• "Paul": A 43 year-old "academic who specializes in antiquities," Paul's "partner" (gay) is a law firm partner, and together they bring in more than $2 mil a year, no thanks to academia. They have houses in Hong Kong, NYC, and the Hamptons—and they've poured $1 million into a renovation of the Hamptons place. "There's a perilous, exciting feeling to having zigged when other people zagged," he explains. He's referring to spending lots and lots of money, there.
• "Jon": A 30 year-old commercial real estate broker in NYC, Jon's income has fallen during the recession, but he can't stand to regress from $10,000 watches and $2,000 suits. It's hard not to spend, you see: "Then you go to the pool, and it's another $300 for a cabana-and you want the good cabana, not the one on the second floor where no one can see you."

Isn't this just the problem with closeted Details in the first place? It's always been so obviously gay, but at the same time it's like your college roommate who would blast Liza Minnelli and then talk about how he loved fucking his girlfriend who lives in Canada. The mag's closet mentality has even rubbed off on Lambert and they get him to say some really freaky things.

I am gay, but I like kissing women sometimes. Women are pretty. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily sleeping with them.

Yeah, that was really convincing. Adam, why are you going along with this? Say it loud, you're queer and you're proud. And now is not the time to be ashamed.

What is pretty shameful is the press release announcing his cover story. It says the American Idol runner up talks about "getting bras thrown at him onstage, kissing gorgeous women, and living the American dream." Yes, being a gay man making out with a woman really is the American dream—if you're a member of Exodus and trying to convince yourself you're straight.

And just check out the awkward photo shoot.

In order to get Lambert to make out with the model, they gave her jockstrap flavored lip gloss, which our man is now trying to devour. This is possibly the first men's magazine shoot where the male and female models are wearing matching nail polish.
This pose is so awkward that it has never been found in nature or heterosexual lovemaking ever in the history of the world. It shows Adam Lambert doesn't even know where the vagina lives. "Is it over here? No. Is it over here? No."
Lambert stares off into the distance at a monitor playing scenes from College Dudes 24/7. He needs to keep his motivation up, because in a minute, they're going to make him touch that yucky girl again.
Here is the cover. Adam looks pouty. That is the usual reaction when mean magazine editors make gay guys spend a whole day touching boobs.

Claim from an incredibly biased source (the editor of Paper): "If New York City were a magazine, it would be Paper." No, it would be F.E.D.S.


John Koblin reports that the publisher of Details, Steven DeLuca, is getting canned, and his duties will be taken over by Bill Wackermann, current publisher of Glamour. The fact that the rest of Details didn't get canned in yesterday's Conde purge is actually kind of amazing. So this is low collateral damage.


Here's a needlessly titillating headline: "CTD Developing Nancy Grace Strip." Comic strip? Strip mall? Strip show? No, it's just some dumb Judge Judy-esque TV show. Go to hell then, Nancy Grace.


The UK's Mail on Sunday newspaper has paid "substantial damages" to Madonna after she sued the paper for publishing photos of her wedding to Guy Ritchie. After that happened, everyone knew she was married, so, damages. Or something. British laws suck so bad.

Keith Kelly reports today that Teen Vogue, Allure, and Details—three of the company's shakiest titles—will not be killed. At least not right away!

A report from management consultants McKinsey & Co., now in the preparation stage, is expected to provide a blueprint for keeping all the magazine brands intact, although there will be some major ratcheting down of expenses, as has been widely reported.

Still. If those three mags and both Gourmet and Bon Appetit are all around a year from now, I will eat my shoe (which is made of pizza).

VentureBeat blogger Eric Eldon, who lives in the hipster San Francisco neighborhood of the Lower Haight and rides a hipster bicycle to other hipster neighborhoods and wears hipster glasses and has a hipster job and is generally in denial about being a hipster, criticized hipsters and their cowboy-boot affectations, just in time for them all to pack up their cowboy boots and fly to Austin for SXSW.

Facebook platform manager Dave Morin, who lives in the San Francisco hipster neighborhood of North Beach and is in such denial about being a hipster he doesn't even realize he should be in denial about being a hipster, packed up his cowboy boots and flew to Austin for SXSW.

Cutie-pie CBS Internet correspondent Natali Del Conte got stalked in Texas by Luke Wilson and Paul Rudd.

Chris Lehmann, better known as Mr. Wonkette Emerita, grokked a fundamental truth about Del Conte and Morin's destination. (Psst, Chris: SXSW has hotels, a complete lack of boot-ruining playa dust, and better food. But other than that, you're on to something there.)

Hipster-mongering Details editor Daniel Peres doesn't read Gawker unless told to, Columbia J-school student James Sims, who we suspect is himself a hipster, wrily noted.

See something worth noting on Twitter? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Details editor Dan Peres had a little red meat for the crowd at his speech at Columbia J-school last night: "He called a neighbor in Westchester an 'asshole' after the man wondered aloud why anyone would pay j-school tuition... 'We'll be around a lot longer than his investment bank will,' said Mr. Peres." No comment. Whatsoever.


Sure, high school journalists like Josiah Jones of Lee's Summit, Missouri, know that the journalism industry is in rough shape, but "Jones plans to pursue a journalism career, completely undeterred by the forces buffeting the profession." Yea well millions of high school kids also plan on being NBA players and rock stars. The odds are against you, my friend.


Bad media news roundup: Media General is closing its DC bureau and laying off six journalists; NPR, of all places, is canceling all of its newspaper subscriptions; and a new report from Barclays Capital predicts that US advertising revenue will decline by 13% this year. Only three things, it's a good day!


NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger: ""The immediate future looks, at a minimum, grim...Traditional revenue streams are anemic and getting worse." This is true. Though admirably direct, by NYT standards! He says the paper may start charging for some of its online content, which is inevitable.


See a family resemblance here? Eh? That's right, it's young AG Sulzberger, intrepid rookie NYT reporter and son of the man pictured above! The Observer reports he has the "attitude and presence of an intern." Buck up son! [Pic via]

Winner: Wired. A deserving one! Wired is, it's safe to say, the most fully developed and cerebral magazine of the bunch. It's been thin lately, but it obviously has plenty of fans. And we'll be buying ten subscriptions and handing them out to you. Stay tuned.

Runner-up: Portfolio. A thoroughly respectable showing! Especially considering the amount of trash talk directed at Fort Polio around here. It does have some great content every once in a while. But the money Conde spends to put this magazine out may prove to be its downfall.

The Tie: Bon Appetit and Gourmet. Two separate food magazines, with different approaches, both of which are losing advertising at an alarming rate, separated by just six votes. We wondered: does Conde need two food magazines? Answer: no. Combined, they would have won this poll running away. Deciding which title to keep was just as hard for you as it would be at 4 Times Square.

The Dregs: Allure, Teen Vogue, Cookie. None of these got a lot of support, but we're guessing your demographics and their demographics aren't the best match. So call it even. Ironically, Cookie, which came in last, is perhaps the most promising start-up at Conde Nast, business-wise.

The Real Loser: Details. It didn't come in last. But around here—considering our audience—Details really should have been able to pull at least 10% or so — or at least beat out Teen Vogue. The fact that it didn't is an ominous sign.

They're moving into the former offices of Domino, which folded last week. So in exchange for access to a grand cafeteria and the chance of spotting Anna Wintour in the elevators, they get to relocate to the jinxed Offices of Doom. Kind of like if you're on the front lines with the Russian army in WWII in the wintertime, and your buddy gets shot and killed, but hey, at least you can take his shoes.

Our tipster tells us this "Just in case you want to make a joke about how we'll probably be in and out of the space pretty quickly." Hey, Details might not be around that long itself anyhow, amirite? Hey-o!

Our tipster subscribes to magazines under different names to see who's selling their subscribers list where, and he received this solicitation in the mail:

The GMHC in question is of course Gay Men's Health Crisis, a nonprofit advocacy organization that claims to be "first in the fight against AIDS." We look forward to the day when Details can openly serve its many audiences instead of us having to find out this way.

One of our tipsters subscribes to different magazines under different names, in order to smoke out those that are selling his name to various marketers. He's a Details subscriber. And lo and behold, which other magazine just sent him a discount voucher? The Advocate—the oldest LGBT magazine in America:

Why does The Advocate seek the same subscribers as Details? Because Details is so gay.

It's the kind of place where the neighborhood's aggressively coupled recent transplants can forget about astronomical housing prices and in vitro fertilization for a few hours while nibbling on chocolates from Dean & DeLuca or watching a mixologist squeeze fresh juice for a Blackberry Caipirinha. The sole beer is Grimbergen, served in a snifter. On this night, a student with a messenger bag peeked inside, then promptly left.

"I want to attract an international crowd," said Asio Highsmith, a model and one of the owners, adding, "This bar could be anywhere."

Like... HELL.

"According to Fabio," says Details, "Clooney called [Fabio's female] dinner companions — who'd won the date at a charity auction benefiting the California Highway Patrol — names." What names? "Bitches [and] even badder words," says Fabio, who continues:

This guy, he ate more than he could chew. He laid a hand on me, so it would have been self-defense if I had beaten him down. I could have fucked him up. Oh my god, I could have beaten the shit out of him. I was so pissed off. So I go over and I'm like, 'Listen, I will fuck you up.' Right then, I could have knocked him over and beat him. I could have punched him in the face while he was on his back. That's how you really hurt someone — their face can't amortize the punch so it takes, it takes the whole impact. I am still so pissed at him. To insult women like that. He is a dog whose noise is worse than his bite.

Fabio [Details]

Not Ben's Words [Page Six]