Hype Stalker

We just finished tearing through the new Vanity Fair with golden boy Anderson Cooper on the cover and we're trying to figure out exactly when the magazine decided to anchor entire issues on derivatives. First there's the fawning love note to Cooper in which, somehow, we're supposed to feel sorry for Cooper because he had to, sniff, report on Hurricane Katrina (guess putting an actual New Orleans victim on the cover wouldn't be as sexy as the pre-maturely grey news hunk). Then we get to the juicy stuff a loooong article on the whole Anthony Pelicano phone tapping scandal in Hollywood essentially based on one, two-year old quote in, egad, The New York Post (a tabloid Graydon Carter would never be caught dead reading, much less quoting). The article contains no revealing interview with one of the subjects, in fact, this article may have set a record for "...did not respond when contacted for comment" mentions. The only thing we can imagine that would prompt Carter to approve such a long article so light on any new information is that the subject struck a little too close to some of his cherished Hollywood buddies. This, oh faithful readers, is how you cover big stories without actually covering them. Holy David Blaine!!! It's magic!

New York Magazine has dropped its color-coded (dandy pink for architecture, number two brown for food, booger green for Wall Street) power list issue called "The Influentials" on newsstands and the sweet smell of log rolling is wafting fragrantly throughout Manhattan. According to the editors, the issue is the result of eight long months of dutiful research (read: studying fund raiser guest lists) and conversations (translation: publicist wooing). Despite the issue's velvet rope aspirations, a couple of faces in the group took us a bit off guard, namely: Sarah Lewitinn aka Ultragrrl (this myspace celeb thing is going too far), Lindsay Lohan (red carpet vomit is no longer "hot"), DJ Kay Slay (so 5 years ago), Stephon Marbury (playing on borrowed time), VH-1's Michael Hirschorn (invented "celebreality," in reality deserves Hades) and Marc Ecko (no one, NO one wears Ecko anymore if they want people to talk to them in public). The funniest part of the article is at the beginning when the editors implore you to "please, do not read a hierarchy into the order of names(!)" You can't have your cake and eat it too guys, any power list is destined to make you some enemies and some needy (albeit powerful) friends "such wishy washiness doesn't, well...wash." In the end we are left to wonder: are these really the "influential" New Yorkers, or just "some" of the influential New Yorkers mixed in with other people who happen to make a lot of money? 

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