The Wall Street Journal is in the midst of a trillion-word ongoing series chronicling the downfall of Wall Street firm Bear Stearns earlier this year. Today's installment looks at the rapid compounding of the firm's financial problems, which builds inexorably into a crisis. That's nice and everything, but the really interesting part comes when the story reveals what threw a wrench into the multibillion-dollar firm's effort to save its public reputation: Eliot Spitzer and his stupid hooker! Not to mention their old card-playing stoner chairman of the board:

The blow-dried, plastic smile-bearing Fox 5 reporter asks Jared Crystal what happened. Jared, the very cultural opposite of the reporter in his ponytail and "Republicans For Voldemort" T-shirt, explains that he was simply sitting in his car, reading 1984—an ordinary night—when a tree limb came crashing down! A scary situation! The reporter grimaces at the disheveled man with the disastrous car. "Reading 1984, and look what it got you!" the reporter says. "Next time read something more easy and calm!" Jared graciously blames Arbor Day, rather than punching the reporter in the face. Click to watch the underlying tension of the media's culture war in action.

So. Times columnist and former theater critic Frank Rich has a sweet creative consulting deal with HBO. They give him a paycheck, and he will sometimes call them up if he has a great idea (and Frank Rich has thousands of great ideas every day). He will maybe read some scripts and give notes. Did we mention he gets a paycheck? We don't begrudge him this cushy gig, but he should BEWARE. Another respected cultural thinker once went down this road, Frank!

It's Day 8 of the Emily Gould saga, the former Gawker editor whose first-person blogging narrative that landed the cover of the New York Times Magazine. Our coverage of her is nothing personal, just business—she's officially a "person of interest"! Today's installment: some people, including Gould herself, seem to be offended by the article's accompanying photos, shot by fine art photographer Elinor Carucci. They're "intimate," like the text, but "intimate" also reads as "sexy," and God knows we can't have that. (Gould called them "vaguely cheesecakey" in a NYT Q&A.) Although the Observer wrote today that "the writer was involved in winnowing the photos to a dozen... 'when I saw the cover, I was shocked,' Ms. Gould said on the phone. Did she feel a tad exploited?"

Wild urban youngsters these days are all eating magic fruit and guzzling Tabasco sauce, and there's really nothing you or the authorities can do about it. Internet-savvy hipsters flock to Long Island City rooftop parties where a dealer/ guru named "Supreme Commander" hands them crazy berries to chew on, sending them into blissful fits of uncontrolled food-sampling. If it spreads, this "flavor tripping" phenomenon threatens to destroy the traditional notion of exotic seasonings that hip chefs in hip restaurants in hip neighborhoods have worked so hard to achieve. Because, let's face it: these magic berries sound awesome:

Hip hop, as a business, is on the slow downward slope of its peak of several years ago. The traditional music industry as a whole is crumbling under assault from online distribution. And print magazines, of course, are one of the most perilous business ventures in all media. So the launch this month of the print-based Hip Hop Business Journal is truly an idea that takes after one of its cultural heroes; it combines Tupac Shakur's heedless, go-for-it bravery, his headstrong pride, and his inevitable tendency to die young.

"Among those who encouraged the networks to put aside their competitive instincts, albeit temporarily, was Katie Couric, anchor of the CBS Evening News, who will appear on the fund-raiser alongside her principal rivals, Brian Williams of NBC and Charles Gibson of ABC." [Times]

It's no secret that the gossip business tends to be driven by self-promotion, grudges, favor-trading and image-polishing. But the press release after the jump is enough to make one yearn for the vicious, but still very human, world depicted by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success. The release is headlined "Gossip item, Press advisor, Gossip item, Press advisory, Press" and claims that reality TV star Kim Kardashian was recently "saved from stampede of 13 year olds" at a hotel. It's hard to say what ulterior motive is behind this "gossip" — touting the demographics of the show, perhaps, or deflecting attention from something juicier — but one would hope the likes of Page Six and Us Weekly would at least make celebrity publicists go through the motions of pretending their gossip isn't manufactured. Check the papers tomorrow to find out if they do.

Like CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, ABC weatherman Sam Champion has been inching out of the closet: he's basically out socially (just ask our commenters!) but remains closeted professionally. Michael Musto wrote in Out one year ago that Champion was in a "glass closet... the press still gives a free pass to people like... Champion and... Cooper, helping to keep their glass doors shut so they can lead gay social lives while carefully skirting the issue." And yet here's Andy Cohen, a senior VP at NBC's Bravo, blogging about Champion, Champion's boyfriend, and their fabulous party in the Hamptons Memorial Day weekend:

"The online vs. print debate is totally obsolete. It's as musty as the old barroom argument about Ginger vs. Mary Ann. It's 2008, why not have a three-way?" — Blog mogul Arianna Huffington, putting the sin in "synergy" for BusinessWeek, 22 May 2008

Toronto, proving once again that it is a city ahead of its time when it comes to zombie creativity, is currently hosting an onstage musical version of the classic, terrible 1981 zombiesploitation flick Evil Dead. To advertise the show their agency is making zombie-themed versions of posters from popular Broadway shows. Any excuse to make the theater more friendly to the undead is worthwhile. Pictured, a Les Miserables ripoff; and after the jump, a Hairspray version.

Oh no, is Radar in trouble again? Maybe. Chris Tennant left back in March, and senior editor Tyler Gray left last week for Blender. Now, John Clarke Jr at Portfolio reports that managing ed Leigh Ann Boutwell is "moving to Los Angeles to freelance." Poor Radar. They are apparently relying on more of this "celebrity coverage" stuff just to pay the bills. (Maer says things are just great, though! Ad sales up 6 percent from last year! Radar will live forever! Hooray for Ron Burkle!) [Portfolio]

A tagger in LA named Buket got arrested and charged with inflicting $150,000 worth of property damage with spraypaint. The same could be said for a lot of graf writers, so why is this kid on the front page of the LA Times' website? Because he got famous by posting videos of his most daring bombing expeditions on YouTube! Two of them (including one with almost 170,000 hits) are after the jump. I have to give him props for being brave enough to edge out on that freeway overpass. But then I take away those props because, you know, he got himself arrested by putting his crimes on YouTube.

Socialgay Kristian Laliberte (rhymes with ohkaaay), who works in PR and will soon be a Hamptons reality star, had his identity stolen on the internet. Someone hacked into his Facebook and Gmail and sent mean messages to all his frenemies. But there's a twist, as Page Six Magazine's Joshua David Stein reports on his blog: the person who hacked Laliberte's accounts may have found evidence of what we've always suspected: he leaks stuff on all his "friends"!

Smart Washington Post magazine beat reporter Peter Carlson, who's taking a buyout, comes clean in his final column: he thought Rosie magazine was a stupid idea. But hey, whatever; he's "heading off to pursue other interests, such as sloth and gin." [WP]

Remember how much you used to hate George Bush? Doesn't anyone want to call him a Nazi, for old time's sake? What if they bully the press a little? Sorry, guys. Outraged letters to NBC and the New York Times won't win you any more of the self-righteous liberal condemnation you crave. (The White House is mad at the Times because an editorial accurately described Mr. Bush's lack of support of an updated GI Bill.) [FishbowlDC]

Ah, the good old days of 1947: a simpler time, when titans sat astride the corporate world, and those titans had desks appropriate to men with superhuman prestige—desks that were acknowledgments of the widespread on-the-job alcoholism that was the style at the time. Modern Mechanix digs up a Popular Science story from '47 about an executive dream desk with everything a man could possibly desire: a 'work' side with a six-tube radio, Teletalk Intercommunication Master Unit, and electronic dictaphone; and a 'play' side with a wet bar and fridge. Oddly, the personal safe is also on the 'play' side, but the cigarette lighter is on the work side. A different culture. The cost of this masterwork? "Well into the four figures." Larger image of the story, after the jump.

We all know that HBO producer Cynthia Mort is probably actress Jodie Foster's new girlfriend. But we forgot that she was such a defender of naked man-buttocks! She told the Observer last fall, in an article about male nudity in TV and film, that male on-screen nakedness was the new frontier in television she fully intended to conquer:

One night last week I found myself watching the NBC Nightly News—a rare occurrence, because I am not yet old. The lead story was about how American Airlines was going to start charging a $15 fee for each checked bag. Grumbling! Populist outrage! What will these dang companies do next?! It became clear at that early moment that despite the economic necessity of the move, American was going to get absolutely slammed in the court of public opinion. And now the verdict is in: they did!

I don't claim to be an expert on hair, or sexiness, but I'd be willing to wager that far fewer people have heard of "Sexy Hair Concepts LLC" than have heard of Victoria's Secret. Nevertheless, Sexy Hair Concepts somehow managed to persuade a Trademark Board that "consumers were likely to confuse the lingerie giant's 'So Sexy' trademark for haircare items with Sexy Hair Concepts' various trademarks using the word 'sexy' for its coiffure line." Consumers will be wandering around in a sheer sexiness daze! Victoria's Secret's response to the ruling: you trademark people must be crazy: