Whitney Port Is Moving On Quite NicelyThe ‘City’ star was spotted “getting smoochy” with Robert Buckley. Plus: Beyoncé buys a bling-y bra, and much to the tabloids’ consternation, Jennifer Aniston is still not pregnant.
Lourdes Just Couldn’t Take the Fighting AnymoreShe wants mom and dad back together, and Little Malawi David probably does, too. Also, come on with Cin to the Fulton Fish Market! In the Ides of January gossip roundup!
Mickey Rourke Drank and Drugged to Quench the Fire InsideThat’s what Alec Baldwin said! Plus, Eva Amurri and Julianne Moore are putting themselves and others at risk. And a depressing Gary Coleman item that we put at the very bottom.
Ethan Hawke Pulls a Jude LawEthan Hawke is dating the woman who used to be his kids’ nanny. Mayor Bloomberg hit Joey Pantoliano with his car. Former Condé Nast chairman Steve Florio is still in the hospital despite having suffered a stroke two weeks ago. Former Sopranos star Aida Turturro left Stereo the other night after finding out that the stagehands’ strike was over. Fergie took the stage twenty minutes late at a Wilhelmina party because of a wardrobe malfunction. A fourteen-acre property in Southampton is going on sale for $59 million.
early and often
Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Apple? Chicago Is!Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune included an opinion piece that, even though we’re a day late on it, we just can’t let slip by. In it, writer Dennis Byrne rails against the fact that both party’s presidential front-runners are New York politicians (and Bloomberg, our mayor, might join them in the race). He claims it’s bad for America that the leading candidates are from somewhere so “provincial.”
I find it curious that American voters may have to choose between two New Yorkers and it has received little, if no attention, from the coastal media. Maybe they think the rest of us won’t notice. Maybe they don’t care whether the rest of us notice. After all, New York is the Center of Everything (followed at a respectful distance by the District of Columbia and a great distance by everyone else), so the rest of us should be glad that someone from New York would be sitting in the Oval Office.
Okay, first of all, stop projecting. And second of all, fuck you.
it just happened
Brad Pitt: ‘I’ll Take the Ninth Ward for $10 Million’Guess that Jesse James money was burning a hole in the pocket of Brad Pitt’s hot little pants. The actor, a featured speaker at Clinton’s annual Global Initiative Conference up at the U.N., just pledged $10 million toward rebuilding the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, says the Huffington Post. “We’re prepared to break ground by the end of the year, but we need your help,” he told the audience, which included Afghan president Hamid Karzai, president of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Desmond Tutu, and World Bank honcho Robert B. Zoellick. Pitt’s Make It Right Project, which he’s been working on with Liz Hurley baby daddy Steven Bing, is aiming to construct 150 affordable and sustainable homes in areas affected by Katrina. “We will match dollar for dollar any and every single contribution up to $10 million.” We feel sure those in the crowd will pony up. How could Archbishop Tutu say no to such a pretty face?
Brad Pitt Heats Up Clinton Global Initiative Session on Climate Change [HuffPo]
Make It Right [Official site]
party town
Looking for Love, and Runway Models• Dedication premiere. Chelsea West Cinemas, 333 W. 23rd St., nr. Eighth Ave., 6:45 p.m. Director Justin Theroux and stars Billy Crudup, Mandy Moore, and Amy Sedaris will be there. Crudup plays a grouchy children’s-book author, and Moore plays the children’s-book illustrator that his publisher forces him to work with. Might sparks fly between the pair? We will alert you as soon as the Daily Intel Romantic-Comedy Seismograph reports any evidence of flirtation.
intel
Who’s Choppering to the Hamptons? Rich Families
Chuck Schumer launched another one of his constituent-pleasing crusades this week: He wants the FAA to regulate the flight paths of rent-a-chopper services that whisk the city’s plutocracy to the Hamptons on the weekends. They’d be restricted to “noise-abatement routes” along freeways and over the water, leaving Long Islanders feeling a bit less like they’re living in a suburban Apocalypse Now. But are Hamptons-bound helicopters really such a problem? Increasingly so, as it turns out. This year, Blue Star Jets, which books for the area’s six operators and their 35 helicopters, reports a 15 percent increase in chartered traffic to the beach; it expects to have booked 500 trips by the end of the summer. Even worse, with the average trip costing about $2,500, the passengers are the sorts of people used to getting what they want. “People will come with eight steamer trunks like they’re boarding the Titanic,” says pilot Charles Humphries. “Then we have to explain to them that they can either take their friends or their bags.”
intel
How Much for the ‘Post’?
Question of the day: Why is today’s Post 25 cents in most of the city (or at least in West Village, at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street, where we checked) and 75 cents in the East Village (or at least at Avenue A and St. Marks Place, where this was spotted)? Your guess is as good as ours.
the morning line
Thrice-Married Catholic Not Considered So Religious
• Only 13 percent of responders think Rudy Giuliani is “of strong religious faith,” according to a Time poll — and that’s lower than Hillary’s number (15 percent). But he once wanted to close down an art exhibit for blasphemy! [NYP]
• “The very character of the Northeast is at stake” if greenhouse gases aren’t reduced, a new study warns. Poised to vanish: Long Island lobsters and New York apples. What will thrive: smog, pollen, and floods. And, clearly, Claritin sales. [NYT]
• An L.A.-to-London flight was diverted to JFK this morning because of a “suspicious passenger.” Michael Chertoff’s gut told him it was a harmless misunderstanding. [WNBC]
• Shelly Silver still won’t agree to bring the Assembly to the table for congestion-pricing talks — even as the desperate Mayor Bloomberg says he’ll fly to Albany tomorrow. By now, we’re just looking forward to Monday, when this mess will be over. [NYDN]
• And, starting today, the MTA adds a “Mets express” to its 7 line: a one-stop service from midtown to Shea. It’s just for an hour on game days, but funny thing: If they did it year-round, Willets Point might actually be habitable. [amNY]
party town
Buscemi Always Brings the Pigs-in-a-Blanket• Interview screening. Tribeca Grand, 2 Sixth Ave., nr. White St., 7 p.m.; after-party at Soho Grand, 310 W. Broadway, nr. Canal St. Director-star Steve Buscemi hosts. Co-star Sienna Miller is also scheduled to attend. The verb “host” usually sounds odd in these contexts: We associate hosting a party with guacamole preparation and frantic bathroom cleaning, things that actors and directors probably don’t often do before film screenings. And yet, Steve Buscemi … We would not be surprised if he were, at this very moment, elbow-deep in bean dip.
party lines
At ‘Xanadu’ Opening Night, Disaster Is Only Narrowly AvertedIt was opening night last night for Xanadu, the Broadway musical based on what’s one of the most disastrously bad movies of all time. So it was only appropriate that the big night teetered on the edge of its own disasters. Things started badly when the NYPD showed up late with the crowd-control railings for the red carpet, prompting three suit-clad PR boys to wrestle the bulky barriers into place just before Olivia Newton-John — who starred in the original movie — stepped out of her limo. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder top that threatened to cause a disastrous nip-slip at any moment. Newton-John laughed through the performance, but she admitted that it brought back bad memories.
it just happened
A Sad Day for Overhyped Pastries: Magnolia Shuttered
But what will become of the fanny-packed tourists?! The city Department of Health’s recent cleanliness crusade has claimed another victim: the Magnolia Bakery. Originally known for its admittedly fairly good cupcakes, Magnolia has since become the epicenter of all that is unholy about the aughts-era West Village: tour buses, a willingness to wait on line for confections, overpriced cutesiness run rampant. The (painfully slow-loading) blog Eater, which broke the news, reports that it’s simply an issue of too few sinks and that the destination snack bar will soon reopen. Alas.
Breaking: Magnolia Bakery Closed by Department of Health [Eater]
