Vanity Fair has a 500,000,000,000-word article written by Todd S. Purdum on
Sarah Palin in its August issue, discussing how her arrogance and refusal to be coached ultimately convinced McCain's team that they'd made a horrifying mistake in nominating her as the VP candidate. Some highlights:
Sarah Palin's swift journey from her knockout convention speech to Tina Fey’s dead-eyed incarnation as Dan Quayle with an updo played out in real time, no less for the bewildered McCain campaign than for the public at large. As in any marriage of convenience in which neither partner knows the other, there were bound to be bumps. McCain had spent only a couple of hours in Palin’s presence before choosing her. The difficulties began immediately, with the McCain team’s delivery of the bad news that the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol, which was revealed to the McCain team at the last minute.
Palin is unlike any other national figure in modern American life. The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan—the surprise pregnancies, two-bit blood feuds, tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game—give her family singular status in the rogues’ gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection. Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure.
By late September, when the time came to coach Palin for her second major interview with Katie Couric, there were severe tensions between Palin and the campaign. Palin was either unwilling or simply unable to prepare. But her lack of knowledge turned out not to hurt her. Andrew Halcro later remembered that Palin said to him, “Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures and policies, and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and ask myself, Does any of this really matter?”
By the time Election Day rolled around, the staff had been serially pummeled by unflattering press reports about the gaps in Palin’s knowledge, her stubborn resistance to direction and a post-selection spending spree in which she ran up bills of $150,000 on clothes for herself and her family at high-end stores. The top McCain aides who had tried hard to work with Palin were barely on speaking terms with her, and news organizations were reporting that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a “diva” and “whack job.” One referred to her as "Little shop of horrors."
More than once in Alaska, people brought up the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several said, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder”—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
As Palin has piled misstep on top of misstep, the senior members of McCain’s campaign team have undergone a painful odyssey of their own. Most make it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: They can’t quite believe that for two frantic months, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States, someone who they believed was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. Do they ever ask, What were we thinking? “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” one longtime McCain friend told me with a rueful chuckle. “You nailed it.”
Photo 2: We made him laugh... but—flash—his eyes were closed. This, cool cats, is why you always take two.
And here, Alyssa Pollock, whom I've known practically since day one at Billboard, with her assistant Emily, and Mr. Thomas.
The city's ongoing effort to develop pedestrian oases... this, at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue.
Happy Pride, indeed.
Moving on to Lady CaCa's mushroom hat... Actually, let's not.
Gawker: "Vibe Magazine—one of the biggest music magazines in America—is folding. The entire music magazine landscape is full of the dead and dying. It was essentially the black version of Rolling Stone, and its readership grew broader as hip hop became pop music. But Vibe hasn't been doing well for a while now; in February, the magazine cut circulation and frequency and salaries. Now the music industry is crumbling, and the magazine industry is crumbling, and the music magazine industry is really crumbling. The recent dead include Radio and Records, Performing Songwriter and Blender."
The August Vanity Fair features Heath Ledger on the cover, along with stunning photos taken by Bruce Weber. 
Vanity Fair has a 500,000,000,000-word article written by Todd S. Purdum on Sarah Palin in its August issue, discussing how her arrogance and refusal to be coached ultimately convinced McCain's team that they'd made a horrifying mistake in nominating her as the VP candidate. Some highlights:
By late September, when the time came to coach Palin for her second major interview with Katie Couric, there were severe tensions between Palin and the campaign. Palin was either unwilling or simply unable to prepare. But her lack of knowledge turned out not to hurt her. Andrew Halcro later remembered that Palin said to him, “Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures and policies, and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and ask myself, Does any of this really matter?”
As Palin has piled misstep on top of misstep, the senior members of McCain’s campaign team have undergone a painful odyssey of their own. Most make it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: They can’t quite believe that for two frantic months, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States, someone who they believed was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. Do they ever ask, What were we thinking? “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” one longtime McCain friend told me with a rueful chuckle. “You nailed it.”
MSNBC lesbian anchor Rachel Maddow in The Village Voice...
An evening out at ever-enduring gay hot-spot Splash with Pook, his man Rich, and your mammer!
New York billionaire mayor-for-life Michael Bloomberg got his way with a subway and bus fare hike that went into effect Sunday. MTA's price for a 30-day unlimited Metrocard rises from $81 to $89, while a single ride increases from $2 to $2.25. Enjoy your limo, Mike.
From towleroad.com: This morning, a press conference was held outside New York's historic Stonewall Inn by grassroots group The Power announcing its LGBT Civil Rights campaign for full equality. The group presented U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler with a signed petition for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include LBGT status. 
Despite idiotic host Jamie Foxx—who thought it was funny to dress up in various Michael Jackson period costumes and blurted out, "Why is everybody sad?"—the BET awards show merited relevance by rejigging its agenda to celebrate 
the career of MJ. Janet Jackson—in her first public appearance since her brother's death—memorialized him as a beloved sibling and family member. 
What the hell? Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50. Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He reportedly was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and Mays' wife told investigators the TV personality didn't feel well before he went to bed that night.
And for those with very specific taste...
