The ‘Daily News’ Heils HillaryIn a darkly lit, dramatic silhouette of the former First Lady, we think we recognize a certain salute.
early and often
Heilemann on South Carolina’s Republican Primary: Guess Which Three Will Bleed NextThe presidential campaign of Fred Dalton Thompson has surely been among the most puzzling curios of this year’s Republican race. Maddeningly long in gestation, then apparently stillborn, it has been an effort so laconic, even lazy, that its slogan might as well have been: Thompson 2008 – As if It Mattered.
company town
Gucci Would Prefer a More Flattering CutFASHION
• The Gucci family is up in arms over Ridley Scott’s biopic. They fear he’ll focus on the family scandals. You know, instead of making a movie about all the boring stuff. [British Vogue]
• Helmut Lang is opening a pop-up shop in the meatpacking district. Just what we need, another fabulous place to spend our money while we are drunk. [Fashion Informer]
• Kaiser Karl rocked the U.K. with a Chanel fashion show. [WWD]
company town
Hillary Tries to Have It Both Ways With RupertMEDIA
• Today’s negotiations between the Hollywood writers and producers, who some say have already struck a deal, reportedly will be held in an “undisclosed location.” We always knew Cheney would come to the rescue! [HR]
• German Vanity Fair is being sued for an interview with an infamous neo-Nazi who denied the Holocaust. [Jerusalem Post via HuffPo]
• Rift in the house of Murdoch? Rupe complains that his son James can’t dumb down the news to his father’s tough standards. Meanwhile, a savvy voter in Iowa pressed Clinton on her Murdoch connections, and the senator, no surprise, tried to have it both ways. [FT via Mixed Media/Portfolio, The Caucus/NYT]
company town
Will Dick Parsons Pull a Bloomberg?MEDIA
• Rumor has it that Richard Parson’s will announce his departure at Time Warner as early as this week. Jeff Bewkes, longtime No. 2, is set to take over as CEO. Does this mean a Parsons run for mayor? [Times of London]
• Radar cooked up a clever quiz: Fox News anchor or porn star? You decide. Wait, no, Murdoch decides. [Radar]
• Jim Cramer matched Rupert Murdoch’s legendary subtlety: “We have a competitor now in Fox and it is really important to destroy and mutilate them.” [Broadcasting & Cable]
new york fugging city
The Fug Girls: Taking a Peek Inside Karl Lagerfeld’s Mind of SteelEven in an industry full of eccentrics, Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld is an icon: those omnipresent shades, the man-jewelry, and, of course, the leather glove, which lends his style that special “ringmaster at a Michael Jackson–themed circus” feel. So when filmmaker Rodolphe Marconi touted his new documentary Lagerfeld Confidential as a profound peek behind The Kaiser’s sunglasses, we had to investigate — after all, this is the man who once told Elle, “It’s too easy to forgive. I love revenge.” What could be better than an hour and a half of that?
in other news
‘Times’ Wants College Students to Turn Down That Damned MusicNewspapers face all sorts of problems, not insignificant among them that younger people don’t so much read the paper. Then today we saw the cover story of the “Metro” section, “Welcome, Students. Now Watch It,” geared toward the college students — and, we should think, potential new Times readers — newly arrived in the city. It includes such useful tips as “Don’t fall asleep on the subway,” “Don’t play chess for money with the hustlers in Washington Square Park,” and “Don’t drink too much beer and use the street as a toilet.” Plus, this gem, from the end of the “Don’t light up in a bar” tip: “And besides, if you’re not 21, you shouldn’t be in a bar anyway.” We have no idea why “Make sure to clean your room” and “Just say no” weren’t included as tips, but, yeah, we think we understand why kids don’t read the paper.
Welcome, Students. Now Watch It [NYT]
company town
Jeb’s JobFINANCE
• Lehman landed former Florida governor Jeb Bush as an adviser. Makes you wonder which bank will get the honor of hiring W. when the “first MBA president” finally steps down. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
• Does Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis’s move to save Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the United States, make him a modern-day J.P. Morgan? [MarketWatch]
• John Dyment, the global head of Deutsche Bank’s hedge-fund unit, jumped ship for Shumway Capital Partners, a hedge fund based in Greenwich. [TheStreet.com]
show and talk
What to Wear to Turks and Caicos
Behind closed showroom doors (and in the Santa Monica airport), designers have been showing off their resort and cruise collections the last few weeks. The lines are bright, colorful, and chock-full of obscenely expensive bikinis. We hit up the target demographic Fabiola Beracasa and Byrdie Bell to see what the ladies planned to buy for their next vacations.
the morning line
So Dark the Con of Man
• The Times declares Spitzer’s political honeymoon over; the governor’s first state budget, which cuts $1.2 billion from health care and increases spending by 6 percent, seems guaranteed a hard time in both the State Senate and the Assembly. [NYT]
• Firefighters: Every time we come dangerously close to deifying them, they do something crazy. Like, in this case, by buying fake “St. Regis College” diplomas online, at $500 a pop, and submitting them to the Fire Department for promotions. [Newsday]
• A Long Island con-artist duo lured married marks into one-night stands, videotaped the trysts, then proceeded to blackmail them. The scammers’ photos, printed in the Post, make the “luring” part positively puzzling. [NYP]
• In a feat of participatory journalism, a Daily News reporter spends a “day dressed like Sienna” (Miller). For our money, she looked more like JT LeRoy. [NYDN]
• And a New York marketing firm scared the bejesus out of Bostonians with promo signs for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which the Boston Police Department somehow mistook for bombs. Nobody objected here, where “a box of fries … giving passerby the finger” is a relatively normal sight. [amNY]
company town
Sullivan & Cromwell Bleeds AssociatesLAW
• Sullivan & Cromwell lost about 30 percent of its associates in 2004 and 2005. It might take more than a raise to fix that. [WSJ]
• Don’t despair, associates! Where Simpson Thacher goes, Milbank Tweed, Sullivan & Cromwell, Paul Weiss, Cleary Gottlieb, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft are sure to follow. [Above the Law]
• Long Island lawyer Gary Berenholtz, who once exposed a corrupt Brooklyn judge, stole money from clients and his partner’s widow to fund fine dining and finer vacations. [NYP]
FINANCE
• The New York Stock Exchange will trade almost exclusively electronically by the end of today; investment firms will continue to lay off floor traders. [WSJ]
• The New York City employees’ pension fund is the lead plaintiff in a suit against Apple Computer Inc. for overcompensating executives with illegal stock options. [Reuters]