fools

Wealthy Society Man Will Grit His Way Through Hard Times

Hamilton Nolan · 11/12/08 02:30PM

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer has a breezy attitude about this current financial apocalypse, but not because he's the fabulously wealthy direct descendant of the founder of the Dutch West India Company; it's because he knows that he's a self-made man, and he knows that while recessions are ruinous for the poors, they are only setbacks for plutocrats. Like his own family, for instance! Kiliaen (pictured with unpopular socialite Olivia Palermo, who we hear he used to date) is confident that the world judges him on his actions alone. Foolish rich people, when will you learn not to be profiled by the Observer? Spencer Morgan will just hang you with your own quotes:

Metro: Fooled By Racist Designer, Now Sponsoring His Show

Hamilton Nolan · 08/04/08 02:23PM

Sometimes we come across a PR item so ignorant, misguided, and inexplicable that we just have to shake our heads back and forth and sigh in a dramatic manner. We have one such item right here. If you ran a newspaper that had been terribly embarrassed for treating a racist publicity stunt as front page news just weeks ago-so embarrassed, in fact, that the editor responsible was quietly fired-would you not, in the future, do everything possible to distance yourself from the bad designer who fooled you with with the stunt? Metro NY decided: instead of that, why don't we just sponsor this guy's next fashion show? The press release for the upcoming L.E.S. Fashion Flipside show is below. As you can see, Metro is listed as one of only two sponsors for the show. And [bad designer], last seen trying to sell a copy of his poetry book "America, My Whore" to a reporter from Jewish Week, is listed as the first name under "boutiques." Urgh:

Happy Magazine Shuttered For Bad Grammar, Sad

Hamilton Nolan · 07/28/08 04:37PM

Sick of the negativity rampant in the liberal mainstream media, the Cook County (IL) Board paid $25K to produce its own magazine-one that would ensure "regular, positive press." But the initial run of 5,000 copies (which has already been printed) will never be distributed, because the magazine had too many misspellings and grammatical errors. Your government at work, ladies and gentlemen. "I have to find a way to get rid of them," said the county's spokesperson. Build a fort? It probably won't be too much of a loss, considering:

Racist Media Whore Designer Says Dumb Things All By Himself

Hamilton Nolan · 07/25/08 10:40AM

We dislike giving any unnecessary PR to [bad designer], the L.E.S. twit who duped the free NYC paper Metro into putting him on its cover for a racist publicity stunt about a (probably nonexistent) attack by a pack of young black girls on a poor "victim" wearing a [bad designer] t-shirt that said "OBAMA IS MY SLAVE." But sometimes it's important to give coverage to those shining beacons of stupidity among us, so that we all know how not to act. Jewish Week tracked down [bad designer, who's Jewish] for an interview about his bad reputation. Sample: "'I've received death threats on the phone, especially from black people,' [b.d.] said. How did he know, over the phone, their ethnicity? 'They sound African-American.'" There's more!