in this week’s observer, i wrote about a very bald and large israeli businessman named yuval tal, whose new york company makes the prepaid private-label debit mastercards that were used in january’s assassination of a senior hamas militant. the whole time i was writing it i thought about james bond, except mr. tal’s secret manhattan headquarters turned out to be sort of sad and dingy.
here’s the beginning of my story from today’s observer:
“last friday, while manhattan suffered through another desperately slushy storm, the 57-year-old financier steven rattner was holed up inside his family’s westchester horse farm. there were no taxis to splash through icy curbside puddles. the snow fell from the pretty white sky. it was bad. there are only two things that can happen after a hugely baroque manhattan scandal: survival or ruin. but sometimes a new yorker gets trapped in between, in the gooey limbo of semi-disgrace, which you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. important chief executives ask aloud if the united states attorney general’s office, never mind new york’s, might be interested in having a chat with you. over iced teas at midtown hotel bars, important publicists nudge reporters about around-the-corner indictments. friends speak about you gently, and foes, voices even gentler, purr about your fate…”
beautiful rattner portrait, not costello-related, by edel rodriguez
#540: elvis costello - watching the detectives and you belong to me (1979)
i’m awfully excited about my cover story in tomorrow’s observer about the sad limbo that private equity prince steven rattner has been suffering through lately. while i was writing the article, i couldn’t help but think about the incredibly slight physical resemblance between mr. rattner and elvis costello & the attractions’ bassist bruce thomas. frankly, that would get me thinking about lots of costello-related topics, especially, as it happens, the time he started an all-lady new wave dance party on stage by telling the crowd, “now, we think there’s rather too many tall people in the audience, so the young ladies in the audience can’t see all that well. and what we want all those guys to do is move away from the front here, so all the girls can come down front.” actually, now that i think about it, the bassist and investor don’t really look alike. but who’s really counting.
this is probably inappropriate to point out, but i’m swelling with pride that both the publisher and editor-in-chief of the observer managed to sneak into the backgrounds of the new york times’ lead photographs for its governor paterson story. photobombing is really going mainstream! god job, team.
{the outspoken 8th duke of argyll, george douglas campbell, vanity fair 1869}
in this week’s observer i profiled lucas van praag, goldman sachs’ rococo pr prince. his majestic victorian taunts (like for example “chimera produced by a febrile mind”) are not necessarily doing his firm much good. “to go around and stick your head out of the sunroof of your bentley and say, ‘fuck you, critics,’” as a business editor of a major publication put it, ‘is counterproductive.” i’m proud of the piece and hope you enjoy it!
de la soul’s native tongue decision remix of buddy brings the funk awfully hard for seven straight minutes, and then a few extra seconds just for icing. does the fact that the observer’s former photo editor kat sends me songs like this remix prove that the universe is a good place? either way, they make it a better place.
first one to spot the ac/dc reference in portrait of the banker (as a 29-year-old) in this week’s new york observer wins 650,000 hugs.
i forgot to mention my piece in this week’s observer, hank paulson’s dry heave, which is about the former treasury secretary’s very strange new autobiography. his book basically says that he and his colleagues were “making it up as we went along,” and it charmingly describes how he spent the financial crisis getting ill in front of an american flag, in a bathroom stall, and in front of senator judd gregg. also, his memoir is like tolstoy: it gives the very unsettling sense that world history is decided by an assortment of guys who are improvising, and may not be particularly good at it. except in mr. paulson’s book people are constantly dry heaving.
#521: yoko ono (with antony hegarty) - i’m going away smiling (2009)
this morning i had a delicious breakfast bar, drank some o.j., and then spent a half hour on the phone with yoko ono, who turns out to be a radically lovely person to talk to. “it’s just that i’m myself, and me, and whatever comes to me, at the time, tends to be something probably, i don’t know, au courant, but then, it’s me, as usual,” she said. she offered some more future classics (to be used in an upcoming nyo article) like: “i think i’m wiser now. well. i hope i’m wiser. i make so many mistakes every day—oops!”
it turns out that she does not listen to 60s pop music. “i’m an emotionally frail person,” she explained. “i don’t listen to anything. i just listen to the music in my mind. it’s wrong to say i don’t listen to anything. you know what i listen to? i listen to john’s songs, because i have to. have to is not the right word. almost every day, i listen to it because people request it—‘can i use it?’ and for relaxation i listen to indian music, old.”
on eric clapton, paul simon, thurston moore, jim keltner, and the other guests at her upcoming brooklyn academy of music concert, she said: “each one of these people—people? these stars!—i know them personally.” basically it was like conversing with the inspiring elementary school art teacher i never had. “just remember, you’re talking to me,” she said at the end. “we’re talking the same way, we’re on the same page. you’re 25—don’t think i’m not 25.”
in today’s new york observer, i wrote a relatively nifty profile of a man named judd bagley, who believes certain omnipotent investors are working with top journalists, government regulators, and the russian mob to drag down certain companies.
the story involves two sith lords, $500,000 that overstock.com’s chief executive patrick byrne gave to mr. bagley’s website, nazis, 1,000 salt lake city wikipedia users, and the band-aid that mr. bagley (a slightly nervous former mormon missionary, radio morning show sidekick, and jed bush spokesman) wears on his pointer finger.
photo: bank of america’s ken lewis at the white house, march 2009
in this week’s observer, i profiled an awfully intense 43-year-old mother of four named lisa carnoy, who one day last month raised $19.29 billion (the size of jordan’s gross domestic product) by selling just less than 1.3 billion shares of bank of america, then played the star spangled banner on the company’s loud system. long live capitalism!
good gracious did i ever tie one on at last night’s observer holiday party. i look like mid 80s randy newman this morning, except i don’t have a son, and when i do i won’t let him grin like this. come to think, newman’s oeuvre was brought up at some point last night. i believe reid pillifant and i discussed sail away over whiskey sours. reid, am i right?
in this week’s new york observer, i’m totally proud to say, i interviewed charlene marshall, brooke astor’s 64-year-old daughter-in-law, about what it’s like to be “a woman of steel who would rip your throat out to protect what is hers.”
at her husband’s sentencing next monday, he faces up to 25 years in prison. “give me trees, pine trees, and walks, and water, and the woods, and beautiful big rocks,” she said. “these are the things that speak to me, the sea, the smell of the sea, the smell of the pine. give me the little red squirrels running around, or a chipmunk jumping on me. that’s the best. it just doesn’t get any better than that.”
photo: slim aarons’ girl talk (baroness daubeck, mrs. frederick payne, mrs. vincent astor, and mrs. cornelius vanderbilt whitney take tea at the st. regis, 1956)
