Why did Radar honcho Maer Roshan look so good at last night's Radar party at the New Museum? Was it all the drinks I had? Was it that I was sucking up to him for a job? Or was it his suit? Yes. It was his suit. Turns out it was a narrow peak lapel, two-button flannel suit from John Varvatos' Fall/Winter 07 Collection. We hear that rather than pay the $1,495 tag price, Roshan worked out a deal to have his outfit sponsored by the designer. Crafty!

Last night Radar, which is a magazine, threw a party at Goldbar for its new Politics issue. Outside, someone said that if Goldbar disappeared at that moment from the face of the earth, no one in New York would be offended. But there were free drinks, gold plated skulls, a slew of enemies and a couple of friends and a few awkward situations. Nikola Tamindzic was there to capture the gilded glory of it all.

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"Someone in our art department knows someone at Campari," shrugged a Radar staffer when asked why Radar was co-hosting a party at the Campari gallery in Soho. "Hey, where's Balk?" I rolled my eyes at him. "So are you really upset about him leaving?" the Radar staffer persisted. "Yes, he's like a dadbrother to me," I told him honestly. "But I'm sure he'll have a great time working for you guys. He loves this kind of thing." The Radar staffer was just perspicacious enough to realize that I was being sarcastic. He shook his highball glass, which contained Campari. "Hey, free drinks." Laurel Ptak took photos so you can see just how wrong this scene is.

For days now, the most important site on the whole internets has been unavailable due to a server move. We speak, naturally, of I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?, the number one hotspot for relaxing pictures of LOLcats. (Don't pretend you don't know about pictures of cats altered to assert script-kiddy humanoid opinions and actions. Don't pretend!) To get us through this horrible gap in our LOLcat consumption, we've wasted most of the morning assembling our very own set of LOLgays. Mmm, Fridays.

How ice cold is ice cold New York publicist Serena Torrey? Ice cold. We hear that back in January, when Radar ran its Jeff Bercovici-penned report on New York's refusal to extend health benefits to its employees' domestic partners, Torrey immediately cut Roshan, a former New York editor and erstwhile contributor, from the magazine's complimentary delivery list (a list he had been on for seven years). Later that week, she hid in an darkened alley and jumped out at Bercovici, slicing his face with a silver-plated P.E. Guerin antique-style key, which, per this week's Strategist, costs $300.

The author needed to meet some very important person from the world of publishing, and his tightly-wound editor let him know it by waving frantically and then physically dragging him over to the corner of the bar. Dana Vachon had been born wealthy and healthy and handsome and he was right to view himself as entirely blessed, especially considering that his first novel, Mergers & Acquisitions had already gone to a second printing that very day. No one wore costumes on the night of his book party at Felix, that Eurotrash magnet on West Broadway, but there was no need for costumes to have a masque ball. Everyone knew their role and played it.

Say what you will about Radar impresario Maer Roshan (and we have!), but the man knows how to put together a staff. In fact, one of the hallmarks of the three incarnations of his magazine has been the strength of the writers and editors he convinces to join him on his magical mystical journey through magazine-dom. But just who comprises this motley crew? From whence did they spring? And what in their varied backgrounds could have prepared them for the GREATEST MAGAZINE RE-RE-LAUNCH EVER? Come, let's examine their biographies together!

Radar recently moved to new offices in Turtle Bay: 216 E. 45th Street, 6th Floor. The mag's staff of consumers and thinkers and arbiters must adapt to their new home quickly if they are to do their best work. Lucky for them, Turtle Bay is full of places to contemplate the friability of human endeavor, the likely impermanence of one's employment, and how one might have gone from studying Joyce at Sarah Lawrence to writing about codpieces. Here's a helpful guide!

Weren't we supposed to see a diminishing of hostilities at this point in the conflict? It hasn't turned out that way. After a blistering early morning attack by the establishment forces, Moktada al-Roshan's scrappy band of Radar insurgents have responded with a surprise strike of their own. Ba'ar Koveesee, the tactical genius of the Maerdi army, just launched the following retort, aimed at the heart of the government's Koran al-Steindler.

We thought there might be some sort of gossipland Page Six-Radar Freundschaft society. After all, Radar's #2, Chris Tennant, was a Page Six freelancer for some time. Apparently, no! This morning's P6 feels fit to savage the mag over a six-minute voicemail they received, in which an "insipid brainstorming session was captured." (BTW, we're going with Paula Froelich's voicemail. Though! We're sure Richard Johnson misses all his calls, due to deafness or something. Last time we saw him on the street, we screamed "HEY RICHARD!" Not even a reptilian blink. He was probably just super-jazzed, as he was on his way to his weekly basketball practice. Anyway!) Whether or not Radar rips its story stylings from Details, we're sure Maer is thrilled that the Sixers ran with a photo this flattering. Also, a crisp new Lincoln to whomever identifies the "clumsy editor accidentally dialed out on his cellphone during the editorial confab." Neel Shah, call us!

Last night, around 8 p.m., Daily News gossip columnist Ben Widdicombe, lightly bearded, was in a blazer on a low couch, with Rush & Molloy's reporter Patrick Huguenin close to his right. This was at Paul Sevigny's Beatrice Inn, at 285 West 12th Street. Former Gawker and New York Observer intern and current Radar assistant editor Neel Shah, ever hunky, was holding down the other end of the couch. The night before, someone said, they'd met a woman who said that she knew four men who each said they'd had sex with John Travolta! Four! What a claim! Everyone received this short story with not particularly great interest. Mark Tusk, the former acquisitions guy at Miramax, came and sat on the arm of the couch. One thing led to another, and Ben warned the crowd, "Do not Image Google 'ocular gonorrhea.'" Boy, that's good advice. So the funny thing about Patrick Huguenin is this.

• Surly Maer Roshan only talks to Yusef Jackson. Yusef talks to Ron Burkle. It's called plausible deniability. You know, allegedly. [NYO]
  

• Maer Roshan, the "battle-scarred veteran" of the "buzz-intensive media hothouses" that are New York and L.A. is back, and this time "the buzz seems to be moving back in his favor." That picture can't hurt. [WSJ]
  

RADAR Magazine Hollywood Bash with IFC in L.A. [Billy Farrell for Patrick McMullan]

So we finally read Radar's sixth issue—or Volume 3, Issue 1, depending on how you're scoring—over the weekend, and, well, we kind of liked it. Okay, sure, the cover is absolutely ridiculous. Colin Farrell? In 2007? Was Kevin Costner unavailable for Photoshopping? And the accompanying story itself was completely predictable and would not have been out of place in a number of other magazines (lets say, for example, Spy). The rest of the book? Pretty goddamn good, actually.

• Fox to do for business what it's done for the Republican party: Convince gullible yahoos that it isn't a soulless machine out to exploit the most vulnerable members of our society for the benefit of those who were born with all of life's advantages in the first place. [NYT]
  

Eat the Press gets a valuable Radar exclusive: The cover of the new mag (coming February 13th) and an excerpt from Maer Roshan's editor's letter. Maer reflects on the perceived folly of re-entering a market that is generally assumed to be dying - a market in which he has failed twice previously - and offers a passionate defense of what seems to be an incredibly quixotic venture, considering the earlier editions of Radar, both of which, you might remember, folded. Maer's thoughts follow:

Even Jesus got tired of pulling the "raising the dead" stunt after a while, but Maer Roshan has no such reticence. That's right, the first issue of the third incarnation of Radar is printed, ready to go, and being kept under Suri Cruise-in-Vanity Fair-type-embargo. We have very mixed feelings about this, since we actually sort of love the Radar website: Jeff "Scoopmeister" Bercovici consistently meists scoops, there's no better writer about television than John Cook, and, hell, they even let Neel Shah do a piece every now and again. The web is the natural home for this stuff; why waste resources on paper and staples when odds are that issue three will never see the light of day? We know that Maer's a print guy, but come on: Spy was years ago; people prefer their snark unbound these days. Nevertheless, we want to take this opportunity to offer you an early advisory: We are contractually required to cover the shit out of the subject. This post inaugurates our saturation coverage of the magazine's tertiary iteration: Whenever Matt Haber takes a leak, we'll be there. Consider yourself warned.

Our cup overfloweth with anecdotes about douchebag Star EIC Joe Dolce, who we understand is celebrating a birthday soon ("Why is Dolce a complete mess lately? He's turning 50 next month! Yes,underneath the surgically-enhanced face lies a half-a-century-year old relic. Male menopause, anyone?") After the jump we'll take a look at just how far Joe will go to get a story, and we'll give you a bonus Maer Roshan appearance!