For James Salter, sex and love are noble conquests. But as with fighting MiG planes in the Korean War in his novel The Hunters or scaling the French Alps in Solo Faces, the thrill of the chase only temporarily supplants the inevitable disillusionment that follows once you’ve gotten what you thought you wanted.

Mr. Salter, then, portrays marriage as the hopeless attempt to rid oneself of loneliness. The slow and painful disintegration of Viri and Nedra Berland’s marriage in his 1975 novel Light Years is enough to forewarn any soul foolish enough to desire matrimony.

Such is the education of Philip Bowman, the romantic World War II veteran in Mr. Salter’s superb new book All That Is. Bowman’s longing for a cheerful domestic life gets him through the war, but back in civilian life, he grows increasingly disillusioned with each affair. As he learns from Enid Armour, a married woman whom he meets at a vulgar Halloween party in London (dressed as a buccaneer), marriage is nothing more than a tired routine of one spouse preventing the other from being unfaithful.

“He would be looking for another woman, and I would be trying to prevent it,” Enid tells Bowman of her marriage to a philanderer. “It’s boring.”

In Bowman, Mr. Salter introduces a kind of compendium of his other fictional heroes—passionate, deeply scarred and, at least initially, bound by a restless naiveté. Mr. Salter, who is 87, portrays love as a series of fleeting vignettes, sometimes entailing fierce bouts of lovemaking in faraway European cities, often ending before they even begin.

Bowman is introduced as a diligent junior-grade lieutenant on a battleship in the Pacific whose inexperience in love must be kept from the bravado of his crewmates. Aboard the ship is really the closest he comes to a relationship that feels everlasting. The military guarantees structure and adventure. Women, not so much.

“His life was the ship and his duties aboard,” Mr. Salter writes of Bowman. Belonging to the navy gave him “a pride he would never lose.”

To leave the military is to start life from scratch, something that Mr. Salter, an Air Force pilot who flew over 100 missions during the Korean War, experienced himself when he resigned from the military to pursue a writing career in 1957. He compared the experience to walking to his own death in his memoir Burning the Days.

World War II ends, Bowman leaves the military and enrolls in Harvard. He graduates, first venturing into journalism before landing a job at a boutique publishing firm that satiates his romantic notions.

“[P]ublishing was a different kind of business, it was a gentleman’s occupation, the origin of silence and elegance of bookstores and the freshness of pages,” Mr. Salter writes.

At a St. Patrick’s Day party he meets Vivian, a pretty Virginia girl who swiftly deflowers him. The experience leaves Bowman feeling inspired, and Vivian indifferent.

“He saw himself tumbled with her among the bedclothes and fragrance of married life ... the pale hair where her legs met, the sexual riches that would be there forever.” Vivian fails to see such poetry in their relationship. They marry, of course, and Bowman sees “life ahead in regular terms, with someone who would be beside him.”

When Vivian asks for a divorce in a casual “Dearest Phillip” letter, Bowman sets out on a sequence of flings with dissatisfied housewives who see in him little more than convenience. Mr. Salter’s women are far from the cold vixens of Hemingway or the lascivious objects found in Henry Miller, the author’s major forebears; they are simply too smart for Bowman’s childlike idealism. As one female character tells another toward the end of the book, “never give men your best ... they come to expect it.”

Seeking solace, Bowman begins an affair with another married woman, Christine. It starts innocently enough—in a cab they share from the airport into the city. Gradually, they become domesticated. Sex to Mr. Salter is a kind of disavowal of every affair that happened before. We see Bowman making observations about Christine that are eerily similar to those he had made of the other women in his life, his new woman fitting conveniently into his conception of himself: “He was lying with a smooth-limbed woman who had been stolen from her husband. She was now his, they were in life together. He was thrilled by it. It fit his character, the daring lover, something he knew he was not.”

The relationship ends unexpectedly. Bowman and Christine get into a bitter legal dispute over a property they shared in Bridgehampton. She prevails, and Bowman is left wondering if he would have been better off not sharing that cab with her when they first met. (“[But] what sense did that make?” Mr. Salter writes. “It had been the luckiest day of his life.”)

Bowman soothes his pain from his separation from Christine by courting her 20-year-old daughter Anet. He seduces her by smoking hash with her in his flat, then takes her to Paris.

“I’m leaving,” he says in his note to Anet the morning after. “I can’t bother now to explain. It was very nice.” The note seems petty, Bowman stooping to the level of his ex-wife’s written request for a divorce, but it is as if Bowman has finally learned his lesson, abandoned his chimerical notions of adulthood. Sometimes, a fling is just a fling—not a grand and blossoming love. Coming to terms with this disappointment is part of the dues one must pay in a life well-lived.

“He’d been married once, wholeheartedly, and been mistaken,” Mr. Salter writes of Bowman in his twilight years. “He had fallen wildly in love with a woman in London, and somehow faded away. As if by fate one night in the most romantic encounter of his life he had met a woman and been betrayed.”

"He believed in love--all his life he had--but now it was likely too late."

editorial@observer.com

Little Green Houses.

So The Journal announced its new Friday real estate section today. You can read all about it in the release below. What struck us though, was the name. "Mansion" it will be called.

We couldn't help but think it lacked a certain sophistication (say the people who brought you VelvetRoper.com), so herewith are some suggestions:

• Penthouses
• Oh Castle, My Castle
• Third Homes and Gardens
• Don't Dwell, Buy
• Eight-Figure Estates
• Bubbles Weekly
• Finer Foundations
• You're Still Not Ira Rennert
• Money Boxes
• Jealous?

WALL STREET JOURNAL TO LAUNCH WEEKLY SECTION
FOR RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

Friday Journal Section to be Renamed; Showcase Expanded Arts & Culture, Sports

NEW YORK (Oct. 2, 2012) – The Wall Street Journal will debut a new weekly section covering the global luxury real estate market on Friday, Oct. 5. To serve a global audience, “Mansion” will appear as a stand-alone section in the Journal every Friday in the U.S., with select content appearing each week in the Journal’s Europe and Asia editions. Relevant content will also be presented across WSJ.com’s Chinese, Japanese and German-language editions.

Along with additional features and coverage on WSJ.com, all Mansion content will be available via the Journal’s universal app for iPhone and iPad.

“The mantra for real estate has always been location, location, location – the location for the most intelligent, original, trustworthy and insightful journalism on prestige property is now The Wall Street Journal,” said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. “We all like to think of our home as a mansion, even if it is a humble abode, and we all have the license to aspire, so we have created Mansion to be the home of both aspiration and real estate realization.”

GLOBAL COVERAGE FOR A GLOBAL MARKET
Mansion will offer in-depth stories from a global team of journalists, including property-focused coverage with industry statistics and a focus on high-end financing; luxuryreal estate topics from iconic buildings and renovations to investments associated with those projects; distinctive neighborhoods and properties around the world; unique views from select residences and more.

Buoyed by the Journal’s existing staff of real estate reporters as well as a newly formed dedicated team for Mansion, led by editor Emily Gitter, recurring features include:

§  The Market: A data-driven look at a sector of the luxury market;

§  House Call: A notable person recounts a real estate adventure;

§  Private Properties: High-profile transactions and property news;

§  The Balance Sheet: A profile of a renovation project;

§  Who Lives Here: An in-depth profile of a building or iconic block, the notable people who live there, the history and recent noteworthy sales;

§  Inside Story: A profile of a prominent individual home;

§  Portfolio: A look inside the real estate portfolio of a well-known person;

§  Jumbo Jungle: How to finance a luxury home now;

§  The Trade: The business of buying and selling; real estate brokers on the rise; trends in marketing homes andmore;

§  Foreign Correspondent: A guide to buying homes overseas, with a look at the quirks of the particular localreal estate market.

WSJ.com will also unveil an enhanced experience on Friday at WSJ.com/RealEstate, the Journal’s portal for property coverage. A dedicated page for Mansion will have all slideshows, including House of the Day, as well as videos and articles exploring the world of high-end homes. WSJ Live will also offer a daily segment focused on realestate as part of its Lunch Break show. In conjunction with launch, Wall Street Journal real estate reporter Lauren Schuker Blum will host a chat Friday at1:30 p.m. EST on WSJ.com to discuss how the luxury-home market is being redefined.

Complementing Mansion, The Journal will continue to cover real estate news and features in its national news pages, the Greater New York section as well as Personal Journal and WSJ. Magazine.

In addition to the launch of Mansion, the current Friday Journal section in the Journal’s U.S. edition, which previously featured real estate coverage in addition to arts, will now focus on arts, culture and entertainment, showcasing the Journal’s expanded coverage of these areas. Renamed “Arena,” it will feature Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Joe Morgenstern, a leading team of television and theater critics, and the Journal’s growing arts staff’s reporting on movies, music, television, books, art, and new media. The Journal’s sports coverage, currently part of Friday Journal, will also appear as part of Arena.

Mansion will be included with Arena as a single section in some U.S. markets.

ADVERTISERS TO REACH AFFLUENT, INFLUENTIAL AUDIENCE
A number of advertisers across multiple categories have recognized the opportunity Mansion presents to target the Journal’s affluent and influential audience. Launch advertisers include Coldwell Banker; Extell Development Company; LandVest; Luxury Portfolio International; NetJets; New York Design Center; Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate; Related Companies; Sheldon Good & Company; Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates, LLC; Stribling Marketing Associates; and Sub-Zero and Wolf.

“We know our audience is already well-versed and interested in the high-end real estate market, and Mansion provides advertisers the opportunity to speak directly to that audience with a proven affinity for real estate and the subjects and trends surrounding it – from investment to renovation to design,” said Michael Rooney, chief revenue officer, The Wall Street Journal.

"Today's consumers are demanding a single source for all the latest intelligence on the world's luxury real estate markets. The new section delivers this in a timely, consistent and trusted way, providing critical insights into the globe's most far-reaching markets," said Wendy Purvey, chief marketing officer, Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC. "With the Sotheby's International Realty® network's expertise and global presence, The Wall Street Journal is an ideal outlet for educating buyers and sellers on the latest industry trends and showcasing the most extraordinary property available today."

"We arethrilled to support The Wall Street Journal's newest section and see it as an exciting way to share our brands' stories about food preservation and greatcooking results with new readers," said Michele Bedard, vice president of marketing for Sub-Zero and Wolf. "Our work with The Wall Street Journal has been integral to the engagement of readers and consumers that are as passionate about design and cooking as we are at Sub-Zero and Wolf and lookforward to the same with the addition of Mansion."

Robert B. McKeon, the founder and chairman of Veritas Capital, the private equity firm that invested in defense contractors, died Monday in an apparent suicide, The Observer has learned.

The state medical examiner's office in Connecticut, where Mr. McKeon owned a home, said that a man of the same name and age died of "asphyxia due to neck compression," and that the death was ruled a suicide. The examiner's office wouldn't give a time or place of death. The Darien, Conn., police department said in a written statement that a man named Robert McKeon was found dead in his Darien home on Monday, and that "the death is not considered suspicious, but the incident is under investigation pending the results of the scheduled autopsy."

Veritas's Mr. McKeon was the Bronx-born son of a deliveryman for Drake's cakes and a graduate of Fordham University and Harvard Business School. After rising to director at First Boston, he helped found Wasserstein Perella & Co. in 1988, serving as head of private equity and later chairman of the boutique investment bank.

In 1992, on the heels of the successful turnaround of the cosmetics company Maybelline, Mr. McKeon decamped to start Veritas Capital with a fellow former Wasserstein Perella banker named Thomas Campbell.

That same year, Crain's New York Business found it unlikely that the "boyish-looking" Mr. McKeon "will ever be one of those archetypal, ruthless corporate raiders everybody loves to hate."

Nonetheless, Mr McKeon's career was not free from scandal. In 1999, a consultant to Veritas confessed to paying kickbacks to the Connecticut official who approved the state's $125 million investment in a Veritas fund, and Mr. McKeon refused the state's requests to refund its investment on the grounds that Veritas had no knowledge of the scheme.

Later, Mr. McKeon would sometimes garner negative attention for his investments in scandal-ridden defense contractors, such as DynCorp, which was embroiled in a sex-trafficking scheme in Bosnia in the 1990s, and MZM Inc., a military contractor that was being investigated by the federal government over suspicions that its owner bribed a California congressman to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. In each case, Veritas acquired the companies after their troubles.

Most recently, Veritas acquired Thomson Reuters's health care business for $1.25 billion cash earlier this year.

Mr. McKeon was an art collector and a supporter of charities including the Nature Conservancy of East Hampton and the New York Police & Fire Widows & Children’s Benefit Fund, according to an emailed statement from Veritas. He was a trustee at Fordham University, his alma mater, and endowed a fellowship for military personnel at Harvard. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he endowed a series of lectures on military strategy and leadership.

"Bob was an extraordinary person, a consummate professional, and a cherished friend and colleague," Veritas said in the statement. "We are all deeply saddened by this tragic loss and have his family in our thoughts. We are continuing to oversee operations at Veritas and at our portfolio companies, consistent with our regular practice and as Bob would have wanted."

Veritas said that Ramzi Musallam—who has worked at the firm since its founding—and fellow senior partners Hugh Evans and Benjamin Polk are running the firm.

A phone call to a number believed to be the McKeons' Darien home was not answered.

This story has been updated to include information on the Veritas senior partners now running the firm.

The former Howard Stern sidekick was sitting inside the new Varick Street studio that is home to The Nick & Artie Show, the sports-and-comedy talk show on Sirius Radio and DirecTV that he co-hosts with fellow comedian Nick DiPaolo. He was cradling his gut, pointing at the scars where nearly three years ago, in his Hoboken home, he took a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife and stabbed himself repeatedly: Six times with hesitation. Three times with conviction.

Artie Lange Performing at The Mandalay Bay Theatre in Las Vegas in 2008 (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

He has since been treated and released from three separate psychiatric wards. His sanity and sobriety restored—“It took me a year and a half to get right in the head”—Mr. Lange has now eased himself back into the comedy world.

His jowly face, though still porcine and scruffy, no longer bears the wear and tear of all those long weekends performing in venues across the country, followed by long weekdays witnessing porn stars bringing themselves to orgasm while taping The Howard Stern Show.

“It was like [going from] a paper route to being Hugh Hefner,” he said of those days.

The 44-year-old has sworn off the cardinal vices—particularly booze, gambling, drugs and prostitutes—that fueled his initial rise to comedy fame. He now spends the lushing hours of 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. in the sanctuary of his new show. The studio has been outfitted with bruh-friendly toys like a basketball shootout game and a pool table. The kitchen is stocked with water and snacks and not a trace of hooch (Mr. Lange was nursing a bottle of Nestle Quik during one taping). The show consists of Mr. Lange chewing the fat with Mr. DiPaolo over anything from the futility of the Boston Red Sox to the (allegedly) indiscriminate sexual tastes of Dan, their producer.

“When somebody calls up and asks about North Carolina’s defense, we go, ‘Call Dan Patrick,’” said Mr. DiPaolo. “We want to talk about A-Rod banging this broad.”

Throw in the occasional guest like Esquire writer Scott Raab and former NBA player John Salley, and the result is a sharp, funny alternative to ESPN’s eternal onslaught of pompous programming; it’s like listening to two Jersey galoots (Mr. DiPaolo is originally from Massachusetts) rip on Eli Manning from the bleachers of the old Meadowlands stadium.

While the show is on Sirius, it is also syndicated on regular radio stations, leaving the duo at the mercy of the FCC.

“For the four years I was on Howard and Sirius, I was like going 100 miles an hour,” Mr. Lange said. “You can say whatever you want, and that was fun, that kind of freedom. Here, we don’t have that.”

Mr. Lange In Unhealthier Times (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

Still, the fact that just two years ago Mr. Lange was sitting in an insane asylum, playing Scrabble with a 400-pound methadone addict and an 80-pound meth head, is not lost on him.

“I said, ‘Well this is it. I’m playing Scrabble in a psych ward, so it’s probably over,’” he said. He figured, if he got lucky, “maybe I would play the fat neighbor on a shitty sitcom and stay in show business and do my act at the Mandalay Bay once in a while,” he said in his nicotine-stained Jersey growl. “But this is crazy.”

There is always the possibility of another fuck-up in a career that’s had its share of them, along with those moments of redemption. In the 1990s, Mr. Lange got canned from Mad TV, the show that started his career, for doing enough cocaine to wipe out a small horse farm, at one point mixing the drug into his whiskey when his nose became too sore to snort it. He cleaned up his act in rehab, went on to star in the amusing but unsuccessful Dirty Work with Norm McDonald, then bounced around sitcoms and comedy clubs before landing in the one chair his oversized keister was born to sit in.

When longtime Howard Stern sidekick Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling left The Howard Stern Show over a salary dispute in 2001, Mr. Lange got the nod to join Stern’s morning crew.

“It’s a powerful show to be on,” said Mr. Lange. The gig did wonders for his stand-up career—he sold out a show at Carnegie Hall in three hours—and for his wallet. At his peak, Mr. Lange was making $800,000 a year from The Howard Stern Show and $2 million touring the road.

The schedule was brutal, however, requiring him to wake up at 4:45 a.m. each morning.

“That’s when I was always going home,” he said. Mr. Lange would try to ride out the day without sleeping, sometimes still buzzed on the previous night’s intake of Jack Daniels, pills or heroin.

“Howard’s got the most observant, like, keen eye for anything on the planet,” he said. “Like if I tried that a couple of nights, he would say ‘Robin, Artie seems drunk.’ And he was right.”

Though he lasted eight years, the schedule wore him out, leading to the occasional flare-up. In 2008, he attacked his assistant Teddy on the air after an argument over money, coming at the much smaller man like a walrus in a New York Yankees T-shirt. After being restrained by three colleagues, he offered Mr. Stern his resignation. “Howard, I love you, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m an outta control person,” he said during the show.

Mr. Lange would continue to appear on the program for a year, until 2010, when his mother, Judy, found him inside his apartment unconscious and bleeding. (It was his second unsuccessful suicide attempt. In 1995, he’d tried to overdose on Resterol, a sleeping aide, and Excedrin PM.)

In 2010, Mr. Lange found himself inside the Summit Oaks Hospital in New Jersey, where a large, intimidating fellow patient recognized the portly comedian, who was wearing a “Jimmy Kimmel Live” T-shirt.

“He looked at my shirt, and because he was a lunatic, he thought I was Jimmy Kimmel,” Mr. Lange recalled. “He starts screaming ‘you’re Jimmy Kimmel! You’re Jimmy Kimmel!’

“I said, ‘Yeah, I’m Jimmy Kimmel.’”

One day, Mr. Lange was invited by his new friend to join him in a reading of the Koran, which he promised would save the comedian’s life. He asked Mr. Lange to place his right hand on the holy book and to close his eyes. “We pray on the Koran for 30 seconds, and then he goes, ‘Thank you, Jimmy. I’ll see you in heaven,’” he remembered. “At least I got that going for me.”

Nick DiPaolo and Artie Lange at a celebrity fantasy football draft in July (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

His lowest moment, he said, was sitting inside a common area in another psych ward, watching television, when his Comedy Central stand-up special Jack and Coke came on the air. He excused himself to his bedroom and locked himself inside.

“I sat in my dark room, and I listened to 20 lunatics laughing at my jokes,” he remembered. “That symbolized what I was going through.”

Mr. Lange rejoined society just about the same time Mr. DiPaolo was putting together plans to launch his own radio show. A few months later, Mr. Lange was back on the air. And for the first time in his life, the show was named for him.

Such is the luck of Artie Lange: He can flame out on drugs, burn bridges with the biggest names in entertainment, try to kill himself twice (not exactly a comedic move) and find his way back into the spotlight. Hell, he can make a guest appearance on Joe Buck’s now-defunct HBO talk show, liven up—or sabotage—the show by suggesting his host’s favorite website is “suckingdick.com,” then get Mr. Buck to write the foreword to Mr. Lange’s upcoming book, Crash and Burn.

“A lot of people don’t get that second shot,” said Mr. DiPaolo. “But he was so popular on Howard, and he is the working-class stiff, and they love him.”

Which is not to say that Mr. Lange is entirely reformed. He spent his summer break on a trip to Paris with his 28-year-old girlfriend. At one point, an argument between them got heated. Mr. Lange said he called his girlfriend a “effing c.,” took a swing at the cops who were called over to calm him down, and found himself in a Parisian prison cell.

“There was a crazy guy in my cell and he was in my face, [saying] ‘blue fromage,’” said Mr. Lange.

“I said to the French guard, ‘I think this guy belongs in a psych ward,’ and the guard goes, ‘Monsieur, you are in the psych ward.’” He and his girlfriend are no longer dating.

Back in New York City, Mr. Lange was having bladder-control problems, a sign that he may be pre-diabetic.

“I was like a coyote. I was all over New York, I was leaving my scent,” he said. He was given medication to help fix the problem, which he was slow to take at the time.

Mr. Lange at the Paris Theater in June (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

As a result, accidents happened. Not long ago, as he was conducting an interview on-air, Mr. Lange needed to use the can. He did so literally by picking up a trash can and letting fly. Then he accidentally sloshed his bucket of piss against the wall.

He jokingly asked the Canavan girls, a pair of identical blonde stunners who work as Mr. Lange’s production assistants, to mop up his urine. They refused. Eventually the mess was cleaned up, and he was asked by DirecTV to take a day off. After threatening to quit the show on his Twitter account, Artie eventually returned to the air.

“I am taking the medicine now; it stopped,” he said of his bladder troubles.

Still, whether the pattern of ups and downs for Mr. Lange has stopped remains to be seen. Clean for two years and seeming genuinely giddy to be back on the air, Mr. Lange looks rested, as fresh as a daisy.

While he has intimated in the past that he would like to return to The Howard Stern Show, he appears content to grow what he has with Mr. DiPaolo.

“My situation got so crazy that everybody was in an awkward position that I put them in, so I don’t think that’s a possibility anymore, even if both entities wanted to,” he said of returning to Stern. “A year ago, I would have said it would be amazing, but I listen to Howard all the time, and the show is still great, and I am sure he is happy with it. But this situation is a dream situation for me.”

"The Nick & Artie Show" airs nightly from 10 p.m. - 1 a.m. on DirecTV's Audience Network

drosen@observer.com

With New York Observer alum Jim Windolf at the helm and featuring contributions from George Gurley and Mark Ames, Punch! put out three issues before announcing that it was going on hiatus on August 14. 

Jim Windolf (Right) at a Rufus Wainwright Performance at Rose Bar in 2010. (photo courtesy of Patrickmcmullan.com)

Now Punch! will be focusing entirely on its new app-developing platform, described by its company CEO as a "Blogger" for app makers, while putting its editorial plans on ice for the foreseeable future.

"Somewhere down the road, it became clear we had two businesses in our hands," David Bennahum, CEO of Punch! Media, told The Observer earlier this evening.  "We had potentially a media-business producing the Punch!  products, which you know, then we had the technology business giving other companies this very powerful tool that we developed ourselves."

The initial plan was to have the custom-app division fund the editorial content. After raising $2.25 million in seed funding from venture capital funds like Betaworks and Techstars, Punch! seemed poised to publish a year's worth of issues.

But after just three editions, the magazine is on "hiatus" and its editorial team, which included Brooke Siegel (formerly of Daily Candy), is no longer with the company. 

"We had to wind it all down," said Mr. Bennahum. "We couldn't do two things at the same time."

"As we kind of look at our options, knowing we really couldn't do both, it became clear that the technology business was just a very large and exciting opportunity relative to the original business," said Mr. Bennahum. "Doing the Punch! the magazine app well requires complete focus."

With the magazine scrapped (for now), Mr. Windolf said he is no longer with Punch! 

"If he [Mr. Bennahum] restarts the magazine, I'd like to do it, which might happen," he added. (Disclosure: Daniel Edward Rosen was commissioned by Mr. Windolf in June to write a story for Punch!).

The news came as a sudden and sad twist to a publication that just months ago was poised to reinvigorate the magazine medium with new interactive content. Videos like "32 and Pregnant" and "Tiny Pundits" (featuring The National Memo Editor-in-Chief Joe Conason and three precocious and pugnacious kids) were picked up by The Daily Mail, The Atlantic Wire and Politico and lauded as spot-on spoofs.

"We did some good things, got a lot of attention for the few issues I put out as editor," said Mr. Windolf. "I was especially happy with the videos made for Punch! by young director Chioke Nassor, a huge talent and great guy."

"Also nice magazine-style pieces by Mark Ames (on Romney's Mormon history) and George Gurley (on sad-sack character actor Fred Stoller) and a good essay on viral culture before the internet by Kliph Nesteroff ([who] writes for WFMU's Beware the Blog). So it was starting to come together, I think."

Mr. Windolf has spent the past month working on Fairchild Fashion Media's revival of M Magazine, edited by former Observer editor in chief (and Windolf muse) Peter Kaplan. M will be hitting newsstands on September 24.

"It looks incredible," said Mr. Windolf. "Kaplan put a lot of his tricks in there. It's beautiful; I hope it's a hit."

Speaking from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., Mr. Bennahum would not rule out a return of future issues of Punch! the magazine.

Despite rumors that Punch! had run out of money, Mr. Bennahum insisted that the company's financing is "secure."

"We don't have plans to announce another round of financing at this stage," he added.

drosen@observer.com 

The Horace Mann Action Coalition--made up of graduates from Horace Mann classes in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s--has launched "Here's My Diploma Back" to protest "the school's refusal to investigate the incidents of sexual abuse inflicted upon our friends and classmates by Horace Mann teachers over decades," the website reads.

"There is a growing feeling among HM [Horace Mann] alums that our degrees have been tarnished by the school's unwillingness to acknowledge, apologize for and investigate the sexual abuse that was suffered by so many of our classmates," said Robert Boynton, a 1981 graduate of Horace Mann and a member of the Horace Mann Action Coalition.

"So we are returning our diplomas--both metaphorically and literally--until which time they can be restored to their original values," added Mr. Boynton, who is also a professor at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. 

The group has already had "several dozen" former students send back their diplomas through the website, and expects more once Horace Mann opens its doors for the 2012-13 school year this week.

Horace Mann has been dealing with the aftermath of a June New York Times Sunday Magazine article accusing former faculty members of sexually abusing students during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

Those students have already hired attorneys, including Gloria Allred and Kevin Mulhearn, to pursue possible legal action against the school. Last week, a federal district court judge declined Brooklyn prep school Poly Prep’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit levied by its former students, saying New York State's statute of limitations does not automatically dismiss the case. The lawsuit claims that former football coach Phil Foglietta repeatedly molested students between 1966 and 1991. Mr. Mulhearn is representing the plaintiffs in this case.

drosen@observer.com 

Former Poly Prep Football Coach Phil Foglietta

The decision comes amid rumblings that a group of former Horace Mann students, who have accused the Bronx private school's faculty of sexual abuse during the 1970s and 80s, had hired attorney Gloria Allred to pursue legal action against the school.

Poly Prep argued to have the case against former football coach Phil Foglietta dismissed on the grounds that the statute of limitations for his accusers --which include 10 former students and two day campers, according to The New York Daily News--had expired after those students turned 23:

"Central to plaintiffs' claims in the present case are their allegations that Poly Prep engaged in an affirmative course of conduct during the period of limitations to deceive the plaintiffs into believing that they had no claim against Poly Prep because the school had no knowledge of Foglietta's wrongdoing…Foglietta was consistently portrayed to the plaintiffs as a reputable and esteemed football coach throughout the limitations period (1966-1991)," Block wrote in Tuesday's order.

Mr. Foglietta was accused of molesting students at Poly Prep from 1966 to 1991. In the ruling, the first complaint against Mr. Foglietta came in 1966 from a student (and his family) alleging several instances of abuse.

Per The New York Times:

The family was told that an investigation was conducted, that the student's claims were not credible and that the student would face "severe consequences" if he continued to make such allegations, according to the ruling.

Horace Mann has been grappling with allegations of sexual abuse by its former faculty members following a June New York Times Sunday Magazine profile which detailed the alleged incidents.  The three professors highlighted in the story, including the former chair of the arts and music department, are all dead.

While the statute of limitations was long thought to be a roadblock for adults who were seeking litigation against their former schools for actions that took place decades ago, one attorney with experience trying these kinds of cases said plaintiffs could still accuse their schools of conspiracy and fraud.

“They’re concealing this information they should be revealing, and then they are hiding behind the statute of limitations, saying, ‘Oh, you should have sued us,’” the attorney added. “It’s an absurd and asinine construction, asking kids who could not possibly have any idea that the school had knowledge of this activity to have to sue the school by a certain time, while the school is still fervently engaged in a coverup to minimize its own culpability and its own knowledge,” the lawyer said.

After Mr. Foglietta retired in 1991, Poly Prep held a celebratory banquet at the Downtown Athletic Club in his honor, and set up a memorial fund in his name after he died in 1998. Such measures depicted Mr. Foglietta as a celebrated coach, despite the allegations from former students at the time.

Judge Block described Poly Prep's actions as "deceitful conduct" by claiming ignorance of Mr. Foglietta's actions and allegations.

From the NY Daily News:

Block dismissed claims the plaintiffs made against the elite private school based on the anti-racketeering statute known as RICO. But he will allow RICO claims made by two plaintiffs, Philip Culhane and Philip Henningsen, to proceed against former and current Poly Prep officials because they said they would not have donated money to the school if they had known that Poly Prep officials knew about the alleged abuse as early as the 1960s.

drosen@observer.com 

The Empire State Building (ESB)

At least ten people have been shot at the Empire State Building this morning including an as-yet-unidentified shooter according to a spokesman for the New York City Police Department. The male shooter was killed, but the NYPD says further information about the gunman or his motivations is currently "unknown."

We'll update this post as soon as we know more.

Original Post (9:54 a.m.): At least four people have been shot at the Empire State Building this morning including an as-yet-unidentified shooter according to a spokesman for the department. The shooter was killed.

“At least four people were shot outside the building including the perp and the perp was shot dead-on-arrival,” an officer with the NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information told the Observer.

The NYPD spokesman said they had no further information about the shooter at this time. He also said they could not provide any information about how the incident began.

“We’re still gathering information on that,” he said.

Update (10:05 a.m.): According to the New York Post, the shooting stemmed from a "dispute between coworkers" and left "at least two dead including the gunman" and "a total of 10 people shot."

Update (10:21 a.m.): An NYPD spokesman, Sergeant Ryan, confirmed that ten people were injured in the shooting including the gunman, who was killed. Sergeant Ryan said it was a "male perpetrator" but that other information about his race, age or possible motivations is currently "unknown."

Update (10:33 a.m.): A Flick user, MCM Photography has posted a very graphic set of photos taken outside the building.

© Mickey C Marrero Photography Inc.

Update (11:04 a.m.): Intern-on-the-scene Jonah Wolf sends the below photograph of observers filling 34th Street.

The crowd outside the Empire State Building post-shooting

Update (11:12 a.m.): The shooting was apparently sparked by a dispute between co-workers at a business inside the Empire State Building, according to the Daily News. WNBC is reporting that the deceased victim may be the boss of the shooter. DCPI wouldn't confirm the report.

Update (11:21 a.m.): Hani Durzy, director of corporate communications at LinkedIn, writes to The Observer: "We are extremely relieved that we can confirm that all LinkedIn staff in our Empire State Building Office are accounted for and safe."

Update (11:25 a.m.): Mayor Michael Bloomberg just confirmed that the shooter was a fired employee. He was a 5356-year-old worker at Hazan Accessories Imports, and shot a co-worker three times when a .45 semiautomatic handgun.

Update (11:32 a.m.): More details from the press conference: there are one dead and nine shot; the shooter attempted to shoot at a cop on the scene, according to the mayor. Police have begun letting people in to the Empire State Building's 33rd Street entrance, The Observer's Jonah Wolf reports.

 Update (11:37 a.m.): Another gruesome photo from @StephLauren:

Victim in the Empire State Building shooting this morning.

Update (11:39 a.m.): The perpetrator has been identified as Jeffrey Johnson, 53 56, a former employee at Hazan Imports, where he designed women's accessories, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. The victim was 41.

Update (11:54 a.m.): The Observer's David Freedlander tweets that the shooting occurred by building's north entrance, near 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, according to Commissioner Kelly's post-press conference comments, and that one of the victims hails from North Carolina.

A receptionist at one building tenant, meanwhile, tells The Observer that building management told her company that workers could leave the building through the 34th Street entrance, but can only enter on the building's south side.

Update (11:57):

The shooter's car.

Update (12:17): Statement from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who commended NYPD and emergency responders: "Our state has no tolerance for senseless acts of violence that harm our people, and we will do everything possible to ensure that law enforcement officials have the tools they need so residents of the city and tourists can enjoy everything New York City has to offer without fearing for their own safety and security."

Update (1:16) After Mike Bloomberg's press conference, Ray Kelly briefed reporters on the shooting. He updated the shooter's age to 56--earlier accounts had him at 53--and said that there were multiple cross complaint harassment allegations between the shooter and victim that lasted a over a year. "There was an ongoing dispute between the suspect and the person that he killed." He added that it appears as if several of the nine shot were wounded by police responding to the scene.

Update (1:26): “Within a quarter of a second, it was mass chaos," an audibly upset Kim Levering told The Observer's Daniel Edward Rosen over the telephone from her Park Slope apartment. "

Ms. Levering, a senior writer and communications director at the nonprofit Autism Speaks had gone to work like any other day, exiting the Q train at 32nd Street and Sixth, and was walking east on 33rd Street when the gunman opened fire.

There was a "pop, pop, pop," Ms. Levering said, followed by mass hysteria. She turned to head back west to Sixth Avenue, but got caught in the crush of people trying to flee the chaos. "“I almost got trampled when I got up against the wall and tried top turn to go back,” she said. "You couldn't tell if the shooter was chasing us up the street."

Ms. Levering, who told The Observer that she was leaving New York tomorrow on a trip to Burning Man, made her way to Sixth Avenue, walked downtown to 30th Street and made her way east to her office—where she stayed for a few minutes before deciding to head home.

"The adrenaline was so intense that I was uncontrollably shaking for two hours," she said.

Update (1:33): The Wall Street Journal has identified the victim as Steve Ercolino, 41, a vice president of sales at Hazan Imports, according to his LinkedIn page, and a 1992 graduate from SUNY Oneonta.

Mr. Ercolino

Update (1:39) Tony Malkin, whose family controls the Empire State Building, released a statement expressing his sympathies to the victims and noting that the violence didn't spread to the interior of the building: "This unfortunate event had nothing to do with the Empire State Building or with terrorism," he said. "The Empire State Building and its Observatories remained open throughout, and continue to be open and operating." The Observer has the complete statement.

Update (2:03): The Times points us to a t-shirt art business that appears to have been run by the shooter, Jeffrey Johnson, a graduate of Ringling School of Art & Design in Florida.

The crowd outside the Empire State Building

Update 2:20pm Jonah Wolf reports from the scene at the Empire State Building:By 10:30 AM, a crowd had gathered at the police line on 34th Street and Broadway, just east of Herald Square. Employees of businesses on that block—ASA College, Aéropostale, Forever 21—were told to show their ID or call their managers in order to cross the police line. Onlookers watched as police cars entered and exited the block.

Mark Lee, visiting from Essex, England, said he and his family "heard the sirens when we were going in" to the Empire State Building, but were still able to ride up to the 88th floor unaware of the shooting outside. "You can even go up to the 102nd floor," added his younger son, Robert, after leaving the police barricade.

"I'm glad I was late. I didn't have to dodge any bullets. God works in mysterious ways," said an employee of tour bus operators City Sights who declined to give his name.

Brandon Thorpe, who witnessed the shooting on the way to work at Penn Station, said, "You know that was retaliation. That means we have to get guns not just out of his hands but out of everybody's hands."

"I heard five gunshots," said Maria Almodovar Ramos, who was at work in the building on 10 West 33rd Street when the shooting occurred. "The shooter then ran toward Fifth Avenue." Seeing the police on his tail, the shooter apparently abandoned his grey Nissan and ran up Fifth Avenue toward 34th Street, where he was shot.

At approximately 12:50, a medical examiner van was seen leaving the crime scene.

Update (2:33): Raymond DiGiuseppe, chair in the Department of Psychology at St. John’s University, writes in on the shooter: “Jeffrey Johnson is too old for this aggressive act to be from the onset of psychotic disorder; and he’s too old to have unusual aggression typically found in younger men," Dr. DiGiuseppe said in an emailed statement. "Most professionals in our field think of aggression as impulsive, but we find that the three R’s revenge, resentment, and rumination can also play an important role in triggering aggression. Bringing the gun to his previous work place shows some degree of planning. Without knowing if he has a history of psychotic behavior, personality disorder, or neurological condition, if I had to predict, I would hypothesize that he has been ruminating about getting revenge and harboring feelings of resentment for the past year since he lost his job and that he would view this event as the result of being treated unfairly.”

Like Penn State and Poly Prep before it, Horace Mann was grappling with the aftermath of serious accusations of sex abuse made by its graduates against former faculty members, and Mr. Friedman and headmaster Tom Kelly had called the meeting to address the terrible matter that had brought the school much ignominy and negative press.

A Protester Outside Horace Mann (photo credit: Peter Brooks)

The impetus for this meeting had come in the form of a nearly 10,000-word New York Times Magazine cover story written by Horace Mann alum and playwright Amos Kamil that was published in June.

The story painted three popular teachers as sexual predators during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: Johannes Somary, a former chair of the arts and music department, who was accused of molesting students in his car, in hotels during glee-club trips and during sojourns in Europe; Stan Kops, who resigned following strange behavior during a 7th grade orientation trip in 1983; and Mark Wright, who was described as “performing fellatio” on a young student inside an art studio in 1978.

In 1993, Horace Mann student Ben Balter sent a letter to then-headmaster Phil Foote about Mr. Somary’s “grossly inappropriate sexual advances” toward him, which had “persisted for several months now.” He added, “The purpose of a school such as Horace Mann is to provide a safe and comfortable learning environment. This goal is clearly made impossible by the inappropriate actions of teachers such as Mr. Somary.” Nonetheless, the teacher remained on staff at Horace Mann until he retired in 2002. Mr. Balter killed himself in 2009.

Now all three of the accused teachers are dead, one of the many complications the board was faced with when deciding on a course of action, Mr. Friedman told the Alumni Council.

Members of the two alumni organizations born out of Mr. Kamil’s article, the Horace Mann Action Coalition and the Horace Mann Survivors, did not think the matter was especially complicated: The school should finance an independent investigation similar to the one that produced Louis Freeh’s damning report on Penn State’s handling of football coach Jerry Sandusky, they said. And the school should also offer an unconditional apology, along with compensation, to its victims.

Perhaps displeased with the administration’s handling of the situation, the Horace Mann Survivors group hired Gloria Allred as its attorney last week, The Observer has learned. The Survivors deferred all interview requests to Ms. Allred, who declined to comment for this article. 

Meanwhile, despite Mr. Friedman’s contention that there is no rule book for handling such situations, Horace Mann has no shortage of recent examples to follow.

The countless transgressions of predatory pedophile Sandusky single-handedly destroyed the legacy of once-legendary coach Joe Paterno and the public university that employed him. In his findings, Mr. Freeh blasted Penn State for its “total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims by the most senior leaders.”

At Poly Prep, former students sued the school and its top officials over the alleged sexual abuse of at least nine students between 1966 and the 1980s, damning the legacy of a popular football coach while also staining the seemingly indestructible image of the Brooklyn prep school. Attorneys for Poly Prep have filed a motion to dismiss the case.

At Syracuse University, two former ball boys for the men’s basketball team accused assistant coach Bernie Fine of molesting them. Both accusers are being represented by Ms. Allred, who recently called on state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate Syracuse’s handling of these allegations.

Johannes Somary, one of the accused teachers (photo: JohannesSomary.org)

But at Horace Mann, the board of trustees was being slow and careful in its approach to the accusations, Mr. Friedman said in the meeting.

“They believe the rules apply to public institutions like Penn State, or less prestigious Brooklyn institutions like Poly Prep, but they don’t apply to us,” said Robert Boynton, the director of NYU’s Literary Reportage concentration and a 1981 graduate of Horace Mann. “That has always been the Horace Mann way.”

The school did take immediate steps following the publication of Mr. Kamil’s article. Horace Mann partnered with The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to “audit current administrative procedures and policies that encompass child protection issues,” among other new directives. It has met regularly with the Horace Mann Survivors and the Horace Mann Action Coalition (CORRECTION: the Horace Mann Action Coalition wrote to say that it has not met regularly with the school). It has cooperated with the NYPD’s and the Bronx district attorney’s independent investigations into the allegations of sexual assault.

Meanwhile, in August, board member Joe Rose set up the Hilltop Cares Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to “assist those affected by the issues arising from allegations of abuse at the Horace Mann School and to study related issues in the broader community,” he wrote in an email to The New York Times. Hilltop Cares Foundation is believed to have raised $2 million already.

Some have knocked the Hilltop Cares Foundation as a ploy to protect the school from damaging litigation by creating a separate entity to compensate victims while legally insulating the institution itself, which can thereby avoid taking any direct responsibility for the crimes. As several observers noted, a similar structure was developed by the manufacturing company Johns Manville, which set up a trust in the 1980s to settle asbestos claims by former employees, successfully protecting the company from bankruptcy.

“What [Joe Rose] is doing is the school’s attempt at an arm’s-length solution,” said one former Horace Mann student who has been active in the discussions between the school and the new alumni organizations and who declined to be named for the article.

“It is our understanding that funds being raised are intended for therapy/counseling for self-described ‘survivors’ who report that they were abused by teachers who are no longer at the school,” a Horace Mann spokeswoman wrote in an email to The Observer. She stressed that the Hilltop Cares Foundation is “not affiliated with the school and have their own respective boards and counsel.”

“It provides Horace Mann deniability,” Mr. Boynton said.

The Horace Mann board of trustees is made up of several members who attended or graduated from the school around the same time as Mr. Kamil, including Mr. Rose, secretary of the board Robert Heidenberg and Regina Kulik Scully. Mrs. Scully, a 1981 graduate, executive produced the 2008 documentary Boyhood Shadows, which detailed the lasting effects of child molestation on male victims. One victim featured in the documentary was Glenn Kulik, Mrs. Scully’s brother.
Mrs. Scully did not respond to an email requesting comment. Phone calls to several members on the board of trustees, including Mr. Rose, were not returned.

On June 14, the school set up a hot line to Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson’s office to report any inappropriate behavior by Horace Mann staff members. That hot line has since received “at least 20” reports from former students, according to a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.

The Horace Mann Action Coalition protesting outside Horace Mann during the Alumni Council Meeting (photo credit: Peter Brooks)

Questions remain: Can victims claim that the school, having been made aware of allegations against Mr. Somary, engaged in a coverup by letting him stay on staff for another nine years? And if so, is Horace Mann potentially looking at a cascade of lawsuits that do lasting damage to the institution?

Whether police are investigating the possibility of a coverup could not be determined. Questions to Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul Browne were not answered. An interview request with Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, commander of the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit, was denied.

As for the independent investigation, Mr. Friedman said in the meeting that the board was opposed to it for several reasons:The firm theoretically hired to handle the independent investigation would not have subpoena power. And the cost of such an investigation, in the ballpark of the $12 million price tag for Louis Freeh’s Penn State report, would be prohibitive.

When asked if a more affordable option could be pursued, Mr. Friedman told those in attendance that the Freeh report was the gold standard and anything less would be inadequate, according to a person who was present at the meeting.
Horace Mann’s recent troubles mirrored those of St. Paul’s, the New Hampshire prep school that was slapped with allegations of sexual abuse by way of a 2006 Vanity Fair article written by Alex Shoumatoff, a former student there.
A St. Paul’s alumni group led by Arizona attorney Alexis Johnson presented the board with more than 10 instances of sexual misconduct by former faculty members, a report that was initiated after one former student reported that a teacher had exposed himself to her.

The purpose of the report, said Mr. Johnson, was not to pursue legal action, but to bring these allegations to a “recalcitrant private institution” that had been perceived as more interested in safeguarding its image than in addressing serious violations.

“People hate to think about child abuse when they are trying to raise money for a library,” said Mr. Johnson. St. Paul’s class of 1975 would eventually give a sizable donation to the school, one that provided, among other things, “boundary” training to teachers.

Back at the Alumni Council meeting, Mr. Friedman refuted rumors that board members were “lawyering up.” Addressing the idea of an apology letter, one member of the Alumni Council brought up a 2008 letter sent to students at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, a private school in Cambridge, Mass., by headmaster Rebecca Upham. In that letter, Ms. Upham apologized for the school’s handling of a teacher who was fired in 1987 for sexually inappropriate behavior, adding that even 20 years later the school “failed to respond to those awful events in an appropriate way.”
“Dr. Kelly has communicated with his peers at [Buckingham Browne & Nichols] and other schools, who have given insights and advice on what worked and what didn’t work when they went through similar situations,” said one attendee at the Alumni Council meeting.

Buckingham Browne & Nichols paid out $70,000 to settle a civil suit, and in 2009 was threatened with $1 million suit by a 1989 graduate of the school.

While New York State’s statute of limitations and the deaths of the accused teachers limit the possibility for any criminal charges, one attorney with experience handling similar cases said that the statute of limitations should not thwart those claiming to be victims from pursuing legal action.

“What’s happening in this case is that the schools are basically concealing from kids information that they have regarding sex predators amongst the schools’ faculty,” said the attorney, who spoke about sexual abuse in schools in general and who asked not to be named.

“They’re concealing this information they should be revealing, and then they are hiding behind the statute of limitations, saying, ‘Oh, you should have sued us,’” the attorney added. “It’s an absurd and asinine construction, asking kids who could not possibly have any idea that the school had knowledge of this activity to have to sue the school by a certain time, while the school is still fervently engaged in a coverup to minimize its own culpability and its own knowledge,” the lawyer added.

“It’s so incredibly draconian, it’s not even funny.”

drosen@observer.com

Julien Chabbott, the co-founder of the now-defunct smartphone app Line Snob, was arrested and charged with felony assault after he allegedly drove over Police Officer Felix Recio's foot early Saturday evening.

"He had a concussion and some other injuries," said Mr. Heller, who claimed Mr. Chabbott had to be taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment after his arrest.

A person close to the investigation told The Observer that this was the first they had heard about Mr. Chabbott's injuries. (UPDATE 3:04pm): That person added that the defense attorney did mention the concussion during the arraignment).

Video of the confrontation, which has become a viral hit, details the unfortunate (and once again, alleged) meeting between an über-expensive Italian sports car and a municipal employee's foot.

Mr. Chabbott had been inside the Mercer Hotel Saturday with reality TV girlfriend Stephanie Pratt when he objected to Officer Recio writing him a summons for parking in a no-standing zone, not having a registration sticker and not having an inspection sticker on his Ferrari 458, cops and prosecutors said.

Mr. Chabbott then allegedly disregarded Officer Recio's orders to stay out of the Ferrari, got in the driver's seat and moved the car over the cop's foot, cops and prosecutors claim. Officer Recio and his partner then pulled Chabbott out of the car and tossed him to the street, an altercation that may have injured the 28-year-old entrepreneur, his attorney said.

Mr. Chabbott was released on $1,000 bail Sunday after he pleaded not guilty to second-degree felony assault, which carries a seven-year jail sentence, and obstructing governmental administration.

Mr. Heller, who is also the attorney for "Gatsbaby" (and accused drunk driver) Tabber Benedict, told The Observer that Mr. Chabbott did not run over Officer Recio's foot. To have done so is "rather incredulous, considering the cost of a parking ticket could never justify the motivation to run over a policeman's foot," he added.

As for the video shot by bystander Damian Mory, Mr. Heller believes it highlights Officer Recio and partner's "extremely inappropriate course of conduct."

"This may lead to an investigation of the conduct of the police officers, and I don't think any law-abiding citizen who viewed that tape would be happy to see how New York's Finest conducted themselves," said Mr. Heller.

He would not confirm if the Ferrari was registered in Mr. Chabbott's name. Neither the NYPD nor the Manhattan District Attorney's office could confirm to whom the Ferrari was registered.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chabbott believes that Officer Recio is faking his injury and was issuing a ticket just to meet a ticket quota, according to TMZ. If true, it may be the first instance in which an illegally-parked Ferrari in SoHo was involved in last year's NYPD Bronx-ticket fixing scandal (and yes, we say so facetiously).

Mr. Chabbott was reportedly the co-founder of Line Snob, a social network app that monitored lines and provided its users wait times. The app is no longer available on iTunes. The last tweet on Line Snob's Twitter account was on June 24, 2010.

Eric Adler, another c0-founder of Line Snob, is now running Puesto Mexican Street Food, a restaurant in La Jolla, Calif. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Burg Upender, the CEO of Mobomo, which helped build the Line Snob app, said he was "not interested in commenting" when reached by phone.

drosen@observer.com