Revenge? Ellen Barkin? Never!Neither the auction she held to sell off the gifts her ex gave her or her new TV pilot were motivated by revenge against ex Ron Perelman. Also: Guess who Michelle Tractenberg is dating?
ByJessica Pressler
early and often
Hillary Clinton: Minority CandidateWell. We’ll be honest. We thought Ellen DeGeneres set the all-time record for the amount of discussion that could be had about an older blonde woman crying in public. But Hillary really blows her out of the water. (And she didn’t even really cry — as Jezebel put it, “It’s not crying if there’s no snot.”) Regardless of whether “The Cry,” as we’re calling it henceforth, actually put Hillary over the top in New Hampshire, the media is going bananas about it. And while there’s a lot of talk about how almost crying “humanized her,” what it really did, in the eyes and words of the media, was make her a minority candidate again. She is a woman. You almost forgot, didn’t you? It’s not that crying is a particularly womanly thing to do; it’s that the coverage of the tears suddenly has everyone from Gloria Steinem to Arianna Huffington to Chris Matthews howling about her femininity. Clearly, Hillary being a woman was a much bigger deal to us than we thought it was.
gossipmonger
Hilary Swank Put Her Boob on Someone’s HeadKelly Ripa said she’s going to check out occasional Live With Regis and Kelly co-host Damien Fahey’s band tonight at the Cutting Room. Hilary Swank accidentally put her boob on P.S. I Love You co-star Bob Balaban’s head when she hugged him as he was having lunch. Robin
Quivers’s boyfriend, comic Jim Florentine, joked at Caroline’s that he’s not sure why she’s dating him because he’s “a loser.” The Olsen twins, Bob Saget, and John Stamos had a Full House reunion at the Bowery Hotel bar on Wednesday. Michael Jordan, ex-Knick Charles Oakley, and Ahmad Rashad hung out at Buddakan and then Socialista. Black Crowe Chris Robinson got six figures to play a half-hour set for a Wall Street firm at Arena.
company town
Al Gore: Cashing In on His Big YearFINANCE
• Al Gore, venture capitalist? The Nobel laureate and Apple board member is taking a hands-on role at Kleiner Perkins, the leading Silicon Valley venture firm. His goal: Save the world. And annoy GE’s Jeff Immelt as much as possible. [Fortune]
• Harvard picked Robert S. Kaplan, a former Goldman Sachs vice-chairman, as the new steward for the $35 billion endowment. Something tells us his kids won’t have any trouble getting in. [Reuters via NYT]
• A few management consultants with nothing better to do gave the Times its newest buzzword: CEO version 3.0. With the departures of Stan O’Neal, Chuck Prince, and Richard Parsons, it’s now time for leaders “who can assemble a team that functions as smoothly as a jazz sextet.” Because, as James Cayne showed, the old CEOs were way too bebop. [NYT]
intel
America’s Mayor and South Africa’s Police Chief?
You can’t take Rudy Giuliani anywhere these days. He merely visited Johannesburg in June to speak at a conference, and he commented that crime there could be reduced by 60 percent if the city were run like a business. Since then, the South African city has been abuzz with rumors that the mayor who transformed urban policing in the United States is set to oversee security when Johannesburg hosts the 2010 World Cup — or maybe even to take over policing the city. (According to one local commentator, Bill Bratton, the former NYPD commissioner now running L.A.’s force, turned down the job — and a seven-figure salary — in the late nineties.) But it’s all just wishful thinking, says Giuliani spokesman Sunny Mindel. “Mr. Giuliani spoke in general terms about how to turn around an urban center,” she says, noting that Joburg mayor Amos Masondo has never formally offered Giuliani any job. And the soccer people say his intervention isn’t necessary, anyway. “We are certain that South Africa’s authorities have the necessary resources to face the task of providing security and safety for World Cup 2010,” says their top flack. Mayor Masondo, remaining coy, declined to comment.
— Nadine Rubin