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George Gurley

Meeting the Met

Until recently, I was a ding-dong when it came to the Met's institutional history (opened in the 1870s, big King Tut exhibit a century later, that's it) and knew more about my own: Smoked my first cig around back in seventh grade; drank Michelobs on the steps in eighth; and used to skateboard by the Read More

Socialites Purr at Wildlife Conservation Gala

At the Wildlife Conservation Society benefit at the Central Park Zoo last Wednesday, June 10, the main attraction was the Alison Maher Stern snow leopard exhibit, located between the koala bears and the otters. As the black tie event got under way Ms. Stern, who provided the three leopards with their  new habitats, was on Read More

Why a Big Shot Like Me Plays the Lottery

When the Mega Millions lottery got over $225 million recently, I went into the deli and bought a New York Post. See, I don’t like the idea of just buying a lottery ticket—feels sketchy, low rent. So as I was paying for the paper, I said, “Oh, and give me a Mega Millions, too, thanks.”

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Mean Streets: Gurley Walks Manhattan, Part Deux

Living in exile on Roosevelt Island with my fiancée and kitty for the past two years, I’m feeling awkward, fat as a house, not up for human interaction, but it’s a nice day to walk Manhattan’s East Side, landscape of my bittersweet youth. I’ve been smoking White Widow in effort to wean myself off whiskey. Read More

The New York World: Gurley Walks Manhattan

It’s there every time I look out my bedroom window on Roosevelt Island: Manhattan. Maybe 250 yards away. May as well be in France. The F.D.R. is a stone’s throw away but you have to hold your breath to hear it.

I moved to Manhattan when I was 9. I’ve lived on Spring Street, MacDougal; Read More

My Survival Kit for When the Evildoers Strike Next

So the evildoers are gonna get us again. I can feel it; they’re getting ready. Leon Panetta for C.I.A. head? Were Warren Christopher and Richard Simmons both unavailable? Not to worry, I’m sure the incoming secretary of state will have the terrorists quaking in their boots, postponing plans to make kaboomies. I’ve been watching the Read More

Sex and Food Face Off at Le Cirque

Last week, I was at a party at the sophisticated Le Cirque restaurant on East 58th Street street for the HBO documentary Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven. I asked fabled Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni, a very elegant man who smelled great, what happens when his beautiful wife of 38 years, Egidiana, sees hot Read More

How to Be Broke and Not Be a Sucker

So I’m broke. I have a negative balance. Minus $9.44.

Nothing to do, nowhere to go, imprisoned here on Roosevelt Island. Back in ’99 I bought a $400 bottle of wine at Raoul’s to impress what I thought was my girlfriend. Turned out I was merely one of three dudes she Read More

Boss Jim Downey

Q: For years now, shows like Meet the Press have been broadcasting clips of an SNL sketch, a spoof of political reality, to have a conversation with their audience about the actual political reality. How are you getting to the core ingredients of what’s going on in a way that people Read More

How a Welsh Vixen Tamed Derek Smalls’ Wild Heart

Judith Owen, the Welsh singer-songwriter, actress and wife of comic actor Harry Shearer, was waiting for me inside the Paramount Hotel on a recent dreary Saturday afternoon.

She was on her second coffee and I was running late. My bad!

Had I been meeting, say, Natalie Merchant, Read More

Let Me Tell You About My BFF DFW

So everyone’s claiming to have been real tight with David Foster Wallace because they played tennis with him, had a class with him, got a book signed by him, did the naughty with him. Seems thousands of people were “pretty tight” with him and they want to make sure you know it.

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