"SPEAKING of fathers who had it tough, how about the father of our country: In 1776, the 30,000 British troops that fought George Washington and his overmatched army in New York City was, until D-Day, the largest naval attack force in history. Thousands and thousands of New York rebels perished in the battle." [NYP]
It's taken a while, but we've somehow shed our embarrassment about having grown up in the Jersey suburbs. (Our therapy included a combination of Springsteen and "The Sopranos.") So it was with some amusement, and a good deal of interest, that we read today's Cindy Adams love-in with Carla Katz. Katz is the head of the Garden State's Communication Workers union; more importantly, she used to bang the governor. She tells Cindy that, contrary to speculation, she's got "nothing on" seatbelt-averse Jon Corzine, who apparently proposed to her but then backed out when it became clear that he could leave the boredom of the Senate behind for the top job in Trenton. While Cindy chooses not to air the rumor that former New Jersey Senator and ethical weasel Bob Torricelli set Corzine up with Katz for the express purpose of getting something on the Goldman Sachs millionaire, she does give Carla the chance to explain herself.
What if you took some mescaline and had a crazy vision that involved Cindy Adams and her bathtub full of magazines and her black vinyl ceiling and the Sufi Ellen Burstyn and Gloria Vanderbilt in a Takashimaya blouse? And Parker Posey was there! And what's more, in this horrible dream, you learned that Kathy Freston (former MTV head Tom Freston's yoga-loving wife) and Wendi Deng and her evil overlord husband Rupert Murdoch recently spent a week aboard the Murdoch yacht in St. Bart's discussing vegetarianism.
Post grannygoss Cindy keeps it relevant today with this brief but layered aside:
Rosie O'Donnell's raunchy emceeing had the ladies at the N.Y. Women in Communications luncheon hiding under their tables in homophobic, offended shame! Either that, or she had everyone in stitches. It depends whether you ask Richard Johnson or Cindy Adams. The Page Six overlord made sure to mention the "17 sweet-faced high school girls who won scholarships to pursue their dreams of careers in media," whose virgin ears were ostensibly traumatized when Rosie "concluded a rant about Donald Trump by grabbing her crotch and shouting, 'Eat me!'" But his gossiping colleague Cindy had a different take: "In elegant clothes instead of her usual sweatshirt, newly smart-looking Rosie O'Donnell emceed. Hilarious." How to make sense of it all? Well, WWD mentions that "emcee Rosie O'Donnell skewer[ed] Rupert Murdoch, who presented an award to Cindy Adams, and the New York Post at every opportunity." Hot! Cindy Adams is a dangerous dissident trying to take down the Post from within!
The significance of holding last night's party to celebrate the New York Observer and its new website at the Four Seasons restaurant was intentional, obvious, and not at all lost on anyone. Despite its recent Frank Bruni demotion to two New York Times stars, the restaurant remains the symbolic and probably actual center of New York old-guard media power. After so many years of playing gadfly to the media, politics, and real estate elite of this city, the Observer and its boy-owner and his advisers chose to make a very specific sort of statement.
Post gossip dowager Cindy Adams emerges from the gerontology ward this morning to bring news of a celebrity surgery: Larry King recently had a procedure to flush his arteries. Cindy, who was Larry's wet nurse when he was but a mewling infant, learns this from her former charge: "I actually never knew anything about the carotid artery. See, I take a yearly test. My doctor checked the blood flow to my brain and discovered I was over 70 percent blocked." At the very least we're talking malpractice here: they just found that out now? Also, 70 percent seems a little low: might want to run those numbers again.
Christ-crazed director James Cameron isn't the only one who's been fondling holy relics lately. Post goss dowager Cindy Adams was recently up to her wizened elbows in Annanicolania, and she wants to tell you about every last speck of methadone-scented pocket lint. "I have just seen Anna Nicole Smith's diaries. I held them in my hands... I leafed through a brown leatherette book stamped "Business Cards" that held her Vickie Lynn Smith driver's license in Texas. I rifled through canceled checks and receipts..." She goes on to describe the diaries' contents—Anna drank with Mom and mispelled lots of words!— and then starts asking the tough questions. "And why must the players in this drama all have three names—Anna Nicole Smith, Howard K. Stern, Dr. Robert....?" Maybe there's a clue at the bottom of Anna Nicole's purse, Cindy.
Anna Nicole's Diaries Found [NYP]
Post gossip dowager Cindy Adams claws her way out of her coffin this morning to remind you of her power of prophecy:
Today, the Post's nutty grandma takes another stab at one-upping the Onion's Jackie Harvey:
Post gossip dowager Cindy Adams doesn't just pass along stories about which 90-year-old celebrity gave Bob Hope an under-the-table hummer at The Brown Derby in 1958, she also does some real reporting. For instance:
The Post's dog-loving grandma voices her concerns for the poor struggling book biz in her column today:
The New York Post's twin pillars of biddy gossip, Liz Smith and Cindy Adams, each have their own particular style. To the average reader, though, it can be hard to discriminate between the elderly pontifications of Smith versus Adams — and what if you only have the time and inclination to choose one of these fine specimens? It may be next to impossible to directly compare Adams's prose ("Trust me, a dress shop on Madison is a college course on life.") to Smith's wit ("Speaking of diamonds, consider Sharon Stone."). Best trust to science and statistics. After the jump, Intern Mary plumbs the last ten columns from both ladies to track the frequency of jokey turns of phrase, celebrity name-dropping, and backhanded or overt bitchy comments.
Post gossip dowager Cindy Adams risks the devastating effects of daylight this morning to bring news of a recent outing:
Writing from London, where the fists are flying, Post gossip dowager Cindy Adams does some intense man-on-the-street coverage of the Mills-McCartney divorce:
Yeah, okay, that Cindy Adams piece on Neaner: We didn't want to read it any more than we wanted to read the New York piece, but you people can be so damn insistent. So here you go: Cindy is friendly with the Pirros. She knew a lot of stuff that she wouldn't print because she's a good friend. Then Al went and blabbed to New York, so now she can tell you everything that New York told you, i.e., the Pirros have a troubled marriage, Neaner worries that Al is "doing it" to his lawyer's wife, Al swears a lot, mostly while he's eating dinner alone. You can sort of tell that Cindy's pissed, but not pissed enough to give you anything good. In fact, there are exactly two interesting things about this piece: One, an agitated Jeanine apparently speaks in the exact same clipped-sentence manner in which Cindy writes most of her items. ("I was a kid from Elmira. He was president of his law-school class. Won competitions. Made everybody laugh. We all knew he was a superstar. Dashing, charming, smart, brightest guy I ever met. And generous.") Two: The logo that they break out for a Cindy Adams exclusive is scary as shit.
"Teacher Maimed Saving Kids," "Terrorists Kill Two," "Day of Tears," "KILLED THIS BABY."
