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Camelot is over! No one can pay their Rent! The West Side Story these days is that lots of Broadway shows are closing! Ahem. Yes, lots of big glittery plays and musicals are shutting their doors forever because of this creepy, kooky economy. One of the big Goliaths to fall last week was Mel Brooks' much-maligned Young Frankenstein, which will put on the Ritz one last time on January 4th. Thing is, no one's really all that sad to see it go.
The show was anticipated like crazy—the Brooks pedigree! Remember The Producers? What a crazy, million Tony-winning smash that was!—and priced accordingly. Premium tickets (a rotten idea pioneered by Brooks and Co. when Producers hit big) reached excesses of $400, group sales seats (bread n' butter, folks) were drastically limited, and, perhaps worst of all, the critics seemed pretty fed up with the whole endeavor. Acidic word-of-mouth spread throughout the industry, from creative types to tour directors, and the show was marked (perhaps not entirely fairly) an arrogant, dead-on-arrival failure. Don't piss off the theatre queens and the cigar-chomping tour company people! They're vicious!
The New York Times details the story today, getting show producer Robert F.X. Sillerman to sheepishly admit: “What they perceived as our arrogance was nothing more or less than my ignorance.” Oh, sad. Though, we're not sure we believe that!
Sillerman goes on to add that the show will recoup its investment, though just barely. And, well, given the show's astronomical ($11 million to mount, $600,000 a week to keep up) budget, we're not sure we believe that either.
Every November 25, New York celebrates its independence from the British. What, you didn't know about Evacuation Day? It is a much more awesome holiday than Thanksgiving, because it involves gunfire, greased flagpoles, and indignities being visited upon English people, one of the fundamental tenets of comedy.
The British never made very likely imperialists because, as we all know, they're a fey bunch of ninnies who enjoy dressing in ladies' clothing and tending to their gardens. But they did run United States for a time, and their terrible despotic rule was marked with grievous injustices like asking that we pay an extra ha'penny (which in modern dollars is nearly a tuppence!) to drink our precious tea. So after some mooks in Boston got wasted, dressed in racist costumes, and engaged in some reckless property damage (some things never change, right?) we all decided that meant war, and a couple years later, the rest of the colonies had beaten the British and all that remained was for them to finally leave New York, where we never really minded their presence that much, as they were certainly preferable to those mooks in Boston.
Still, the British were a little bitter about having to leave New York and go back to London, where the ladies all had comically screechy voices and sometimes chased you around at high speed while wearing frilly lingerie. So on their way out of town, they acted quite the cads!
Departing British troops nailed their flag to a pole downtown and greased it. Every November, a descendant would re-enact the legendary feat of John Van Arsdale, a sailor, who donned cleats and shimmied up the flagpole to replace the British colors with the Stars and Stripes.
As George Washington triumphantly proceeded Downtown, jeering Americans on Staten Island were fired upon by a British ship in what has been described as the last shot fired in the war.
All that nonsense happened on this day in 1783, and New York used to celebrate with parades. The Irish were really into it. The celebrations leveled off when World War I came along, and we had to like the British again, but you can still head down to Battery Park today and see some nerds dressed in funny costumes reenacting the goofiest end to the goofiest insurrection in history.
Some goofily dressed nerds won't be participating, of course:
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the British consul-general in New York said he had no plans to commemorate Evacuation Day.
Sore losers!
Are you a horrible camera flash-stained, fraying-at-the-edges tabloid media darling who mourns the loss of the recent American rococo decade? Is everyone being poor and complaining all the time just too much for you? Well worry not, dear inexplicably financed friend, because Dubai is waiting for you! Oh you know about crazy Dubai, don't you? Unlike this ailing and needy nation, the Arab Emirate is flush with sandy money and crazy man-made islands and, ooo, brand-new gaudy hotels! Like a beacon or a lighthouse calling to them out of the icky dark, American celebrities who had it better when the world was gold showed up in droves for the huge, $20 million dollar opening gala for the new Atlantis Palms megaresort in Dubai this week. Look who was there partying while we back here in the home country hopped boxcars and ate cold soup thickened with sawdust:
Cocaine-snazzled actress Lindsay Lohan, who is now a gay person dating a gay woman who deejayed at the bash. Odious "actress" and model Mischa Barton (who, OK, was born in England, but she made her money here). Tax-dodging half-vampire Wesley Snipes. Too-bored-to-ever-know-where-she-is fashion plate Mary Kate Olsen. I guess things here in the patriotic old US of A got a bit too messy for them, a bit too elbow-greasy. So they flit on over to some twirling, towering desert city of steel and glass where the champagne still flows and the hotels are tacky and people still have the energy to celebrate it all. Fair-weather Americans if you ask me.
While the country burns—literally and figuratively—these folks spent how much on dresses (and, um, banana-yellow suits in the case of Mr. Snipes), to go fete it up in the Middle East and had the audacity to smile?? Well I hope they like it over there in Terrorist Disney World, because they aren't allowed back here.
All images via Getty
So, former MSNBC guy Dan Abrams is starting a "consulting" firm full of random media people to give advice to rich corporate clients about how to handle media-related issues. Do you know what that's called? It's called a PR firm. But this PR firm would never call itself that, because that would make the media people it employs sound corrupt. The thing is, this firm's business plan is so annoying that the rest of the media (us) is going to cover its clients even harder to make up for it. For example! Abrams' first client is billionaire Ron Perelman. Now why would Ron Perelman need to worry about his reputation?
Then there was his dramatic marriage to and divorce from actress Ellen Barkin. Perelman once got mad when she did a movie sex scene with Laurence Fishburne. He was a narcissistic, controlling guy. Eventually they got divorced, and he gave her between $20-60 million. But he moved on quickly!
Another fun thing was when he had one public company he controlled pay him four times market value for his shares in another company. Later he was forced to undo this because, you know, you're not allowed to take money from everybody else in order to buy holdings from yourself at wildly inflated prices.
Another time, in a contract dispute lawsuit, an employee named Fred Tepperman "charged that the breakfast meetings [with Perelman] were nothing but a podium Perelman used to boast about his sexual conquests, and thus Tepperman was merely avoiding pointless meetings, as any worker would." Ha.
Stay tuned for more! Every time someone seeks out the advice on how not to get slimed in the press, it only reminds us of why they need the help.
The salacious title of the Weinstein Co.'s new Kevin Smith flick Zack and Miri Make a Porno is proving to be a bad decision. It's already screwed up the movie's marketing efforts. Must it lead to stilted reviews as well? "And so it will hardly be shocking that 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' is about two people, named Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks), who make what my copy editors would prefer that I call a pornographic movie," writes A.O. Scott in the Times today. To be fair, the Times is full of pussy-ass hoes.
Looking sultry and seductive, Gisele Bundchen was spotted filming a music video for a new song called “Come On” by Blackcowboy in West Hollywood on Thursday (October 9).
Joined on the Melrose set by Kevin Connolly and Lukas Haas, the Brazilian bombshell sported a white tank top, tight black pants and studded black boots as she struck a few poses before taking to a curbside bench.
An anonymous 27-year-old who's just lost his job as an investment banker is auctioning off his "gay virginity" to the highest bidder. He says he's straight and that he looks like The O.C.'s Adam Brody (pictured). What with the economy a mess and him owing $32K in credit card debt, he promises the highest bidder 30 minutes of hot man-on-man sexytimes. Unless you like anal, because he won't give that up.
What I am explictly offering as part of this auction is the following - I will wear the same suit that I wore at my job interview at my ex-firm. I will meet the winner in a 100% LEGAL setting such as either at a licensed brothel in Nevada or Rhode Island, and I will spend some time having a drink with them, hanging out with them, laughing, breaking the ice, and so on.
Afterwards, I will deliver what I would consider to be the ideal blowjob / handjob combination until the winner has an orgasm or 30 minutes passes whichever comes first.
Sorry but no anal activity of any kind is part of this offer!
If his website is to be believed (and who knows?!) the bidding is already up to $21,000. [via Guanabee]
She’s been eating for two as of late, and yesterday Jennifer Garner enjoyed a delicious lunch out with friends at the Ivy at the Shore restaurant in Santa Monica, California.
The “Catch and Release” babe looked cute and casual in a pink maternity sweater with a navy blue skirt and sandals as she strolled down the street.
Former Melrose Place and T.J. Hooker babe Heather Locklear's troubles continue. Two months after completing a four week stint in an Arizona treatment center for "anxiety and depression," Locklear was arrested and held in police custody last night in Santa Barbara on suspicion of driving while impaired. Police sources say that alcohol wasn't involved but that tests are being conducted to determine if the actress was on drugs. She was released on her own recognizance. [TMZ] Update: Mugshot goodness after the jump.

Simply striking, as always, Gwyneth Paltrow attended the launch party for “Spain...On The Road Again” at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York City on Sunday evening (September 21).
Looking as if everything in life is going as well as could be hoped for, Gwyneth recently revealed that things haven’t always been at their best - as she kicked post-partum depression with the help of exercise and Madonna.
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So says Politico blogger Ben Smith, who wore a suit to appear — looking nothing like his illustration, albeit kind of cute! — on Martha this morning.* The lifestyle queen invited political bloggers to her show today because she thinks it's scary the nation might elect a president who doesn't know how to read them and also probably because the more topical subject of complex financial shenanigans is not her specialty, oh wait just kidding. Personally I have always thought not being addicted to the internet was John McCain's most attractive quality since being tortured, but it raises a good point: I do not want presiding over this perilous economy one of those people who asks "You actually get paid to do that?"
Like, for god sakes, yes motherfucker I majored in personal electronics assembly but there just weren't a lot of opportunities in that.
*But isn't this just because bloggers do not wear pajamas, being as they pass out in their clothes?
We thought the bizarre GOP attacks against "community organizers" were just commonplace venom against those dumb enough to try to "change the system" with anything other than money and its attendant political power, not necessarily coded messages (the disdain Rudy Giuliani displayed when snarling the words was surely his own ad-lib, as a noted enemy of communities, and ferrets). But one can forgive New York Governor David Paterson for reading a racial element into the odd slurs—"community organizing" does just sound like something the black communities need, right? But in stating as much, Paterson wandered into the national political fray, and now a McCain spokesman is accusing Paterson of "playing the race card" and also this is Obama's fault, because they are desperate, and this is all divisive and shameful. So ok! The "community organizer" thing has nothing to do with race, at all. Sheesh! Poor white guys, always in trouble for saying utterly harmless things, like calling NBC journalist Ron Allen (who is black!) "uppity". As we all know, uppity is just an all-purpose general term for "elitist," which is a post-racial term for fag. Right?
Accompanying an astoundingly sad-on-all-accounts article about former pop singer Michael Jackson (on forgetting that he's turning 50 years old, not 40: "It all went by so fast, didn't it? I wish I could do it all over again, I really do." Devastating) is an image of what the King of Pop may have looked like had he not had alllll that plastic surgery. It's a well done imagining, a believable cross between Usher and Billy Dee Williams, rather than the ghost of Joan Crawford that you see on the left. A rare vision of one's life had a different turn in the road been taken. Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson, I've not seen your childhood, perhaps it's collecting dust somewhere up in that crumbling personal theme park of yours. But an alternate adulthood? Yes, that's right here. [Mail via LA Rag Mag] Click through for larger image.
In an attempt to take over the world with her new Reality TV show “Pam: Girl on the Loose,” Pamela Anderson paid a visit to her fans in Australia during a press conference yesterday.
The “Baywatch” babe showed up at the Sofitel Hotel in Sydney to field questions and drum up support for her show, though she may have gotten a little more than she bargained for.
Yesterday we wrote about the redemption of Scott Beauchamp, The New Republic's discredited "Baghdad Diarist" whose missives about running over dogs and mocking mutilated women were semi-retracted by the magazine after a right wing shitshow. Today we are back with two clarifications courtesy Beauchamp belle Elspeth Reeve, who you'll recall is not only the wife of the young soldier, but also his fact-checker. The first is that a lot of Beauchamp's details about his fellow soldiers' coarse behavior might seem more credible in light of the fact that as our buddy Leon pointed out a few weeks ago it is Beauchamp's army company that produced those four soldiers charged with conspiracy to commit murder. And clarification #2 has to do with my suggestion that TNR editor Frank Foer retracted the columns because he was "fundamentally a pussy." Reeve pointed out that some TNR editors are actually somewhat badass!
While Reeve pointed out that there was "indeed a disconnect" between Scott and his editors at the magazine — when Scott would be two hours late for a scheduled conference call because, say, his friend had driven his Bradley into a canal and he had to pull him out, Foer would panic and be "like, 'OH MY GOD WHERE WERE YOU?!?!'" — she says that the editors did their very best to communicate with her broad-shouldered beau "on his level." How'd they accomplish this?
In emails and IMs with their soldier correspondent, she explains, they littered their exchanges with phrases like "yeah man" and "fuck that d-bag" and also "we're gonna nail that guy's balls to the wall."
In addition, says Reeve, one editor revealed to her husband — and also, the TNR office — that he had come "thisclose" to joining the Marines 10 years earlier. (Another ex-TNR staffer, corroborating this story, added that this particular editor, is also "given to wearing" motorcycle boots along with jeans and french-cuffed shirts to work.)
Another editor told Reeve he "very seriously considered joining the IDF" right after high school, but didn't because he "knew someone like Ariel Sharon could be elected." (Hey guy: Marty Peretz resembles that remark!)
Reeve added that she is considering pursuing a graduate degree for which she will write a thesis about "manliness and how it ruins everything."
How Soccer Explains The World: An Unlikely Theory Of Globalization [Amazon]
Helen Mirren is a hundred and eleven years old and she looks great! (Actually, she's a spry 62). The many, many awards-winning actress (most notably, perhaps, for The Queen) was photographed recently in Puglia, swimming and climbing rocks in a bikini. And, quite frankly, she looks better than half the ladies half her age who wear similar bathing costumes. Mirren is pretty free with her body—appearing nude in a raft of films from Caligula in 1980 to the recent film about naked old British ladies, Calendar Girls, and writing a book about the subject—and, well, now we see why. So, there you go. Simple dame objectification midday on a Wednesday. [via BrianVan] Click thru for larger image.
Because it's been a slow news month, here is a picture of benevolent-looking actress and orchardist Gwyneth Paltrow with no make-up on. I like her earrings. She's in the Hamptons. She probably had some white wine and swayed a bit to an Allman Brothers song and then maybe picked up one of her little ones and pointed at some birds and then went home and went to bed. ISN'T IT HIDEOUS??? [LA Rag Mag] Click thru for larger, soul crushing, city-destroying image.