George Gurley | The New York Observer

Socialites Purr at Wildlife Conservation Gala

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:54:13 -0400

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 display by the seal pool, along with her billionaire husband, Leonard, the former owner ...

George and Harry: Our Special Correspondent Gets the Royal Stiff-Arm at Star-Studded Manhattan Polo Classic

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:23:24 -0400

I’m not a big fan of dressing up like a prepped-out Hamptons dork.

Yet, there I was, sporting the obligatory blue blazer, linen shirt, khakis, and suede moccasins, desperately trying to fit in with the stuffy upper-crust crowd watching British scion Prince Harry take on Argentinean stud Nacho Figueras at the star-studded Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic on Governor’s Island on Saturday afternoon, May ...

Why a Big Shot Like Me Plays the Lottery

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:11:31 -0400

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.”

I bet porn fiends, pre-Internet, used to do that: “Oh, I’m just walking down the street, down Eighth Avenue...

E-mails I Sent My Pals While Watching the Recession on TV

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:43:46 -0400

So I got rid of the cell phone. Ten years is enough. It used to be a tool, but then I became the tool. Now I’ve outgrown it, adapted and evolved so I don’t need it anymore and left everyone in the dust. People have to fight to get hold of me now. Side note: Watched a cool Liam Neeson–narrated documentary about Darwin, apparently he suffered from acid reflux, too. Also it turns out...

Mean Streets: Gurley Walks Manhattan, Part Deux

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:53:00 -0400

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. Paranoid delusions strong! On the way to the tram I stop off at Roosevelt Island branch of the...

The New York World: Gurley Walks Manhattan

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:53:01 -0500

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; on the East Side: 10thth, 17th, 38th, 61st, 63rd, 65th, 71st (twice), and 96th. On the West Side:...

E-mails I Sent the Day of the 'Miracle on the Hudson'

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:53:22 -0500

The good thing about the new Depression is that I’ve been in one for the past five years, so I’m used to it. Nice to have company.

My Survival Kit for When the Evildoers Strike Next

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:50:19 -0500

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 35th anniversary Death Wish fest on American Movie Classics. My fiancée loves the whole franchise, thinks they’re comedies; every...

Sex and Food Face Off at Le Cirque

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:20:16 -0500

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 women all over him?

“I can tell you one thing,” said Mr....

How to Be Broke and Not Be a Sucker

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:59:59 -0500

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 was nailing. And now I can’t even afford giant litter box liners. The cat’s been wobbling around making it...

Boss Jim Downey

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:55:18 -0400

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 like Tom Brokaw can’t seem to articulate?

A: I think they’d like...

Boss Jim Downey

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:55:18 -0400

A: I think they’d like...

How a Welsh Vixen Tamed Derek Smalls' Wild Heart

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:25:11 -0400

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, I would have been there five minutes early, but I hadn’t seen Ms. Owen perform yet; I...

How a Welsh Vixen Tamed Derek Smalls' Wild Heart

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:25:11 -0400

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, I would have been there five minutes early, but I hadn’t seen Ms. Owen perform yet; I...

Let Me Tell You About My BFF DFW

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:43:56 -0400

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.

I’ve hauled my copy of Infinite Jest, published in 1996, in and out of seven apartments I’ve...

Who Needs Wall Street? Socialites Take Cover at Newly Renovated Hideaway Doubles

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:23:42 -0400

Doubles, the exclusive private club in the basement of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, reopened all spruced up on the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 17. The carpet was new, as were the wall coverings and the crocodile banquettes. Everything was in a rose salmon color. “You glow,” said Doubles chairwoman Wendy Carduner. “Everyone looks superb here. This is the most complementary color.”

As party...

Signs of the Apocalypse? Grumpy James Lipton Harumphs As Greg Kinnear Bays at Moon

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:32:11 -0400

The new warmhearted comedy Ghost Town, starring Ricky Gervais and Téa Leoni, has all kinds of comforting messages about life and death. Turns out if you get hit by a bus but still have unfinished business on Earth, you get to resolve all your issues with loved ones before a beam of light appears and you fade out blissfully on the way to the next world.

After a Cinema...

My Vice President

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:44:50 -0400

My very first thought about Sarah Palin? That would be: “I want to have sex with her.” Want to lick that face and drool on it like a dog.

I found an old clip of her on Charlie Rose. Wow, she can sure keep up with Charlie, no problem! Dodged that one nicely. What a delightful nose!

Then during her speech at the convention:...

No Nightmares for Dashing Society Wildebeest

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:28:13 -0400

Last May, at a benefit for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Central Park Zoo, a dapper man came over to bum a smoke. I told him he looked just like Tennessee Williams.

“They all say that,” said Gregory Speck with a Southern accent, then proceeded to tell a story about how when he moved to New York in 1976, he bumped into the playwright in an elevator...

No Nightmares for Dashing Society Wildebeest

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:28:13 -0400

Last May, at a benefit for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Central Park Zoo, a dapper man came over to bum a smoke. I told him he looked just like Tennessee Williams.

“They all say that,” said Gregory Speck with a Southern accent, then proceeded to tell a story about how when he moved to New York in 1976, he bumped into the playwright in an elevator...

Stephanie Goes Bombs-A-Wei From Plane In Lark with Liam McMullan

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:34:50 -0400

On Saturday, Aug. 23, several hundred people gathered at Stone Meadow Farm, an estate in East Hampton where Mariah Carey recently got hitched, to celebrate the 125th birthday of the American Red Cross. Russell Simmons, whose eponymous jewelry line was one of the evening’s sponsors, told us that it had been the summer of Barack Obama, as well as yoga, the environment, PETA, the Humane Society and fund-raisers (his July 19 Art for...

Won’t You Click Your Ruby Slippers, Mayor Mike?

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:19:35 -0400

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

You’ve had a good run, been a real successful, under-the-radar-type mayor, and everyone likes you. Well, 70 percent of New Yorkers. Anyway, I’ve never heard anyone say, “Bloomberg, that fascist!”

Unless I missed something, your administration has been pretty squeaky clean. No big scandals, right? I know you’ve given hundreds of millions of your own money away, but you...

Bottoms Up! Or Not; Eliza Dushku Sober at Bottle Shock Premiere

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:39:51 -0400

At the Southampton after-party on Sunday, Aug. 3, for Bottle Shock, a film about the early days of California wine, there was almost nothing to drink—zero wine, no Champagne, no friendly bartenders offering a free whiskey. Novelist and wine columnist Jay McInerney was shmoozing; he and his wife, Anne Hearst, had hosted a dinner for the cast the night before. A few months ago, I asked Mr. McInerney if it was a good idea...

Brideshead Regurgitated! Succulent Buttocks Ripe for Plucking at Gramercy Hotel Plover Party

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:51:48 -0400

“I’m happy to say I’ve danced in fountains, I’ve had strawberries and wine and Champagne, I’ve visited places like Brideshead,” said nightlife duchess Amy Sacco. She was on the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel after a Cinema Society screening of Brideshead Revisited on Tuesday, July 22. “And I’ve had the unrequited love issues, too.”

Former gossip columnist Lloyd Grove recalled watching the Brideshead miniseries in the early 1980s with friends from Yale...

Blame Big Jack! Gurley’s Tuesday Morning E-mail

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:18:04 -0400

Truth is I don’t cheat, don’t get laid extracurricularly, ever. Against the rules.

Fine with it! It’s been many years since I said good riddance to the occasional late-night hookup and the once-in-a-blue-moon, drug-fueled marathon bang sessions. Three hours nonstop one late night circa 2000. No nonsense. Non. Stop. Sting kind of stamina. Not bragging, just sayin’. Provided her with 9 to 14 orgasms. Me: zero. Downside of...

Blame Big Jack! Gurley’s Tuesday Morning E-mail

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:18:04 -0400

Truth is I don’t cheat, don’t get laid extracurricularly, ever. Against the rules.

Hamptons Detox

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:16:28 -0400

A toxic mixture of dread, fear, panic, paranoia and self-doubt was brewing in my head on my way out to the Hamptons the last weekend in June.

On the train, I sat on a fold-up chair next to the bathroom and listened to the contents of the bowl swish and swirl around, like the economy and the Bush administration. From time to time, I looked up from my novel (about a sleazy opportunistic journalist in...

George and Hilly: Prisoners of Roosevelt Island

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:01:50 -0400

GEORGE: This a new couch?

DR. SELMAN: So what brings you back?

GEORGE: Well, it’s been six months.

HILLY: Well—

GEORGE: I’m a little groggy, I have to admit, because I had to work last night. Went to this benefit at the Central Park Zoo. What animal did you like best?

HILLY: This huge porcupine and the little fox and an owl that was just gorgeous.

...

Rowrrrrrr! Manhattan's Fat Cats Size Up Last Candidates Standing

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:05:39 -0400

At the Wildlife Conservation Society on June 3 at the Central Park Zoo, we found a creature with a steely gaze and a hefty, 235-pound-ish build: Al Gore.

The Transom imagined that the former vice president was thinking the following: What am I doing here again? Oh, yeah, my daughter Karenna married a Schiff and they’re big supporters of this charity—therefore, I have to be here or I’m...

Living La Vida Lohan: Long Island Mama Dina Subs for Deadbeat John Stamos

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:59:37 -0400

On Friday, May 30, the Transom found reality-show star Dina Lohan, mother to actress Lindsay and three other children, at an event for Project Cuddle, a charity benefiting abandoned babies, in Port Washington, Long Island.

Hailing from North Merrick, Ms. Lohan is something of a local heroine: Last month, she was honored as one of the “Top 20 Long Island Mothers of Celebrities” by an organization called Mingling Moms. Don’t ask.

...

George Gurley's Thoughts on Turning 40: Mmmh ... FreshDirect Better Than Sex!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:47:28 -0400

I remember being 18 and watching three seniors dancing ecstatically to Talking Heads’ “Wild Wild Life” and feeling sorry for them. They were 21—their lives were practically over. Suckers.

I’m five hours away from 40.

When I turned 30, I was optimistic and totally deluded. So many possibilities. The inside of my mouth gets numb after a smoke these days. Probably be talking through a voice box, which’ll be...

Chasing Girls, Fleeing Sin: Me and My Mentor!

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:53:09 -0400

I was about to turn 40 and something major had to happen. With three weeks to go, I found myself getting hammered at an exclusive nightclub. I looked through the haze and saw a roly-poly man who, like me, had no business being there. He was wearing glasses and a conservative blue suit; he looked like a giant sea turtle.

I watched as he sipped red wine in the corner. Soon we...

F**k You, I'm Mamet: Tough-Guy Writer Travels With Antic Entourage

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:06:52 -0400

On Friday, April 25, Redbelt, a riveting David Mamet cops-and-con-men drama set in the world of professional jujitsu, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The cool table at the after-party, held at the Honey nightclub on West 14th Street, included Mr. Mamet and his wife, actress and chanteuse Rebecca Pidgeon; author Salman Rushdie; the actors Joe Mantegna and Ricky Jay, who are in the movie; and comic genius, novelist and playwright Steve Martin,...

Gurley’s Streaming Consciousness: Take Judy Back, Mucinex Rocks—Some B12-Induced Emails I’d Like to Take Back

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:14:44 -0400

Was in the presence of a stunning Latina last night. Staring at her shoulders and back. Also met Fiona Apple. She’s either shy or was averting her eyes from the sight of me, couldn’t tell.

Dude, how many days did you wait until you fired up some porn when you got your HDTV? Tempted to now, but Hilly’s in a Really Bad Mood.

Did I already mention that my advice...

Who's That Girl? It's Rebecca Schiffman!

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:30:45 -0400

On the surface, Rebecca Schiffman appears to be a typical privileged New York City kid: She went to private schools (Spence and Dalton), Cooper Union for art school—and at 26, lives with her parents on the Upper East Side.

She’s also a darkly attractive downtown hipster chick who stays out late at the Beatrice Inn, Black and White, Norwood House and Lit. Where she goes is usually determined by whether a...

Fore! The Birdie of the Beatrice Inn

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:05:23 -0400

Since Stephanie Wei graduated from Yale in 2005 and moved to New York, she’s worked at a law firm and an investment bank. The last time she scored her golf game regularly, her handicap was 0.9, and she guesses that these days she’d be a 4 or 5 from the men’s tees. Now she works at a public relations firm, a fine perch from which to make a stab at becoming a known quantity...

Meanwhile, in Manhattan ... Comedian Paul Mooney Waxes Nostalgic at the Box

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:16:19 -0500

“I have only one thing to say,” said the actor Mickey Rourke at the Box on Sunday, Feb. 24. “I was just excited that Daniel Day-Lewis won.”

Mr. Rourke, sporting long blond locks pulled back, and the actress Annabella Sciorra were among the few famous names at the Lower East Side burlesque nightclub’s Oscar party, which featured a guy in a fat suit and a mesmerizing huge fake erection doing back and...

George and Hilly

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:20:02 -0500

The door to DR. SELMAN’s office was closed and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” could be heard playing. At 7 p.m. DR. SELMAN waved them in; HILLY showed off her new engagement ring.

DR. SELMAN: Let me check it out in the light.

HILLY: O.K. Well, it’s too big, so I have a ribbon around it.

Dr. SELMAN: Wow, nice.

GEORGE: Yeah, it’s over a...

Really Mellow Yellow: Donovan, the Sixties Singer, Survives Sound Glitch, Jams With Other Geezers

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:53:40 -0500

On Thursday, Jan. 31, hippie troubadour Donovan played at the Cutting Room on West 24th Street to a standing-room-only crowd. The occasion was a benefit for the Drukpa Trust, a charity raising funds to open a Montessori school for Himalayan children.

The singer arrived an hour and a half late, an orchestrated entrance for a documentary in progress: strumming his guitar, rose petals falling all over him as he approached the stage,...

Gurley's Bucket List

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:10:59 -0500

Continue to irritate and infuriate people as the years go by but figure out how to take it to the next level: Consciousness raising.

Get my head frozen right before I expire.

Spend a good seven hours with Madonna.

Once and for all, learn how to water-ski and hang-glide.

Stop taking Addies and Klonnies and get that morning wood back on a regular basis.

...

A George and Hilly Christmas

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:21:13 -0500

DR. SELMAN: What’s happening?

GEORGE: I sat around in my pajamas all day, e-mailing high-school friends. I have this illusion that I’m actually working, because I am typing and concentrating, but we were just talking nonsense. Whether or not Star Wars is in fact a masterpiece, you know, Beatles versus Stones. The summer of ’87 comes up a lot. Girls. This girl a friend of mine slept with recently—he admitted that this...

Don’t Blame It on Rio

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:50:05 -0500

Vanessa Del Rio made her last film 20 years ago. Yet people who weren’t even born then approach the 55-year-old actress on the street and tell her how much her movies have meant to them. This month a book of her life’s work, signed by Ms. Del Rio and weighing 12 pounds, is selling for $400 ($1,000 for a special edition that includes a drawing by R. Crumb). There was a book party in...

Jackie, Oh!

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:25:48 -0400

On a recent Sunday night, fashion designer Jackie Rogers was having dinner at Swifty’s on the Upper East Side. A number of the women there had bought clothes from her, maybe at her store across the street. Her customers include Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Condoleezza Rice, Courtney Love and numerous socialites.

“I don’t think anyone’s had quite a life like I’ve had,” she said. “I was very lucky, because I wasn’t one...

Tea With Miss Coulter

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:42:58 -0400

Ann Coulter, wearing black sunglasses, a white tank top and capri pants, was sitting on a couch in the Carlyle Hotel’s tea room. It was a few days before the publication of her book, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans.

I asked her if the war on terror was still the No. 1 issue.

“It’s the top nine of 10 issues. For Democrats, it’s about number 57. We’ll...

George and Hilly

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:47:10 -0400

DR. SELMAN: Nice to see you guys!

GEORGE: What’s it been?

DR. SELMAN: Four months.

GEORGE: I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been out two nights in a row really late—not a big surprise, right?—and earlier in the week, I had this new attitude, that I was through with it, that I was over nightclubs and young people.

[GEORGE’s cell phone goes off. It’s a...

On the Tram

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:15:08 -0400

Sitting on the Tram to Manhattan from Roosevelt Island. Which is where I live now.

Pretty cool how they let you bring your bike on the Tram.

No one cares about the bike, no one’s staring at me.

Wheee, here we go.

Bet this is my 43rd Tram ride and it still feels like a roller coaster. Still confident we’d survive if the cable...

Fierce People

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:34:24 -0400

“I first met Dirk … in the late 70’s. He was an imposing figure. Handsome, charismatic, a wonderful dresser—red suits, turquoise slippers. He cut quite a figure. He’d sort of explode into a room, usually with one of the top models of the moment on his arm. … Dirk introduced me to the scene around Saturday Night Live—which was the coolest place to be if you were young in New York in the late...

Top 10 Sexual Fantasies of Women at the Beatrice Inn

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:20:49 -0400

It was well after midnight at the Beatrice Inn, the exclusive nightclub on West 12th Street where many of Manhattan’s most beautiful and sophisticated women like to socialize with their friends. Several of them were dancing on the small intimate dance floor—some of them even toppled over every now and then.

I went around asking pretty girls about their top 10 sexual fantasies.

In the main room—aha!—I spotted Lauren...

Red Eye for the Straight Guy

Tue, 22 May 2007 20:10:34 -0400

“I’ve got tits. I’ve got fucking tits.”

Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News’ bawdy, blogger-friendly 2 a.m. chatfest Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld, was smoking outside the Landmark Tavern in Hell’s Kitchen on a recent Sunday night and talking about the changes wrought on his physique since his TV show debuted in February.

“I’ve completely stopped exercising,” he continued. “I have not thought about going to a gym. My diet has...

George and Hilly

Tue, 15 May 2007 19:28:09 -0400

DR. SELMAN: It’s been two months. So what’s going on?

HILLY: Where’s the Effexor? Get the Effexor. Immediately. Give it to him.

DR. SELMAN: Why?

HILLY: Well, George has been a mess and—bless his sweet heart—he’s been really sick. He’s had shingles. We went to Florida for a long weekend—we stayed in the most gorgeous house you could ever imagine in your life, right on the beach. It...