post]
· Richard Meier to build third ugly tower on Perry Street, obstructing celebrity's views of new ugly towers to be built at the WTC. [NY Post]
