Last night saw the launch of new magazine DealMaker ("Acquiring Minds") from Doubledown media, the publishers of similarly-rich-financier-themed magazine Trader Monthly, now offering investment bankers, private equity executives, venture capitalists and other M&A professionals their very own magazine, because that's a group that is traditionally highly under-served. Held atop the Mandarin Oriental, the launch party featured many men in suits, and some women who skewed, er, slightly younger, plus a pan-Asian theme which made for delicious dim sum, dumplings, chicken satay, and bowls of fortune cookies with quotes from the magazine, most of which actually still worked when you tacked on "in bed" at the end of them (e.g. From Citigroup chairman emeritus Sandy Weill: "I'm tenacious. I'm hard to knock down"...IN BED! Sandy's 73. Go Sandy!).
Seeing as it was a party for the aforementioned finance types, we weren't expecting to see anyone we recognized (we being your crack ETP team of Rachel Sklar and Melissa Lafsky), but dang if right after we snapped the above picture did the fetching young lass by the Dealmaker sign didn't turn out to be amNY dating columnist Julia Allison. Also in attendance 
were MarketWatch's Jon Friedman, wearing only slightly more fabric than Allison; Page Six macher Richard Johnson with wife Sessa von Richthofen; Andrew Ross Sorkin from the NYT's Dealbook, who no doubt must be sorta tired of having people think he's responsible for Studio 60; NYT advertising reporter Stuart Elliott, NYPost Media Inkster Keith Kelly; briefly, Radar scribe Jeff Bercovici, carrying his classic man-purse; Webster Hall curator frequent Page Six citee Baird Jones ; plus notorious partygoer/crasher/person-actually-on-the-guest-list impersonator Priyantha Silva and mono-named man-about-town Shaggy (yes, that Shaggy, not that Shaggy, nor that Juice Newton, for that matter). It would have been sort of funny if Silva had been impersonating Juice Newton last night, but we forgot to ask him.
Business-side notables included Dealmaker cover man, Michael Price of Evercore (voted #1 Telecom rainmaker in the country!) and his colleague Jane Wheeler (also on the list in the Financials sector!) plus #1 Healthcare rainmaker Jim Forbes of Merrill Lynch, leading media/entertainment banker, UBS's Navid Mahmoodzadegan,and #1 Industrials player Stephen Benson of Stephens Inc. We're not really sure what any of that means, but we do know one thing, and it's not how to spell 'Mahmoodzadegan': It was raining rainmakers. Hallelujah! Juice Newton would have had a good time.
Thanks to the rockin' strains of Manhattan City Music, the Chopin Vodka 'CEO Martini' (not to be confused with the 'Middle Management Martini'), and a few ladies whoopin' it up on the dance floor, the party seemed less like a stodgy Annual Shareholders Meeting than your cousin's surprisingly fun
wedding (yes, there was a conga line, and yes, ETP joined in). After sucking back a few last-ditch chicken satays and exacting a promise from the only guy in a baseball cap to let us drive his Ferrari, ETP figured it was time to leave, and also, we couldn't fit any more dumplings in our purse. Alas, they had run out of gift bags, so we could only dream of the 15% off coupon for a massage at the Mandarin Oriental, the way we similarly dream of being able to afford the $400 for a massage at the Mandarin Oriental.* The Cartier stationery sounded nice, though, if we wrote letters, as did the cigar, if our humidor weren't already so packed with Cohibas and Montecristos. It would have been good to have one, though, if only as an excuse to go up to some random person with it and say, "Havana good time?" Book ETP for your next classy party here.
*We did not double-check this figure, we're guessing. Roll with it.
from thereeler.com
Former Chicago Tribune film & TV critic Allison Benedikt has been hired as the new Village Voice film editor after serving as the paper's interim film editor for the last few weeks. The hire brings some stability back to the Voice's film department, which has undergone a rocky transition for the past few months with the dismissal of writers Michael Atkinson and Dennis Lim as well as complaints from old-school Voicers about the syndication of film reviews across the New Times chain. Benedikt with work with veteran film writer Jim Hoberman and recent hire Nathan Lee, formerly of the NYT and the NY Sun, and tells The Reeler that she and her crew all "care deeply about making the Voice's film section as smart as it ever was, while also putting our own stamp on the coverage" (then, to show that she has a sense of humor about it all, she adds: "First order of business: All celebrity interviews all the time").
NB: Those who wonder if recent Chicago-transplant Benedikt has the requisite New York cred for the Voice needn't fear; the Brill's Content vet knew enough to open her Tribune article on a New York gathering for bygone magazines with the words "With arms outstretched, Jesse Oxfeld broke out in song." Bendikt moved here this summer with her husband, Radar senior writer John Cook. For those who may wonder, Benedikt is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Requisite disclaimer: I wrote this month's Voice cover story on Saturday Night Live; Voice editor-in-chief David Blum is a HuffPo contributor, as is Reeler founder Stu VanAirsdale; I have a jolly email relationship with Cook and have warmly corresponded with Benedikt. But, I hate movies.
TVSquad (and HuffPo contributor) Joel Keller has a terrific interview with new Daily Show correspondent Rob Riggle about his time spent overseas with the U.S. Military as a Marine (as well as time spent in the trenches at that other U.S. institution, Saturday Night Live). Riggle, as anyone who has seem him perform live at the Upright Citizen's Brigade knows, is a hilarious, incredibly talented perfomer with an enormous energy and presence that always has a sort of dangerous edge when he unleashes it in full (his jealous boyfriend/enraged co-worker/crazy mofo characters are always hilariously explosive). Riggle is incredibly forthcoming about his experiences, including the difference between being a Marine and being a professional goofball ("When I'm a Marine, I put on my Marine hat and I conduct myself as a Marine officer should") and the realities of active duty ("You know, your Marines are not going out there to sell Girl Scout cookies. They're going out there to win the nation's battles. That means fighting, and you have to train for that. So there's a certain amount of mental toughness that goes along with it").
The Daily Show has already capitalized on his Marine status in a few clips, like his debut in which he reported on the rather orderly Thai coup and his segment on waterboarding interrogation techniques (as ETP noted previously, Riggle also called on his military experience on SNL to portray a soldier calling out Rumsfeld for the lack of Humvee armor).
Riggle also talks about the difference between working for Lorne Michaels (a "comedic genius") and Jon Stewart ("Jon's the most sincere guy I've ever met... he's a mentor to me") and his experiences on the two shows. Good on Radar for including YouTube clips of Riggle's TDS work for the full multi-platform experience (and good on Comedy Central for not yet yanking those clips).
The entire interview is here; ETP highly recommends it, not only for comedy geeks but for the incredible and unique perspective Riggle offers.
Photo from RadarOnline
Verizon Wireless has announced that it will begin offering YouTube video clips on its cellphones starting next month, according to Reuters. Verizon is hoping that the offer of video content will be a boon to its Vcast wireless media service, which, according to Verizon, attracts a 'higher-value' customer. The VCast platform is currently available to about 20 million Verizon customers, but only about 10% are actually signed up for the service. Under the agreement with YouTube (terms of which were not disclosed by either party), the $15 per month Vcast fee will now get users access to "selected" video clips and the ability to post videos straight from phone to YouTube more easily via a special five-digit code.
According to Reuters, YouTube is exploring multiple platforms for video delivery: "Mobile is just one of the things we're looking at," said YouTube co-founder, Steve Chen. Semi-related: Verizon video on YouTube, above.
Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected the New York Times's request to stay the government's request to review the phone records of two of its reporters in a leak investigation pending review, issuing a one-sentence order with no reasoning nor note of dissenting votes.
The order allows U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to begin reviewing the records, which his office has already obtained from phone companies. Fitgerald argued that time was of the essence in the case, whcih addresses 2001 stories written by Judith Miller and Philip Shenon regarding government freezing of assets of two Islamic charities. According to the New York Times, the statute of limitations on some matters in this case runs out as early as December 3, 2006.
This is the second round in the First Amendment battle between Miller and Fitzgerald over journalistic privilege, the first being her contempt of court imprisonment for refusing to reveal her Plamegate source, Scooter Libby, who eventually granted her permission to make his name public. Fitzgerald is also trying to uncover the reporters' confidential sources for the stories.
This is the latest rejection of press freedom by the justice system, which has been supportive of recent increased government action in pursuing confidential journalistic sources — including jail time for journalists who refuse to comply, like Miller and San Francisco video-blogger Josh Wolf, currently in prison for failing to turn over raw videotape of a riot in San Francisco. Wolf has said that the order to compel production of the video is tantamount to making journalists act as "security cameras" for the government.
PBS's Jim Lehrer was Stephen Colbert's guest tonight on "The Colbert Report" and they had a fun, slightly jokey segment where Lehrer joked that he'd "gotten rid of" McNeil, joked that at PBS "We don't care if anybody watches," and confirmed to Colbert that he did, in fact, vote (Lehrer: "Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't." Colbert: "You just don't tell people." Lehrer: "It's none of their business.") Colbert said that was "wishy-washy" and Lehrer responded: "I'm wishy-washy for a living, sir." (This confused Colbert, who wondered "How do we know what's important in a newscast if you're not yelling at your guests?")
Colbert then asked Lehrer about whether he was biased in the clip below:
Lehrer followed up by reasoning: "You have an obligation five nights a week to be serious and funny. I have an obligation five nights a week to be serious and boring." Said Colbert: "Mission accomplished!"
The full interview is available for viewing in two parts at the Comedy Central site here.
