We're hearing — and this is just "hearing," got it? — that Blender editor Andy Pemberton might be out of a job. And, strangely enough, our emails are going unanswered. Hmm. We kinda know what it means when we're blatantly ignored.
Slate's Jack Shafer provides a handy how-to guide on how to tame Fox News' resident lunatic Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly, best known for ranting maniacally about his absence of spin and then angrily twitching at his guests, is actually rather easy to handle if, as a guest, you remember to placate the shit out of him:
Dubious magazine marketing techniques (so redundant, we know) revealed: US Weekly's enticing SPECIAL-BONUS-PAGES-LIKE-OMG image, featured on the cover of this week's magazine, is not necessarily accurate. Gasp!
Former Daily News gossip man and Official Italian Of The E! Network A.J. Benza gives his criteria for an interview with the Black Table:
If the grouping of media porn stars at the Post/Parade party didn't get you off, allow us to direct your greedy little eyes towards something equally lurid. Barbara Walters' Farewell Party (which was to celebrate the end of her career, not her existence) at Times Square Studios featured an equally — if not more — filthy guest list (Tina Brown! Martin Bashir! The Donald!) and precious instances of patheticism:
LA.comfidential's insidery-monikered the Insider notes that David Geffen's Gay Mafia stronghold in Beverly Hills was "the place to be last night," as liberal Hollywood joined in pagan celebration of Maureen Dowd's new book, Bushworld: Enter At Your Own Risk. We'll assume that our invitation was dispatched to the same incorrect P.O. box where all of our Playboy Mansion invites are accumulating. Maybe we'll make the list for the next power-lefty soiree if we subtly note that we have nearly unlimited access to Republican babies, guaranteeing that hors d'ouvres trays stay deliciously full throughout any event graced by our presence.
I really was going to let the Times be for the rest of the day, but I couldn't. I just couldn't let go. God, I fucking love those crackheads on 43rd, don't you? Really, all you need to know is the headline, which just might win some sort of Best Of The Year award.
Street Corner Cooks Have Names, Too [NYT]
If their spectacular examination on the nuanced menu of the Harlem IHOP wasn't enough for you, the New York Times has more material on this strange and new African-American culture they've discovered. They report that Official Black Person Steve Stoute makes corporate parties cool by shouting things like, "HP in the house!"
From the firey pits of media hell comes word of a gathering so hideous, so shocking, I almost choked on my tongue. Last night, the Post held a celebration at the Four Seasons for the return of Parade magazine. The guest list sounds like something from the recesses of Dante's imagination: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Mayor Bloomberg, Ken Auletta, Dominick Dunne, Donald and S.I. Newhouse, Dr. Joyce Brothers, and Geraldo Rivera.
We tried really, really hard to ignore Felix Dennis' foray into the world of self-absorbed sonnets, but the Times had to go and follow the Maxim publisher all the way to Chicago. Still, we looked away. Jossip, however, does our dirty work for us and actually tells us what poor Times housepet Alex Kuczynski endures:
Simon Dumenco's name-dropping column in Folio takes a different turn today, as he discussed the return of Popstar, a magazine from 1998 which could be considered the predecessor to the US Weeklies and In Touches of today. According to Dumenco, we're all stuck in high school:
When Peggy Siegal, the publicist best known for arranging celebrity-infested screenings, asked a Paramount bigwig to move his seat at a "Mean Girls" screening earlier this year, she apparently pissed off the wrong people. This weekend, Page Six reported, "Peggy is, literally, freaking out. It's really bad. She's completely unglued over it." Now she's two stringy hairs short of falling into PR patheticism, according to a reader:
Oh, for fuck's sake: first CBS anchor Dan Rather presents memos on the evening news which suggest that el Presidente didn't exactly complete his duties while serving with the National Guard. Then, in light of criticism questioning the authenticity of said memos, Dan Rather stands by his evidence. But wait! After reflecting on a sketchy key source for the memos and, more importantly, declining ratings for the CBS Evening News, Rather and CBS acknowledge that they were misled on the authenticity of the memos and Rather personally apologizes. And finally, today, it seems that everyone is pissing themselves.
MediaBistro's former editor Jesse Oxfeld has finally collected his belongings and officially fled the Soho offices for his new gig and Editor & Publisher. As offices often do, the MediaBistro staff threw a little going-away party for their departing editor — and guess who wasn't invited? MediaBistro founder Laurel Touby. When she got word of her exclusion from the invite list, she sent an email to the entire staff insisting they not attend the festivities, lest they be strangled by her feather boa.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is hosting a New School debate next Tuesday on — what else? — President Bush. We are so there. Well, maybe we aren't, we don't like politics. Anyhow, Carter's got some choice advice for Democratic candidate John Kerry:
