diary

Letter From the Editor: Pants Are Good

Gawker · 05/24/04 09:01AM

Okay. I'm back. Believe it: I missed you more than you missed me. Have you ever gone 10 days without TV or internet? Trust me: it suuuucks. And I can't believe I was gone on the week that Page Six smacked down Lloyd Grove.

To Do: Set 'em Up, Knock 'em Down Weekend Edition

Gawker · 05/21/04 06:40PM

FRIDAY
1. Celebrate 10 years of gay-ery at the SqueezeBox Anniversary Party with Boy George, The Jayne County Five, Miss Guy, Bebe Buell, Jackie Beat, Jimmy James and hostess Misstress Formika.
2. Get your nails done by contemporary artists (Warn Defever, Davin Brainard, Hitoko Sakai, Sarah Lapinksi, Dion Fischer and Ida Pearl) at Broadway Spa.
3. It's everything you loved about the prom minus the virginity and the vomit. Head to Volume for the Slasher Prom and dance like an awkward 17-year old to World War Walter, DJ Dirrty, Oxi Conttontail and Larocka.

Sponsor Shout Out

mark · 05/21/04 06:01PM

For information on advertising on Defamer, whose readers are hopelessly dedicated to spending their cash on your products, send an email here. Many thanks to this week's sponsors, who are indirectly subsidizing a bender in Vegas, and to a lesser extent, the entire gaming industry:

Walking Around NYC

Gawker · 05/21/04 05:45PM

With summer practically here and the recent taxi fare hike affordable only to those with an expense account, it makes sense we'll all be doing a lot of walking around NYC. Here to help you know if you've just wandered into that Syrian Jew or Bengali neighborhood is the website Walking Around - New York City's Ethnic Neighborhoods with a sortable list of neighborhoods, ethnic groups and concentration. The only confusing part is the addition of Gay, Lesbian, and Hipster as ethnic groups. Where do those people come from? Gayopolis, Lesbomatamia, and Youngstown, OH?

To Do: Big Green Ears, Gay Pride, And Horror Geeks

mark · 05/21/04 04:13PM

FRIDAY:
· Ben Gibbard ignores his side projects and remembers where his bread is buttered: Death Cab for Cutie's at the Wiltern. Go see what all the characters on The O.C. have been chattering about—and we're willing to bet that Summer and Seth Cohen will be sucking face right by the stage, but in a very "we're not an item" way.
· Go the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood and observe the extent to which it's bent over for Shrek's gigantic ogre meat. They've turned the landmark Cinerama Dome green and slapped some huge ears on it. Call us when they stick a gigantic nipple on top for Mean Girls.
· FOUND magazine editor Davy Rothbart reads from little scraps of discarded paper and random Post-It Notes at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. It's much better than it sounds.

Gastropoda: A Foodie You Can Trust

Gawker · 05/21/04 11:49AM

Food writer Regina Schrambling had two stints at the New York Times: one on the national desk and the other as deputy editor of the Dining In/Dining Out section. Hated the first, the second ran its course before dessert was served. She's been freelancing forever for almost every publication you can think of and now she has her own website: Gastropoda.com. Her "refreshing" take on the infamous Spice Market's bathroom situation:

Getting Paid to View

Gawker · 05/21/04 10:38AM

The NY Post reports that pop artist Jeff Koons has to pay the remaining $2 million his lawyers claimed he owed them for handling his complicated divorce from Italian porn star La Cicciolina. Apparently this hefty fee included billable hours of watching her porn movies so they could get a proper facial identification.

To Do (or Did Ya?) List: Get Your Morningwood On

Gawker · 05/19/04 06:49PM

1. "It sucked." Tell those artsy fartsies what you really thought about the Whitney Biennial at a roundtable discussion led by Whitney director Adam D. Weinberg.
2. Take a Valium to calm those nerves before you enter into the sea of vicious fashionistas at the Catherine Malandrino sample sale.
3. Rock out (with your mock out) at the free show featuring Theo, Morningwood, Breaker! Breaker! and Battletorn at Plaid.
4. Or rock out in a see-thru shirt at the Concert for Presidential candidate John Kerry tonight. Doors open 7 pm at Southpaw in Brooklyn. Run, don't walk!

To Do: Get Baadassss!

mark · 05/19/04 05:40PM

· See Mario Van Peebles and pop Melvin in Baadassss! at the Egyptian Theater. It's a son's loving blaxploitation flick about the making of his dad's blaxploitation flick Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Um, three a's and five s's, we think.
· Go see indie grrrl pioneers Sleater-Kinney at the El-Rey and try to pick up hipster chicks. Guys, not so fast!
· Note to both horny dudes and aspiring skanks: DON'T go see Christina Aguilera at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. It was canceled. Take it down a notch and perv wholesome Canadian Nelly Furtado at Avalon Hollywood (reg. req'd.).
· Head to the Standard Downtown for Fader Magazine's "Escape From New York Party." Pretty much everyone in LA has escaped from NY, so expect a huge crowd of people bitching about how there's no pizza here in between hits of ecstasy.

Defamer Finally Succumbs To Gawker Media Server Problems

mark · 05/19/04 02:48PM

Looks like we're having some problems with our server, so posting may continue to be a little slow today. Too bad, we just lost a juicy item that would once and for all settle some of those rumors about Tom Cruise. Explosive stuff, gone forever. Oh well!

To Do: Hurry Hurry, Go Go Go!!!

Gawker · 05/18/04 06:35PM

1. Remember when TV was about watching actual shows, rather than getting high and laughing at all the scary girls trying to win beauty pageants by getting their asses lipo-ed in front of a national audience? Neither do we, but Dick Wolf does: check out the famed creator of Law and Order, Miami Vice, and New York Undercover, to name a few, at the Museum of Television and Radio tonight.
2. Over-under on the number of Diesel-clad, faux hawk-rocking, coke-snorting dirty hipsters at Vice s record release party for The Streets: who knows, but probably enough to make you projectile vomit. In any case, it s at the Vice store on Lafayette Street.
3. On second thought, fuck that lame-ass British hip-hop shit: old school legends KRS One, Chuck D, and Big Daddy Kane rock the mic at SOB's tonight.
4. Estrogen alert: female bloggers Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jessica Delfino, GirlyNYC, Lindsayism, Eurotrash, and a host of other foul-mouthed lasses dish about how terrible those 28 seconds were the first time you got down and funky at the WYSIWYG talent show.

Short Ends: Cameron Diaz, A Clearasil Endorsement Is Calling

mark · 05/17/04 06:22PM

· Even huge stars can break out in pimples like an average teenage boy. But as far as we know, teenage boys can't date Justin Timberlake.
· Trend watch: In London, people are encouraged to stick their gum on images of celebrities rather than chuck it on the ground. Coming soon to Hollywood: Celebrity urinal cakes.
· This obsession with Lindsay Lohan's body parts is getting absurd. We do not in any way encourage people to look at the possibly-exposed nipples of anyone under eighteen. Please wait until mid-July to click this link.
· Why do stars go kookoo for Kabbalah? "By the fourth class you will learn to see into the future."

Letter from the Guest Editor: Slowish

Gawker · 05/17/04 04:12PM

Sorry for the major gaps between posts as I've been at the mercy of a server that seems to be running on banana peels and beer. Not that there's any breaking news here, but please keep in mind that stuff I posted hours ago is just now showing up. Maybe tomorrow we can institute a rotation system where people with last names ending in A-K read the site during the first half-hour of any hour while L-Z's take the other half. Sound good? Didn't think so. Please stay tuned and let's go forward to the past.

To Do: Find the Right Address

Gawker · 05/17/04 02:44PM

1. Find out why 66th and Park is better than 106th and Park as Carrie Karasyov reads from her new chick-litastrophe The Right Address this afternoon at Borders.
2. Then, put on a headband, buy a Jack Russell, change your name to Lulu, and head to the Salvatore Ferragamo sample sale. Fight with Muffie over the last pair of size 7 sling-backs and tell her, "Watch it Muffie, or I'll show you the right address."
3. Fuck Park Avenue, fuck Muffie, and rock out with the Mooney Suzuki and the Sexy Magazines tonight at Bowery Ballroom .
4. Caligula the Musical gets a concert reading tonight at the Zipper Theatre. The press release states, "The musical tells the story of the life of the notorious Roman emperor in the style of a 1970's glam rock epic." Funny, I always thought 70's glam rock epics were stories done in the style of Caligula.

Go-To Places When You Gotta Go: NYC Public Toilets

Gawker · 05/17/04 10:55AM

Finally, an example of community service we can all stand behind, or sit down on as the case may be. Finding a public bathroom (or rather a clean one) might be daunting if you're not within eyeshot of a Starbuck's. Enter Mark Hurst who started the "Add Your Own Restroom" project to map public availability and provide comments for those in need of a commode. C'mon everyone, do your part and pitch in. Leave a good magazine behind too while you're at it.

Krucoff Intro: Scar-Fucking Tina Fey

Gawker · 05/17/04 08:40AM

Ideally, my guest stint starts with the menacing bass line intro of Black Flag's "Six Pack" and builds slowly until all hell breaks loose like the Stones at Altamont. To this end, I promise not to f-bomb this place and leave it resembling the bulimia-puke-stained bathroom of Serafina at the after-party for an Imitation of Christ runway show. Please don't be shy with those tips just because Choire's off "cruising" in international waters, where laws are as fluid as Dominick Dunne's bowels after he "ate the fish" at Liz Smith's 180th birthday bash. I will try to spread the love/hate early and often. Now let's see how fast I can go from zero to scar-fucking Tina Fey.

Sponsors This Week

Gawker · 05/14/04 05:00PM

For information regarding advertising, investigate here. Thanks to this week's sponsors, who save me from having to work for Bonnie Fuller: