Choire

2008-05-13T23:56:24Z

I did something I so rarely do; I finished it, and I turned back its 13 pages and started over. I have no idea how the Peter Boyer story in this week's New Yorker was made, how it was reported or how it was edited. I'm supposed to know something about the field of assembling stories, but. (Unforgivably, the story is not online.) The piece is about things I could care less about—it starts out with football coaches at Ole Miss, which makes me want to hurl, and in fact I almost gave up in paragraph one—but is actually about Dickie Scruggs, the southern lawyer (currently awaiting sentencing on conspiracy to bribe a judge, a plea deal charge) who essentially reinvented the group corporate liability case, a man who took in a billion dollars in fees in tobacco settlements. It is not readily apparent that Scruggs ever spoke with Boyer, and all signs suggest that he did not, except for two quite big signs: nowhere does the story state that Scruggs did not talk, and also he apparently posed for a big, color photograph. Which he should not have done. In any event. I have a couple very slow, long-term reporting projects that I'm financing myself, as they're unattached to any publication, and either this Boyer piece is heartwarming or, you know, it screams "Give up, kiddo."

2008-05-13T11:12:45Z

Instead of saying that Badu’s performance will not be bettered any time soon (though it won’t), I’ll say that her show gave everyone in the house serious bragging rights. Dylan in 1965, Metallica in 1985, Bad Brains in 1981—it was one of those points on the arc. If you want to know who is at her peak, who is both of her moment and channeling so many forces that her work spills out over the edges of history and stops time, that’s Erykah Badu in 2008.

2008-05-11T03:09:55Z

The first part of this made it in to this week's LA Times Q&A with "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry. But the gaysplosion that followed did not.

Remember how back in 2005 there was that Vanity Fair story about how all the women in the cast were basically scheming villainesses in real life? Was that all fake?

Well, it wasn't fake! Like anything, I think some of my gals had a really bad day. And unfortunately a reporter was around and wrote an article about it and made it seem larger than it was. Sure, we've had a couple days where people were not as pleasant as they should be. But not more than any other TV show. If you'd been around for the last couple years, we get along pretty well. I'm a nice guy, I like my folks to behave nicely, and they do.

You would actually get up and fire someone if they were downright evil?

I've never had anyone be evil on my show. I've had days where people are frustrated and grumpy and said things they shouldn't and come back and apologized. In the writer's room, there's many times I have to come back and apologize for how grumpy I was. Nothing like those sitcom divas twenty years ago whose name was the title of the show and they drove people crazy.

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RHODA?!?!?!?!?!?!

No! But I will leave it to your imagination.

2008-05-10T21:17:34Z

I Would Like To Know Who The Crazy Person Is Who Puts Out Plates Of Seed For The Sparrows Who Live In The New Overhang At The Sayville Long Island Rail Road Station

2008-05-09T17:40:22Z

2008-05-08T21:10:58Z

The two know what commodity they're selling and what its value is. "There's only so much gossip," as Heidi said over lunch recently. "We're always the juicier story," Spencer said. Switching to the third person, he added, "And when Heidi and Spencer are gossip machines, it's like, 'What did Heidi and Spencer do?' "

2008-05-07T23:35:56Z

He joked that he hoped I didn't get pregnant and bring about some "My Two Dads" scenario with dude #2. Ha ha ha, I thought. In "My Two Dads," the mom got to be dead.

2008-05-07T11:53:29Z

Now New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, once next year's obvious choice for mayor, can’t even shake the domain squatters that plague her at ChristineQuinn.com—a marked contrast to the current mayor’s regular purchase of or demand for nearly any Web site that contains his name. (Amusingly, the 2001 Bloomberg arbitration decision for MichaelBloombergSucks.com—one of the few times he was not successful—concluded that “the ‘sucks’ suffix precludes any reasonable person from believing that the domain name is associated with or authorized by Complainant.”)

And although use of Ms. Quinn’s last name is not trademarked, as the mayor’s is, the site may have stepped over a line by claiming that she “runs a shell game of fake groups to hide her political slush fund.”

Or that may be an accurate assessment. Quinn, and the Council, have two weeks to answer a demand for a judicial hearing, a demand entered in New York State Supreme Court by Norman Siegel and others, on behalf of a motley crew of plaintiffs.

(That group includes Rafael Martinez Alequin, a reporter or former reporter who made a big to-do when his NYPD-issued press pass was not renewed early last year; he now runs a site at yourfreepress.blogspot.com, which lifts the content straight from newspaper Web sites—right down to the in-house keyword links of The New York Times.)

But no one is in charge downtown now. Can you imagine who loses?

Who's Running New York?

2008-05-06T14:38:47Z

Do Nothing

2008-05-03T21:07:24Z

I was talking on the phone with a gardener and then I just went down to SoHo to get some cheese and salami for dinner in bed tonight. On the way, I ran into Ben Widdicombe, the suddenly now-former Daily News gossip columnist. He couldn't be happier. He quit his job. He is going to Turkey. He looks fantastic. He joked that I was his role model. I went to Dean and DeLuca. The cashiers were laughing at the women who buy tiny sandwiches for $3.50 just because they find the sandwiches cute. But they are cute, said the woman cashier. I went back through NoLIta. There were so many people from not here. I ran into Scott Kidder, one of Gawker Media's business guys. He was typing on his phone, and coming from the office. He looked sleepy. You should start a blog about doing nothing, he said. That sort of defeats the point of doing nothing doesn't it, though. I went back up to the East Village, past the playground at Houston and First Avenue. A man in an expensive green sweater was pushing his two-year-old on the swings. His wife peered into her BlackBerry. A yellow cab plowed into a blue livery cab on First Avenue. There was a man in front of me whose neck creased in the form of an "X." You should quit your job too.

2008-05-03T19:17:59Z

Notes On Federal Prison Camp

2008-05-01T17:23:52Z

I have just received in this afternoon's mail the U.S. Department of Justice's "Visitor Information" form for the Federal Prison Camp in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. "Visitor Information" is not an accurate characterization of the form, as it is actually an application to become a visitor, and they run a background check on you before you're approved. The entrance road to the "Prison Camp" is off William Penn Road, leading "West from U.S. Route 15 just south of the Wal Mart store," according to the form. Also: "Embracing is allowed only at the beginning and the end of a visit." (Typography theirs.) And?

Freelancing

2008-05-01T12:30:00Z

Wake up at totally random hour. Stare at cat. Check email from phone in bed. Check calendar from phone in bed. Ooh, nothing to do! Coffffeeeeeee. Continue typing whatever was being typed while falling asleep. Do absolutely nothing for three hours. Reboot hinky airport a few times. Wait in car for street-cleaning to be over. Jesus, how is cable so expensive! Consider getting job. Consider showering. Eat toast. Listen to Erykah Badu album again. Read something. Try to conceal shock when, suddenly, a phone call is returned! Type type type. Bitch about Dumb Story Of The Day with T___. Wonder: Why does that publicist from Paramount hate me? There probably is a reason, in fact. Read latest City Council drama blog post by Liz or Azi. Google some things. Tinker with song you've been working on for a MONTH and are getting NOWHERE WITH, and why? Why why? Barack Obama said what now? Whoa, it's MAY. Month five without a job! What exactly is a "timing belt" and why does the car need one? Think about getting a job editing. But where? Ask J___. Ha ha, yeah you should, who would have you? Who would you have? Ha, I know! And I don't know! Eww, jobs suck. Listen to R___ talk about his pitches. Think: Pitch? Pitch who what? Who can care? Hmm. Email email, type type. Why are you not working on a book proposal? Call people. Ha ha, yeah, what IS with Maureen Dowd? Attend either: insanely dull three-hour city government committee meeting, bad movie or unexpected thing. Go for walk. Wow, there is an "outside"! Think about having sex with that guy. Ooh, maybe porn? Ha ha, there is amputee porn on the internet. Someone should interview those amputees. Twitter. God, porn is horrible! More toast. Why aren't you making out with that guy? Oh my good gravy, it is 9:46 p.m. Make call list for next day. Make lists of questions. Should I call that guy? Book, cat, mouthguard, bed.

2008-04-30T12:55:33Z

This past Sunday at nearly 3 a.m.—this was in the lobby of Christopher Hitchens' apartment building, and that lobby is like being in a tall, cold marble mausoleum—this rather wasted guy said to his friend or acquaintance or frenemy: "Love your fascist book." He was talking to Jacob Heilbrunn, author of "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons."

"It was number one on Amazon, now it's 128," Mr. Heilbrunn slurred back.

“It’s not the best time in the world to be a White House correspondent,” CBS News' Bill Plante had told my pal Felix Gillette, some dozen hours and several thousand plastic cups of alcohol earlier.

And that was our weekend in our nation's capital.

Curse of the D.C. Swamp Creatures

This Big Gay 'Times' Mag Cover Story Was Pitched As An Oddity; It Is Not

2008-04-29T12:24:04Z

The problem is: If the Times wants to sound astounded that men under 30 are marrying each other in Massachusetts, shouldn't there be a statistically large sample to provide the surprise? Instead, very few gay men under 30 are marrying overall. And so, the surprise rings a little hollow and even, shall we say... misplaced?

Sometimes statistics can give rise to a piece of journalism. New York Times magazine contributing writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a resident of Boston, found that 700 gay men age 29 or younger were wed in the state of Massachusetts between May 2004 and June 2007.

What resulted is a 7000-word New York Times magazine cover story, published this weekend.

This number sounds like a statistical anomaly! It certainly is.

From 2004 and 2006, 8100 gay couples were married in Massachusetts. So Denizet-Lewis' 350 gay male couples that are 29 and younger make up fewer than 4.3% of gay marriages in Massachusetts—a percentage that shrinks if you then take into account the number of 2007 and 2008 gay marriages.

Not only are his young gay men a very small percentage of gay marriages in Massachusetts, they are also a statistically insignificant to both the state's population and its marriages overall.

Marriage Between Young Gay Men: The Trend That Isn't