Michael Musto's column in today's Village Voice is an exercise in delicate karmic balance, managing to both praise celebrities (if not in a backhanded manner) for their foibles, as well as deride others for their offenses. Naturally, we find the latter much more relevant:
• Fabian Basabe gets shitfaced in the Hamptons, identifies "negroes," swings like Tarzan, loses Navy Blue Prada Sweater, apologizes to no end, and hides out in Italy until this passes.
• A moment of silence, please, for the deposed Random House slave who was fired for being really, really unwise about her blogging choices.
• Harry Potter descends upon lower Manhattan like a magical case of the plague.
• Life & Style pulls a cover picture out of its ass, while Us Weekly just looks like ass.
• Moby loves dogs, but not nearly as much as he loves being a rock star.
• So maybe we're way too into media softball, but you just egg us on.
• Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's romance continues to befuddle Americans who insist on forwarding every little email.
• Steve Nash passes the rock in Tribeca, forcing dozens of New Yorkers to Google "steve nash" in order to understand why this matters.
• New York loses a beauty editor but gains the most apparent of heirs.
Apparently wearing his Reporter costume (as opposed to his usual Blogger footie pjs) and motivated to strive towards legitimacy, Jossip has directed his journalistic gaze towards he of the Navy Blue Prada Sweater, professional raft-swinger and friend of the "negros," Fabian Basabe. Some of the long-suffering "it" boy's more illuminating quotables:
• We forgot to mention that amidst Fabian Basabe's Hamptons Racist RageFest 2005, he shoved Publicist of Destruction Jonathan Cheban. Someone give the Basabe a medal! [Page Six]
• Meanwhile, we've IM'd Lizzie Grubman to see if her shoes are okay after Rush & Molloy reported that she broke a heel during the Fabian Fracas (so many alliterations, so little time). We've yet to hear back; things are looking grim for her Choos. [R&M]
• Would Donald Trump be so outlandish as to pit a team of black contestants against a team of white ones for his next season of The Apprentice? Why, yes. Yes, he would. [Scoop]
• Why in the world would MSNBC remove blue-eyed devil Dan Abram's poster and replace it with that of post-op Rita Cosby? She doesn't have her own show yet and, well, she sounds like a scary man. [Lowdown]
• Actress Cameron Diaz heads to the witness stand to testify against a photographer she claims "stole" photos of her baring her average breasts. [NYDN]
Last night, we got a strange little email from one claiming to be Fabian Basabe. Our jaded souls snickered — hell, we've been FabianB@catlover.com for two years now, so we've no reason to believe much of anything that comes in our inbox. Nevertheless, we read the email (we are nothing if not hopeful children, wishing for golden nuggets of email truisms), in which Fabian wanted to give us a heads-up on something that would be running in Page Six today:
The Washington Post finally discovers the magic that is New York's most beloved, inexplicable socialite, "sweetheart" Fabian Basabe (waxwork likeness featured at right). Despite the fact that he may secretly be middle class, Basabe lives a luxurious life of sleeping, socializing, and doing damage control:
· Oh my God, social butterfly Fabian Basabe might actually be — gasp — poor. To think of all the time we've wasted covering him, when he's nothing more than a closeted pleb. For shame. [Page Six]
· Tom Cruise is increasingly crazy. [R&M]
· If you dare ask Brangelina about their African goat sex, they'll fuck you then sue you. [Page Six]
· Everyone hates Endeavor, especially the cast of HBO's Entourage. EP Mark Wahlberg admits there have been physical altercations between him and agent Ari Emanuel, which we're supposed to believe is "normal." [Lowdown]
Lest you misconstrue the above image, allow us to clarify: Social caterpillar Fabian Basabe is merely enjoying the company of three chiseled men, all of whom just happen to be wearing body paint and love words like "pump." Nothing more, nothing less.
· Queen socialite Nan Kempner is reportedly in a coma. We know, we know — but this one's serious! [Gatecrasher]
· Whatever Boy Fabian Basabe and his publicist R. Couri Hay have reportedly ended their relationship. Their professional one, that is — how dare you insinuate otherwise. [Lowdown]
· Yonkers is burning — but more importantly, Page Six misidentifies Susan Smith as the woman who drowned her five children. As any homicidal woman knows, Andrea Yates is the woman who drowned her five children, not Susan Smith. Susan Smith is the one that threw her kids in the trunk before driving the car into a lake. You'd think the diabolical Posties would know the difference. [Page Six]
· Donald Trump strikes a deal to bring The Apprentice to South Africa. And so the people continue to suffer. [R&M (2nd item)]
Martina Basabe: The mere mention of her name incites hysterical laughter (we have seen this), which is exactly what happened when her name popped up in our inbox today. Apparently, she's now rounding the charity circuit as a junior co-chair for the May 10th Champion Awards Luncheon (along with retardedly-named socialites Celerie Kemble and Zani Gugelman) to benefit Safe Horizon. The invitation says the purpose of the event is honoring heroes, championing the needs of victims. In keeping with that goal, we award Mrs. Fabian Basabe the Gillette Mach 3 Award for putting on a brave, er, face. —NH
· Scientific research has determined that placing two square-jawed, highly-gelled rich boys near each other will cause a violent chemical reaction. As such, textile heir Cody Franchetti claims he wouldn't be in the same room as Fabian Basabe. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
· Martha Stewart, now in the "estate arrest" phase of her sentencing, will no doubt have a field day creating some sort of obscure delicacy out of the four dozen Italian lemons sent to her by Rosie O'Donnell. [ET]
· Conspiracy theorists wet themselves over the possibility that Hunter S. Thompson's recent suicide was something more sinister, as the writer was reportedly working on a story about the WTC at the time. Internet nerds, do your thing. [Page Six]
· Residents of South Dakota, fear not: Insider host Pat O'Brien has no intentions of running for Governor. [Page Six]
· Mel Gibson faces his alleged stalker in court — we're just happy for Mel. At least someone still finds him tolerable. [R&M]
Sometimes our email says the darndest things. For instance, this morning our inbox told us it had a copy of a LexisNexis request from Fabian Basabe. Why in the world would Fabian want to use some big ugly tool like LexisNexis? Oh, to look for his own name, of course!
