FULL SERVICE ONLY Bush and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud(Photo: Getty Images)
• No gas relief: Remember that time George W. Bush and his oily Saudi buds kissed and held hands? That apparently did nothing for us—Saudi's refuse to produce more oil.
• Return of the Body?: An extremely suplexed-looking former governor/wrestler Jesse Venture announced he'd likely run against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democratic funnyman Al Franken in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race. You know, Franken wrestled in high school.
• Time warning: Richard Parsons announced that he'll step down as president of Time Warner during the company's annual shareholder's meeting in Atlanta. Chief exec Jeff Bewkes is expected to take over. In honor of Parsons' departure, Time Warner will cut off your cable for an hour during your favorite show.
• Come Hill or high water: Even if Hillary Clinton won delegates in Florida and Michigan, she'd still have less than Barack Obama. Just sayin'.
• Love-36-24-40: The recently badonkadonkedSerena Williams pulls out of the Italian open, citing a back problem. That's not a problem back there. That's an asset.
So the New Republic's Michelle Cottlesurveyed a dozen anonymous low- and high-level Hillary Clinton campaign staffers and came up with a laundry list of reasons why they believe the New York Senator's campaign hit the wall. Most people place the blame squarely on the shoulders of her "inner sanctum": Ousted pollster Mark Penn was "out of touch" and way too corporate. Ejected original campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle was "out of her element." Communications director and rumored memoiristHoward Wolfson "had no real presidential campaign experience, and no primary experience whatsoever." And then there are the macro problems: Hillary wasn't hungry enough for it early on. She shouldn't have run as an incumbent. She should have attacked Barack Obama earlier. Smooth Bill Clinton went totally crazy and imploded. The campaign's financial mismanagement was akin to "fraud." Voters felt like they didn't know her! Voters felt like she would say anything to win. Her smarts came off as "wonky" in speeches. Her team had a terrible rapport with the media.
We'll keep it simple and say it's probably a case of all of the above.
Finance blog Dealbreaker is reporting that UK Sun editor Rebekah Wade is the rumored choice to succeed recently departed Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli. What's so outlandish about Wade, a favorite of WSJ owner Rupert Murdoch, that even Gawker's Nick Denton, who will print pretty much anything, was uncharacteristically reluctant to run the rumor? Well, start here.
POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS Pills, Amy(Photo: Getty Images)
Is anxiety the new depression? According to Radar's Fame-O-Meter, anti-anxiety medication Valium has passed anti-depressant Prozac in online popularity. Why the sudden high? Perhaps it's rising, recession-induced anxiety levels ... or maybe it's just a side effect of Amy Winehouse's crack home video, back in the news after she was arrested and then released. She doesn't just look to be smoking crack on the tape, she also slurs on about taking Valium. The calming pharmaceutical also scored a recent supporting role in the drug video of Peaches Geldof, another party-happy British bird who reportedly shares a dealer with Wino. Whatever the cause of Valium's rise, Radar says RELAX, and get your weekly fix of the Fame-O-Meter!
Duly Noted
Sure John McCain will appear on Saturday Night Live (SNL the kids call it now) this weekend, anything to please the millions and millions of youths who plan days in advance to congregate each Saturday and watch what unfolds on their favorite sketch comedy show. Anything but wear a dress—no matter what Rudy Giuliani or Californians are okay with.
On the Docket
After nearly six years of delays, and a week of torturous jury vetting, lawyers in the child pornography case of R&B arch-villain R. Kelly have selected the 12 Kelly peers who will judge whether or not the singer filmed himself, uh, marinating the mouth of an underage girl. And if this week of litigator bickering is any indicator, the trial, set to begin opening arguments next Tuesday, will be as embarrassing and tiresome as it will be amusing and theatrical. Here's where we're left heading into next week's action:
READ MORE >> Pulp Friction
"There were days when I definitely didn't want to get out of bed," fabulist James Frey told a sympathetic Lola Ogunnaike on CNN this morning, following a Tuesday reading from his new book, Bright, Shiny Morning (HarperCollins), at New York's Blender Theater (he was backed by a jazz pianist and has booked a metal band for future stops on his tour). Ogunnaike notes the disclaimer at the beginning of the book stating, "Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable," and asks why he chose to write fiction instead of another memoir. Frey responds: "The irony is that if I wrote about my life in the last few years, nobody would believe me."
By the opening scene it's clear Joachim Trier's Reprise (in theaters today) will be a cliché-riddled romp through exhausted subject matter. And by the closing scene, most will be left wondering just why, despite the many obstacles, it is so enjoyable.
Trier, a popular short-film director, has set the familiar story line of young writers in friendly, unspoken competition for fame and glory in his native Norway. The two would-be authors, best friends Phillip (Anderson Danielson Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner), are fixated with leading the literary life, and, as bright, hopeful young things, carry with them wild fantasies of sipping espressos in Parisian cafés as oversexed success stories. Of course, as the template to this story dictates, only one can find that success (and the several neuroses that accompany it)—the other must wallow in his best friend's shadow and the confirmed suspicions that his abilities are less than spectacular. Tiring, right? Thank God, everyone's handsome. And not only handsome. Actually good.
Last May, it was reported that Curtis Jackson, the rapper better known as 50 Cent, cashed in his 10 percent share of Vitamin Water manufacturer Glaceau to the tune of a staggering $400 million. (Coca-Cola bought the company for $4.1 billion). Just last week, a rep for the company actually told us that 50 only ended up making a small fraction of the quoted sum, but it now seems that his name is being attached to another insanely speculative rumor: according to reports, 50 is on the verge of signing a $300 million "branding deal" with Rupert Murdoch's MySpace. READ MORE >> Sound and Fury
Lustra, an L.A. rock band whose biggest moment to date was landing a song on the Eurotrip soundtrack, are claiming Miley Cyrus—or the people who actually write her songs—stole the opening riff for her song "Rockstar" from their "Scotty Doesn't Know," according to an item in today's Page Six. Above, a U.K. radio host does the back-to-back comparison. It appears that the band was first tipped about the Cyrus similarity on its popular MySpace page by a commenter who wrote on May 14, "Miley Cyrus released a single "Rockstar" with a guitar hook that is very similar to the main guitar riff of 'Scotty Doesn't Know' ... Check it out and sue away." Lustra guitarist Nick Cloutman tells Radar there were a whole slew of comments and e-mails from their fans about the similarities between the two songs ...
The progress made in the last 15 years by five once-young men toward being taken seriously as actors—or singers or dancers, for that matter—melted away this morning in Rockefeller Center under rainy skies. New Kids On the Block played the Today show.
Particularly painful to watch is Donnie Wahlberg, the one who showed the most promise as an actor in The Sixth Sense, Band of Brothers, and Saws II, III, and IV. His sideways cap might have hidden his baldness, but no accessory could conceal his unbridled desperation as he hyped the crowd with a cracking voice. Braving the drizzle were a fresh batch of screaming teens too young to appreciate the irony of a New Kids comeback (or their own DayGlo nu rave apparel, for that matter). Their moms, now roughly the same age as the band, do.
One has to wonder if Lou Pearlman gets NBC on the tube in the rec center of the Orange County jail.
Last we heard of fifth season American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, he was bounding around Hawaii with a Milwaukee news anchor who may or may not have been his girlfriend-for-hire. Thankfully, he's moving onto greener pastures: Hicks has just signed on to make his Broadway debut as "Teen Angel" in a revival of Grease. (Hicks joins Clay Aiken in the illustrious roster of Idol contestants who wind up stunt-cast on the Great White Way.) READ MORE >> The Idiot Box
Sad news for people who just cannot get enough Ryan Seacrest: the colorless personality has denied rumors that he's going to replace Larry King when they finally put the oft-married yakker out to pasture. But good news for Katie Couric if true: the slot's still open for when she leaves CBS. If, you know, King ever dies. Which seems increasingly unlikely.
On the Docket
Last year a British court found Kevin Bassett, 44, guilty of violating the 2003 Sexual Offences Act after he secretly filmed a man in his swimming trunks and no top at a swimming pool. Lawyers argued that the man's chest did not constitute "private parts," and the act only referred to women's breasts as such. A judge this week squashed that ruling, saying, "This act didn't mean to refer to the male chest but only to female breasts, it follows that the judge's directions on the meaning of breasts was erroneous."
One man on the street reacted this way: "There is so much immature twaddle about sex in England I don't wonder that both sexes get psychologically twisted." [AFP via Breitbart]
Website Politico gets a scalp: "John McCain's campaign asked a prominent Republican consultant, Craig Shirley, to leave his official campaign role Thursday after a Politico inquiry about Shirley's dual role consulting for the campaign and for an independent '527' group opposing the Democratic presidential candidates. The campaign also released a new conflict of interest policy barring such arrangements." Shirley is the most recent Team McCain departure: two other staffers were jettisoned last weekend because of their ties to Myanmar's brutal military government. Still there: the guy who turns a blind eye to testicle-eating.
