Blogging on Meds

We told you earlier about Kate Moss’s hissyfit at MILK studios during an Agent Provocateur party—according to Page Six, she left because they wouldn’t let her bring three friends into the bathroom, citing a “strict one-person-at-a-time policy.” (So basically they suggested she was a cokehead!) But Ray LeMoine, a blogger was at the affair (which happened in early May) says this is bullshit: “the bathrooms at MILK were big multi-stall affairs, and plenty of sniffing was audible from the men’s pisser. There wasn’t an attendant or anything.” Also?

MILK also has a basement party room where Moss’ old hook-up Jamie Burke’s band Bloody Social (who were also at the party) practice, so I’m sure the coke party could have moved down there. Also, I’m sure MILK owner Madzac Rassi knows Kate Moss and would’ve accommodated her. Most likely, Kate left the party because it wasn’t that great.

More importantly, why did a month-old party take so long to make it into Page Six? [Photo: Medicine Agency]

Much thanks to Gawker for picking up my post about Page Six breaking a month-old, bogus sounding Kate Moss story. And really, what’s better than Kate Moss, Page 6, and Gawker?

Kate Moss has been a constant in my life since 97, freshman year of college, when she was on the walls of every Joy Division-loving art school/liberal arts chick in Boston. By far the coolest woman of our time, Kate Moss refuses to stop dressing amazingly, dating funny people, acting awesome, going topless in Ibiza, sniffing blow with a dude from The Clash on video, and causing other mini-controversies.

Upon hearing Moss was hosting the Agent Provocateur lingerie party on the roof of MILK Studios back in May, I of course went. Jim Jones was there with Damon Dash; over 500 people drank free booze on a rooftop overlooking the Meatpacking District. Thankfully, no Lauren Conrad/Gossip Girl-level celebs were there. Rather, in attendance were a lot of regular old New Yorker—people who go to cheap Indian restaurants in the East Village for dinner or email one another about sample sales. Hardly the fabulous-life set. After all, Agent P is owned by Vivienne Westwood’s son and maintains a punk style. (Despite the above Gawker headline, I didn’t find the party lame at all. It just wasn’t VF’s post-Oscar jam, or anything crazy great.)

A month later, Page 6 runs this story about Moss wanting to go into the bathroom with three friends and being denied. P6 says she threw a fit and alluded to her being a coke head. I’m all for Kate Moss’ coke use, but this tale seemed a little out of whack.

MILK is a photography studio, one especially known for high-profile fashion shoots. The world of fashion photography is no stranger to cocaine. To think the world’s foremost fashion model would have to make a scene at a place literally designed to accommodate her is highly unlikely.

Last year I interviewed MILK’s owner Madzac Rassi for a story I was writing, finding him funny, accessible, and intelligent. Further reporting proved he had an excellent professional reputation. Surely Rassi would be smart enough to make sure Kate f–king Moss, supermodel of supermodels, had a point-person from MILK on hand at an event she was hosting. Coupled with the fact that several people I attended the event with had dealings with the party’s sponsor, and none heard of any Moss antics, the whole “Kate waited 20 minutes angry before leaving” thing seemed dubious. Even Moss isn’t crazy enough to cause a scene at her own event. And if she was, the story would’ve probably came out a month ago, when the party happened.

Anyway, this P6 piece just seemed like a weird window into gossip reporting. P6’s use of the phrase “the other day” would likely have readers thinking it occured more recently than 32 days ago. And they spoke of MILK’s “one in the bathroom” policy. But, as a person who attends these events with an eye for debauched details, the bathroom scene is something I always scope out. MILK’s men’s room was located next to a stairwell. It was like a school lavatory, tan-tiled and functional, with urinals and stalls. A MILK guard stood outside by the stairwell. Two gay guys were certainly doing cocaine when I was in there.

Now, I love Page 6—there’s no single more influential or entertaining news column—but here is a case where you wonder who the “spy” was and why/how this “story” came to light so late. So I wrote what I saw and thought.

Thankfully, there is an institution dedicated to probing media’s murkiest zonas. Gawker, for all it’s sarcasm, is a vital news source that has helped bring transparency to an industry known for “anonymous sources.” Gawker has a reputation for being harsh, unfair, and using questionable journalistic ethics. Yet over the past few months they’ve ran three posts from Med A and, in each case, Gawker were actually more professional and accomadating than they had to be. Sometimes you’ll read on Gawker “we don’t use fact checkers” but with us they have fact checked. And they’ve been open to dialouge like traditional news editors. All of this came as a surprise given the soiled reputation Gawker has. It goes to show that by attacking the media, Gawker’s been the subject of unfairly biased coverage.

RELATED POSTS:

• music video for SAMIAM is DONE!!!
• “Burning New York” is off the presses
• Program:Repeat is coming!
• Program:Repeat films
• FOUND! my mentor!

Jim Jones has already been up twice this week…

RELATED POSTS:

• I Got My Uzi Back - You Dudes Is Wack
• Meanwhile, in the 51st State, etc.
• “Historic”
• CIVIC and Marla’s Legacy
• Agent P Party

Prior to dawning Celtic Green, Mr.Garnett was my favorite non-Celtic. A lot of this appreciation was centered around the fact that he looked dope in a uniform that incorporated green. It was easy for me to fantasize what it would be like to see him dominating alongside Paul Pierce and making that team legit, I’ve seen enough potlucked together Celtic teams, the Antoine Wiggle, Rogers and Delk jacking awful threes, trades for injured white dudes, etc.

Mr. Ainge made this dream a reality and the Celtics have delivered thus far aside from a perplexing series against the Hawks. My brain cannot grasp why they almost blew that series, I’m hoping that it was as simple as Bibby (who is a dead ringer for 2nd place White Rapper John Brown) was calling in hookers in the form of fat white chicks to their hotel rooms before each road game causing lethargic play.

This post is not about sports, Boston, basketball or anything other than competitive swagger.

As you see in the pictures accompanying this post, KG has not only brought a winning team oriented mentality to the Celtics, he brought a serious swag and a signature look, the sketchy towel wrapped around the neck or head, the premier post-game / bench look. This can also be modified into a look similar to something the king of swag’s Jim Jones, signature new look, which he’s repping on the cover of his latest CD:

Once again my white skin permits me from doing anything this cool so I have to celebrate how good this looks on brothers. Seeing cool black people in green with sketchy towels makes me almost hate how white skin looks in those uniforms, how did I ever think, Bird, McHale, or even fucking Greg Kite looked remotely cool or intimidating in those uniforms when something like this exists. Pasty white skin looks negative cool in anything white and sleeveless, sorry any-dude-USA wearing a wife beater, in case you didn’t know you look like an asshole.

Thank you KG for all your contributions, I hope to see dudes rocking the towel look this sticky New York Summer.

RELATED POSTS:

• Meanwhile, in the 51st State, etc.
• “Historic”
• Godsmack You Non-Black Ballplayer
• “Practice”
• Agent P Party

New York rules because Jim Jones and Kate Moss can be seen in the same room.

Editors Update:
A month later, Page Six writes their own angle on Moss at this party. Ray calls out the story here.
Gawker covers it here.

RELATED POSTS:

• “Burning New York” is off the presses
• Newborn
• Today’s Reads
• Today’s Reads
• Today’s Reads

Weezy Makes History in Newark?

Mug shot, AZ.
According to the NYT’s music brotha, Kelefa Sanneh, Lil Wayne’s weirdness kept 2800 people waiting 3 hours late but he was still amazing:

Forget a good or even great show; what they got, instead, was a peculiar, riveting hourlong performance that felt positively historic…

“I would love for you to put me in your prayers tonight; I got court in the morning,” Wayne said. He was due in New York, for an appearance stemming from his arrest on weapons possession charges in July, after his last New York area concert, at the Beacon Theater. (The Monday morning court date might explain why he booked himself to play Newark on Sunday night.)

I attended the Beacon show last summer (with Dave “Teardrop” Murphy). Wayne was 3 hours late that night, too. Outside the venue, cops, cops, cops, barricades, checkpoints, like a Baghdad Forward Operating Base. Jim Jones was denied entry—because he’s a Blood—even though he was scheduled to perform.

We bought weed before the show in Central Park (from the ever reliable Sheep Meadow beer hustler with the weed-leaf hand tattoo and bandana, you know the guy). Instead of smoking inside the Beacon and having to deal with 8 checkpoints, we ran over to Riverside Drive.

Later that night, after the show, Ja Rule was busted smoking weed on Riverside, and Wayne down the street. Cops sure hate rap in New York. They’ll even chase after rappers’ scents.

These days I’m a bit sick of Weezy F. Too much hype, too many guest spots, etc. But he was great at the Beacon—a raging, fucked-up machine, half-stoned and half-jacked, like on a coke-weed ball. He wore a Run DMC shirt, had Kayne come out for a song, Baby and Khaled on stage, Juelz and Mac Maine as hype-men, and jammed on a guitar for “Leather So Soft.” Best show of 07 for me, for sure.

Wayne’s next album, Da Carter III, drops in April. It could be his “Graduation,” maybe even better, who knows? Wayne shares management with Kayne, and I assume the marketing will be similar, ie. huge.

That is, if he’s not in jail. Aside from weapons and pot charges in NY, Wayne was arrested a month ago in AZ with a gun, 3.7 ounces of weed, an ounce of cocaine (wow), 41 grams of Ecstasy, and $22,000 dollars in cash. He seems to like a good time, but those are heavy charges, so he needs a “Shyne,” a fall guy. Maybe Diddy should be his lawyer.

Related
A few weeks ago the Village Voice ran a feature on Fabolous, a Brooklyn rapper tied to a Bed-Stuy gang called Street Family, who’ve been involved in various high-profile Manhattan club shootings. It’s nice to see the Voice covering rap in depth. Rap’s some of New York’s best music and often gets overlooked. Never mind that Fab’s as underrated as they come…

2. Prepare for the Gawker Wars
The turnover continues at Manhattan’s premium media gossip website. They’ve lost their ENTIRE staff in the last few months, but is it about to turn nasty? (from Radar blog, edited by ex-Gawker Alex Balker):

Nick Denton (Gawker media group founder and current Gawker editor) fired Shnayerson via email last night. She emailed him back with what she called “an updated version of the resignation letter” she had written the previous Friday but never sent. Shnayerson says she has no immediate plans, but knew her time was drawing to an end when she “started thinking about leaving without a safety net.

“The constant churn of employees at New York media website Gawker has claimed another victim: Maggie Shnayerson, hired in September of 2007 to fill the media reporter role vacated by Doree Shafrir, has been let go, making her approximately the 1,450th employee to have joined or left that site since November. Shnayerson has been released due to poor numbers: An e-mail from Gawker Media overlord Nick Denton put it this way: “I’m afraid your stories are not performing well enough on Gawker, and I don’t see how you’re going to turn that around. Last month, you got about 400,000 pageviews; this month you’re at 160,000; even taking into account your break, that’s still far from satisfactory. You should be doing some 670,000 views a month to justify your advance. You’re a good writer, and your stories are fine; you just seem to wrestle with them for longer than we can afford. I don’t think you’re suited to the pace of Gawker.” Shnayerson is, in fact, a fine writer, and would be a welcome addition to any news organization’s staff. Denton was unavailable for comment.

According to ousted Gawker editor, Maggie Shnayerson, the site has “changed dramatically” since her arrival in September 2007. “You have [Nick Denton acting as] publisher and an editor, and I think that’s a conflict of interest,” she told us by phone Monday afternoon, adding that “he’s trying to make Gawker much more mainstream, but I’m not sure if [Gawker] works as a HuffPo.Shnayerson, formerly PR director at the Village Voice, says she understands Gawker’s need to make money (”I’m not going to be one of those people who complains about publisher’s trying to make money.”) and has “a lot of respect for Denton,” but worries that his vision for the site is ruining its place in the media landscape. “He’s pushing Gawker to its broadest conclusion — and this reduces its caché. It’s not smart business. It’s not smart editorially, and it’s very hard on employees.” She also noted that she’s heard anecdotally that “people in power say they don’t read it as much. That’s really sad. Gawker shouldn’t be a depository for the latest viral video.”McInenr MIAMI http://www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/culture-inc/arts/2008/02/19/Art-Basel-Comes-to-Miami

RELATED POSTS:

• music video for SAMIAM is DONE!!!
• “Burning New York” is off the presses
• THIS IS NOT A FILM FESTIVAL AT A TRADE SHOW!
• Program:Repeat is coming!
• Guitar Hero / Gibson Charity Art Auction at SXSW

Today’s (non-election) Reads
Truce Threatened; Civilians Die At US Hands
As reported by Thom Ricks in last Sunday’s WaPost, Iraq’s most dangerous conflict is with Shiite militias. The most prominent, the Mahdi Militia, has been under a long truce, which was threatened yesterday:

Munthir al-Mosawi, 27, a member of the Shiite militia founded by the militant cleric Moktada al-Sadr, died Sunday in custody after being held for three days on a Baghdad arrest warrant. A medical report concluded that Mr. Mosawi had died of a “bullet in the head,” a military official who had read the document said.

Iraqi officials gave varying accounts of Mr. Mosawi’s death; representatives of Mr. Sadr threatened to call off a cease-fire that had lasted months and been credited with helping to reduce violence in Iraq.

Sheik Salah al-Obaidi, a senior Sadr representative in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, said the death had led militia members to reconsider their détente. In the end they chose not to retaliate, he said, despite their doubts that the Iraqi judiciary would investigate impartially.

Also yesterday, American troops killed 3 more civilians. “An Iraqi couple and their son, 19, have been killed when US soldiers stormed a tiny one-room house north of Baghdad,” reports the BBC.“The attack came a day after the U.S. military said it had inadvertently killed nine civilians in an airstrike in Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad,” adds the Wapost. Bringing the total of innocents killed since Monday to at least 12.

The LAT goes further, asking why we are bombing civilians:

Asked whether the request had led to changes, Air Force Brig. Gen. Burt Field said, “No, I’m afraid not, and the reason is that we are doing everything humanly possible to avoid the death of innocent people.”

Among the weapons in use, he said, were 500-pound guided missiles intended to create extremely targeted explosions. “One of the bombs we are using has been dubbed the ‘Martha Stewart Bomb’ because you can drop it, and it will blow up a house and not even touch the buildings to the left or the right,” Field said.

Maj. Gen. David Edgington, the top Air Force commander in Iraq, said the military ensures that each airstrike meets rules in place to minimize civilian casualties. Factors considered include building materials, civilian schedules in the area and intelligence, he said.

“It’s a very scientific process,” he said.

“We make these analyses on every bomb we’re going to drop and make sure it falls within the criteria” to keep harm to civilians low. “We can pretty much guarantee one bomb for one target.”

Air strikes are not and will never be an exact science. As long as we drop 500pd bombs on Iraqi towns and cities, people will die.

By Hameed Rasheed, AP

Canyon of H-mos
Sports parading is usually a great activity. Not for a NY team though. And “Boston Sucks” was a big chant along the the Giants’ route yest. I love that Plaxico over-Manny-ed it and didn’t even show up. The only cool thing about the NY Giants is that Jim Jones’ a fan. He flies high, the Giants wiggle out of a sack and get off a lucky pass. Supposedly Jim performed at the parade yest, though no pics could be found. So here he is at the G-Star show, dated Feb 5th:

In other Super Bowl related news, InfoUSA’s salesgenie.com racist panda commercial has been withdrawn: “We never thought anyone would be offended,” says InfoUSA’s CEO. Huh? As Anthony P put it, “That’s like having a bunch of monkeys saying ’sup my niggas.’”

RELATED POSTS:

• music video for SAMIAM is DONE!!!
• FOUND! my mentor!
• the Wrench
• little Jake is all grown up
• a Sham art show