Thay It Ain’t So! Merrill Chief Loses Part of BonusFINANCE
• The falling market has shaved off a big chunk of Wall Street hottie John Thain’s compensation. Don’t worry, Thainie-boy, we still love you. [DealBook/NYT]
• Wondering what the hell’s happening in the markets? Watch one trader lose his life savings in a single day. (NSFW) [Crossing Wall Street]
• Ex–Goldman banker becomes underwater gravedigger. Say what? [NYT]
office-party patrol
Dancing With D.E. Shaw and Drinking With BarneysDid anybody watch Matt and Meredith play Guitar Hero on the Today show? Did it make you want to kill yourself? If so, you now know exactly how you will feel if you try to make it through your office holiday party without getting shitcanned. As your co-workers get increasingly merry and begin acting decreasingly pubescent, you have a choice: either get in there and do the Cabbage Patch or run home to your new Battlestar Galactica DVD set. Fortunately, you’re only required to go to one company party. We, on the other hand, have been crashing as many as possible. Last night’s events included the Details shindig at Bowery Bar, the Domino party in some editor’s apartment, and the fabulous annual Marc Jacobs costume extravaganza. We didn’t go to any of those, but we did sneak into the Barneys New York hoedown at Bar Martignetti and the sumptuous D.E. Shaw extravaganza at Cipriani. After the jump, who parties better: finance geeks or fashionistas?
party lines
Jimmy Carter Makes Us Feel Like LosersJimmy Carter has a new title on his Nobel- and Grammy-studded résumé: movie star. But the other night at a screening of The Man From the Plains, Jonathan Demme’s new documentary about the former president, Carter was still adjusting to being a leading man. “I’m waiting to see whether I’m going to be a villain or a hero,” he joked. Making the movie, he said, made him empathize with the plight of reality-TV stars. “Demme intruded in my life sixteen hours a day, week after week,” Carter said. “When I got up in the morning, he was there with two or three cameras; when I walked down the corridors, he was there in front and back with two or three cameras. He would excuse me on occasion — always when I went to the restroom.” The movie followed Carter on the book tour for his controversial Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, the 25th book he’s written during his activist post-presidency. Right! That doesn’t make us feel lazy or anything! So, does he have any advice about what the current president might do once he leaves the White House? “I’d be a poor adviser for someone who wants to ‘replenish the coffers,’” he said. Snap!—Janelle Nanos
intel
Pocket Full of School Fund-raisersGruppy parents expecting nothing more than heated hors d’oeuvre, questionable D.J.-ing — La Isla Bonita, anyone? — and fevered over- bidding for class projects at an Upper West Side public-school auction Friday night got a rare treat when Chris Barron, lead singer of the Spin Doctors, took to the school’s stage for a surprise set. Barron, whose child attends the school, worked the crowd into a near-fever pitch, sending them back to grungy college years — when school auctions were so, well, uncool — with his biggest hits, including “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and “Two Princes,” both from Pocket Full of Kryptonite, the Doctors’s triple-platinum debut album. Does Barron, like other, crankier musicians, resent having to play old standbys decades after they first hit the charts? “That’s silly,” he said. “Those are great songs.” Agreed. —S. Jhoanna Robledo
Chris Barron [MySpace]