• Here’s at least one benefit of the recession. According to a 25-year professional Waste Management veteran, the dramatic increase in businesses closing (and employees losing their jobs) has resulted in less waste. He approximates his routes alone collect about "20,000 less tons of trash " per week.
• Idiohack Ben Leventhal attempts to instruct restaurant patrons on "How to be a Regular." Unfortunately, his advice is a load of crap. Oh ha, "crap" ha! There’s a joke about trying to be "regular" somewhere in there! Probably. - Vanilla Ice
• Steve Lewis updates us on his feud with Todd English (wherein he "pulled an Abbe Diaz" (!) – his words). - Inkslinger
• Famke Janssen was spotted twice this week (because she’s a total stalker). First on Bleecker and 6th Ave (walking by the fountain) looking cute in trendy casual cargo shorts and a lovely jaunty fedora. Homegirl must be a bit of a klutz though, constantly bumping into low furnitures and whatnot, seeing as her (long! thin!) legs were looking a wee bit bruised and purply.
Our second encounter found her dining at MeKong with a diminutive female friend. Ms. Janssen didn’t seem to mind at all that the air conditioner above her head was dripping all over the table (which we had just abandoned prior, specifically for that reason). She also really loves her dog. He’s an adorable stout puggish slightly overweight nearly cross-eyed little thing, but Ms. Janssen reached down and scooped up all 15 or so pounds of him, and dined with him ensconced in her lap for the entire rest of her meal. Aww.
And if that scarf and handbag she was rockin are really actually from a street vendor like they purport, well— go on with yer bad self, Famke.
You look fabulous!
• Idiohack Ben Leventhal (characteristically) swings joyously from Keith McNally’s testicles as he announces the news McNally will team with Nate Appleman on their new soon-to-open pizzeria project. - Dick Johnson
• Our intrepid heroine takes on (Idiohack Wonder Twins) Joshua David Stein and Josh Ozersky — where else? — in the comment section of New York Magazine’s GrubStreet. A Must Read! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’s better than Moby Dick. - Dick Johnson
• Anna Wintour offspring, Bee Shaffer with dad, David Shaffer — spotted walking into "the phone store" on 6th Ave (where everrrrybody fabulous buys/services their cellular phones) to inquire about — what else? — new cellular phones.
Oh, WHICH "phone store" you ask?
Well, if you have to ask, you must not be fabulous? In which case, Mike the phone store owner responds, "Puhleese. I have enough [overbearing, annoying, demanding, rich luddite moron] customers on my hands. Thanks, but no thanks." Evidently, Mike pays mucho moola in rent for his tiny store in its swanky location. He doesn’t mind the trickle — a flood he definitely doesn’t need. If you require his services, you’ll find him.
• Blogger Choire Sicha breaks the news about (his former boyfriend) Frank Bruni’s replacement at The New York Times. Aww….(?).
Heh, jerkfaced Gawker commentators who typically swing from Sicha’s testicles (since he used to blog for Gawker) didn’t even know Choire Sicha once dated Frank Bruni! Because, despite all their pretensions, a lot of Gawker commentators are just ignorant fucking idiots. - Vanilla Ice
• Adam Platt files his review of Graydon Carter’s Monkey Bar.
"… ‘I’m not supposed to say,’ the waiter whispered, before explaining, with a conspiratorial grin, that the front-room staff at Mr. Carter’s restaurant had been asked to sign confidentiality agreements when taking their jobs…."
Thanks a lot, Abbe. I guess other aspiring waiter cum memoirists are just shit outta luck, huh? - Vanilla Ice
But you probably aready knew that from experience, right? Well, here’s even more confirmation.
Recently, former nightlife impresario Steve Lewis blogged about one of his many friends and acquaintances (as is his wont). Normally, his work is of the ‘take with a grain of salt’ nature – most preposterous and controvertible to those in and around the nightlife industry (comprehensibly), and most credible and tenable to – well, everyone else, I suppose (perceivably).
GoldBar’s Jon Lennon was the subject of the day on July 15, 2009. Steve Lewis’s article starts, "Nightclub 101: the door is everything." LOL! Yea, as you can well imagine, it only goes downhill from there.
The column proceeds with Lewis’s typical flotsam and bullshit jetsam, most notably in the precise words "consummate pro" to describe Doorman Lennon. It culminates with these sentiments, expressed by Lennon himself in a Q&A interview:
SL: Tell me how you educate a person.
JL: I just have a brief conversation with them. I even have taken people to the side to do it, where I say, I know you’re a nice guy, your girlfriend is very beautiful, your two friends I can’t do….
SL: You wake up in the morning and you’re doing the door, and you’re thinking…
JL: Always. That’s my personality anyway, thinking about it. I try to remember, “you’re a doorman, as much as you’re in a powerful position, you’re still just a doorman, you’re everyone’s equal.” It never gets to my head because I’d rather be a rock star…
From what I gather, this is where a certain reader (we happen to know) lost her shit. She addresses Steve Lewis via Facebook, stating:
[Abbe Diaz at 5:42pm July 15]
um, excuse me? "consummate pro"– OH RILLY.
sorry, i would never ever ever ever in a million years define telling a prospective patron [at 10PM]: "well, if he owns seven restaurants in manhattan then he can afford to take care of ME. is he asking ME for a favor? then he needs to take care of ME."
(and yes that’s a DIRECT QUOTE)
as the act of a "consummate pro."
The rest of the exchange, including Lennon’s (pedestrian and idiotic) response is here.
Yeah yeah, OK. A doorman is a stupid idiot. It’s because you couldn’t get in, right? Loser! What’s your point, Vanilla Ice? I’ve got the Media holding on Line 1, and they want to know where’s the newsflash already.
Hey, did you read the title? My point is Jon Lennon is a Tool Box. I just wanted to brag again about how brilliant I am (I’m also the "Trollai Llama" in case you didn’t know) and point out how absurdly, hilariously (and contemptibly) it all played out [scroll down the comments, starting with abbe diaz's on July 29, 2009 4:54PM].
L O fucking L. God bless teh internets.
OMG the hipsters are taking over. ugh. gagh. blergh. BLECCCH.
last night was dinner at one of my favoritest places. and can you fucking believe it– one of my most UNfavoritest creepfaces on the planet was there. what the fuck. shouldn’t he be on a stoop or a rooftop or in some internet cafe or some shit in brooklyn somewheres? i mean– SURELY the west village is too bourgeois for him, no? GO AWAY JERKHEAD.
yah so
there i am trying to enjoy my dinner at my regular weekly haunt when, lo and behold, who should come and plop his dorky ass at the table right behind me. gabriel "dweebface" snyder. nice sneakers, scrotumhead. whassa matter– Goodwill was out of Hush Puppies?
so right away (after i suppress the bile bubbling forth and ingurgitate my cud and overcome my gag reflex and roll my eyes into my head) i say to my date: "eew. that’s gabriel snyder." and then i explain who gabriel snyder is.
my date responds: "ohhhh… should i say something to him?" and starts to rise out of his seat.
but i stop him.
why?
because (aside from the fundamental axiom he shouldn’t fight my battles for me) gabriel-snyder just happens to be sitting with richard-johnson, paula-froelich, corynne-steindler, chris-wilson, tom-sykes, and a half dozen other gawd only knows who elses. in other words, ya know– i was suddenly overwhelmed by visions of an imperial shihtzu in a pool of piranhas, if you hear what i’m sayin.
some other time, gabriel-snyder.
BITE ME, BITCH.
** See also: The UPDATE on Gabriel Snyder**
= "personne extraordinaire"