[Photo via Rush Limbaugh]

With our gubernatorial train wreck of the last week, a recent spate of Clinton-Spitzer comparisons have been circulating, none of which can be very good for Hillary's prospects. We've been barraged with side by side accounts of precisely how much sex (free or otherwise) our politicians feel they need to keep their head in the political game. Does it matter that Spitzer was so blatantly careless about his exploits while Clinton, himself a chronic womanizer, seemed to conduct his affairs with something bordering on *discretion*? Our favorite choice bits from the scandal roundup:

"Here you had a guy who saw himself as a Jewish Kennedy in the making—combining the dash and idealism of John with the self-righteous ruthlessness of Bobby—and imagined his family at the center, one day, of a kosher Camelot. Is it any wonder that a man harboring such conceits would come to believe that he could dip his wick with impunity? (And at the very hotel where JFK is said to have, er, entertained Judith Campbell Exner!) I think not." - NY Mag

A Pants Down Primer [NY Mag]
Hillary Clinton's Spitzer Problem [Washington Post]
How Is Spitzer Different From Clinton [Slate]
What It Means To Be A Fighter [Daily Kos]
The Clinton-Spitzer Comparison [Volokh Conspiracy]

In response to this comment left on my profile by someone named"Frivolity" just yesterday, J.J. Hunsecker came to my defense with his rebuttal found below. J.J. is like my own "Fred". It's really sad that Julia Allison doesn't have her own version of my J.J. to come to sweep in whenever trouble arises in blog land....

Frivolity - March 16th, 2008
HollyGoLightly, in your paltry two years in Manhattan, have you ever crossed the bridge into any other borough? The Manhattan-centric nature of your commentary, as well as your generally pathetic elitist ill-spirit, belies the philistine sensibilities of the typical faux-”New Yorker”; it’s clear that you\’re a relatively nouveau-arrivée, who has spent her meager amount of time on the Island attempting to dissimulate her suburban bourgeois roots by masquerading as some smug cosmopolitan , unaware that you\’re living belatedly amid the ruins of a Manhattan that has become virtually obsolete. Sort of like Romulus Augustus’ Rome. Jejune, my dear, positively jejune. Mr. Capote would scoff disdainfully in his velvet smoking-jacket.

J.J. Hunsecker's rebuttal below:

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[Photo via NYMag]
Eglantina Zingg and Elisa Estrada, Travelers

The Look Book looks to have gotten its act back together this week, after several disappointing weeks....and they're back with quite the pair. Eglantina and Elisa are "travelers". Like traveling is their actual occupation. Clad in Fendi Fur, I'm wondering who their employer is that is providing their salary...I would gladly send over my resume.

What do you guys do?
ELISA: Right now I am living life. Because I can. I’m living, and I’m enjoying. I collect art, I collect fashion. I can’t lie to you, I love it. At some point you follow a type of life with a schedule, and I kind of said, “You know what? I’m going to take a hike for a while.”
EGLANTINA: I was just in the Amazon. My father has a farm there. I was doing some work that was ecofriendly, planting trees. I study drama in London too.

"Living life without a schedule" and "planting trees in the Amazon"....
Best.Job.Description.Ever.

We asked Oper8tor, who along with The Undergrad attended Blackbook's party for the release of their March '08 issue. Here's what he had to say:

"hmmm...well it was a magazine release party for the march issue of Blackbook.  The space was tight , the drinks were strong, the light was a dim yellowish orange and the people there were fashionable, loud and ready to dance. Lots of magazine and fashion folks."

Pretty much sums it up... The party was at Tillman's and was apparently hard to get into, and, once inside, was packed. His photos are below:

Extra may have offered "Kristin" $100K, but it was still The New York Times that broke her identity along with photographs by employing a combination of shoe-leather reporting and MySpace surfing. Let this be a cautionary lesson to all of you that may want to post personal information and photographs online if you are involved in something illegal, like prostitution. What the Times reporters found: Her name is Ashley Youmans but she is known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre, she's from New Jersey, is 22, and is into her music. She even owns an entertainment company called Pasche New York, but apparently it wasn't enough to pay the bills when the man she was with walked out on her, leading her to a job in the escort business. (This is also a cautionary tale about trying to live in this city on no money.) According to her MySpace, she comes from a broken home, has gone through abuse, suffered drug addiction and been broke and homeless before. You almost can't blame her for not wanting to go back to that.

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Twenty-four hours since the scandal broke, AND....Governor Spitzer is still hanging on. I don't know who else is geeky enough to have The New York Times set as a homepage, but following the headline changes today was entertaining in and of itself. First, there was no word on resignation; then, his own aides were talking to the press and saying the resignation was probably going to happen; New York's next governor was all lined up and waiting in the wings; now, "Resignation by Spitzer Not Likely Today." Apparently, New York also hangs in limbo as we wait for him to resign. I'd say it's more like Bizarro World, like in that Seinfeld episode, as the ethics guy ends up killing his own career with high-priced hookers.

Lieutenant Governor David A. Paterson is just waiting to step up to the plate. If he ascends to New York State's highest position, he will be the first ever legally blind man to hold this office. Nasty comment overheard in the newsroom: "At least he won't care what the hookers look like."

The beauty of blogging is that you get to write whatever you want--provided that it's not going to get you arrested. The downside of blogging, when you blog for a publication like a newspaper or magazine, is that you sometimes need to watch what you write--or at least how you act.  Let it be a lesson to all future "Man Needs Date" bloggers for Glamour magazine's website that you must at least PRETEND to be a gentleman. Blogger Mike Cherico was fired after behaving "boorishly" towards women, and more specifically towards one Miss Smarty Shoes, who he wrote had herpes because she had a cut on her lip, lusted after another woman while they were at a concert together, and made her pick up the phone when his ex-girlfriend was calling. That's just the least of what she writes about on her MySpace account. Apparently there have been many, many allegations against him, which Page Six didn't see fit to print because they are a "family newspaper", but reading what they DO consider fit to print, I have got to wonder what else he did.
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It's been a while since we heard about Leona Helmsley with the press frenzy following her death. And of course the press had a field day—how many billionaire/hotelier/real estate moguls leave more money to their yappy little dog than to their flesh and blood relatives? Now that's bitchy, and we mean that even without the pun. Plus, she earned herself the "Queen of Mean" nickname while she was serving time for tax evasion. Trust me, it's not often where we come up with something so clever that both a.) shows she rivals royalty in her wealth and reigns over anyone that thinks they're nasty enough to compete with her, and b.) rhymes.

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Imagine going out to a club, a determinately hot spot with an A-list crowd (a la Socialista or Beatrice Inn), and finding it devoid of hipsters? Well look no further than London. On a recent jaunt there this weekend to visit friends, I went to Volstead to experience the Soho area of London. Not being a regular in the London scene, I had no juice with the door, but an easy call to my hotel concierge and a reservation proved to be a very effective work-around. The doorman (Nick) greeted our group with open arms, and ushered us down into the 1920s retro spot. More»

Just in case you didn’t get enough bronze-molded breastplates and magic laser belts growing up or, in my case, had an older brother more interested in playing dress up, there’s hope. The Met has announced the slated arrival of their new exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, which it describes in completely understated terms as an exploration of the “symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero…[that] will reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.” Funny, I thought only Fluidity had that kind of effect on the human thighs body. In any case, our favorite crazy-haired New Yorker contributor has given us a brief tour of his childhood superhero fetish that includes this choice passage:

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[Photo via NY Mag and NY Times]

After we reported on Leven Rambin's new found beau, grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson, everybody's eyes were on the two this weekend, and apparently the new union is causing some drama. The Post reports today that at the Blue & Cream party Wednesday, sister Charlotte Ronson and half-brother Alexander Dexter-Jones avoided Rambin like the plague. Whoops. Maybe not the best press for the rising socialite, but a nice promotion for the Blue & Cream store. However, we are more interested in the store's plans for beach chairs and free espresso's served by scantily clad women on the sidewalk outside, a press stunt that is more likely to get people shopping.

[New Couple Alert: Leven Rambin And Mark Ronson]
[Blue & Cream Bringing UES To The LES]

Once America's Next Top Model finally graced our fair metropolis with Tyra Bank's over-the-top, queen-of-the-universe, oh-no-she-DIDN'T presence, did any New Yorkers actually notice? Well, the landlord that gave the aspiring anorexic clothing hangers models his $6 million a month TriBeCa loft sure as hell did. Page Six reports today that Michael Marvisi, the landlord who lent out his apartment for the show, is accusing these vampy stick figures in stilettos of trashing his 4,200-square-foot digs and estimates the damage to be $500,000. This includes irreparably damaging a $15,000 chandelier and apparently splashing so much water around the bathroom that it appeared a Sea World dolphin show had taken place. Apparently the place was so wrecked that the next incoming tenant couldn't move in and backed out of the lease, so the show offered to pay $125,000 (isn't that only a fraction of the estimated damages?) However, they haven't ponied up the money yet and Tyra's reps aren't talking, so a lawsuit is waiting in the wings.

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