Gawker: last call

BBC's Jon Leyne Gets Bounced From Iran

Foster Kamer — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:00:22 EDT

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The BBC confirmed today that their star correspondent in Iran, Jon Leyne, has been asked to leave the country by the Iranian government. Leyne was accused of being a diplomatic mouthpiece and inciting violence. BBC's Iranian office remains open. [AFP]

Tavern on The Green's Withering Future

Joshua David Stein — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:13:12 EDT

Nothing embodied the gaudy excess of New York's restaurants more than Central Park's Tavern on the Green. But today the restaurant is up-for-grabs and no one seems to be grabbing.

In short, after thirty some years as the over-the-top child of the family of Warner LeRoy, a film director with a weirdly Wizard of Oz obsessed daughter, the City put out a call for bids for new licensees/operators of the place. Initially, hundreds of investors expressed interest in taking over the place. Among them the accursed Cipriani family, Danny Meyer, David Liederman (of David's Cookies and Chez Louis) as well as the LeRoy family—headed by Jennifer Oz LeRoy—and Seth Greenberg, the devil who is behind downtown event space Capitale and the obviously named space Espace. But today the interested parties had to pony up $50,000 in "earnest money" to move ahead in the process. Big surprise: Everyone is all talk. Jesus, it's just like Housewives of New York City. The part where everyone talks about charity but no one actually gives.

Out of the running: The Cipriani family who has problems of their own. Danny Meyer who thought "Aw, fuck it." and David Liederman who must have taken a look around the city and the economy and thought better of being saddled by an ornate outdated restaurant. So whose left? Just, as far as we can tell, LeRoy and Greenburg which means The Tavern on the Green will either continue being what it is now: a temple to mediocre food and bad taste, the musty rococo vulva of your grandmother, or it may turn into a sleek event space with the food cutout all together. Either way, it's not great news.

Our suggestion: What about letting the Tavern revert back to what it started as, a sheepfold? It could be like I Am Legend but gentler and without zombies.

On Tavern License, a Roll Call of Interested Parties [NYT]

[Photo from the MIN Awards at Tavern on the Green in November 2007. Ha!]

Candace Bushnell's Reign Of Terror Nearly Ended

Richard Lawson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:26:00 EST

Fear not, fans of rational portrayals of modern urban career women on television and film. Candace Bushnell's influence is almost gone from our lives. The Sex and the City authoress (or is she??) co-created a TV show last year called Lipstick Jungle that was basically a tired rehash of the SATC series but without all the fun swears and nudity and stuff. Well, that show was blessedly canceled yesterday, so we no longer have to deal with its particular brand of shoes-as-metaphor-for-longing ladybusiness. And now, oh my, Bushnell's satellite radio show has been euthanized as well.

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.

After viewing Carson Daly's initial writerless...

Mark — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:00:06 EST

After viewing Carson Daly's initial writerless effort on his revived Last Call Monday night, the NY Times opines that even though there's been much hand-wringing over the host's decision to be the first late-nighter to cross the WGA picket line, "a bland interview with the underwear model Karolina Kurkova and pop music by the Plain White T's" is hardly going to be the death of the Movement, as Daly is not exactly threatening to fill the void left by the darkening of The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live sets. True, but the next thing you know, the Scottish guy who's on after Letterman gets back to work, and from there it's a slide down a slippery strike-breaking slope that doesn't end until Ryan Seacrest is guest-hosting for Leno for months. [NY Times]

Vincent Gallo And Terry Richardson Pimp Belvedere

Joshua Stein — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:20:33 EST

Vincent Gallo (the actor the Times once called a "misunderstood auteur pursuing an intensely personal vision") and fashion photographer Terry Richardson (whose work has been described as having "real pertinence in an industry that tends to be conservative and anodyne") are featured in a new Belvedere vodka ad. I saw it last night and it is depressing.

In it, Gallo runs around like a party ape and defaces a painting with a crude smiley face before making out with a girl underneath a grand piano. Richardson, beflanneled of course, grins goofily at the camera and takes a picture of it.

Ostensibly, the ad is meant to position Belvedere as the downtown drink of choice and other brands, such as Grey Goose, as the stuffy uptown beverage. But! What it really gets at is how both Gallo and Richardson have become silly parodies of themselves. Gallo, who fancies himself an artist, takes a Sharpie and defaces an admittedly mediocre painting with a scrawl and stands back as if he's created something truly trenchant. It's almost as self-indulgent as when he concocted a whole movie around Chloe Sevigny giving him head. Richardson, on the other hand, is shown so hellbent on documenting his own fame that he can only train his lens on a lens trained at him. Whatever. It makes me want to have a drink but definitely not Belvedere.

Belvedere Vodka Gets Down and Dirty in Ads [AdAge]