Sep 27, 2009 03:45 PM
6,708
Enter your username and password.
New York, 6:32 PM
Tue Feb 9
57 posts in the last 24 hours
Lots of people who thought they were marrying into money: screwed. People like Phyllis Nefler, who will marry into awesomeness: better off. In this week's NYT's Weddings & Celebrations, a few people actually do that. But remember: Harvard. Always. Wins.
With everyone else in your building he signs for packages and holds the door and helps them load their car when they're off to Newport for the weekend. With you, he signs for delivery and holds your drink and helps unload you from the cab when you're returning from karaoke at dawn. (To those who live downtown and are like what's a doorman? just substitute the words "your bodega guys" and you'll understand.) A good doorman will not raise an eyebrow at the rotating cast of characters that parade in and out of your apartment at the wee hours, nor will he judge when Fresh Direct drops off a ten-pound shipment consisting solely of Fresca, Cheetos, and condoms. Tip your doorman well.
Or, you know, just marry him!
Marci Starzec, a producer for CNN's resident birther Lou Dobbs, met Brian Whalen in 2001 when he began working at her Tudor City building. She brought him cookies at Christmas but spent the next two years breezing in and out of the door without a second glance. But just like God, love, and Dick Cheney,Catholics work in mysterious ways:
"He was a really nice guy, and very friendly," Ms. Starzec said. That was the extent of her interest in him - until Ash Wednesday in 2003.
"I had gotten ashes that day, and he was working the door," she said. "He had ashes on his forehead, too. I stopped for a second. Oh, O.K., we had something in common."
But it also dawned on her, she said: "Whoa, wait a minute. This guy is cute."
As soon as she got into her apartment, she phoned her best friend, telling her, "I just had a moment with my doorman," Ms. Starzec recalled.
Mr. Whalen, who observed the comings and goings of tenants all day, simply noted the ashes on her forehead.
"So she's Catholic also," he recalled thinking, and nothing else.
LOL! Men are from Mars and women are from a planet where one fortuitously placed forehead smudge can signify true love. Also, the last time I "had a moment" with a doorman I had the gin-hiccups and I was wearing bunny ears. But honestly, I'd rather read a thousand stories like these than one Modern Love (this week: old Indian women with arranged marriages don't have sex) and I overwhelmingly approve of this marriage. How can you not, with details like these?
Their intrigue continued as Ms. Starzec began a Wednesday evening tradition of cooking dinner for Mr. Whalen, and brought it to his desk when he gave the signal that the coast was clear.
"I'd make dinner and buzz him," she said. "Then he would buzz me."
Now they're buzzing each other on an island somewhere, nudge nudge. Congrats, you crazy kids!
Want to know my other favorite couple this week? Come on down, Elizabeth Van Houten and David Krych! Elizabeth somehow made all the right choices in life, because they culminated in her having a job that involves being "the author of 'Earth Day Puppy', part of a series about the puppy years of Clifford the Big Red Dog." Her mother is a music teacher, and her father is a sculptor who makes props for a little show that you may have heard of, or at least heard all your annoying Internet friends blather on about. No, not Mad Men! Lost.
Oh yeah, and the groom has some seriously impressive facial hair, which ... OMG is not online! Here, let me take a picture with my JesusPhone to prove it. The things I do for you.
Speaking of facial hair, the Times is just fucking with us on this one, right?
Anyway, those of us who choose to get our wedding news from the Times are missing out on more important matters, namely the nuptials of two Gawker Media employees over the last two weeks. Can I get a warm and drunken round of applause for Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder and his blushing bride? I just viewed their registry and I just have two things to say: 1) anyone wanna chip in for the $115 frying pan? The card can read: Dear Gabriel, This is your brain on drugs! Love, The Internet and 2) Gabriel, you're going to look great in this apron.
Just this weekend, much of the Gawker brain trust could be found at Gawker Ad Tsar (sorry Obama, thought I'd mix it up a bit) Chris Batty's North Carolina wedding. One tipster reported from the front lines that "Nick Denton is wearing a plastic tuxedo ... I mean, plastic-like? Crinkly. Synthetic." News you can use! We were also informed that after a long week of dealing with crazy lawsuits that involve the phrase "Naked Threesome", Gawker legalperson Gaby Darbyshire was, indeed, drunk.
Elsewhere, the maternal great-great granddaughter of Walter Chrysler married the paternal great-grandson of a Standard Oil robber baron, proving that Big Auto really is still in bed with Big Oil; two Conde Nasties do the nasty, the screenwriter and director behind "Field of Dreams" tries to set me up to make a bad "they will come" joke; we learn that there is a town in Pennsylvania called "Bird-in-Hand"; and a King Tut scholar married a Hunter S. Thompson stalker ouside in the rain, leading to this gem from a shivering guest:
"It would be too perfect if it was sunny. It's dark. It's literary. Look at the mountains. Even they're dark, the color of whiskey."
Oh, how romantic! What a wedding. Dark, like the color of Hunter S. Thompson's blood when he shot himself in the head.
Anyway, I feel like I've focused too much this week on the doormen and Irish alternative band members and the ladies who love them, so let's close the curtain to coach and concentrate on our leather seats and complimentary champagne up here in first class, yes? Here, the battle of the elite Washingtonians.
Anne Barrington Claiborne and Andrew James Grotto
• Picture is not online (WTF, Times?) but they look like brother and sister: +1
• Ceremony was performed by an Episcopal priest: +1
• The bride will continue to use her name professionally: -1, except I would too if my husband's last name was "Grotto", so I guess I'll give that a push: 0
• The bride graduated with distinction from Stanford, earned a law degree from Harvard, and also has a master's in public health from Johns Hopkins: +7
• The groom graduated from the University of Kentucky, the poor dear, but went on to earn a law degree at Berkeley and a master's in public administration from Harvard: +5
• The bride is a lawyer and the groom is a staffer for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: +4
• The bride's father founded a medical practice and her mother a law firm: +2
TOTAL: 20
Monique Marie Mendez and Richard Graham Foote O'Donoghue
• Ceremony was performed by an Episcopal priest and a judge that the groom once clerked for "took part" as well: +2
• "The couple met at Columbia, from which each received a law degree": +9
• The couple's places of employment are both fancy Washington law firms: +3
• The bride graduated from Yale, the groom magna cum laude from Harvard: +10
• The groom's father is "a manager for international real estate transactions for the State Department. ("Yeah, how much for Trinidad? Can you throw in Tobago?"): +1
• The groom's mother raises money for a private school for boys in Washington: +1
• The groom's family owns a vineyard: +1
TOTAL: 27
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Upper East Side to see which doormen have the biggest ... umbrellas.
The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gawker.com
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion