Gawker: Trash

Snippy Eurotrash Gloating Over American Recession

ian spiegelman — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:27:20 EDT

Not to use that hacky old line about saving all their asses in WWII and leaving them free to invest in things other than standing armies for the last 60-plus years, but Europe is just laughing its delicate ass off at us now that we're in financial trouble. The little bastards. "They list greed and Greenspan among the culprits, and there are comparisons to . . . Albania. But amid the gloating, there is fear for financial systems in Britain, Spain, Italy and elsewhere. It's a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street. The finance minister of Italy's conservative and pro-U.S. government warned of nothing less than a systemic breakdown. Giulio Tremonti excoriated the 'voracious selfishness' of speculators and 'stupid sluggishness' of regulators. And he singled out Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, with startling scorn."

"'Greenspan was considered a master,' Tremonti declared. 'Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after [Osama] bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis.'

"The system is collapsing, exactly like the Albanian pyramids collapsed,' Tremonti said. 'The idea is gaining ground that the way out of the crisis is mainly with large public investments. . . . The return of rules is accompanied by a return of the public sector.'"

Okay, okay. So our shit's a little fucked up right now. But here's one thing: We don't have to take any crap from the likes of fucking Italy. How are your Neo-Nazi soccer riots going? And, what're you guys on now? Like your 24th "Republic" since Mussolini? Give it a rest. And don't get me started on Spain, Germany and France. [LAT]

Heaping Pile of Reality Show Trash Leaves Heaping Pile of Trash

Richard — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:56:00 EDT

MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge show, and its enduring popularity, is one of television's most damning indictments of American youth. For that reason I watch every week, disgusted—like eating a whole bag of Fritos and bitterly regretting it—while these drunken, bloated ex-Real World and Road Rules cast members booze and sloppily fuck and compete greedily for sweet, sweet cash. The whole thing is a complete mess. Literally! The cast and crew of the most recent iteration The Island, airing now (sigh), reportedly left behind tons of trash for the Panamanian locals to clean up:

The area was tight with security that kept curious onlookers out during production. But once MTV left, Maher and a student surveyed the area. "The place looked like a trash dump," Maher said, with evidence of felled trees, wooden structures, and pages of scripts (revealing that the reality show is actually, well, scripted).

Hah! Scripts! Oh I wish they'd kept some of the pages and maybe scanned them and sent them to us. If you still have them, anyone out there, please send them to us.

MTV, for what it's worth, denies the mess:

A spokeswoman from Bunim/Murray — the production company of the Real World and Road Rules shows for MTV — said that no trees were cut down for the filming of The Island, and that the pictures were taken before crews had a chance to clean up the area.

Seriously guys, jeez. Give them a minute, man. They'd just finished dragging the sweaty corpses of BrieChanta and Dustin into their shallow, sandy graves—after they'd gurgled softly following that last rum shot, crossed their eyes, and collapsed. That takes time, brah! [Portfolio] Photos of the mess are here.

If you're curious, an episode of the show lies below.

Here, Kiddie Kiddie

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:37:03 EDT

Children under 12 are the targets of almost $1 billion in marketing spending from food companies every year. What are they being sold? Pop-tarts, fast food, crackers, gum, sugary cereals, and the other things that good moms don't let their kids eat. But! The food industry has graciously decided that they will get their rampant advertising to kids under control, to ensure that the kids aren't, you know, encouraged to buy the carbtastic products that these companies make. And who is determining just what the standards will be for protecting kids? These very same food companies! In related news, kids are all fat. Let's break it down:

A bunch of big huge evil food companies got together and formed a group and promised to either not advertise to kids, or only advertise products to kids that are "good" for them. Then these companies individually decided for themselves what it means to advertise to kids, and what food is "good." With predictable results! Here are some products you should be aware are good for your babies:

Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, Corn Pops, Burger King's macaroni and cheese. Mmm! Plus, some companies say an ad only "targets children" if more than half of its audience is made up of kids under age 12. So 51% 13-year-olds and 49% toddlers, go right ahead with that bacon double cheeseburger ad!

Mmm!

And if it proves to be too much of a hassle for the companies, they just sell to the terrible parents of America:

Kellogg’s has been trying to reformulate its Pop-Tarts, for example, but has not succeeded in creating a better-for-you version. By the end of the year, “if we can’t do it, we will shift the target for that product to adults, whether it’s moms or whomever makes sense,” said a Kellogg’s spokeswoman.

[NYT]

How Harvey Weinstein Squeezes Millions Out Of Project Runway

Hamilton Nolan — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:41:43 EDT

$8 million. Does that seem like a lot of money for a company to pay to have mediocre models use their hair products on a mediocre cable show for a few seasons? It kind of does. But that's how much The Weinstein Company, run by entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein, is trying to squeeze out of L'Oreal for three seasons of sponsorship of Project Runway. Of course, Weinstein has a long history of pimping out the fashion reality show to every company on earth willing to pay a dime to be on it, using it as a profit machine to support his company's less sure-thing ventures. And he's still milking it for every cent. How do we know? Because he left all the evidence in a public trash can:

Project Runway was a big hit on the Bravo network. But Weinstein decided to move the show to Lifetime, which agreed to up his cut to around $1 million per episode. He also screwed Bravo by lining up sponsors for the show on his own, which precluded the network from selling ads to other companies in the same categories. Weinstein even ended up favoring a Wal-Mart placement on the show over a Macy's one, proving he wasn't in it for taste.

Still, the show is a hit, and a cash cow. Project Runway has been successful enough to demand that fashion magazines like Elle and Marie Claire pay for the privilege of being featured on the show. Hardcore media hardball.

And a treasure trove of new evidence dug out of Weinstein's trash can by the Village Voice's Tony Ortega shows that the mogul himself is closely involved in the show's sponsorship choices. An email from a former Weinstein Co. employee shows the calculating negotiation process:

"I wish there was more time. Twc [The Weinstein Company] has already gone to great lengths with new partner at lifetime to not only secure both categories for you but also to be flexible toward loreal in coming up with an alternative for you on their packaging of [seasons] six + seven. Unfortunately, due to filming of season five and tresemme's feeling that they are being iced out of season 6, there just is not more time to give. As you know, season five commences in days...twc is now at risk that tresemme will pull out of season 5, which puts twc at risk for 1.1m [$1.1 million]. Carol is welcome to call hw [Harvey Weinstein] or me, but the deadline has to remain at close of business tuesday for loreal to decide on hair category for [Project Runway]/models for season 6 and structure of [seasons] 7/8. I would additionally say that the whole reason we are to this point is a result of the relationship! Without the relationship and the history, l'oreal would not have the opportunity to even engage in the opportunity to obtain the hair category."

Good thing they have such a good relationship! Or this sponsorship thing would really be nasty. And here's how much the company is expected to cough up to Weinstein in order to have its goop featured on the faaabulous production:

"Hw - if you get a call from carol hamilton it will be regarding [Project Runway] season 6 and beyond. I've imposed a tuesday, close of business deadline for them to commit to hair category in addition to make up. They have two choices: 1) Take both hair and make up for [$2 million] plus [$1 million] to twc (no split) for season 6 and [$2 million] for hair and makeup for season 7 plus [$1 million] to twc for a total of [$6 million]. 2) Commit to season 6 only for [$2 million] hair/make up plus [$1 million] to twc] and then by 3rd episode must pick up both season 7 + 8 for a total of [$8 million] (but must take additional [$1 million] to twc regardless) They have asked for additional time and I have declined that citing tresemme and season 5 which starts shooting shortly. Call me if you have questions. Best, lori"

A mogul's life: not so different from a used car salesman. Buy now! There's a guy on his way here right this minute to take it off my hands if you don't want it.....

[VV; pic via NY Mag]

Shred The Pain Away At Times Square

Pareene — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:00:40 EST

The Time Square Business Alliance invites all New Yorkers to their hellish playground tomorrow to destroy their baggage, in the both-literal-and-figurative Darjeeling Limited sense. It's "Good Riddance Day," you see, and they've got shredders and garbage trucks at the ready. Show up with old love letters, bounced rent checks, the Bill of Rights, the only documents that prove your arch-nemesis' innocence—anything you need to forget about this terrible year we've all just muddled through. Then they'll shred it and cart it off to Staten Island, the spiritual and physical home of spiritual and physical refuse. You only have an hour, though! Get there before 1 p.m. or else you'll be stuck with that marriage license for another year! Not since the Comiskey Park Disco Demolition Riot of 1979 has there been such a cosmically confused and comically wasteful response to our shared spiritual bankruptcy!

Good Riddance Day [Times Square Alliance]

Lydia Hearst And Her Factory 2.0 Of Idiocy

Joshua Stein — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:00:00 EST

As noted femiblogger Moe Tkacik coolly observes, party gal Lydia Hearst has a diary page in Page Six Magazine in which she decries tabloid celebutards and also gives readers insight into what it means to be wealthy, young, intemperate, macabre, shallow, vapid, viscous and blithe. In the current Hearst Chronicles, we learn that Lydia and her friends have a thing called Factory 2.0. In her words, it's a "Andy Warhol-esque atmosphere in our own time."

Factory 2.0 is a place where "people can have creative outbursts." An example of such a creative outburst, according to Hearst:"we held an impromptu Halloween party (I dressed as a cavegirl) and got tattoos."

It's kind of like Damien Hirst meets Piero Manzoni meets, uh, the Geico guy? That's also like precisely what normal people call getting wasted and doing something dumb! But whatever, everyone's got their 15 minutes, right?

Team Party RSVP: Trash At Rififi

Choire — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:08:58 EDT

On Friday night, the shocking libertines of Trash celebrated their fifth anniversary of partying heartily. The resulting photos are not all safe for work. Unless you work at a truck stop hooker bar. Which we hope you do! Our photographer Nikola Tamindzic's gallery is here. After the jump, our correspondent Phil Oh meets and greets and explains the locals.

Five years is a pretty long time for anything to last in New York, much less a weekly Britpop party like Trash. It is in fact hard to believe the party is still going on—on Friday night, there was even a line of people 20 deep to get in. Maybe it's because they installed those fake-ID scanners at MisShapes.

DJ Jess insists it's the music that keeps them coming back. "I'm not saying its a good or bad thing, but people go to parties like MisShapes and Ruff Club to pose for photos. Kids come to Trash to get crazy on the dance floor," said DJ Jess as he pouted for Nikola, Nicky Digital, and Last Night's Party's Merlin Bronques' lenses.

The dance floor was heaving though, with a melange of Suicide Girl castoffs, twirling gay boys, and cross-dressing famine-victim go-go dancers.

"Not much has changed in the time I've been doing the door here, except longer lines," explained Brendan the doorguy/DJ. "We do get some more yuppie types in button-down shirts and chinos, but hey it's okay. You can't hate someone just for having a job!"

But I suppose it's kinda like the Odeon of weekly Britpop parties. If you're hankering for steak frites at Friday midnight, and you can't think of anywhere better to go, there's always Odeon. Except replace Odeon with Trash, and steak frites with singing along to Smiths songs. Anyhow, bad similes aside, we were hard pressed to find anyone though, who had been going to the party for five years. "Dude, I was like in high school in 2002!" said one girl. Oh... whiskey!

Jack, a lifelong East Villager, tries to check out Trash every couple weeks. "I look around, and these kids who are fuckin' weirdos and look like freaks, but deep down they have hearts of gold. It's not like some other spots around here where the girls are too cool to talk to you."

Right on cue, we were interrupted by a drunk Last Night's Party reject who offered to flash her tits if I would take her picture for Gawker. I wasn't in the mood for boobs, and anyway, there were perkier ones getting their photos snapped by Nikola in the bathroom, so I passed, not wanting to waste anyone's time.

Oh, this is where Jack chimed in, "If he won't, I'll take a look at 'em!" But you know how the story goes: no Nikon, no nipple. Jack was undeterred though, and explained how he's been known to take a few "dames" home to his $150/month rent-controlled apartment. Dames! Is that what we called drunk sluts back in the 70s? "It's all about getting your rocks off."

Whether its lollipops, face, or boobs, sucking seems to be an underlying theme here at Trash. Well, Jess and the crew certainly get props for keeping the party going strong for so long. Here's to another five years, I guess!