Michael Stipe Is Finally Okay With Being GayR.E.M.’s Michael Stipe finally comes clean about being gay in this month’s Spin. Marc Jacobs and boyfriend Jason Preston got into numerous screaming matches while on vacation together in Turks and Caicos and flew back on separate private jets. Danny Masterson had his 32nd-birthday party at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, and it had a mechanical bull. An unnamed socialite dropped from a size 14 to a size 0 by picking up a heroin habit. Eminem, however, has hired a personal trainer to help him lose weight.
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Plaxico Burress to Score a Book DealThe first of the post–Super Bowl book proposals is being shopped around by agents, on behalf of Plaxico Burress. Burress, as if you could forget, is the receiver who caught Eli Manning’s winning touchdown pass in the end zone of this year’s big game, leading the Giants to victory. Though it will be about his whole life, the tome will probably focus on this season and the Super Bowl. Which basically means, he’s selling it based on his big catch. Most sports books have limited appeal, according to the Post’s Keith Kelly, so sources expect Plaxico’s deal to be in the mid–six figures. “To do a Super Bowl book, you have to have it out right away,” one publisher (who said no to it while the price was still $100,000) told Kelly. Agents expect the bidding on the proposal to be done today. We love Plaxico, but we have to say, if there’s going to be a book about a catch from this Super Bowl, we’d rather see one about David Tyree’s amazing swanlike snatch after Eli Manning made that amazing escape from the Patriots’ defensive line. We can just see the dramatic, airborne cover image now. And the title! The Helmet Catch; Or, How I Saved the Giants in the Super Bowl Shortly Before Landing WWF Style on Rodney Harrison’s Knee.
His Story [NYP]
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Happy Giant Monday
Last night, only moments after the Patriots stuttered out their last plays in Super Bowl XLII, the shouts began. From our window facing East 14th Street, we started to hear chants of “Eli! Eli! Eli!” A communal roar echoed out of bars like the Blarney Cove, Otto’s Shrunken Head, and Mona’s. A few minutes later crowds poured out of Stuyvesant Town and Alphabet City, walking down the street towards the First Avenue L stop. They whooped, they chanted — we even saw one guy dive tackle a friend into the (hard-looking) sidewalk, screaming “PLAXICO!”
This morning, when we woke up, we picked up the Daily News. Not being from New York originally, we’ve never really understood the rationale behind the “commemorative covers” that the tabloids put out sometimes. Do people in the city really have walls covered with Daily News and Post covers? But when we unfolded the paper to check out the giant photo of Eli Manning clutching the trophy, with a yell of triumph on his face, we thought to ourselves: “Huh. We’d better save this one.”
Anyway, if tomorrow is Super Tuesday, today has definitely got to be Giant Monday. Leave us some comments! We want to hear where you were last night when Plaxico Burress caught the touchdown pass with 35 seconds to go, and what you did when Manning escaped from the Patriots’ clutches to make that longshot pass to David Tyree. Oh, and which Super Bowl ad was your favorite, because ours was totally that Coke one with the Macy’s parade balloons
Related: Underdog: The Rise of Eli Manning