The DA is dropping charges against the two brothers accused of stabbing a bouncer at East Village bar Guernica after he tried to enforce the smoking ban, citing a lack of murder weapon and lack of witnesses. The NY Press points out that this seems a little odd, given that press coverage in the Post and the Daily News report that there were, in fact, witnesses and lack of murder weapon isn't usually enough to prevent a case from going to trial.
Not enough evidenceor too much? [NY Press]

Lotus owner (and President of the New York Night Life Association) David Rabin responds to the New York Press, who ranked him #25 on their "Most Loathsome New Yorkers" list: "I work too fucking hard for some half-baked 'journalists,' who not only can't outdance me, they can neither out-think nor out-write me, to take potshots at me." Rabin also points out that, for the record, he does not have a flat ass.
#25 and climbing [NY Press]

The Farkers are referring to the "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers" issue from the NY Press as a list that "includes cocaine and 49 people you've never heard of." Some choice comments:
· Yoko Ono should have been WAY higher than that. I'm thinking in the "Woody Allen" area at least.
· "New York Press"? I'm guessing this is a paper that you get for free, largely underwritten by ads from phone-sex lines, booby bars and tatoo parlors. Am I wrong?
· Whoever submitted this link is an idiot. And may God have mercy on the soul of the moron that posted this link.
· How dare they insult Keith Blanchard? He's a solid man, and damn funny. The thing everybody gets wrong about the Maxim staff is thinking that they take their job seriously. They realize just as much as anyone how dumb their mag is, but they love the fact that they get paid to write about farts, beer, and boobies. It's the life. Pretty much everyone else on the list can go suck it, though.
Fark forum: 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers [Fark]

The NY Press has released their list of "50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers," insinuating that the entire thing was based on reader preferences. So who do New Yorkers hate more than anyone? Keith Blanchard, apparently. Raise your hand if you know who Keith Blanchard is. Yeah, you don't count; you work in media. If you work in media, put your hand down. (Your co-workers are staring at you, by the way. Sitting there in front of your monitor with your hand in the air like that.) So none of the rest of you know who Keith Blanchard is, right? He's the editor of Maxim. This list should be re-titled "50 People NY Press Editor Jeff Koyen Hates." It includes pretty much everyone who was at one point considered an outsider or an artist and has since enjoyed some sort of mainstream success. But some of them really do deserve to be on the list: Carson Daly, That Guy in the Huge Calvin Ad on Houston and Broadway, Cocaine, Jack Grubman, David Rabin, Leona Helmsley, and Henry Kissinger in particular. (And why aren't we on their silly little list? We feel left out.)
50 most loathsome New Yorkers [NY Press]

If you highlight the left side of the page in the NY Press article below, you get the hidden text in the page designed to be picked up by search engines. An excerpt: It was up to spiderman and shakira to stop that rotten scoundrel osama bin laden and his taliban.. First he brought down the world trade center, then he created napster what evil would be next? Studying the works of nostradamus, they figured the best place to catch him would either be at the world cup or the winter olympics, where he planned to unleash an envelope full of anthrax on the unsuspecting crowd. CNN caught morrowind of the plot, and predicted there would be neverwinter nights for years to come. It would be a dungeon siege when these forces came together. It would be like a battlefield 1942.
Meanwhile, here at home [NY Press]

NY Press Editor Jeff Koyen goes afterof all people (er, publications)free weekly satirical newspaper, The Onion. "...there's some hope that [The Onion] may weather these tough advertising times and remain a welcome presence on the corners," Koyen writes. "[But] not if they keep fucking up." He then complains that they're using old material and that there are layout errors. "If this is the Onion's idea of an April Fool's joke, they're a little early. (Their current issue is dated March 20-26.) And it's a little lame. Editor-in-chief Robert Siegel refused to offer a comment leading me to believe it's either a fuck-up or a sign of crisis in HQ." At first glance, this seems a little odd, but Koyen has previously admitted that he has no actual sense of humor.
Stinky Onion [NY Press]

Buried in a NY Press column was a reference to the "NYSG (New York Single Girls) literary movement" which apparently included complaining about the "predatory male attitude," so excruciatingly detailed in Rick Marin's Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor. The author had attended Marin's book party, which was also attended by veterans of the genre"walking-dead types like New York's Amy Sohn and Bridget Harrison of the New York Post." He later mentions that a co-worker calls Ms. Sohn an "unprofessional asshole" and that Sandy Fernandez (one of Marin's ex-girlfriends who recently wrote a scathing article about him) was "a miserable cunt." This clever expose of competitive female behavior must be the foundation for the newly emergent New York Single Guys literary movement.
B-listers [NYPress]

No sooner do I get New York's sexual geography straight in my head than the New York Press, alarmed by the opening of a BuyBuy Baby store on 7th Avenue, declares Chelsea straight. The new neighborhoods for the booty-bumpers: Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Astoria or Hell's Kitchen.
Breeding Ground [New York Press]

Speaking of Ron Jeremy, the NY Press' Joshua Cohen defines Jewish porn and provides examples. (Ron Jeremy films, incidentally, are not Jewish porn, per se. A Jew in porn is not the same thing as Jewish porn.) Select come-ons from Jewish porn flicks:
· "These babes are Pretty, Perky and Pareve"
· "Rich New York chicks, raised in the lap of luxury, ready to feel a real man inside them."
· "These aren't the kind of girls you'd invite over for passover, But I wouldn't mind spending a high holy day with any of them."
The chosen peephole [NY Press]

Jeff Koyen, the NY Press' new editor (imported from Prague) clearly wants to make sure his first editor's letter is memorable. An excerpt: "I never did fuck that 17-year-old woman. I'd call her a girl—"that 17-year-old-girl"—but in the Czech Republic, the age of consent is 15...I think of the Australian who said to me, 'just relax,' as she worked her index finger into my ass... The pinkie was fine, I told her... Being an ambitious type, she wanted to upgrade to a larger finger...And so I borrow from her as I address the readers of this, the third issue that bears my name and that of Alexander Zaitchik, my former co-editor at the Prague Pill: Just relax. And trust me."
NY Press [via Lockhart Steele]

Generation Expat returns. The new editor of The New York Press is one of those college grads who went to Prague after the Velvet Revolution, played at being a writer, and never came back. The LA Examiner, Richard Riordan's new weekly newspaper, is also staffed up with veterans from eastern Europe. Expect articles about the backwardness of American cellphones.
A Prague Perspective for a New York Newsroom [NYT]

Russ Smith of NY Press fame takes on Radar and Salon. He admits up front that he just "doesn't like" David Talbot (the founder of Salon) and points to a quote in which Talbot insinuated that American democracy would collapse without Salon. As for Radar, Smith says it sounds like every other "opinionated magazine about news, pop culture, style and politics that's geared to a young, urban audience" out there. We're not above skewering Salon or Radar, but it sounds like Mr. NY Press has a bit of indie mag envy.
Beautiful losers [WSJ]

The NY Press's recent acquisition may not be such a good thing. The Village Voice says that the company's backers have had financial problems and the Post's Keith Kelly reports that editor Lisa Kearns quit today after only two weeks.
On the road with Bubba [Keith Kelly - Post]
Window of Opportunity [Village Voice]

Here's why I quite like the Mugger column in the New York Press. Mugger rehashes Jay McInerney's comment that Page Six leans right, politically, while Liz Smith leans left. But he can't resist describing McInerney, who wrote Story of my life a lifetime ago, as a washed-up novelist; and he wonders whether Liz Smith isn't ghostwritten while the aged publicist lunches uptown. Mean.
The Constitution's Best Buddy [Mugger in the New York Press]

Ah, we missed this one. The New York Press, the thin freebie weekly designed for reading during the course of an espresso, has been sold. The new owners, who intend to cut costs, said they would fire the editor.
New York Press is sold for about $5m [New York Press]