The BBC reports that celebrity-worship is, in fact, healthy: "Evolutionary biologists say it is natural for humans to look up to individuals who receive attention because they have succeeded in a society." READ: GAWKER IS GOOD FOR YOU.
Worshiping celebrities "brings success" [BBC]

Several of you have sent me the story below about celebrity worship being "dangerously addictive"apparently out of concern for my health and well-being. (Participants in the survey "were asked to rate statements such as 'I am obsessed by details of my favourite celebrity's life', 'I consider my favourite celebrity to be my soul mate' and 'If he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favour, I would probably do it.') I appreciate the sentiment, but it's really not necessary. I am not obsessed with celebrities. Nor am I addicted to them. I know this because my favorite celebrity, indie actor Vincent Gallo, recently assured me that the little run-in at Chateau Marmont didn't technically constitute "stalking" and that the "restraining order" was just a superficial gesture to placate his publicist.

TMN's Rosecrans Baldwin takes Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's excuse for the "Royals" issue"They live well, they look good, and the fascinating part is that they all seem to be related"to its only logical conclusion. (Oh, so they're inbred...) Reporting from Gstaad, Baldwin covers the super double secret meeting of the council of European, Pan-Asian, African, and Select South American Royals. From the minutes: "Royals must continue to strenuously resist all intrusive efforts into COUNCIL affairs by the global media, especially those accompanied by gifts or favors. Particularly, any invitations to exclusive Oscar parties must be refused."
Looking good, living well [TMN]

NYT staffers Corey Kilgannon and Librado Romero were "apprehended" by police while investigating a story about lost boaters near JFK. They were in a small boat in Jamaica Bay and Port Authority mistook them for a security threat, (which is unfortunately positive reinforcement for the right wingers who have been arguing that Times reporters were security threats for years.)
Times staffers nabbed in boat off Queens [Newsday]

Bobos in Paradise author/new NYT op-ed columnist David Brooks hypothesizes in the September issue of the Atlantic that people who live in supposedly cosmopolitan areas tend to cluster around people like themselves even when they consider diversity an important value. An illustration from the first "noncontroversial" [Brooks' description] chapter of The Bell Curve: "Think of your twelve closest friends...If you had chosen them randomly from the American population, the odds that half of your twelve closest friends would be college graduates would be six in a thousand. The odds that half of the twelve would have advanced degrees would be less than one in a million. Have any of your twelve closest friends graduated from Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Caltech, MIT, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, or Brown? If you chose your friends randomly from the American population, the odds against your having four or more friends from those schools would be more than a billion to one."
People like us [Atlantic]

Rossi from RossiRants.com is doing odd little stream-of-consciousness reviews of places in downtown Manhattan. A sample:
Marions is a kitsch shangrila
a cross between a 1950's living room and a 1970's drag queen's bedroom
they pour the meanest martinis of all shades and flavors
and are the only place i know
since Trader Vics left NYC
to serve a poo poo or is it pu pu platter
from its flaming perch
dine in Hawaiin style chicken drums
ribs
and a million other things
i was too drunk to remember
[Ed.In case you haven't noticed, I'm much more likely to post restaurant reviews on Gawker if they're A) funny; B) limericks or haikus; C) in any sort of non-standard format.]
Kissing the lower half continued [RossiRants]

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik on his first day in New York: "My first morning in New York (setting aside a first run-through in 1964, aged seven: the 'Small World' ride, twice, sinister devil dolls, shrieking world peace) was in August 1978, when my true love took me to a coffee shop on Madison. A real New York coffee shop a row of booths along the north wall; a quilted aluminum console; separate menu for breakfast, two eggs with Virginia ham. It taught me an essential New York lesson that cramped and generous aren't necessarily opposites."
The Bon Vivant [MUG]

Gawker stalker sightings are submitted by readers. Send to tips@gawker.com or leave in the comments field below.
· Tom Clancy at the Penguin building on Hudson, attempting to flash one his books in order to use the jacket photo as ID at the security desk (denied, forced to produce driver's license)
· 12:30 PM, Saw Leona Helmsley herself leaving Trattoria dell' Arte to a waiting stretch blue Mercedes. A team of handlers helped her from the door to the curb as she strode with all the youthful grace of C. Montgomery Burns. She carried an expensive red bag (my wife would know what it was) with a little white rat-dog hanging out of it, and actually looks youger in person (somewhere between 400 and 500), and not at all evil.
· I saw Mo Rocca on 40th Street between Lexington and 3rd this morning around 10am. He was looking cute in his blue glasses and talking on his cell phone.

· Ex-US Weekly editor Bonnie Fuller, now an exec at American Media, is said to have picked Eric Ritter, the former executive managing editor of Inside Edition, to helm Star. [NY Daily News]
· Ex-Talk editor Tina Brown says she hasn't agreed to edit the New York Daily News. [Page Six]
· Garage rock band the Black Keys got kicked out of the Gramercy Park Hotel for tossing Gideon Bibles and budweiser cartons out the window. [Page Six]
· Indie actor Vincent Gallo says he doesn't really believe he gave film critic Roger Ebert cancer. [Page Six]
· In a post titled, "Come back, Jason [sic] Blair!," Kevin Smith complains on his website that the NYT misquoted him. [Page Six]
· "Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake having a late dinner at Da Silvano with Drew Barrymore and Fabrizio Moretti. The frisky foursome left after midnight with their limited edition Da Silvano tank tops." [Page Six]

Re: celebrities getting kicked off of Friendster, the Village Voice's Tricia Romano reports that it's been a common occurance: "At the Tribeca Grand's big bash last Friday, a drunk Tommie Sunshine told me that his account had been suspended. 'They don't think I'm a real person!' he said... Fischerspooner's glam singer, Casey Spooner, ended his Friendster fun. Last weekend, we got a bulletin board post from his 'special friend' Adam Dugashimself a handsome performer and boy about townproclaiming that 'Friendster 'alpha' is going to be a GHOST TOWN.' Indeed, a few weeks before that, renowned San Francisco turntablist QBert's profile was removed." Romano's list of Friendster alternatives: Fallen Friendsters, EveryonesConnected.com, Ringo.com, Tribe.net, OnlyUndiesClub.com
Fu@!k Friendster [Village Voice]

Recurring themes colliding: Vincent Gallo apparently had a Friendster profile that was taken down by administrators and he's not very happy about it. Gallo's account was apparently he largest on the service and according to a third party, he's "sending his list of friends [people linked to his account] all these emails about the nature of art, and he's as bitter as the day is long..."

ABC appears to be starting a reality show about closet metrosexuals:
"ABC Family Channel is looking for applicants for its new reality, make over show, "Bachelor Pad." They want bachelors between the ages of 21 and 35 that like the finer things in life (gourmet cuisine, designer duds, new, modern car) — but still live in a frat house of a home. Each show will feature two to three bachelor pad makeovers. The shows will be shot in the homes of the bachelors and at home improvement centers and department stores. If you know someone who fits the bill, please call 1-888-751-8088. For more info, visit abcfamily.com."

Another blog from a cast member on Rocco DiSpirito's reality show, The Restaurant: "I was VERY unhappy working behind the bar. I found the customers aggravating and abusive( the cameras instigated the worst out of people), the tips were insulting and the bar very difficult to navigate smoothly because of how it was laid out. The tickets from the servers for the service bartender was 15 feet away from the service station. There was no barback. There were not enough glasses. There was one sink to wash said glasses. It was stressful. Plain and simple- It sucked."
Miss Lolabelle

· Monday 8/11, evening - Nicole Kidman shopping at Yohji Yamamato boutique in Soho, accompanied by identified handsome, seemingly younger man. She was pleasant to adoring staff, yet in too much of a hurry for her discount or proffered complimentary items.
· At last night's 60th anniversary screening of Casablanca: Lauren Bacall, looking elegant but surprisingly like a little old lady these days (I haven't seen a picture of her in ten years, so this came as quite a shock). Also there were the daughters of Ingrid Bergman: Isabella Rossilini looking beautiful, but with not particularly flattering short hair, Ingrid Rosilini looking pretty if slightly plain, and Pia Lindstrom who apparently has a stellar pair of legs (go fig).

Vivian Gornick defends her inventiveness with detail in her memoir on the basis that better informed readers would understand why she did it: "I, a memoirist who composed (composed, mind you, not invented) a narrative drawn entirely from the materials of my own experience, am being compared to a psychopath who invented a memoir of testament out of whole cloth [Binjamin Wilkomirski]; a historian who is accused of incorporating other people's work into her own without attribution [Doris Goodwin]; and a dishonest newspaper reporter who made up interviews in the New York Times [Jayson Blair]. It seems to me that these analogies are proof, if proof be needed, that memoir writing is a genre still in need of an informed readership." Given that she also used composite characters in her reporting, I guess the Village Voice needs a more informed readership as well.
A memoirist defends her words [Salon]

Excerpt from LasagnaFarm's "INTERVIEW WITH A YOUNG MANHATTANITE WHO RECENTLY PURCHASED A GLORIFIED BB GUN WHILE VACATIONING IN THE CATSKILLS":
Q. Do you think the Catskills, after being written up in New York magazine as "an A-list destination for New Yorkers who've had their fill of the L.I.E. [read: Hamptons]" is the best place to be wielding such a weapon?
A. As a steward of hinterlands blessed with "true freedom," I would expect the thrill of killing your prey before eating it for dinner to be lost on lobster roll diners in Sag Harbor. Foie gras cannot truly be savored until you're able to remember fondly the smell of dead geese, shot and then beaten with a wood club, from that morning's hunt. (Well, it also tastes great when you're totally coked out at L'Absinthe but I think that's a different interview.)
Interview with a young Manhattanite... [LasagnaFarm]

· Lenny Kravitz and Denzel Washington are opening a club called "Kos" at 264 Bowery. [Page Six]
· Madonna's Kabbalah obsession may be hurting husband Guy Ritchie's career. [Page Six]
· Ann Coulter on the California recall: "I think we should give California back to New Mexico." [Cindy Adams]
· Ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani's wife, Judith Nathan, is responsible for both his new Brioni wardrobe and convincing him to abandon the comb-over. [NY Daily News]

I developed the rest of my California gubernatorial platform over last night's dinner (avocadoed avocado with cream of avocado). A few suggested reforms:
1. The statewide removal of all wicker furniture.
2. Does Vanity Fair get royalties for the Oscar party pictures in the bathroom at Morton's? I'm just asking.
3. Media criticism isn't one big creative writing workshop. ("I think your stuff is, like, totally valid, but we'd all be a little more comfortable with what you're saying it if you, like, used more 'giving' language.") A friend's explanation of the impulse: "In LA, you can't really dissect peopleeven at that superficial levelbecause there's, like, nothing underneath."
4. Army Archerd's Variety column: fewer dead people, more living people.
5. I've only been here for five days and already I feel dumber. Why is that? Can it be prevented?
6. A friend's opinion on whether an LA version of Gawker would be viable: "I don't know. People here don't really read...stuff." Reading is good. There should be more reading.
7. The children. Think of the children. [Dong Resin: "Running politicians always do the exact same thing : 'I'm for the children'. Doesn't matter what they're up for. 'I'm the state comptroller that will save our children.' I'll vote for the first motherfucker who announces "Kids? They're kind of self-absorbed, huh. Some of them look weird. They all seem retarded at some point... well, not Haley Joel Osment... he's kind of sexy."]
8. "Tubular," is not a complete sentence, either.
9. Hare Krishnas should not be allowed to have drums.
10. Dong Resin, again: "I'd never read the LA Times before. A loving profile of Ashton Kutcher is offered right on page one, after the local election news, but before the world news. This is your major newspaper. You are doomed."

(I'm still in LA, so I can justify writing about this.) Blogger Daniel Radosh drudges up Premiere's 2000 exposé as well as SPY's 1992 story on Arnold Schwarzenegger, just in case we all forgot about Arnold's colorful history. (Radosh also provides the obligatory Schwartzenegger naked pic.) Some things worth mentioning:
· "...in the 1970s he enjoyed playing and giving away records of Hitler's speeches." (Commentary from a guest at a fundraiser for one of the Jewish charities Schwartzenegger supports to deflect attention from that fact: "'Arnold's very big right now, and everybody wants to work with him. Besides, this is Hollywood, and these guys would hire Hitler if it meant making money.")
· Actual quote: "It's not being unfaithful. It's only some plo-jobs."
· From the SPY story: "His current obsession is with pictures that show him holding a cigar, since he thinks it ill suits the head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports to be seen smoking. So let's get this straight: A man who took huge amounts of steroids becomes head of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, but his main worry is that people will think he smokes cigars. If cigars are Arnold's fitness scandal, then he really has made the steroid problem go away"
Arnold Schwartzenekked!! [Radosh.net]

Sex and the City/Trading Up author Candace Bushnell on criticism: "I know more about literature than most reviewers. I know what I'm doing. And my books will be around a lot longer than they will. Sometimes I think they're only saying these things out of jealousy. My work seems to make some people insane, but I think that's good." I had no idea Trading Up was so subversive.
Waiter! More champagne! [SF Gate]