In your maudlin Tuesday media column: Jimmy Kimmel gets an important job, the St. Petersburg Times is no more, a cartoonist canned for plagiarism, Rock Center debuts, and a journalist has a heart attack.
There's no better argument against the privilege of wealth than Jon Corzine, the clownish former Goldman Sachs CEO who thought his facility for extracting money from a rigged financial game entitled him to run the state of New Jersey. After getting roundly rejected by voters after one term, he got a job from a friend running derivatives firm MF Global. Yesterday it went bankrupt. And today we learned that he's lost $700 million of his clients' money.
We all suspected recently deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi would be the world's worst pen pal. This is correct: He once sent a virulently anti-American letter to some random Brooklyn florist who collects letters from world leaders.
Kim Kardashian is getting divorced after only 72 days. That's only two and a half months. Apparently celebrities are especially susceptible to being married for very short periods of time. Here are some that were so short they make Kim's look long, and some that lasted a bit longer and make Kim's look short, sort of like when she'd stand next to her future ex, Kris Humphries.
When I saw this sign offering $20 for the current issue of The Advocate, the very serious older brother of the gay publishing world, with Adam Lambert on the cover, I thought it was a joke. After all, this is the current issue. But no. It seems the gay singer and mascara addict is creating a worldwide magazine shortage.
Goldman Sachs has taken plenty of well-deserved knocks over the last three years, but the man single-handedly most responsible for damaging the Wall St. giant's reputation hasn't worked there for more than a decade: Having done a tour as a shitty senator and a loathed governor, former CEO Jon Corzine has added failed futures broker to his post-Goldman career.
Bumbling Republican frontrunner Herman Cain barely had a moment to enjoy a celebratory gust of second-hand smoke after squeezing ahead of the pack at the Iowa caucuses when Politico detonated a giant stink-bomb of an exclusive: Two women who had worked with Cain when he headed the National Restaurant Association in the '90s complained to co-workers and senior association officials of "inappropriate" and "sexually suggestive" behavior directed at them by Cain.
The celebrities have begun trickling out of their castles, mansions, and forest lairs to host or hit up Halloween parties, collect their high-calorie holiday booty, and inspire jealousy-driven shut-ins like us to mock their outfits.
Halloween isn't until Monday, which means that you still have a couple of days to slap together a quick costume. And do you know what kind of costume is quicker than quick? The kind you buy at a store. No, it's not very creative—and navigating overcrowded costume shops this weekend won't be fun—but at least you'll be appropriately dressed at any Halloween party you attend.
Nicki Minaj curses out a maid, and the end result is a battery charge. Kim Kardashian says her newlywed life is "not ideal." Alexa Ray Joel opens up about HPV. Usher gets in a fight over a parking space. TGIFriday gossip.
Steve Jobs was a true obsessive. He pored over every tiny detail of every product, every ad, every store, every thing related to Apple.
Scott Olsen, the Iraq War vet critically injured by an Oakland riot cop's projectile gas canister, is awake and lucid and awaiting surgery, according to a report in The Guardian. His condition has been upgraded from critical to fair. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that doctors are optimistic he could make a full recovery.
Oh no: violent protesters! An NYPD police association is threatening lawsuits against protesters who assault police officers and is warning of "growing violence," even as Occupy Wall Street has proven its non-violence time and again.
Sean Parker has a message for Occupy Wall Street: Life in the one percent is no picnic. People threaten him. He had to hire security. And don't even get him started on the parties.
