James Frey Is Getting a Wee Bit of Guidance From Davidson Goldin
So remember how yesterday we told you that James Frey (whom we totally saw at brunch two weekends ago at Café Cluny, meanwhile, and wondered whether his eggs were really scrambled) is pulling out all the stops for his new book tour? Like, while he’s reading from the tome, Bright Shiny Morning, the Eagles will play and there will be fireworks or something? Anyway, turns out that wasn’t just his idea. According to Jossip.com, Frey has enlisted the aid of Davidson Goldin, the former NY1 anchor whose star rose and fell with Dan Abrams’s at MSNBC. Abrams hired Goldin away from NY1 to become MSNBC’s editorial director when Abrams became top dog at the network, but when he went back to just hosting the show, Goldin was axed. Since then, the handsome (and tiny) newsreader has been trying to craft a new career as a media strategist. “I’ve been happy to give [Frey] guidance,” Goldin told Jossip. “James’s wife [Maya] has been a friend of mine since we were in college together.” Aw! Since Goldin’s been a producer, a writer, and an anchor, the media strategist route is probably a good one for him. He’s set for a great start! Except for, you know, the part where he chose as a first client the number-one enemy of Oprah Winfrey, the most powerful woman in the industry.
James Frey Taking Advice From Former MSNBC Exec Davidson Goldin [Jossip]
party lines
Carl Bernstein: We’ve Got the Hillary of ‘92 BackPlummy with his trademark bravado and bonhomie, Carl Bernstein took the stage at the packed 92nd Street Y last night to talk about A Woman in Charge, his bestselling, closely observed Hillary bio. “The theme of the fear of humiliation runs through her life,” he told the crowd, explaining that that’s why she resisted investigations into Whitewater, for example, and never told her closest law colleagues in Arkansas that she failed the D.C. bar exam. What’s more, he said, her current campaign has found both her and Bill slipping back into their old, unpalatable take-no-prisoners mode, rather than that more supple, negotiation-friendly Hillary that bloomed like a quiet flower in the Senate. “We’re seeing a real devolution back to the Hillary Clinton of the ‘92 campaign,” he said. “She’s shown a lot of her worst.”
intel
Oh NY1, Where Are Thy Stars?Even though it’s celebrating its fifteenth year on local cable, NY1, the city’s 24-hour news station, still has such a lovably, reliably dorky, do-it-yourself feel. But this weekend, it caused a small ripple when the News, then the Times, reported that longtime weekend anchor Gary Anthony Ramsay had left the station. It leaked that he’d phoned into the station’s talk show “The Call” under an assumed name (“Dalton, from the Upper East Side”) and mouthed off his own opinion on the current Bernard Kerik flap. “He did a really stupid thing,” said a former NY1 reporter, now with a local network affiliate. “His judgment was just horrendous.” No argument there — even Ramsey admitted as much in the Times. He was planning to leave the station soon, anyway. Which got us wondering: Just where do NY1ers go when they leave? The channel isn’t known as a star maker for anchors and reporters (why wasn’t Pat Kiernan in the running for Dan Rathers’s job, hmmmmm?). After the jump, a little list of where people have been going after they leave the 1 mother ship.
gossipmonger
The Plaza Turns 100The Plaza Hotel turns 100 on October 1, and she’s having a birthday party. MTV nixed having the stars of The Hills go to the Gossip Girl premiere party at Tenjune. On NY1’s Wiseguys, Ed Koch and Al D’Amato berated lefty Mark Green over MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” ad. Alina Shriver, sister-in-law of Maria and wife of Anthony Kennedy, just debuted a clothing line. A Pontiac had to be removed from the stage of 50 Cent’s concert at Hammerstein Ballroom because it had gas in the tank. Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Violet played in Sheep Meadow. Eartha Kitt, better known as Catwoman, says she’s 80 but still “burning.”
intel
The Mayor, His Wife, His Press Secretary, and His ‘Very Good Friend’
We’ve been reading a lot about Rudy Giuliani lately. There was that Voice piece yesterday on why his kids are right to hate him. There’s the New Yorker profile we finally got around to reading last night (and which seemed only to provide a Steinbergian New Yorker’s View of Rudy to the rest of the country — was there anything in it, other than that his father, in addition to being a small-time gangster, was also a mean disciplinarian, that you didn’t already know?). And there’s the Harper’s cover we’ve been looking at on our coffee table for a week or so now, though we can’t quite bring ourselves to crack it.
21 questions
Pat Kiernan Is Saving Up for a Slurpee MachineName: Pat Kiernan
Age: 38
Job: Morning anchor, NY1 News and (as of July 9) host of VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture.
Neighborhood: Upper West Side
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Peter Jennings. He made it seem so easy.
gossipmonger
Anand Jon Was Always CreepyDesigner Anand Jon, who’s charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, is a publicity whore and total creep. Among the dogs in Lindsay Lohan’s life right now are a Yorkie, a Jack Russell, and Jude Law. Uma Thurman and André Balazs officially broke up yesterday. Nicole Richie collapsed on the set of The Simple Life in Malibu. A woman once died in Jay McInerney’s bed. The Jewish Theater of New York wants the Times to fire drama editor Rick Lyman for allegedly passing on reviewing Last Jew in Europe because of pressure from the Polish government. NY1 political anchor Dominic Carter wrote a book about his hard-knock childhood. Country-music star Merle Haggard backs Hillary Clinton for president but is not ready to fully commit to her. Florida advertising mogul Jordan Zimmerman is backing Mitt Romney for president. Two more top editors from Life & Style quit.
intel
NY1 to Launch Eleven O’Clock NewscastIf Arnold Diaz’s Fox 5 antics fill you with shame, if Sue Simmons’s NewsChannel 4 banter makes you want to chuck something at your TV, if you’re just looking for something calm and earnest at eleven o’clock, no-frills, low-budget, then lovably dorky NY1 has some great news for you: The local all-news station is starting its own late-night newscast, to launch Monday night, January 22. “You’re not going to get stories about the latest person fired off The Apprentice or about the killer salad bar,” promises NY1 exec Steve Paulus. Lewis Dodley will anchor along with, naturally, a white woman — Paulus won’t yet reveal who it is, but he says she’s a former NY1 reporter who left the station several years ago — and, unlike much of the station’s news programming, it’ll be broadcast live, with the anchors tossing to a mix of taped and live segments and reporters in the field. Paulus expects a good response from NY1’s loyal fans. “People have told me they watch us so much that our logo gets burned into their plasma screens,” he says. —Tim Murphy
gossipmonger
Thrice-Married Giuliani Is McInerney’s Love ExpertAt Jay McInerney’s wedding to Anne Hearst, Rudy Giuliani spoke about love and Dan Aykroyd got the crowd dancing. Salman Rushdie is impressed with his son’s game, and vice versa. Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun is in the hospital and not doing well. Kurt Cobain wanted to divorce Courtney Love, a new book claims. Lauren Davis “totally disregarded her responsibilities” as junior chair of the Winter Wonderland Ball Friday night to go party at Bungalow 8 and the Gramercy Park Hotel instead. Britney Spears has a new music-producer boyfriend, and he looks just like K-Fed. Beyoncé Knowles calls her onstage persona “Sasha,” admits to not liking her. Penélope Cruz dropped off Orlando Bloom before heading to the TomKat post-honeymoon party. People ate and bid on a lot of truffles at the Four Seasons Saturday. Andrew Sarris was in the restroom during the vote for Best Animated Feature at the New York Film Critics Circle’s awards, and his choice (A Scanner Darkly) ended up losing to Happy Feet by one vote. Someone claims that Ed Burns’s band is better than the Rolling Stones. A former reporter is suing NY1 for fostering a sexually hostile workplace, but execs of the cable channel deny the charges. Keanu Reeves chatted up a cheesy blonde. Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl spent $6,920 shopping on Saturday afternoon. Columnist Mark Steyn compares the group who drafted the 9/11 Commission Report to the group who attended Liza Minnelli’s wedding. George Clooney once got his mother a table saw for Christmas.
the morning line
Lurid, Infected, Leering
• A gruesome murder-suicide in Brooklyn left four dead and almost redefines “lurid.” Investigators believe an ex-con bludgeoned to death his girlfriend (who was also his half-sister), killed her two children, then overdosed on the scene. [WNBC]
• A former NY1 reporter says she was sexually harassed at work and fired for complaining about it. Among other things, a colleague Photoshopped giant breasts on her photo, which apparently passes for a joke at NY1. [NYP]
• E. coli is here! The first registered NYC patient (who has already recovered) is a Staten Islander who got the bug, like the other 60 victims, by eating at a local Taco Bell. [amNY]
• The Daily News is shocked to learn that about 70 percent of recent subway graffiti has been made by European kids looking for an “authentic” NYC experience. Next they’ll tell us those guys on Astor Place are not real punks. [NYDN]
• And the Times ponders the rise of “experiential marketing” in Times Square, wherein companies do something moderately freaky and hope tourists will photograph it and/or blog about it. Here at Daily Intel, we would never fall for such gimmicks. [NYT]
