Girlfriend On The Wii

Nintendo's Wii Fit has been getting a lot of press, including these two NYTimes articles that were nearly identical: here and here. It's also spawned a Youtube genre heretofore unexploited, namely: guys taping their ladies playing Wii Fit's Hula game. Above, best of show.

This Can't End Well

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Two Moments of Sharon Stone Wisdom

Sharon Stone:

Well you know it was very interesting. at first I was not happy at how the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I had been concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like...that. Then I was very concerned about how we should deal with the Olympics because they are not being very nice to the Dalai Lama who is a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought is HTat karma, that you're not nice that the bad things happen to you. Then I got a letter from the Tibetan foundation that they wanted to go and be helpful and that made me cry. And they asked me if I would write a quote about that and I said I would. That was a big lesson to me: that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service to people who aren't nice to you and that's a big lesson to me.

Sharon Stone:

Have you ever fucked on cocaine, Nick? It's nice.

I Love Money!!!

Look! The world we live in is horrible! Though it is true, I do love money. Thanks NB and CS!

Kristian Laliberte Gets His Revenge

Weird that I know this and that I'm posting it here but sometimes I like to pass on unsubstantiated rumors. This latest one involves a man named Kristian Laliberte. If you don't know who he is, (this means you, Papa Frank!) I've written about Laliberte a couple of times in the past. He always pops up at these socialite events and air-kisses the people who hate him. I used to feel sorry for him because he must have known that he was kissing the cheek that would soon throw him under the bus. But now, according to a good and reliable source, Laliberte was at least as duplicitous as his haters.

Recently, as reported on Gawker, someone hacked into...oh fuck this. I don't care about any of it. This is the kernel:

Kristian Laliberte has been selling his friends up the river from day one. He sent the Olivia Palermo email to Socialite Rank that caused no small amount of pain for that woman. He's sent items to nearly every single gossip columnist reporting on the relationship-breaking contretemps of nearly every single friend he's had. Anyway, someone---who I could not find out---hacked into his Gmail account and sent those tipster letters to another anonymous account. They plan on revealing all Laliberte's perfidy in a few weeks time.

In some ways I feel bad for those betrayed by Laliberte. On the other hand, his careful observations leaked to major publications were perhaps the least he could do to repay his acquaintances for all their faux-friendships and duplicity.

Times Reporter Doesn't Know What A Pound Is. Awk.

In its ongoing slavering over anything Barack-related, a New York Times reporter wrote this of Obama's head aid, Reggie Love. "Mr. Love is raffish, always joking with the Secret Service, offering closed-fist high-fives to members of the news media and making frequent appearances in the daily pool reports." The reporter in this case is named Ashley Parker. It is cute how she doesn't know that a closed-fist high-five is also called a pound in the parlance of well, nearly anybody who would refer to it. It's adorable really. Like when grandparents or presidents say "the Google." But then I came across Ashley Parker's byline in this incredibly annoying On Language article she wrote in 2006 and realized it's actually annoying. Like when grandparents or presidents say "the Google." From the piece:

“Rudabega!” she began. “This is maj awk. And the def of typ. Ashley gets away with everything. But I get caught the first time. And it is the first time — I prom. I prom, madre. So true. I’m sor. I’m really sor.”

The entire article was about that ceaselessly annoying linguistic habit of a certain type of girl to abbreviate words that have no business being abridged. I'm sure it's the article that launched a thousand awks, typs and proms. Parker was id'd as "an editorial assistant at The Times, where she does off-the-heez research for Maureen Dowd." Groan. There will be no closed-fist high-fives for members of the new media for that.

Gia Kourlas, Kind of a Bitch

New York Times dance critic lady Gia Kourlas went to the same American Ballet Theatre Opening Night Gala that I went to but she hated it. From her review:

No matter the sense of occasion that a ballet gala affords — the gowns, the celebrity sightings, the air kisses — once the actual dancing gets under way, it’s best to consider the expression “one step forward, two steps back.”

Then she poo-poo'd Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky, the husband-and-wife duo who performed Jessica Lang's (crap) "Splendid Isolation III" calling them "overwrought" which they weren't. Diana Vishneva who met her end with much flapping of her wings, much beautiful flapping of her wings really, gets called only "somewhat improved." Also Kourlas mistakes pedagogical dancing of Etudes as insipid because she missed the point. All this would have been cool if she hadn't raved about the dumbest hokiest shitshow I've ever seen at the ballet, The Last Judgement of Paris. In this reinterpreted version, three ex-principle dancers are old whores. They waddle and strut and waft their twats across the stage. This is definitely not what I want to see. Ballet should be beautiful. Not an ugly joke. Anyway, Kourlas writes:

The highlight was the revival of “Judgment of Paris,” a comic gem from 1938 (and out of Ballet Theater’s repertory since 1958) by Antony Tudor, in which the Greek legend is set in a dive, a bar so dilapidated that you practically smell its stale smoke. The misery extends to its staff: a wearied Waiter (Victor Barbee) and three creaky chorus girls.

Kourlas is right that the entire theatre ate it up but only because it was easy, vulgar and thickly nostalgic. The real gems of the evening were the actual moments of beauty (Cornejo's massive jumps in Le Corsaire and Angel Corella in Giselle.) Oh yeah, and when this old white dude in a tuxedo asked a distinguished black dude (one of the few people of color) in a tux where his seat was. The black man gave the guy a withering look and chuckled, "I don't work here." This left the cute date of Old Whitey giggling very uncomfortably.

The Worst Moving Company In the World

The White Glove Moving Company was founded 17 years ago. Apparently in that time they haven't figured out that having a man with what appears to be Ectrodactyly (monstrous fingers) painted on the side of their truck might not be such a good business practice. Well, to be fair, he only has monstrous fingers on one hand. On the other hand, he is missing three fingers and a thumb. It should also be noted yes, he is wearing a tuxedo t-shirt and holding Manhattan on a tray propped up by his monster hands.

What Is Your Neighbor Watching?

Netflix has this nifty feature that allows you to see the top 5 favorite movies in your zip code. My zipcode, 11211, is Williamsburg. There are approximately 84,422 people living here. 53,734 whites, 4,087 blacks, 409 Native Americans, 1,900 Asians, 19,887 Others. The most popular movies are

• La Jetée: In a devastated Paris in the aftermath of WWIII, The few surviving humans begin researching time travel, hoping to send someone back to the pre-war world for food, supplies and maybe a solution to their dire position


• The Holy Mountain: A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery.


• Blow Up: A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing


• Do The Right Thing: On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.


• Solaris: A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.

Despair, pretension, easy sex, pop music, violence, hate, photography, isolation, trouble. Yup, sounds like 11211.

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Coney Island

Yesterday I biked from Williamsburg to Coney Island. It didn't take that long and I got to see a lot of Jews, which is always nice.

This is Why Bloomberg Is My Hero

I've been thinking for a while of getting a Michael Bloomberg tattoo on my back to go with the Serge Gainsbourg one. My back will be, as I envision it, a pantheon of Jewish male role models. I was waiting to see if Bloomberg was going to run for president (in which case I'd hold off until after the election. Who wants a loser tattooed on his back?) but this clip pretty much has cemented my conviction. Although! I'm not sure if I agree that the reporter is implying Bloomberg is lying. He may just be implying that the claim being made is on a disputed issue.

My Mom Came To Visit

My mother Marcia came to New York for Mother's Day. I made her pose in front of annoying street art inspired ad campaigns. This one is looks like a Shepard Fairey but is instead an ad for the upcoming Disney movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua. [Thanks, Dog Art Today!] We also had rice pudding at Rice to Riches, a NoLIta store and clearly a mob front.

The Judgment of Paris. It's A-OK!

I recently reviewed CompanyXIV's The Judgment of Paris for the Brooklyn Paper. Check it out!

I Saw Niko Bellic In Soho

Walking along Spring Street today, I spotted Niko Bellic, the Eastern European protagonist of the bestselling video game media phenomenon known as Grand Theft Auto IV. Little known fact about Niko. He shops at the French Connection! And his girlfriend's feet were tired.

Is This the End of Williamsburg?

At 9:55 pm last night, on the way home from Diner, we saw a private Action dump truck knock over a traffic light and street sign. A loud crash, a puff of smoke, a tumbling post, a final crash. Silence. Jews poked their heads out of their offices. On the street lay Bedford Avenue, in shambles. The dumptruck dudes got out, looked at each other and then beat it. A cop car drove by but apparently didn't notice the enormous pole and traffic light laying across the middle of the intersection. Another cop car drove by but didn't stop. Finally, I called 3-1-1. They said they couldn't help me but transferred me to 9-1-1. They didn't know where Havemeyer was. I hung up and jogged to another cop car parked at the Williamsburg Bridge Bus Depot. "There's a street sign that a dump truck just crashed into. It's in the middle of Broadway and Bedford," I said. "Oh yeah?" asked the cop. "Yeah. Maybe you want to check it out?" I suggested helpfully. No dice. The cops just sat there. Then another cop car pulled up and they chatted for a while. I don't think law enforcement officials realize that the famed Williamsburg hipster nonchalance doesn't apply when one is fulfilling one's duty as a representative of civil society.

Let Them Eat Kate (Moss)

The other night, after the Topic magazine party at the Rusty Knot and before misero Mexican food at Tortilla Flats, i stopped by this Agent Provocateur party at Milk Studios. I was excited because Kate Moss was going to be there. Kate Moss, as many of you know, is extremely attractive. The good news: She was there. The bad news: She wasn't doing press. The good news: There was a gift bag.

This was particularly heartening since Agent Provocateur is a lingerie line and I was pretty sure there would be lingerie I could bring home to my girlfriend that would further endear me to her. The gift bag came in a big pink AP bag. Inside the bag was a big AP box, wrapped with black satin ribbon. "Sweet!" I thought, as I stuffed the bag in my backpack and shoved off.

The bad news: All that was inside the box was a small t-shirt with the words "Let Them Eat Kate" on it. Hmmm, disappointing! This is certainly not lingerie. This isn't even something I think most women would wear. It is a little vulgar, from a cunnilingual standpoint. It would also be strange, I imagine, to wear if your name is not Kate. And finally, I jumped in with Moss in the elevator down, she's all bones and an East London accent. There's no nourishment there anyway.

That 32 Mile Article Is Published Today.

My hips no longer ache. I treasure my life a wee bit more. And there's an article in today's Guardian about it.
Also, hello Brian Gallagher! I hope work is going well for you today. JDS

32 Miles!!!

I walked 32 miles around Manhattan on Saturday. Hips hurt too much to walk. Read about it in the Guardian. More TK