I'm Ra-chel Zoe

It has come to my attention, via Google search, that there are no good recaps of The Rachel Zoe Project to be found on the Internet. How can this be? At my office, TRZP is the talk of Wednesday mornings*. It's so terrible, yet so eminently watchable. R.Zoe comes off as not that awful a person, although she can't really dress herself and sits on her vocal cords to the point I start fantasizing that she meets Kristin Linklater, who, in an effort to free her natural voice, reaches down her esophagus and pulls Rachel's voice out of her body a la Ursula in The Little Mermaid, and then places it in a little seashell necklace around Rachel's neck, and Rachel says, "I diiiiie."

In case you are a straight male and made it this far: Rachel Zoe is a stylist to the stars. She picks out their outfits. Due to her handiwork (ie, making the below famous), she is often referred to as "The Antichrist."


So, I am pleased to announce that starting this week, here on MBA, I will be recapping The Rachel Zoe Project. It'll be like those halcyon days when I wrote 2000-treatises on The Bachelor: Paris. You've been warned.

UPDATE: This is no longer happening. Turns out... the show really is kind of boring.

*My office is largely ladies and gays.

WTF

Attention! Attention!

Sarah Palin answered questions from a reporter on the street! I know! Four of them! And actually didn't really answer them, but baby steps.

Re: The World Trade Center site, she said:

Every American student needs to come through this area so that, especially this younger generation of Americans is, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here... And just to hear from and see these good New Yorkers who are rebuilding not just this are but helping to rebuild America has been very, very inspiring and encouraging.

Liar. Republicans hate New Yorkers. Just ask Mitt Romney (also, how exactly does a millionaire former governor of Massachusetts get off speeching about how we need to eschew the ideas of "East Coast liberal elites"? Like... your consituents?). And you know who I'm not crazy about? 9/11 tourists who come and take pictures of the hole where my neighbors were killed. It was tacky when I was an NBC page, when tourists would tell me about how they were squeezing "Ground Zero" in between the NBC Studio Tour and an eagerly anticipated pilgrimage to buy faux-designer handbags in Chinatown, and it's just as tacky now. We aren't going to forget.

My New Bank

I went to WaMu.com this morning, and lo and behold!


At least they kept the font consistent.

Arugula-Eating, Latte-Drinking Liberals

Yes. Lattes are overpriced. Made with skim milk sometimes. Elitist.

And that's why Cindy McCain loves them.



Real Americans drink shitty coffee.

Winterized Flippers

For some reason I kind of got over flip-flops this past summer. I wore them around on the weekends occasionally, but to be honest I think I'm getting older, like, to the point where even though I can wear flip-flops to the office, I maybe shouldn't. Also, New York is not California. In New York, you wear Havianas or Reefs and your feet turn black. Gross.

So I started wearing a non-hideous version of Crocs a lot:


--and then when even those got a little casual (and gross, turns out NYC streets are also bad for Crocs), a pair of patent leather flats that look nice with everything. Mom would be so proud... or would she?

Shoes are a year-round problem, my friends. Last year my mother, whose dearest wish is for me to stop dressing like a hobo, gave me a pair of traction-soled Ugg slides in dark brown. Big mistake. They are INSANELY comfortable. Like walking on warm fuzzies all day because, literally, you are walking on warm fuzzies all day. The issue is that they look like slippers.


I mean... they kind of are slippers. But I would wear them to work last winter anyway, because I knew I wasn't going to be at CNBC past January, and my new company really doesn't care if I wear shoes to work at all. But I can't start wearing them everyday. I need to make at least an effort to be taken seriously.

Holy crap, I've written a lot about shoes already, haven't I? Ew. Sorry. Not trying to get a job at Domino, I swear. Well, anyway, I'm going to go one step beyond bangs in joining the Williamsburg multitudes and purchase a pair of Chuck Taylors. And because I'm a sucker for anything blog-recommended, I'm going to take Emily's advice and buy the "Chuck Taylor Lights" because they're slimmer with better arch support. And I was going to post here about my horrible time deciding on color, but screw it, I'm getting them in traditional, go-with-everything "Milk"!

I think they'll really brand me as an individual.

Hm

Not that I don't use the skills I learned in Theater Studies 105S: Voice & Speech on a daily basis, but I'm thinking if I'd taken econ in college I might have a better idea of what the F is going on right now. Numbers are getting thrown around, like "$700 billion"... ?

Actually, I'm thinking the econ majors are pretty puzzled, too.

Best Thing To Happen To PBS Since Roots

Part of my job is keeping track of what the other networks are doing. In other words: they enable me. So imagine my sheepishness at the weekly staff meeting a few weeks ago when I announced this unusual program coming up on public television. Spain: On the Road... Again, with Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Hot-Ass Spanish Actress X, and... Gwyneth Paltrow. Y'all, it makes no sense. Take a psycho-brilliant chef, cross him with the most pragmatic cookbook author known to man (what up, How to Cook Everything, book that taught me how to cook), add a few buckets of saffron and... I'm sorry, why the F is macrobiotic Gwyneth Paltrow there? Anyway. The show is awesome. And I kind of love GP now. She comes off as pretty funny. And she speaks Spanish! Maybe she's there because she named her firstborn after a fruit.

Here she is worrying about all the weight she won't gain:


I'm not familiar with the other ridiculously beautiful, pentalingual actress who rounds out the foursome, but she and Mark Bittman just drive around the Iberian peninsula in a Mercedes convertible, visiting cheesemongers, eating Romesco sauce and flirting while she teaches him Spanish. I'm thinking Mrs. Bittman is going to so PO'd when she sees it, honestly.


How Vicky Cristina. I want to be a Spaniard.

Tomato Tarte Tatin

I made this last night:


For some reason, I thought it would be super easy, and it was actually quite time-consuming and on the trickier side. First you make caramel in a skillet (which took twice as long as I thought it would. But I also make caramel on low heat because I'm afraid of burning the F out of my pans), then scatter it with cherry tomatoes and caramelized onions and (in my case) sriracha hot sauce, and then cover it with buttery, flaky, unbelievably delicious puff pastry and bake on high heat. But I used Nigella Lawson's scone dough recipe for the crust instead of puff pastry. Health month!

It was good.

It would've been better with fattitude.

VA

Per PWILD tradition, nothing could be organized or thoroughly planned (I look back on PWILD, which is an amazing organization, and really, really wonder how no one's died), but somehow, it all happens and it's great.

Anyway, two weeks ago my friend William and I boarded a shadyass Chinatown bus, rode to DC, took the Metro to northern VA, drove down to Prince William Forest, pitched some borrowed tents, and camped out with a couple other former PWILDers. You can tell because they still have a bunch of active gear and are all in "save the planet" graduate school programs, except for me. Hiking, frolicking, and packing it all out: just like old times, except we could keep everything in the car.

Your Tina Fey Glasses

So, the financial markets are on the brink of Armageddon, Texas is partially submerged, and the American public has a new chant of "Drill, baby, drill!"... but SNL was pretty good this weekend. So at least something's looking up.

GOOD GOD

So, as a former NBC page, I am contractually obligated to support Brian Williams for life in the Anchor Wars (that is, until he gets his own news-based comedy show). This isn’t hard, because Mr. Williams is an absolute delight. But today, I must give kudos to B-Dubs’s bitter rival, Charlie Gibson (oh, don’t you “Charles” me, Charlie. We all remember Good Morning America) for his passive-aggressive Sarah Palin interview last night. Girlfriend didn’t know what the Bush doctrine was, and he didn’t have to try too hard in tricking her into revealing that. Anyway, some excerpts:

GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
GIBSON: Exact words.

--

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?
PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.
GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.
PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.
Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...
GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

--

GIBSON: Let me turn to Iran. Do you consider a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat to Israel?
PALIN: I believe that under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, nuclear weapons in the hands of his government are extremely dangerous to everyone on this globe, yes.
(What you miss here is that Palin pronounces it “Akmadinajad,” because she wasn’t prepped on it, like even Conan O’Brien learned to say it right for his COMEDY SHOW, and also says “nucular.” Way to align yourself with Bush).

And my favorite part:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?
GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?
PALIN: His world view.
GIBSON: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.
PALIN: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that's the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better.
GIBSON: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?
PALIN: I agree that a president's job, when they swear in their oath to uphold our Constitution, their top priority is to defend the United States of America.
…
GIBSON: But, Governor, I'm asking you: We have the right, in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.
PALIN: In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.
GIBSON: And let me finish with this. I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes?

Ok. Please tell me that Americans are not this stupid, that they will vote for this obvious prop.


(fun with Microsoft Paint!)

ARE YOU F@&*#^*Q@#$^KING KIDDING ME????????

Seven Years

Rest in peace, you guys.

Fun With The Internets

Was poking around online today and stumbled upon CampaignMoney.com, which tracks donations to political causes. You can enter your ZIP code and see who among your neighbors votes with their dollars.

Naturally, I immediately entered dear old Chatham's 07928. Surprising! I guess I'm going mostly off seeing Bush-Cheney '04 stickers permanently affixed to people's cars (and when I say cars, I mean giant SUVs), but I always thought my town was kind of Republican. The kind of Republican who's like, I don't want the whole world to become born-again, but I want to keep my stock money more. And in 2004, I was right, donation-wise: 46% of donations went to elephants and 38% to donkeys. Yet this year, the numbers have reversed. Sweet. Cars still too big, though.

I also learned that one set of our neighbors, whom I had previously referred to as "The Ickies" have donated the maximum per spouse to Obama, so I might have to rethink that.

Williamsburg, unsurprisingly, donates highly Democrat but the GOP numbers are higher than I'd've thought. Also unsurprisingly, it doesn't donate that much. Hipsters are po'.

Upper East Side: Um, Upper East Siders donate a shitload of cash to political campaigns. Overwhelmingly to Dems. Surprising.

Durham, NC has donated a crashing $300 to Republicans! How is that possible?

And finally, no fun with Zone Improvement Plans is complete America's favorite ZIP code, 90210. Overwhelmingly blue, but in monetary terms, they've got nothing on the Upper East Siders. XOXO!

PS Does anyone know if that site's even real?

I Found It! The Worst Movie Trailer Of The Year!

Isla Fisher is adorable, and is also Ali G's baby mama. So you'd think with the whole "I stole the show in Wedding Crashers and Borat himself would totally read my scripts while I'm nursing the baby and give me his thoughts" thing, she could do better than what smells suspiciously like a giant turd:

Second Seasons

It's so refreshing to have a show get better in the second season. Remember when that used to happen? It used to happen a lot, I think. I can't remember. Viewer memory is fickle; I'm from Generation ADD. My favorite media conglomerate caters to such people and I help them do it. Surfability!

Speaking of work, I spoke too soon about last week's Full Friday. I mean, yes, it's kind of rough, doing all your work before 1:30 and then realizing you have to stay for four more hours, pondering those projects you'd planned on putting off until your eventual replacement is hired and then never doing. But for First Full Friday, it was pretty sweet, because at 4:50 everyone stopped working for an "Around the World" Party. I'd thought that meant a case of Heineken and a sixer of Tecate, and everyone awkwardly not drinking them in the conference room, but it was actually more like a Super Competitive Type-As Trying To Outdo Each Other With Authentic Queso/Sangria/Baklava/Margaritas/Warm Clam Dip/Manhattans/Exotic Eastern European Beers/Bottles of Wine in Glass Bottles Fiesta. In other words, I'd been planning to use it as cover to sneak out early and ended up staying until 7. Good times. Second Full Friday? Anyone?

First Full Friday

How do I know it's the end of summer?

It's 4:50 and I'm still at the office.

:(

GG

Obviously, I love Gossip Girl. It's not a genuinely good show, whatever New York says, but it is hella entertaining. Yes, I used the term "hella." I am Gwen Stefani, circa late 2002.

Anyway, I was recently watching some reruns with Dennis a few weeks ago (Dennis who, through what I assume was some massive cosmic imbalance, was not watching a show basically designed just for him), after which he promptly ran out and watched the entire first season. I'm so jealous! He got to watch it all at once and experience Chuck Bass Overload! I'm also jealous that he saw this:


Skywriting trumps subway ads any day of the week.

Notes from Judith Warner

Check it out. But some highlights:

Why does this woman – who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so “real”?

Because the Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they’ve cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs. the Elites. It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before. And from the fact that the party’s dogged allegiance to up-by-your-bootstraps individualism — an individualism exemplified by Palin, the frontierswoman who somehow has managed to “balance” five children and her political career with no need for support — is leading to a culture-wide crack-up.


And, I think, they find her acceptably “real,” because Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.

That’s the worst thing a woman can be in this world, isn’t it? Intimidating, which appears to be synonymous with competent. It’s the kiss of death, personally and politically.

But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there? If she isn’t, at least on some level, off-putting, if her presence inspires national commentary on breast-pumping and babysitting rather than health care reform and social security, then something is seriously wrong. If she doesn’t elicit at least some degree of awe, then something is missing.

One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to. This need isn’t limited to women; it brought us after all, two terms of George W. Bush. And it isn’t new; Americans have always needed to feel that their leaders were, on some level, people like them.

But in the past, it was possible to fill that need through empathetic connection. Few Depression-era voters could “relate” to Franklin Roosevelt’s patrician background, notes historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “It was his ability to connect to them that made them feel they could connect to him,” she told me in a phone interview.

Thank You, Jon

Schadenfreude Over

Now it's just hate.

And how the fuck does Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, get off mocking people who like living in a "cosmopolitan city"???

You have to tip your head so your brains don't bleed out your ears.

All I can say is, Biden, you better be getting ready to crush Palin in a debate. I don't care if you have to go after her apparent lack of bedtime parameters for her special needs infant. Obama, your smashing of McCain in a tete-a-tete is assured. But Biden... it's go time.

Schadenfreude, Part 2

I guess I could get quippy about child brides... but I have eyes only for Cindy McCain's suit. What is she wearing? She looks like a neon Carmen Sandiego.

Health Month

Dan and I embraced fattitude this summer, from trips to Fette Sau to large-scale tortilla-chip consumption. Since I wasn't about to go running in the August heat, we agreed that September would be a Month of Health.

When I think about it, it's a little mind-blowing how my eating habits have slid since moving to New York. By city standards, I cook a lot, but it's barely a fraction of how much I cooked in LA. I mean... the restaurants are so plentiful and delicious! And do you know why they're so delicious? Because their unit of measure for butter is not the teaspoon. It is the stick. Bad idea jeans.

So we went to the track this morning and will continue to do so... in addition to the track I'm thinking I'll try out the yoga place near the L.

Beyond that... I need to find some healthy lunch food. I can't eat salad every day. Suggestions welcome!

Todd Palin: It's fine. It's great! This is even better for our campaign then a Downs baby!

Piper Palin: Mommy said I'm not allowed to talk to Bristol anymore. What does "hussy" mean?

Willow Palin: I'm so glad I use condoms. Who's the rebellious one now, Bristol?

Cindy McCain: I cannot believe this little slutface is ruining my husband's campaign. If I were able to move my facial muscles I would literally bite her face off.

Meghan McCain: I'm going to see if that handbook on death stares is worth its salt. [gathers intensity] Zzzzzzzzoiiiinnnnnggggggggggg....

Bristol Palin: Meghan's giving me the death stare again. I want to die.

Schadenfreude Is So Awesome

This is from the GOP platform:

We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for abortion and contraception and reallocate resources where they are most needed.

They just might want to rethink that "100% effective" part.

Real World: Brooklyn

Get your sightings! Get 'em while they're hot!