I say this as a person who is very familiar with Bushnell's work. I read Four Blondes. I read Trading Up. I read Lipstick Jungle. I watched Sex and the City and tuned in for both Lipstick Jungle and Cashmere Mafia because I wanted to see who had the better touch, Bushnell or Star.

So I say, with complete confidence, that no one knows how to run an idea into the ground like Candace Bushnell. And as I watched this new venture/product placement/Frito-Lay commercial I felt myself wanting to bash my head against the wall. This? Really? The Broadroom follows five professional women and is supposed to provide insight into their lives by using quick segments and cute conversations that take place in a work setting. There are four total webisodes in all, but is it worth watching?

I don't think so.

Nine Things I Hate About The Broadroom:

• Why is Natasha putting fear of wearing a name tag on par with global warming? Everything else I could understand...but name tags? Seriously?
• How are we going to follow rote stereotypes about women when creating these characters, only to have said characters bitch about being a type?
• The Millennial is an idiot. "I spent all morning making these super cute placecards on my computer." The placecards combine a large font with clip art.
• "In a weird way, I don't know what my actual job is, but I love it." Please tell me this character does not confess to feeling like "Alice in Imposterland" in the October 9th episode. Word of advice: if you don't know what your job is, don't be surprised when you feel like you're faking it.
• Dialogue fail. Product placement fail. The scene below is a case in point:

  

  "When did they start naming lipsticks after food?"
  "Probably when food got more interesting than sex."

  I sent this to Anna, who promptly informed me:

  Re: 'naming lipsticks after food': one of the most popular lipsticks in the 80s was a Revlon shade called "Cherries in the Snow". These people are two decades, if not more, too late.

  Answer fail. But thanks for playing.

  Speaking of that clip...

• ...can we retire the "Where are all the men?" monologue? There's one in every show and every book! Can we at least upgrade it a little? Attack a random man on the street and hit him with a barrage of questions? That would be interesting viewing. For example:
  

  SCENE: ROAN and NATASHA approach a random man on the street as he pauses to grab a newspaper. NATASHA grabs him and slams him against a brick wall while ROAN brandishes her Caramel Kisses lipstick as a weapon.

  ROAN: (yelling) Where the hell are all the men?

  MAN: What? Who? I swear, I don't what you're talking about!

  ROAN: (making wild gestures with the lipstick) Where is my future husband? Where are all of you hiding?

  NATASHA: (hiking the man up by his collar) And why is my husband sending me cat pictures, huh? What is THAT supposed to mean? Did he stop looking for a job? Is he telling me it's time for a divorce because all we can talk about is cats? (grabs man by the face) Answer me, dammit!

  ROAN: Do what she says or else we're lipsticking your collar and calling your wife!

  Okay...maybe that's a bit unrealistic. But it would still be a vast improvement over the current dialogue.

• I hate that fucking jingle! It's prompting some kind of Pavlovian rage response.
• Does anyone really try to butt in airport lines anymore without an immediate "bish plz" from all the rest of us? And who would start a tug of war with the TSA people? They already seem pissed off enough and I can make the call when I get to the lounge area.
• A personal mantra is "When you're having a bad day, lower your standards?" Turn it off, turn it off!

This is grim. If the Boardroom really is reflective of what's on women's minds, I'm starting to wonder if we are all in danger of a lobotomy.

The Broadroom [Maybelline]

Earlier: "Only In a Woman's World" Are There So Many Dieting Stereotypes

• Emma Roberts likes to give her boyfriend hickeys — and he likes to show them off. Ew. [Page Six]
  
  
• Because she thinks she's Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow's expanding her London home. It will have 33-rooms. We have no words. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Paris Jackson and her siblings enjoyed a weekend in Vegas. [Just Jared]
  
  
• Michael Jackson had two — count 'em, two — super secret email accounts through which he procured prescription drugs. Say what you will about him, but that man clearly had a serious, sad problem. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Speaking of serious, sad problems, Amy Winehouse allegedly wants to get back together with her equally deranged ex-hubby Blake Fielder-Civil. Surprisingly, though, she's aware of how incredibly pathetic she sounds, "I'm so embarrassed, I love him though." Hey, it makes you do crazy things. [Mirror]
  
  
• Do not — we repeat, do not — call Candace Bushnell a "cougar." Not to her face, at least. [NYDN]
  
  
• Rachel Zoe assistants Brad Goreski and Taylor Jacobson have made peace. Phew! [LA Times]
  
  
• Judith Giuliani plays better golf that Rudy. [Page Six]

She was doing a show for Sirius XM radio called Sex, Success, and Sensibility, which was about how to make love like a perpetually neurotic and self-obsessed shopaholic. But then—in these horrible, ruined economic times!—she refused to take a 50% pay cut, so the station just out and out pulled the plug. So, that's sad for her I guess? But it's kind of a relief for us.

Now if we could only stop those Sex and the City: For kids! books from coming out.

Americans don't like to talk about class, or at least not about how it plays into sexual relationships. Instead, people use euphemisms like, "He went to Yale Law" when you yourself are a twenty-year-old East Villager who would quite honestly like to be taken care of. But!

Let's put aside for a moment giving Bushnell the responsibility for "thousands of gallons of vomited Cosmos" and shoe fetishism and even the tired "Can women have sex like men?" question. (Answer: yes, no, and sometimes.)

Sunday eve, I was remarking on how I loved the Real Estate section of the Sunday Times because it was "like porn" as it showed things "I'll never have." To which someone joked, "You never know, you might meet a really rich guy," and I replied, "the better idea is the one where I make a shitload of money myself." Which, let's be honest, I probably won't. But I could.

Whenever gender or class is brought up, I'm almost always brought back to the period of time I spent, OK, stripping. It's like the extreme sport where gender and class intersect—not that you're supposed to talk about that!

Via Elle:

"A lot of [sexual] behavior is dictated less by gender and more by money, status, and power. Actresses in Hollywood have always had a lot of sex secretly. Why? Because they can. Because they're not reliant on a man to provide a roof over their head. That changes your sexual behavior. Because if you're looking for a man to provide for you, you don't want to be seen as a woman who sleeps around. Men object to it because you're not viewed as wife material."

During this time, Candy—can I call you Candy?—I quit my job on more than one occasion due to the rather vociferous protests of a boyfriend. On one hand, I don't blame them. On the other, it says a lot when these super-liberal outsider fuck-ups (I use that term affectionately) that were, in part, attracted to me partly because of my indiscretionary, up-by-the-bootstraps work adventures suddenly wanted to put the clamp-down on my "means of production" once things got, you know, serious. See above. (Candace eventually married a ballet dancer who makes less than her.)

So while some may see Bushnell's ascension from scrappy go-getting party girl to "part of the establishment," others see someone who has, through sheer willpower and hard work, transcended her class. Which is—whether or not you want to live on the Upper East Side—the American Dream.

"But the new breed of youngsters intent on highlighting the hypocrisy of their elders is meaner and, well, snarkier than their forebears, Ms. Bushnell implies. Their number is led by a smarmy 20-something named Thayer Core, who lives in a tiny East Village walk-up and yet feels qualified to lob his verbal grenades at the rest of Manhattan (including several residents of One Fifth). Thayer is a despicable character, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that she was personally offended by things written about her on Gawker (where, full disclosure, I used to work). And yet, Ms. Bushnell’s caricature of the Web site and its writers falls victim to the very same snarky, self-satisfied kind of writing she accuses the new generation of perpetuating."

You can't escape us, Candace! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE!

[NYO]

If the universe of the books is consistent with the universe of the show—and it very well may not be—readers should anticipate a scene featuring an 11th-grade Carrie sharing “half a joint” with one Seth Bateman and then doing it with him on the Ping-Pong table in his “smelly rec room.” At least this is how Carrie describes her origin story to Charlotte in episode 38, “The Big Time.”

Bushnell's editors aren't sure if this or any other sex scene will be included in the book. It doesn't matter: The book will have at least one generation of young kids primed to watch Sex And The City before they even graduate high school, which is corrupting enough on its own. They'll be ordering dreadful cocktails from the get go, for God's sake!

[Observer]

For instance, neither Gawker nor its counterparts have ever properly examined the extent to which Bushnell even penned those original Sex And The City columns—upon which the HBO show was based—during the 1990s. The name was the idea of Peter Kaplan; and the Observer editor said ten years ago that there was "blood on the floor" after some editing sessions. But veterans of the weekly say it went beyond that: the columns owe more to Peter Stevenson, executive editor of the Observer, than the rambling drafts that Bushnell submitted. One hopes she secured an equally competent ghost-writer for the blog-bashing new novel.

"Thayer Core was a blogger on one of those vicious new websites that had popped up in the last few years, displaying a hatred and vitriol that was unprecedented in civilized New York. The things the bloggers wrote made no sense [to Philip]. The comments made no sense to him. None of it appeared to be written by humans, at least not humans as he knew them. This was the problem with the Internet: The more the world opened up, the more unpleasant people appeared to be.

...Thayer Core was a bully, and like most bullies, he lacked courage. He was far too fearful to take physical action, striking out at the world instead from behind the safety of his computer."

Epponneerae's new line beats the original, Real-Life Sex and the City Sure Is Something.

Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, formerly Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue.

Their Pitch: A coming of age tale of an aspiring journalist who becomes overwhelmed by the glamorous world of women's magazine only to regain her moral footing.
The Real Pitch: A roman a clef about Weisberger's time at Vogue under Anna Wintour. Turns out Anna's a bit of a bitch.
Critical Take: "This reviewer devoured last year's frothy sensation, The Nanny Diaries, and despite the overwrought hype, this season's The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger is no Nanny Diaries." [USA Today]

4% Famous by Deborah Schoeneman, formerly of New York.

Their Pitch: A young, endearingly awkward woman learns the pitfalls of the New York gossip scene while searching for her place in the city.
The Real Pitch: Four-percent is the magic number for enjoying the perks of fame without losing one's moral bearings.
Critical Take: "Schoeneman's occasional attempts at social critique—for instance, the observation that very thin girls may be on Ritalin—come off more like life-style tips, and the novel's many veiled references to actual people make it read something like an extended blind item." [New Yorker]

Tabloid Love: Looking for Mr. Right in All the Wrong Places by Bridget Harrison, formerly of the Post

Their Pitch: British lady-reporter learns that love doesn't come easy in the Big Apple.
The Real Pitch: Bridget Harrison's veiled memoir of her time at the Post. Worth reading for the references to her New York love, Jesse Angelo, now the Post's managing editor.
Critical Take: "Harrison's depictions of her fish-out-of-water hijinks lift this sharp yet tenderhearted memoir above the predictable chick-lit crop." [Elle.com]

Sex and The City, Candace Bushnell, formerly of the New York Observer

Their Pitch: An original book about lives of glamorous and successful single women in New York trying to balance their career and personal lives.
The Real Pitch: This was the original. It has so much to account for.
Critical Take: "In small doses these essays are brain candy that will appeal equally to urban romantics and anti-romantics." [Publisher's Weekly]

According to the News, the ladies of Darren Star's Cashmere Mafia on ABC are not going to be blessing us with their rapid, frantic chats, supposedly enviable lives, and tired slurping of Cosmos for much longer:

A source...tells me the suits aren't confident the show will stick around. 'He just said about the show, 'Yisgadal v'yitkadash', the Jewish prayer for the dead,' laughs the ear-witness."

But perhaps the reason behind Cashmere's reported demise has more to do with casting? While Lipstick marked the return of sorely missed stars Brooke Shields and on-set dreamboat diarist Andrew McCarthy, Cashmere relied on the always dependable character actress Lucy Liu to hold down the court as his glossy heroine. And the man candy (handsome but dull Peter Hermann and bright young thing but dull Julian Ovenden) didn't stand a chance in comparison. But in the end, all the suits care about are ratings: with the News reporting the latest numbers as Lipstick's 6.4million viewers to Cashmere's 5.7 million, the rumored shutdown may be a simple case of disappointing numbers.

• 'CASHMERE MAFIA' MIGHT BE TAKEN FOR A RIDE [Gatecrasher]

There are men, too, most notably Andrew McCarthy as a suitor for Victory, who states with a cocked head and a wry smirk "They say all men are asses and all women are crazy." Oh. Oh okay. The whole thing is even more dreadful than you'd think and exactly as awful as ABC's doppelgänger series Cashmere Mafia. Really, the only two likable bits are the sort-of sexy wooing of Nico by a younger man and the reasonably pleasant Brooke Shields. Can these women "have it all"? I suppose you'll need to tune in to find out, though I don't recommend it. If you are strangely compelled to watch, I suggest you get blindingly drunk on something beforehand (not cosmos). It's really the only way I could stomach another round of watching these dopey neurotics teeter off, in heels too high, into oblivion. Here's a clip of the ladies shopping and gabbing and learning. Welcome to the Jungle. You're gonna diiiiieee.

They were requesting the possible use of the building—perhaps the tackiest-looking place in Greenpoint—for an exterior shot for NBC's version of Bushnell's book, "Lipstick Jungle."

"The series depicts three successful, dynamic executives as they balance the myriad aspects of the professional and personal sides of their lives," the missive explains helpfully.

The building is not well-known for its successful and dynamic executives.

What was it that attracted them so—the many eagles adorning the building, or the eerie white horse heads lining the gate? Either way, NBC promised, "if selected, you will be compensated"! Well, it's almost the end of the month. Film all you want for, say, $675?

Candace Bushnell judged a dog show in my town, Washington, CT, last weekend. She looked very old, sort of like a mummy with a wig. The show was raising money for cancer, so it was nice of her, but:

• she was talking about a stringed bass at one point and pronouncing it like the fish
  
• when one dog was brought up, she said, "Oh, just like that dog on Sex and the City... you know which one I mean, the Sex and the City dog." This was not the only time she mentioned Sex and the City.

Her much younger husband wore a pink popped lacoste with high, high seersucker pants and seemed gay. The show was held at a pavilion next to the elementary school, and had "quirky" judging categories like sex appeal, etc.

About 12:30 or 12:45, early Wednesday morning, 16 May, 2007, Stereo on West 29th St. CANDACE BUSHNELL and 2 women pull up in a cab. Candace is what, mid-40s? Her companions look about 25-ish. One of them is quite attractive, maybe a Jennifer Love Hewitt type but with honey blonde hair? She's wearing a baby doll mini-dress in light tan and she has nice legs. Candace & friends survey the seething line of about 100 people straining to get into Stereo for the "Laverne & Shirlee" DJ tour- which is Steve Aoki & Danny Masterson + guests. Candace & friends are very put off by the throng, and don't even attempt to push their way through to get the attention of a doorman/bouncer.

After a few minutes just standing there, they see that line is not moving, in fact more people are joining in so the disorganized line bulges. Stereo's bouncers are pretty rude although the actual doormen, when you do speak to them, are human beings & do seem to be letting some people into the club. Candace asks her friends 'Why are we doing this?" While the crowd is basically early 20-somethings, and some of them are dressed ok in an attempt at glamour, the other half of the crowd looks like Jersey or Queens and ironically very influenced by Sex & The City, but a poor version of that show's clothes & style.

Candace's hot friend pulls out her cellphone & calls someone inside. "We're standing outside right next to this big bus," she says. Aoki & Masterson made up a special big tour bus with their Laverne & Shirlee promo pics all over the bus.

About a minute after making that call, Candace & her friends go over to the main entrance & presumably someone whisked them inside.

I was inside about 10, 15 minutes later & I never saw Candace again all night. I did see Calvin Klein model Jaime Burke, he was kind of greasy & sweaty looking and wore dirty rock & roll clothes but I suppose his facial bone structure is good- he does photograph well, although he was much less impressive in person.

One of his friends told me that Lindsay Lohan was there to see Jamie's band Bloody Social, but they played like 12, 12:15 and I didn;t get there til about 12:30-ish.

Candace was wearing a short beige trench coat with wide lapels, a dress shirt in a nice French blue unbuttoned about 3 buttons, and glen plaid trousers that were very wide in the leg. I thought her outfit was nice & very appropriate for her. I thought she had too much makeup on but looked about the same as she does when you see her on TV. She does have big hair—almost a Farrah Fawcett cut. It looked like she'd had her hair blown out that day. She was a little shorter than I imagined she would be; is she 5'6" or so? I've seen her in pictures with her dancer husband and she always looks lean and long cradled in his arms.

I'm not exactly sure why this Laverne & Shirlee DJ tour was so popular with the Tuesday night crowd. Is it cos of Danny Masterson's TV work? I saw him arrive & about 5 or more nightlife photographers were shooting him. His music didn't make much of an impression on me, I guess he played mainly 90s hiphop? And when Danny & Aoki DJ-ed there were a few photographers right in front of the booth shooting them all night—I can't imagine those pics are particularly great? Maybe it's Aoki's personal photographer recording the event. Is Steve Aoki becoming a big DJ name? It was my 2nd time hearing him, he has a pretty exciting style where he jumps around from record to record every 2 minutes or so, and lets the tracks play over one another. For example he played Mims "This Is Why Im Hot" but it had a hot deep house beat under it. He played that Outfield song that was on MTV a long time ago. He played Modjo's "Lady" mashed up with a hip hop song, Lady sounded great. Aoki wears these colourful hoodies he sells with these cartoons all over them, looks like a dinosaur print but I didn't really study it. Masterson just wore a white tee shirt and maybe a hat? He looked kind of sweaty and debauched.

Also Stretch Armstrong came on after Aoki and he played his established hip hop set. Stretch has long been a quality NYC hip hop DJ. I remember when he spun at "PayDay," this early 90s hip hop club really far downtown. Also when I was clubbing a lot in Sag Harbor in the mid-90s he was resident at Amazon on the long wharf there, those were some nice nights of summer revelry. Stretch played a lot of hip hop hits last night, Fat Joe/Lil Wayne "I Make It Rain," 50's In Da Club, Dr Dre G Thang, Naughty's "Hip Hop Hooray," Chamillionaire/Krazy Bones' "Ridin Dirty," There was a pretty good atmosphere and energy to the night, the hip hop seemed to be pleasing the crowd but I'm much more of dance music/house fan. Aoki did play one song that had more of a twisted hard house vibe, but not enough of that for my taste. I also thought Masterson's rambling shoutouts on the mic were pretty retarded, he sounded quite drunk & simply reciting your friends names in a Brooklyn 'hood accent isn't terribly energizing. But I guess his TV fame makes that babbling exciting for his fans.

Stereo seems to fancy itself some kind of chic club, this was my first visit there, but the crowd was generally a Jersey or Borough throng, some dressed fairly stylishly, others tried but ended up looking like the aforementioned Jersey mall version of Sex & The City- not hot. The bulging crowd was more of a hassle than I expected. In the end the head doormen did treat me well, giving me free admission, but some of the bouncers outside were quite rude & having these Jersey & 718s pressing up against me from all sides as I'm getting the attention of the head door people was irksome to say the least. Aoki had some good music and it was okay hearing lots of hip hop hits from the last 10+ years, but I could do without hearing those songs again for a few months now. I wish I'd caught Bloody Social, some say they're good? I will check Jaime's band out sometime soon i hope. I wish I'd seen Lindsay Lohan, maybe she left after Jaime's set? He left for a bit after his set but then came back like an hour later. The bartenders & bathroom guy were all really polite & friendly, I was much less impressed with the bouncers outside but then again it was a teeming, seething mob and clearly more than half of those people did not get in. It was pretty good for Tuesday night; I will check Aoki out again in the future but I'm undecided about Stereo. Although my night was decent on the face of it, it wasn't that great of a club night that I'm eager to return there, at least not for several months. I stayed till past 3:00, not bad for a Tuesday night out clubbing.

The Earl Grey- 10021

• Says the writer whose once-shelved Anna Nicole bio is getting a new lease on life thanks to that lady's death: "I feel morally compelled to put her words out there." [R&M]
  
• Candace Bushnell and producer Darren Star are deeply on the outs because of the similarities between his 'Cashmere Mafia' and her 'Lipstick Jungle' TV pilots. [Page Six]
  

• Real estate devil Barbara Corcoran boarded the wrong flight, but no one cared. Then she told Page Six about it and still no one cared. [Page Six]
  
• Not everyone wants to go to the Waverly Inn—it's too pricey for Kerry Washington and too "fancy-schmancy" for Edie Falco. [NYM]
  
• Cindy Adams' Yorkies got personally fitted for teeny-tiny Spiderman tees! Oh, sure, pretend not to care. [Cindy]
  
• According to RFK Jr., Karl Rove didn't just hiss at Laurie David and Sheryl Crow, he spat on them. Literally spat. Where is Mo'Nique when you need her? [NYM]