Top Cop Ray Kelly’s Force: Not So Fine So Far in ‘08Whether it be sex crimes, DUIs, assaults, or the Sean Bell trial, 2008 has not reflected so well on the NYPD so far. And now, we learn, nobody wants to be a cop anymore. What gives?
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Bloomberg Gets Wheezy Over Congestion PricingMayor Bloomberg came out swinging for congestion pricing today. Facing a March 31 deadline for the city and state legislatures to collect $354 million in federal start-up funds, Hizzoner appeared at breakfast with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters at his side. To an Anthony Weiner question about congestion pricing’s threat to federal funding, Bloomberg snapped: “That’s one of the stupider things I’ve heard!”
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Paris Hilton’s Breast Friend Appears in Our Pages!As was pointed out by a commenter, we have a bit of a secret celebrity on this week’s “Look Book” page in New York. Not only is “traveler” Eglantina Zingg a former V.J. for MTV Venezuela and a model, but she’s also the lovely lady that made out with a topless Paris Hilton in certain camera-phone pics, circa 2005. Don’t worry that you didn’t recognize her face: You were distracted the first time you saw it.
The Look Book: Eglantina Zingg and Elisa Estrada, Travelers [NYM]
‘Lesbian’ Paris Pic on Web [London Sun]
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We’re Getting a Lifestyle Lift!Just like other rising starlets, every year or so the face nohib.com shows to the world needs a makeover. Later this week, we’ll launch a new homepage design, and we want to give you a sneak peek. One big change to note: Daily Intel will be moving to the top-left corner of the page, so you can see our breaking news stories even more quickly. (You’ll still be able to view the whole version, as always, at the http://www.nohib.com/daily/intel. Bookmark it!) Nymag.com’s other blogs, Vulture, the Cut, and Grub Street, will also be more prominently displayed, as will video. We’ve also organized the lower half of the page more consistently, so you’ll always know where to find whichever type of news you’re looking for, and you’ll be able to search our restaurant listings, runway galleries, and product guides more easily. And we’ve made changes to the navigation bar at the top of the page — it’s simplified to highlight our main editorial areas, and we’ve added drop-down menus to give you direct access to all the key pages on the site. But you don’t have to listen to us: Click below to see what the new page will look like, and tell us what you think in the comments. Are we showing too much leg?
nohib.com’s new look!
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Upper West Side Parents Bid Like Mad for Albany Tour With New Gov
The hottest item up for grabs Saturday night at the Booker T. Washington Middle School spring auction was a tour for four (two kids, two adults) of Albany conducted by none other than Governor (as of 1 p.m. today) David Paterson. The lovable gov, whose son attends the Upper West Side school, had offered the outing way before his former running mate Eliot Spitzer’s call-girl troubles. Bidding began at an impressive $2,000 — the initial bidder had to leave the party early and left his offer by proxy — but quickly climbed to a final price of $3,700. The item “obviously got a lot cooler in the last week,” announced the auctioneer, who added that any money collected would be returned “if, with everything that transpired, David is not able to honor it … We haven’t been able to get a hold of him.” The winner, who had been bidding determinedly but wouldn’t discuss his prize with this reporter, won’t be able to ask Patterson about the events that led to his new position, however. A caveat included with the description of the item read: “In order to comply with New York’s ethical and legal guidelines, consistent with the public trust, and to prevent actions that are intended, or appear to be intended, to achieve personal gain or benefit by the successful bidder of this item, kindly refrain from the discussion of specific professional and government business activities during your visit.” This is as it should be; Paterson clearly understands that people should be paying big bucks for a good time with him, rather than vice versa. —S. Jhoanna Robledo
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How Eliot Spitzer Missed His Money Shot
Eliot Spitzer’s political career, gravely injured after a collision with reality on Monday, finally passed into the great unknown two days later. But Spitzerism — the soul, that is, of his career — expired months ago.
Unlike virtually every other Democratic politician in the country, Eliot Spitzer understood markets. He believed in the potential of widespread investing in stocks to build and spread genuine wealth, and as attorney general, he was like a Money magazine editor on crack, targeting enemies of small investors: self-promoting analysts, corrupt mutual-fund traders, predatory lenders. Spitzerism wasn’t about taxing and regulating profits; it was about diffusing profits to people who have never received a dividend check.
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Enough With the Effing Osmonds!A brief rant: All morning today Good Morning America has been shrieking about how all the original members of the Von Trapp Osmond Family Singers are all performing together for the first time since Iwo Jima or something. Does anybody care? Is there any one person in this country who wakes up in the morning and thinks, Maybe today is the day the Osmonds will reunite? We didn’t understand all the hullabaloo when Oprah had all 2,500 of them onstage in November, and we still don’t understand it now. If they had all the Jacksons onstage together, that would be one thing. But the Osmonds? There isn’t even one named Jermajesty! And why are they always smiling? They’re Mormons, not Scientologists. It’s just creepy.
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Eliot Spitzer’s ‘Kristen’ — Actually 32?You remember when bonnie lass “Kristen,” the girl who brought down a governor, was profiled this morning in the New York Times? They reported her age at 22, which seems about right. She’s a lovely young thing, and, well, when you’re paying you might as well buy the ripest fruit. (Oh God, ew, we hate ourselves for coming up with that metaphor.) But we’ve done some sleuthing, and we’ve discovered that two separate public identification records reveal that the only Ashley Youmans (the real name of “Kristen,” a.k.a Ashley Alexandra Dupré) from the Jersey Shore (or anywhere in New Jersey) is actually 32. Now, we’re not going to blame a girl for lowering her age on her résumé — she is, after all, a struggling singer and someone who, professionally, needs to have a reputation for not being able to hold her liquor. But still, knocking off ten years? Could this be true? How bad did she think the lighting was going to be in Room 871??
Earlier: Eliot Spitzer’s ‘Kristen’ Somehow Much More Adorable Than Anticipated, Daily Intel’s Complete coverage of the Spitzer Scandal
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Kristian Laliberte & Co. Developing a ‘Hills’-in-Manhattan Reality Show
Sometimes, the world around you creates situations that you never thought could be so perfectly distilled into brilliance that it’s just stunning, like the invention of meat on a stick and that Website about men who look like old lesbians. This is one of those times. Kristian Laliberte on camera, all day long? What could be better? (Well, a competition show where monkeys throw poop at Oscar-winning actresses would be better, but we like to keep our expectations within reach.) According to Emily Brill, authoress of EssentiallyEmily.com, an ABC-affiliated reality show is being developed about Kristian and his two friends Devorah Rose and Annabel Vartanian. It’s apparently supposed to be “a Manhattan version of The Hills,” which we would have thought would be impossible because nobody here in New York is that bad at acting. Still, the prospect sounds delicious. Kristian is the lovably quotable socialite/stylist/something-or-other you might remember from that party you went to when you were drunk but not as drunk as everybody else. Devorah is the editor of Social Life magazine, and Annabel is that girl who passed out at the La Perla party in December. It’s going to be about their raucous lives running around the city and desperately striving to be relevant, or at least, you know, present and photographed. Apparently they asked Brill to be on the show. “Emily, tell me the truth. Look at me,” someone involved asked her. “Do you want to be FAMOUS?” Brill considered, and then replied: “No. I want to be respected.” Man, this show is already gold.
SO, ABOUT THAT TELEVISION SHOW [Essentially Emily]
Update: Kristian just called to tell us that Brill “was never involved in any stage of what we were doing.” Apparently the filming that’s been done was not for a reality show, it’s “more like a documentary.” Hey, we’ll take it any way we can get it!
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‘Kristen’ and Eliot Issue Dual Releases
Last night Eliot Spitzer finally released his official letter of resignation. It was short, simple, and hand-signed:
Dear Speaker Silver and Majority Leader Bruno,
I am writing to advise you that I am resigning my position as Governor of the State of New York effective 12:00 noon on Monday, March 17, 2008.
Sincerely,
Eliot Spitzer
Governor
We love that (a) he’s still governor until noon on Monday, which is surely a few extra hours that Paterson didn’t ask for (think of how many personal checks pardons he can issue in that time!) and (b) how he had to put “Eliot Spitzer, Governor” at the bottom of the letter. Savor that, dude. “Eliot Spitzer, Attorney-at-law” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
But more importantly, as Vulture pointed out, our beloved “Kristen” had a very important new release today, too. Her latest song track! It’s called “Move Ya Body.” We were going to make a joke about that song title and Eliot Spitzer, but then we realized that every pop name ever could be a pun about hookers and governors.
Resignation Letter Released [NYDN]
Kristen Releases Another Song! [Vulture]
Earlier: Eliot Spitzer’s ‘Kristen’ Somehow More Adorable Than Anticipated
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Spitzer’s Crashing and Burning May Put Congestion Pricing Back on the RoadIn one of its more curious repercussions, it looks like Eliot Spitzer’s fall might mean the resurrection of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing agenda. The groups pushing for a fee on midtown driving to fund mass-transit improvements say that governor designate David Paterson’s reputation as a conciliator bodes well for brokering a deal on the controversial proposal. As it stands, city and state lawmakers must adopt a proposed pricing plan by March 31 to retain a $354 million federal start-up grant — but that too could now change. The city will likely play the our-state-government-is-in-crisis card, pressing the Feds — who badly want to see New York get the money — to extend the deadline. (An ally of Sheldon Silver sniffed: “The mayor’s office has cooked up lots of deadlines and may be cooking up this one, too.”)
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The Long Hand of the Trumps Slaps Madame Tussauds Right in Her Wax FaceIn the most hilarious press release we’ve received all week, today we learned that Ivanka Trump actually doesn’t send nail polish to Madame Tussauds weekly to spruce up the wax mannequin in her likeness. We can only imagine the nasty personal phone calls that the Donald made to some poor executive at Tussauds in order to cause them to squeak out this apology. They probably involved a lot of scathing sarcasm and scowling head bobs that you could just hear through the phone. Below, the statement:
Madame Tussauds New York would like to set the record straight. On Friday, the Daily News called and was inadvertently given incorrect information by a Tussauds employee. Unfortunately, the employee thought the Daily News was asking about a different figure. Madame Tussauds New York does not in fact have a figure of Ivanka Trump… yet. We apologize for the confusion. Madame Tussauds loves the Trumps and is very proud of its figures of Donald and Ivana Trump, as well as its more than 200 lifelike figures.
OH MY GOD — are they saying Ivana Trump is sending nail polish for her wax likeness at the museum? That’s even better!
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Predict Which Pun the ‘Post’ Will Choose for Tomorrow’s Spitzer Cover!
Obviously, our wit will never match the staggering genius of the minds behind New York Post headlines. But, as we wait for some, any new information to emerge in the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, we can’t help but fall into that age-old game: Guess What the Post Is Gonna Say Tomorrow! If the governor resigns tonight, there’s a chance the coverage will have moved on to something about the new African-American (and legally blind) governor, David Paterson. But in all likelihood, no matter what happens, there will be a completely spectacular and vicious pun on the cover, along with a terribly unflattering picture of Spitzer. Below, we’ve come up with our best guesses — and we admit, they’re not that good. In the comments, please help us out with your best pun stylings:
NAILED
SCREWED
SPENT
RING STING
HOOK, LINE & SPITZER
STEAMROLLED
BLOWING OFF STEAM
LOVE POTION #9
A NIGHT AT THE SPITZ
AN EL’ OF A GOOD TIME
SPITZER SWALLOWS
Update: Our friend Jeff over at Portfolio has a pretty good one: “LOVE GOV”
Update: And the Post went with… HO NO! We congratulate them for finding something that none of you come up with. Thanks for all your suggestions — we think our favorite was LOVE GUV DOESN’T LIKE TO WEAR “GLOVE” by “Creativeunderclass.”
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What We Know About Client 9From a redacted copy of the sealed complaint about the Emperor’s Club prostitution ring, we were able to extract the following details about Client 9’s dealings with the organization, and his Washington liaison. Client 9, according to the Times, is the one alleged to be Governor Eliot Spitzer. We have no official confirmation of this. But below are the things that we do know about this mysterious player from the legal papers:
• He refused to use a “traditional wire transfer” to pay the organization but arranged for an Emperor’s Club girl to take Amtrak down to Washington for a visit.
• Client 9 seems to have used the service before.
• He also thought the choice of his prostitute, “Kristen,” was “great” and “wonderful.”
• The agency charged him $4,100 for “Kristen“‘s visit.
• The tryst took place in room 871 of a Washington hotel. On a side note, the domain www.room871.com has already been purchased.
• Client 9 was willing to pay “extra” for “better” services. “Kristen” was a pretty brunette, petite, five-foot-five and 105 pounds.
• The fee ended up being $4,300, with the “extras.”
• “Kirsten” did not think Client 9 was difficult, but he might have asked her to do things (“basic things”) that “you might not think were safe.”
Earlier: Governor Spitzer Involved With ‘Prostitution Ring’
You Can Say This About The Girls Of The Emperor’s Club, They’re Not Morons
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The Annals of Socialite Upstarts: Out With Olivia Palermo, in With Emily Brill?So January was cold, and February was short, but now it’s finally March. And you know what that means? It’s party time! No, not for you. For people who matter. We know since SocialiteRank.com shut down nearly a year ago, you haven’t been as able to keep track of what’s been going on with Tinsley and Zani and Margherita, but, trust us, they’re still out every night, flawlessly executing that arm move that Ellen Page has been trying to imitate! See, March is when the events for young socialites really begin in earnest. Last night saw the Riverkeeper benefit at the Hearst Tower, hosted by the ecocharity’s junior council. Scheduled next week is the American Museum of Natural History’s Winter Dance and the Frick’s Young Fellows’ Ball. A quick peek down the list of all the host committees show that, this year, all the fun is dominated by one set of friends. Claire Bernard, Maggie Betts, and Jamie Johnson are on the committees of all three of the above events, and they are joined here and there by Amanda Hearst, Hudson Morgan, Annie Churchill, Andrew Black, Derek Blasberg, and Byrdie Bell. This is a little bit of a shift away from the Tinsley-Dabney-Lydia axis, but it’s essentially the same gang. Which isn’t surprising, only…where’s Olivia Palermo?
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Anchor Dan Rather Left Out of ‘48 Hours’ Twentieth-Anniversary PartyEverybody who is anybody in television news — with one glaring omission — showed up for last week’s twentieth-anniversary blowout for 48 Hours, which, after 60 Minutes, is CBS News’ most durable magazine program. On hand for the party in the twentieth-floor lounge at 230 Fifth Avenue were CBS chairman Leslie Moonves, CBS News president Sean McManus, 48 Hours executive producer Susan Zirinsky, former CBS president Sir Howard Stringer, and former news president Andrew Heyward.
Missing was Dan Rather.
The original anchor of 48 Hours — who, along with Stringer, got the show off the ground in 1986 with a highly rated pilot, “48 Hours on Crack Street,” and pushed the network suits to put it on the weekly schedule — wasn’t invited. In an awkward phone call before the celebration, Zirinsky explained to Rather that he couldn’t come under the circumstances.
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Mario Cuomo Not So Sure This Congestion-Pricing Thing Is HappeningMario Cuomo, like Mayor Bloomberg, knows presidential-bid scrutiny. But he knows Albany even better. And the former governor doesn’t see congestion pricing coming out of the legislative swamp by the end of March — when lawmakers must adopt a commission-sponsored plan to keep the city from losing $354 million in pledged federal transit aid. “I’m not ruling it out, but I’m not ruling it in,” Cuomo told us (there’s that hedging we remember from the presidential-run talk). After hearing Eliot Spitzer talk up an ambitious budget proposal to the developer-heavy Association for a Better New York, the former governor noted that Mayor Bloomberg’s air-quality cause seemed conspicuously absent from his successor’s weighty wish list. “He has a complicated and very impressive agenda,” Cuomo tells us, “and if congestion pricing were on it, we’d have heard about it.” To be fair, Spitzer’s slideshow did include an endorsement of the MTA’s five-year capital plan, which relies on upwards of $4 billion from bonds that congestion-pricing fees would support. But Albany can always find ways to borrow more money — that’s something Cuomo knows, too. —Alec Appelbaum
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Rufus Wainwright: ‘Britney Spears Is Basically an Analogy for the World’So we recently talked to musician Rufus Wainwright about his new big plan for the summer solstice, or, as he calls it, Blackout Sabbath. He wants everybody to turn off all their lights and unplug everything in their house for twelve hours, in order to better think about how you personally can save the environment for the next year. He’s even been collecting magnets so that people can hang their ecoresolutions on the refrigerator. “In American culture, the fridge magnet and things that are on the fridge are really a strong indication of what is going on in one’s life,” he told us. “It has a certain status in the household. It’s almost like a little biblical in terms of, like, you know, This is the decree! Stamp it on the fridge with the magnet!” Indeed. We told Rufus we were impressed with his efforts to save the world and asked him about his efforts to save Britney Spears. He has said he is “probably the one person who can really help her.” That’s two awfully big goals! “Britney Spears is basically an analogy for the world. Whereas Judy Garland was an analogy for the world in the fifties and sixties, Britney is now,” he explained. “Save the whale! Oh, God, that’s awful.”
Related: Rufus Wants You to Do It in the Dark [NYM]
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Chris Smith: Tony Ricco’s Racial PoliticsIt’s textbook defense-lawyer strategy: dirty up the victim. And, yesterday, during opening arguments at the Sean Bell trial, the tactic was on full display, as the man who died in a hail of 50 NYPD bullets took a few more blows, this time to his reputation and character. Totally predictable, cringe-inducing — and entirely necessary if you’re defending the detectives who killed a seemingly defenseless man hours away from his wedding. What makes the argument far more interesting, and potentially more powerful, is the defense lawyer who’s using it. Anthony Ricco is one of the city’s most gifted defense attorneys. He also happens to be black and Muslim, and he favors fedoras and eyeglasses straight from the Malcolm X catalogue. While Ricco’s race helps mute the blue-versus-black story line and regularly draws him taunts from simplistic racial demagogues like councilman Charles Barron, the attitude Ricco deploys on behalf of his vilified clients is fascinatingly complicated.
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The ‘Real Housewives of New York City’ Don’t Exist in a VacuumAs you all know, Gossip Girl is returning to the airwaves soon, therefore saving us from having to unleash all of our obsessive glee on another unwitting subject. But if we were to do so, the victim of our endless critiques would probably have been The Real Housewives of New York City. Come on, you know you’re going to love hating yourself for loving to hate it. We got hold of the first two episodes, and they did not disappoint. The show serves to show us a whole new class of people that we haven’t really seen before. The Orange County edition was just as campy and trashy as one would expect; after all, money is what shows status out there. Here, class still matters. Real Housewives trains a telescope on the little-examined but arguably powerful firmament of wealthy adults in Manhattan, those who aggressively crowd around established society stars, hoping that some of the glitter may fall on them. They’re the people in the background of Bill Cunningham’s pictures in the “Styles” section, the donor names you don’t recognize, the bodies filling in the chairs at Da Silvano. It’s kind of uncomfortable to watch, because at the end of the day most of the women are sort of sweet, happy, and slightly flawed. You feel like you’re watching a show about your mom’s kooky friends. What saves the show, though, is the reactions of the supporting cast family members, friends, and staff around the five ladies. They make the women redeemable and real. For every nutty social climber, apparently there is a nanny, a tennis pro, one to three children who have a 50-50 chance of surviving boarding school, and a devoted husband or boyfriend. This week in New York, we profiled our five favorites. Check it out, and if anybody’s slept with the tennis pro, e-mail us at [email protected]. We don’t want to publish anything; we just have some questions.
Behind Every Housewife [NYM]
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Schnabel: He’ll Always Be a Schwinner to UsAs you probably know, Julian Schnabel did not win an Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly last night. In fact, he lost, to the bespectacled directors of a movie with “few sympathetic characters, brutal, unredeemable violence, and an ending in which the closest thing the story has to a protagonist is killed offstage.” The disappointment on Schnabel’s face when the verdict was issued was difficult for us to bear, even as it quickly turned to annoyance. Clearly, this was a political, polemical conspiracy, you could see him thinking. Javier Bardem! That hair! Gimmicky. But what did it mean? Does it mean that the world at large will never recognize Schnabel’s true magnificence? This we cannot believe. Though we are bowed by this defeat, we are not broken. The Schnabe comes from a long line of stout, hairy, strong souls, and he will emerge again, like, yes, a butterfly from a pupa. Until then, Schnabel, we Schalute thee.
Related: Julian Schnabel is My Cousin [Consent of the Governed]
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Moby: Stealth Slut?Today Moby reminded “Page Six” about his “brief affair” with Natalie Portman. We don’t know about you, but we didn’t know and had never imagined that Moby had had an affair, brief or otherwise, with Natalie Portman, because what? Moby is a short, bald vegan from Connecticut. Natalie Portman is a Japanese-speaking Harvard graduate and total babe whom most of America has lusted after since she was 13 years old. But then again, we’ve heard this kind of thing about Moby before. Like, a lot. In fact we know several people who have sipped his Teany, if you know what we mean, and we don’t even know that many people. “I guess in some people’s eyes, [nerds] might be mildly sexy — and, as a nerd, I’m certainly happy to enjoy some of the effects of that,” he told the Post. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Moby is the type of dude who gets laid all the time, precisely because he doesn’t look like he ever gets laid. He’s pale and small and sensitive and a decent amount of famous, and he remembers your name, and only later do you find out that he is actually a Master Pickup Artist. You, Moby, get a medallion. And from now on, Daily Intel decrees that all men who look unassuming and are later revealed to be sluts shall be called “Mobys.”
Nerd Envy [NYP]
Related: Jonathan Ames to Bring Moby, Nudity to Pitkin’s for a Rematch
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A Wave of Online Banking Frauds Soaks HSBCNews to everyone who uses HSBC online banking: We’ve heard of four different people who mysteriously had a couple of thousand dollars withdrawn from their HSBC checking accounts this week. When they called the bank to figure out what was going on, they discovered that it’s been happening to hundreds of other people. So much so, that the bank’s fraud department can’t keep up with the reports. A quick Internet search turned up this consumerist.com post on the subject, which explains that it’s a widespread problem among online banking users. According to the Website, a fraud investigator told one customer that the bank’s “fraud department was so overwhelmed, it was still in the developing stage” of how to handle it. When we contacted HSBC, they acknowledged there was an issue but reassured us:
We are ensuring zero liability for our customers and are reissuing ATM/debit cards to those impacted. HSBC has well-established internal security measures to prevent fraudulent activity. We take fraud of any kind very seriously and are continually monitoring customer activity to identify and avert fraud.
“I don’t what angers me more, the fact that I am missing all this money or that this crook only got charged a $1.50 withdrawal fee!” one customer, who lost nearly $3,000, told us. “They tell me it will take 10 to 20 business days to get my money back in my account. This is not a very impressive turnaround for the ‘world’s bank.’” So, if you have an HSBC account and use online banking, you should probably check your accounts today. You’d rather deal with it today than stew over the weekend about it. You’ve got guacamole to make for the Oscars!
Is HSBC Straining Under an ‘Unprecedented’ Wave of Fraud Activity? [Consumerist]
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What Are Your Favorite Steals and Deals?The only thing New Yorkers love more than a great deal is the chance to unceremoniously brag about it to anyone within earshot. For our upcoming 2008 Best of New York issue, we’re looking to you to tell us what you think is the best steal in the city, and why. Is there a prix fixe brunch on your block that you’d pay double for (but are thrilled that you don’t have to)? Or a can’t-live-without cobbler who costs a fraction of what he should? We want your happy hours, your twofers, your half-offs, and your free rides. Send your best bargains and all-time favorite steals (plus your reasons for loving them) to [email protected], and we’ll publish the best of the bunch in the ever-definitive Best of New York issue. The deadline for submissions is February 24, but the glory of a good deal lives forever.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger Also Loves Anderson’s Biceps!Readers! You are the worst! Why didn’t anybody tell us about this? Last night, we were in bed before Conan O’Brien went on, so we missed Anderson Cooper’s appearance. But apparently an incredibly, stupendously amazing thing happened. HE TALKED ABOUT HIS BICEPS. And not even just in a chitchat-y “Sometimes I use these things for lifting and gesticulating” way. He told an anecdote about how big they are. He’s totally ripping off our best work! It was after Conan asked him whether anyone had ever thrown him off his game before he had to moderate a debate (as if anyone could ruffle our Manderson). Cooper then told a story about how, once, before a Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan library, he spotted Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the audience. Click above to view the clip. The important stuff comes about 3:11 in.
Anderson: What was weird is, and I’ve never met the man, and we didn’t talk then or anything but moments before the debate started, he looked at me and motioned to his bicep, and he was like, “You’ve been working out.” And I was completely thrown. Pleased that Arnold Schwarzenegger had noticed that I’d been working out, I guess.
Conan: What if he was telling you, “I will crush you with my bicep”?
Anderson: It could have been that. I could have misinterpreted it. For the first five minutes, I was flustered by that.
OMG. Our campaign to get everyone to recognize the glory of Anderson Cooper’s arms has just taken a great leap forward! Do you think he gets flustered when we talk about his biceps?
Click here to read the rest of our loving, caressing coverage of Anderson Cooper’s twin torso turtles.
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Alex Kuczynski Uses Her Socialite Magic on Our ‘Real Housewives’When grappling with how to handle the advent of the new Bravo show The Real Housewives of New York City, the Times was faced with a conundrum: Here is a show that will purportedly expose a sector of society that the newspaper, in its “Style” section and in its T magazine, regularly covers. But it’s also trashy reality television. How to cover? Thankfully, the geniuses at T came up with a solution just in time for the show’s March 2 debut. They took matters into their own hands, and, for one photograph, at least, they grabbed the cast of the show and classed them up. They put on a “lingerie party” organized by the owner of upscale boutique La Petite Coquette in the West Village. They styled the ladies, thrust Champagne glasses into their hands, and sent in Times style icon Alex Kuczynski to moderate it all for their Women’s Fashion Spring 2008 issue. Above, you’ll see the fruits of their labors, an image from their story coming out this Sunday in the paper (it’s not online yet). Don’t they look sophisticated? The T people are really geniuses. Nothing makes a person look classy like sticking them next to someone in her undies.
T Magazine [NYT]
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Are the Other Ivy League Colleges Cooler Than Columbia?Today a Dartmouth student blog took a peek at the numbers of alcohol-related infractions per thousand students in each of the Ivy League schools. Unsurprisingly, Dartmouth itself came out on top. There’s not a lot going on off-campus in terms of nightlife, and since the popular fraternities are in and around school grounds, it makes sense that the university would be busting people with high regularity. But what we find more telling is that Columbia University is the Ivy League school with the second-lowest percentage of drinking infractions. Below Brown. Is that possible? There are plenty of reasons kids at Columbia wouldn’t get busted as much (they can drink anywhere in the city, they are too cool to get drunk), but the laws of physics imply that there would be a high level of obvious partying up there in Morningside Heights. We’re talking:
Hundreds of Freshman + Dozens of Places to get IDs x Thousands of Delis Where Owners Don’t Care If You Are Underage / Limited Entrances And Exits To Dorms That Are Monitored For Safety = Easily Detectable Drunkenness
This makes us worry. Surely our proud Manhattan Ivy Leaguers should be getting busted more frequently. Clearly the school is not working hard enough. Or is it possible that our best and brightest are the second-lamest in all the Ivy League*? That would be pretty devastating.
How Do the Ivies Stack Up on Alcohol Enforcement? [Joe’s DartBlog via IvyGate]
*Daily Intel does not advocate underage drinking. As to whether or not we think it is “cool,” we plead the Fifth.
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We’re Out Buying a Mattress for Our New Digs!
It’s Presidents’ Day, and Daily Intel is joining the postal workers, bank tellers, and other service people disappointing and frustrating you by not working today. We’ll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled program. Have a Schnabulous day!
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Doogie and Van Wilder Share a Moment of AwkwardnessIf any of you went to see Definitely, Maybe last night, or you know, have seen any of the ads for it, you already know that it’s basically the same premise as How I Met Your Mother. This has been covered pretty steadily since news of the film came out. But today on Live!, the awkwardness came to the fore. Neil Patrick Harris was subbing for Regis Philbin, and Ryan Reynolds was one of the celebrity guests. Reynolds stars as the handsome, likable dad in Definitely, and Harris stars as the despicable, hilarious Lothario Barney in Mother. Now, it turns out that Ryan and Neil are old friends: Neil even recalled having Ryan over to his house to discuss whether Ryan should accept a role on Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place (he did). But even their friendliness could not avoid the following moment, when Neil, Ryan and Kelly started discussing Ryan’s latest film:
Harris: Romantic comedy. [Preparing himself.] What’s it about?
Reynolds: It’s about a guy whose explaining his impending divorce to his daughter, and she wants to know how I met her…[pauses, probably remembers he had practiced a different way of describing the plot] uh mom.
Harris: How I Met Your Mother. [Gleefully] INTERESTING.
Harris let it go at that, but we consider it a small victory on behalf of the cast and fans of How I Met Your Mother everywhere.
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Uno’s Final Moments Before His Huge Westminster WinJust before Uno the beagle chomped down on his historic Westminster victory on Tuesday, New York had a reporter backstage at Madison Square Garden watching his tense last few minutes.
While stylists primp a nearby Sealyham terrier and its owner before Westminster’s Best in Show contest, Uno sleeps. It’s barely an hour until he makes history as the first beagle to take top honors, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he’s splayed out in his crate. Nor are his owners worried. Whether they spend 45 minutes brushing and combing his hair or not, Uno’s coat will look the same. “It’s a low-maintenance breed,” says co-owner Jon Woodring. Still, Uno stands at attention as handler Aaron Wilkerson snips and cuts the dog’s hindquarters and runs clippers over the beagle’s sensitive bits.
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Something We All Hate in Common: Terrible DoormenSo, recently, we had a bad experience at a club. It was one of perhaps one million bad experiences we’ve had at clubs, and it got us thinking about the universality of such events. We were waiting to get into Suzie Wong for a party for which we were on the list. We even knew the people throwing it. But for some reason, the doorman wouldn’t let us in. Cell phones didn’t work inside the club, so we couldn’t reach our friends. We patiently explained the situation to the doorman, who responded with disdain and rudeness. (We’re apparently not the only people to have trouble at this club.) We decided to sit and wait politely, which is humiliating but almost always works eventually. But as time went by, and we kept getting the “We’re at capacity” excuse, even though the doorman was letting other (much more trashy, might we add) guests in ahead of us, we started getting mad. This guy may be an idiot, we thought, but surely he recognizes the face we are making. You know, the “I’m going to be patient, but you have NO idea who you are messing with” face?
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Your Daily Intel Editors Are Characters in ‘Definitely, Maybe’!Last night, we went to the Ziegfeld premiere of the movie Definitely, Maybe. It’s that movie where Ryan Reynolds tells his daughter (Abigail Breslin) about all the women he’s loved over the years. Now, we won’t give away the ending, because that would be sort of like telling you what happens in the final episode of the show How I Met Your Mother. Okay, it would be exactly like that. So, anyway, one of the characters that Reynolds dates in the course of his storytelling is a lovely young writer, played by Rachel Weisz. She’s struggling to make it, and on her second meeting with Reynolds (at a book party for her literary-legend ex-boyfriend), he asks her what she’s been up to lately. And she replies, wait for it
I’m writing these really dumb items for New York Magazine while waiting for my big break to come.
If you were sitting in the Ziegfeld Theater last night, at that very moment you would have heard — from the far reaches of the back of the audience — an audible shriek. That was us.
Definitely, Maybe [Official site]
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‘Gossip Girl’ Will Return Before the Summer!If you’re wondering what’s going to happen now that the strike is over, head over to Vulture’s Poststrike Encyclopedia. They have a complete roster of what shows are coming back and when and how. And as far as we’re concerned, the best news is that Gossip Girl will be back to complete its season before the summer! They still have 9 of their 22 planned episodes to go. It will be back in April and might complete all the rest of the hour-long shows going into the summer. Guess what that means? Months more coverage of the Greatest Show of Our Time! And up to nine more exhaustive episode recaps! That’s okay, take a minute to revel in your own joy. We’d write more, but we think we just blacked out.
Vulture’s Poststrike Encyclopedia: When Will My Show Be Back? [Vulture]
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The Spice Girls Set List, As Interpreted by Hamish BowlesSo last night we went to Newark to see the Spice Girls. It was, as you might imagine, bonkers. Before the show began, we found ourselves hanging out in the Belvedere Lounge, eating chicken fingers and drinking to prepare. As we looked around at all the girls and gays dressed up as their favorite Spice Girl, we were struck by the notion that, in the entire Prudential Arena, there might not be a single person we knew — mostly because nearly everyone there was in their teens (which means they must have been, like, 5 when the Spice Girls were in their heyday). And none of them were wearing any bottoms. But then, just as we were about to head down to our seats, whom do we see sidling up to order a Belvedere but Vogue European editor-at-large Hamish Bowles! By our rough estimate, he was the only celebrity (okay, near celebrity) in the audience in Newark last night. Why is Hamish Bowles at the Spice Girls concert?, we wondered. Is he friends with Posh? Did he want to check out the Roberto Cavalli costumes? Eh, who cares? We just wanted to see what he does when they play “Wannabe.” And we happened to be sitting with a great view of him, in all his suited glory! So, below, we present to you what Hamish Bowles did during the entire Spice Girls concert in Newark.
8:25 p.m.: During the preshow D.J. set, Hamish bobs his head ever so slightly during 50 Cent’s “It’s Your Birthday.”
8:40 p.m.: The Spice Girls rise up through the stage! The crowd goes insane, with every single girl and boy screaming at the exact same pitch (we think it was a high C). They begin “Spice Up Your Life.” Hamish stands with his arms folded.
8:43 p.m.: Hamish claps twice.
Gays Love All Over Posh at Hiro, But Michael Lucas Has a ComplaintStraight from the homo’s mouth: Posh Spice, a.k.a. Victoria Beckham, made a surprise appearance at Hiro Ballroom last night, where the gays were congregated to celebrate their weekly dance party. Village Voice scribe Michael Musto today reports on his blog that she strutted to the stage amid a cacophony of cheering from the assembled crowd:
“I have never seen so many sexy men in one place,” she gushed to the crowd, I guess never having been to hubby’s locker room. “Thank you for supporting my entire career! I think I am a gay man in a woman’s body — a very THIN woman, by the way. Have a lot to drink and dance. You are all totally major!” The gays cheered as if having witnessed a visitation from Mount Sinai, but one drunk barreled up to me to belch, “Tell her to go and get her fucking husband here!”
Bless the girl. She knows her fan base. (Meanwhile, we totally saw Baby and Scary Spices the previous night at Marquee for glam publicist Lauren Kucerak’s birthday party. Apparently those two don’t know that it isn’t straight dudes from Long Island at Marquee who are buying tickets to their concerts.) But there’s at least one influential New York homosexual who doesn’t heart Posh. “I think I would commit suicide if I had her skin,” porn star and activist Michael Lucas told New York at the Marc Jacobs show last Friday. “Her skin is yellow with big pores, each pore you could fit a big [piece of] caviar in. I don’t know why there’s such a big to-do.” Man, if that wasn’t the gayest insult you’ve ever heard in your life, we don’t know what is.
Posh Meets the Gays: Spice Spice Baby [VV]
For more dish and disses from the Marc Jacobs fete, click here.
Update: And we totally forgot Ginger Spice was at the opening of the new mega-club Mansion (in the old Crobar space - it’s fab) on Friday night. Hello, after we left, there were no gays there either.
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Union Rat Invades Gramercy Park, Emerges VictoriousAfter two weeks of unsightly picketing and the (even more unwelcome) presence of a giant inflatable union rat in genteel Gramercy Park, Local 6 of Unite Here and the Players Club reached an agreement Friday afternoon. It reinstates sixteen union members from the club’s restaurant and bar operations who were fired as a cost-cutting measure. John Turchiano, a union spokesman, said the terminated union members return to work today with back pay. “They got everything they wanted, and now we will sit down with management and try out to work out any financial difficulty now that they’re abiding by an arbiter’s ruling,” he said, referring to an arbiter’s January 15 ruling ordering the Players Club to reinstate the terminated employees with back pay.
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‘Daily News’ to Start New Gossip Column on SundayAfter over a year without a weekend-only gossip column, the Daily News is going to launch “Full Disclosure With Jo Piazza” on Sunday, we hear.* Running a half-page once a week, the column will cover the same kind of dish and celebrity news as the tabloid’s current columns, “Rush & Molloy” and Ben Widdicombe’s “Gatecrasher.” Piazza, whom you may remember as the girl who got hit on by a married Nick Lachey at the Super Bowl in 2005, has been covering celebrities since her days as a legwoman for “Rush & Molloy” three years ago. She also has a Fashion Week blog and column. Previous weekend columnists for the tab, which has tested a handful out to compete with “Page Six“‘s seven-day coverage, have included Widdicombe and Michael Gross. We think this is good news, because it’s okay for you to not read us for your latest news and gossip on the weekends. After all, you need to read about Britney Spears sometime.
*We hear this because Jo has totally been besties with Daily Intel editor Chris since the day Jo body-slammed her way past a doorman at Bungalow 8 to get into Chris’s birthday party in 2004, earning his respect forever.
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Melania Is Getting a Wild(enstein) Look in Her EyeWe’ve always sort of thought that Melania and Donald Trump looked like one another. Not in their facial structure, per say, but they both do this Sports Illustrated–swimsuit-model pose for pictures, where they squint their eyes and open their mouths a little bit. It’s like they just burped during sex and are trying to blow it away or something, without ruining the moment. But now we’re sad to say that Melania is beginning to look a little bit more like someone else these days. Granted Melania is still stunningly beautiful and has a long way to go before people start calling her a “cat woman.” But there’s definitely something going on with her eyes there that is beginning to look a bit too familiar.
Day Six at the Tents
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The ‘Times’ Notices Something Skinny About Male ModelsHey, guys, remember when we noticed that male models, starting with the fashion shows in Milan, were surprisingly skinny this year? Well, eventually Guy Trebay noticed, too! He has a whole story in the Times about it today. Now, to our eyes, the models in New York aren’t as coltish and sunken-cheeked as they were in Milan. But they are skinnier than usual. Take the normally buff boys of Duckie Brown, for example. Their silhouettes are much narrower this year. For more evidence, click through our slideshows from menswear (and mixed) shows like DKNY, Phillip Lim, and Thom Browne.
The Vanishing Point [NYT]
Related: The Skinny on Milan’s Male Models
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A Smorgasboard of Video Look Books for Your Mid–Fashion Week SlumpNormally on Wednesdays at Daily Intel, we treat you with a Video Look Book post in which we go on the street to videotape some of the fabulously dressed New Yorkers that surround us every day. It’s an homage to Fashion Editor Amy Larocca’s weekly “Look Book” in the print version of New York. But this week, we don’t have one. That’s because the Video Look Book has found a new home, on nohib.com’s glamorous new fashion blog, The Cut. And it’s been thriving there! Since Fashion Week started, the blog has hosted seven new Video Look Books. If you’re missing your fix of people who dress (or think they dress) better than you do, click below to see the characters we’ve found this week. And while you’re at it, poke around at The Cut and in all the rest of nohib.com’s extensive online fashion coverage, including up-to-date slideshows and model and designer bios!
•Chicago Shopgirl Flies In for Marc by Marc Jacobs
•The Trend Forecaster Sees Bright Colors in the Future
• Plum Sykes Exposes Fashion Week’s Cold Truth
• Recent Fashion Grad Wants Wintour’s Help
• Rugby Ralph Lauren Designer Beats on Her Miu Miu Bag
• Freelance Stylist David C. Melton Will Give You Vertigo
• Cognac Wellerlane Loves Fur, Poodles, and Fake Eyelashes
The Cut [NYM]
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Tonight: Blogging the Super Tuesday ResultsIn honor of the orgy of voting that is going on all over the country today, Daily Intel is staying up late tonight. Really late. Starting at 8:30 p.m., New York columnist Kurt Andersen is going to be live-blogging the primary results. Then, later in the evening, Chris Smith will take a look at voting in our home state and what it means, and John Heilemann will analyze the national results on both the Democratic and Republican sides of the table. So tonight, when you get home from the gym, after your friends have arrived to watch the results and you’ve ordered pizza and uncorked that magnum of Cavit Pinot Grigio that someone random dragged over, go ahead and log on to Nymag.com. After all, as the hours go on, even Lou Dobbs’s voice starts to pound against your eardrums like a Q-tip during a hangover (you know, like Chris Matthews’s voice does every day). We’ll be quietly examining what today’s voting means for the candidates and, more importantly, what it means for you.
P.S.: Last night, we were at the Met watching Carmen, and we totally spotted MSNBC’s Chuck Todd out of the office, on a date. Slacker!
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John King Wary of ‘Superdelegates,’ Anderson Cooper’s GunsEarlier this afternoon we cornered CNN anchor John King, who’d just finished with a CNN/Time live-panel discussion in the Time Warner Center, and discussed the irony of the Democratic-nomination system, in which delegates in each state primary and caucus are awarded proportionally, instead of a winner-take-all system. “Look, it’s a political party; they have the right to write their own rules,” said King, who used to sit in on DNC meetings as an AP reporter back in the day. “But one of the interesting things about it, if it keeps going on like it is, you could have a group of roughly 800 people — superdelegates — who decide who the nominee is, which you could argue is going [back] to the old smoke-filled back rooms, which is the least democratic way to do it.” This idea confused and saddened us, so we changed the subject to Anderson Cooper’s ostentatious biceps. “I give Anderson an enormous amount of credit, knowing what this business does to you, especially in a crazy year like this,” King said, possibly relieved someone had given him the chance to speak on the subject. “I’m giving myself a C-plus, at best, in getting to the gym and being more healthy, and the fact that Anderson can get an A throughout all this is a tribute to dedication and time-schedule discipline,” he said — quickly adding, “and I curse him for it.” —Dan Amira
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Wilmer Valderama, Marquee, Apparently Both Still AliveThe only thing worse than being on an e-mail list where you get spammed with invitations to Wilmer Valderama’s birthday party at Marquee (aren’t they both 70 years old by now?) is being on an e-mail list where you get spammed with invitations that are ALSO pleas to join a summer share in the Hamptons. “Please contact us if you’d like to do a Hamptons Share this summer!” read the chipper text of the e-mail that came with the invitation here. Wilmer Valderama? Sharing a house with people you don’t know? Trashy, overcrowded nightclubs? Wow, whoever these Rachel and Adam people are, we have to hand it to them. They’ve done the impossible: They made us look outside and thank the heavens that it is dark and sleeting out there. Summer, and the Hamptons, can not come slow enough for us.
Hamptons Holidays [Official Site]
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Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest: Messaging Buddies
In the above video, found for us so cleverly by Soup Cans, you can watch a (shakily filmed) segment of Kathy Griffin’s latest comedy routine. In this portion (click above to view), she reveals that while she was co-hosting a New Year’s Eve Times Square special with Cooper, he spent some time sending gossipy texts about her to none other than one of her favorite targets of ridicule, Ryan Seacrest. Apparently they are text buddies. Which means, and we’re just guessing here, that they’re probably IM buddies, too! So, because it’s Friday, we’ve gone and imagined up what we think is probably an extremely accurate imaginary IM conversation between CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and American Idol (and Super Bowl) host Ryan Seacrest:
OhSayCanYouSeacrest: Whazzzzzzzzzzzzzup
HanginWithMrAnderson: DOoooooooood whasssup
OhSayCanYouSeacrest: whatchoo up to
HanginWithMrAnderson: nothin man getting psyched for the superbowl
OhSayCanYouSeacrest: hell yeah you watchin me?
HanginWithMrAnderson: don’t tell the old ball and chain but I laid $500 on the g-men
OhSayCanYouSeacrest: word go jints
OhSayCanYouSeacrest: tough to stop brady and moss tho
HanginWithMrAnderson: stopping moss won’t be a problem with that pass rush
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Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein: The Set ListRemember yesterday, when Cindy Adams claimed that Jerry Springer the Opera had defiled the “holy temple” of Carnegie Hall? That the performance was “despicable, debasing, disgusting, degrading, dehumanizing, revolting,” etc? Well, we only wish she had been at Carnegie Hall last night. The downtown comedy club Comix set up a musical revue there, with proceeds to benefit the Writers Guild, starring Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and MadTV star Alex Borstein. It was riotous. Janeane Garofalo did some stand-up to introduce the pair (while also introducing the theory that if pristine screen goddess Natalie Portman were to ever defecate, the result would be rushed to Magnolia Bakery to make delightful “confections”), and then MacFarlane and Borstein took the stage to sing a song for every letter of the alphabet. They described the lineup as akin to “listening to a retard’s iPod.” Below, we have their set list. Remember, MacFarlane and Borstein voice many of the characters on Family Guy, and MacFarlane’s actual everyday voice is that of Brian, the alcoholic dog. Anyway, for diehard fans, here’s what you missed:
A. The theme from Animal House
B. “But I’m Yours,” from Family Guy
C. “Call Me” by Blondie, as sung by Borstein’s MadTV character Ms. Swan
D. “Don’t Stop Believin’”
E. “Edelweiss” [Ed: This is where it all began to go downhill.] Borstein interrupted MacFarlane to say that, as a Jew, she didn’t like how this song glorified the Austrians’ role in WWII. MacFarlane considered this, and then replied, “Carnegie Hall is not the place to bring your fucking Hebrew baggage.”
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The Union Rat Descends Upon Gramercy ParkIn 1888, Edwin Booth, the famed Shakespearean actor, along with Mark Twain, General William Tecumseh Sherman, and a slew of other distinguished American notables from the nineteenth century, formed their own club where they could hang out and smoke cigars and sip brandy and yap about the dramatic arts. They also created a fund to help struggling actors. They called themselves “The Players,” and their club was run out Booth’s old townhouse at 16 Gramercy Park, where it is still in operation.
In the past few days, the club’s picturesque Stanford White façade, facing the tony private park, has been partially blocked by a sight uncommon in this quiet residential neighborhood: the union rat. It’s a sign of lingering troubles within.
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2008 Electopedia: Now With Full Obama FlavorAs the election has morphed, so has New York’s comprehensive Electopedia. It’s now Obamafied! It’s got everything you needed to know about the Illinois senator but never thought to ask, like: Who is his worst enemy? How often does he go to church? And just how rich is he? Answers to those questions are already in there for our hometown senator, Hillary Clinton. But now, as battle gets heated (okay, stays heated? Gets scorching?), don’t forget to use the handy guide to figure out how they stack up on the issues they don’t talk about on TV.
2008 Electopedia
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Pepsi’s Super Bowl Ad Drags Justin Through NYC
Click above to witness Pepsi’s latest Super Bowl effort. As usual, their big ad involves a celebrity doing something slightly embarrassing and vaguely funny — remember Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey awkwardly dancing on cars? Or Diddy driving a Pepsi delivery truck? Or Britney Spears and Beyoncé as Gladiators? (Okay, that last one was awesome). But this one features an extended cameo by our favorite lady of all, New York City. Justin Timberlake starts out the commercial with some friends at his NYC restaurant, Southern Hospitality. He’s mysteriously yanked out the door and dragged up the side of a building (where SNL star Andy Samberg makes a predictably uncomfortable cameo). Then he’s thrown into the Hudson River near Chelsea and pulled into the suburbs (where he runs into Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and gets hit in the head with a flat-screen TV). We’re not really sure about the message of this ad, but anything that involves a celebrity getting dunked in the Hudson makes us happy. If not particularly thirsty.
Pepsi USA [Official site]
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ABC’s David Muir Gets Worried When the Pilot Isn’t in the CockpitYou know how we love Anderson Cooper? No? Well, welcome to our blog, we’re so happy to have first-time readers. For the rest of you, we have some bad news. We are developing a new newscasting crush. No, it’s not Shep Smith, though his eyebrows are appropriately intense. It’s ABC News’ David Muir. He’s tall, he’s gorgeous, he has one of those surreally serious Anchor Voices, and he’s one of New York’s rising stars of 2008’s campaign coverage. We tracked him down to ask him a few burning questions:
What do you think we’re going to know the day after Super Tuesday?
That we still have a long way to go until November.
What type of coverage intimidates you?
The idea of doing what Charlie Gibson did in New Hampshire … moderating two back-to-back debates with the Democrats and the Republicans. He set the bar.
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Baracking Out in Union Square“He just makes me want to sing,” Pete Weiss, 24, said of Barack Obama last night in Union Square. Weiss, a teacher and musician from Brooklyn, has spent the past two weeks playing the accordion and selling T-shirts in the Union Square subway station to raise money for Barack Obama’s presidential bid. “I started on Martin Luther King Day because I wanted to do something,” he said.
Taking a page from the Caroline Kennedy school of political endorsement, the young man explained that although he does not have any money of his own for the campaign, he thought he could at least do this. “The experience issue matters less to me,” he said. “[Obama] really just makes me inspired about politics again.” For the past four days, Weiss has been playing what he describes as “gut check” songs, like “This Land Is Your Land,” “You are My Sunshine,” and “Country Roads,” for MTA riders young and old, and although he has made only $80 in four days, his presence alone seems to elicit dialogue. A young blonde passerby gasped, “This is awesome!” and quizzed Weiss on his activism so passionately we thought they might start making out.