If you live in New York, and you've picked up a newspaper, you've no doubt read about the New York City Police Department's pesky problem of stop-and-frisks, the tactic used by police to...randomly stop-and-frisk whoever they feel may or may not be carrying something on them that makes them worth arresting. Does it help? Is it racial profiling? It is a total, outright, so-blatant-as-to-be-downright-impressive-in-scale violation of every fundamental civil liberty you assumed most people to have had but are now coming to realize simply don't?

Some people don't like stop-and-frisk procedures the way they are in New York City. Among them are the city's Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio, who has been all over this; not an easy task, considering the police tactics have the loud support of the NYPD's de-facto commander, Mayor Blooomberg.

Well, de Blasio has put out a nifty little infographic to help understand just how many people are stopping by police in New York City, and where they were stopped, and what ethnicity they just so happened to be when they were stopped. You can even look yourself up by location! Go ahead, give it a try. It's a great time, assuming it doesn't dredge up painful memories of that time everything you held to be true about your freedoms were shattered because a cop didn't like your backwards Mets hat.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Everyone from Jay McInerny to New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood to this paper's owner to—but of course—New York magazine's Approval Matrix (which, of course, made a recent Approval Matrix in the magazine).

But what is it like to be plucked, as though by the cloud-like hand of the Gossip Girl casting gods, and immortalized for fifteen seconds of television, mostly to an audience of teenagers who probably don't know who you are?

Isherwood himself once attempted an explanation of this in the pages of the Times. It began with a quote by Gore Vidal. Needless to say, it was not sufficient.

At least, not compared to essayist Sloane Crosley's entry in this month's issue of The Believer, in which no less than 4,625 words are dedicated to the experience, which—in toto—is apparently akin to living through the last thirty minutes of Adaptation, with disappointingly less drug use, and Susan Orlean having been replaced by the guy who plays Chuck Bass.

For example, this is what it's like to experience the pressure of having to dress one's self on Gossip Girl:

She pulled the last dress from my bag and called for her assistant.

"This will work," she said. "But tell you what—why don’t you borrow a pair of these?"

We were flanked by walls of overpriced designer fabrics and tailoring that glimmered at every turn. I peered over her shoulder, anticipating a tray of designer earrings or, say, some very expensive shoes.

She handed me a pair or Spanx.

And this is what it's like to share a scene with Chuck Bass:

Leighton wasn’t in my scene. Nor was Blake Lively (who plays Dan’s ex, Serena) or Jessica Szohr (Dan’s childhood friend, the bi-racial daughter of Vermont hippies, whose mom is a dead ringer for Maya Angelou) or Chace Crawford. But Ed Westwick, the stylish Brit who plays Chuck, was. During the long breaks between takes, in which the women lay on the master bed like mummies, lest they ruin their makeup, Ed chatted with concern about riots in London that had been dominating the news. Then he showed me a perversely hilarious video of a horse being hit by a truck on a country road.

Emphasis ours. Needless to say, not that we've watched in a few years, but this has ruined Gossip Girl forever for us, in that it will in no way be as hysterically funny or as remotely interesting as Ms. Crosley's on-scene exploits (especially of note: the piece of dialogue given to her, a surprise not at all worth spoiling).

Do enjoy:

A DOG NAMED HUMPHREY [The Believer]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Rockaway Beach: A well-established Hipster Hamptons of sorts for the last few years, a place many thought would hit fever-pitch sometime this summer, the moment when—like Williamsburg and Bushwick and Red Hook and hell, the rest of the entire borough of Brooklyn before it—well-heeled Manhattanites discover it, and then, ruin the fun for those who were ostensibly there "first."*

First came The Taco Stand.

Then, the Trend Pieces.

Then, The Hoteliers.

And now: The Page Six Item. 

Yes, if you're the ornery, traditionalist, orthodoxy-of-cool type, this is the moment you can singularly declare Rockaway Beach "over": When Page Six gets—and publishes—sightings there.

Which happened today.

In a "Sightings" column that also included the New York Giants' Victor Ortiz, Jon Bon Jovi, Harry Belefonte, and Josh Lucas, the top item was:

Patti Smith and MoMA PS1 head Klaus Biesenbach strolling the Rockaway Beach boardwalk . . .

Three things of note, here:

1. Patti Smith and Klaus Biesenbach rated higher than Victor Ortiz and his girlfriend. In the New York Post.

2. Unlike the majority of gossip column sightings entries, this one was clearly not a plant. Either someone tipped them off, or a Page Six-er hangs out in Rockaway Beach.

3. This is, as far as we can tell, the first Page Six sighting in Rockaway Beach, ever. The precedent for notable sightings in Rockaway Beach in the New York Post: A bloodthirsty "Shark (or Ray)."

This is how it begins.

Soon, Rockaway Beach will be flooded with all different kinds of Sevigny and Ronson. Pop-up French clubs with doors that only open for people with personal texts from Larry Gagosian or Daenerys Targaryen's dragons will be erected. The Walkmen will re-locate there, and record an album. Madras-sporting Conde Nast warlords and ink-merchants will eventually venture out via towncar, ostensibly in search of "authentic" lobster rolls at first, lying about being on a wayward detour to Martha's Vineyard—we got lost on the way to Teterboro, har har—but eventually bringing their friends, convincing them that putting $1M into renovating a local standby clam shack with leather banquettes, a hostess who can only read names printed in boldface, and a chef whose greatest talent is an ability to upsell the shaving of truffles over anything from a burger to an artisinal Ritz cracker. Finally, the Manhattanites who read about it on Thrillist and Daily Candy will clamor for entry, eventually getting it, and everyone who preceded them will have already started to repeat the process somewhere else (in all likelihood, 5.9 miles down the road, at Fort Tildon), but not before Kanye West has built a replica Coliseum nearby, where he will show a movie on twelve screens of him using King Tut's tomb as a urinal.

Or, of course, this could all be a matter of semantics, and not even remotely a tipping point inasmuch as a curious anomaly: A Page Six item in Rockaway Beach, oh my, how whimsical (but otherwise insignificant).

...Which may also be what they want you to think.

Summer at your own risk.

[*Excluding, of course, those locals who have been going to Rockaway Beach since its lifeguard union was basically The Warriors. They are simply an adorable accessory of the local charm, and nothing more.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

“Hopefully, we’re going to change the way people consume,” he said, sitting at a table in Eataly, the Flatiron grocery store he opened in August 2010 in a partnership with Mario Batali, his mother, Lidia, and Italian businessman Oscar Farinetti. Before him was a plate of lentils and a glass of red wine. Asked about the rising price of food, he quickly fired off his reply in his distinctly outer-borough-bred baritone: “We’re going to change the balance of the plate. Less proteins, more carbs, more legumes, more rice, more barley. The era of cheap, abundant food is gone.”

He swirled his wine. “This is going to be a great article by the way, if you write it correctly,” he said. “The poorest people in the world eat this,” he said, tapping his plate with his fork. “And it’s delicious.”

The night before, Mr. Bastianich was on double-duty at the Fox network upfront party, helping both to cater the massive event and appear as one of the network’s stars (he’s a judge on MasterChef). And a moment after speaking with The Observer, he would embark on a rapid-fire wine tasting with an assistant, unleashing a fusillade of instructions at the young woman sitting across from him: “This is great. We could charge another two bucks for this. What else do you have for me?”

Pour, drink, spit.

“Let’s pull this one and wait another year.”

After that, he’d hop in a yellow cab (he owns the medallion and personally employs the driver) and head to JFK, then fly off to begin shooting the second season of the Italian version of MasterChef. Meanwhile, he’s somehow managing an empire of 18 restaurants—or more, depending on how you count them—scattered from New York to Pittsburgh, to Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and back, along with three Italian wineries. Then there are his three children, Olivia, Miles and Ethan, with his wife of 17 years, Deanna.

Amid all of that, he’s somehow found time to write a memoir.

Restaurant Man was sold to Viking at auction in October 2010 for an advance reported by New York to be somewhere between $680,000 and $710,000, no small take for a book from a guy who—while a veritable kingpin—isn’t exactly Molto Mario.

The memoir, which has rightfully earned comparisons to Anthony Bourdain’s seminal service industry tell-all Kitchen Confidential, is a dinner rush–paced sprint through the last 30 years of the restaurant industry in America. It follows a rise to prominence driven by—among other things—a distinctly Boomer-ish fear of not winding up richer than his parents.

The book is filled with borderline-misanthropic wisdom, offered up in a Scorsese-esque grumble. (“You’re just happy to know what people are stealing from you,” he writes at one point. “After that, it’s just how much you’re willing to tolerate.”) It is often enthralling, as when he extols the virtues of being a “cheap fuck,” including which vendors to pay last. And it is unapologetically direct—breaking down immigrant workers’ skill sets by nationality, for instance, and walking readers through the process of deciding whether to fire a manager. Restaurant Man is funny, often surprising, and if anything, illuminating. After all, Mr. Bastianich's track record speaks for itself, though his wisdom has proven somewhat abrasive for certain palates.

One anti-Bastianich critic described it as a “meltdown dressed as a memoir” and compared it to the rantings of a “street corner lunatic.”

“It’s a tough world out there,” Mr. Bastianich said, when it was suggested that his take seemed aggressively cynical. “It’s such a drag-your-knuckle, fuck-me-or-I’ll-fuck-you business, and then, you gotta put on a suit and get in the dining room every night to wine and dine, and see the power brokers of the world.”

During his post-lunch tasting, Bastianich asked the young woman pouring the wines if she’d read it.

“Some of it,” she said.

“Do you think I sound like a cynical lunatic?”

“Not really, but maybe that’s because I know you.”

Bastianich was born in Astoria and raised in Bayside, Queens, where he spent most of his formative years in his parents’ first restaurant, Buonavia, in Forest Hills. As a teenager at Fordham Prep, he watched his parents open Manhattan’s Felidia, as Lidia became a star in the food world (then, still a fairly obscure stripe of celebrity).

After graduating from Boston College in 1989, he did a quick stint on Wall Street as a bond trader. “I was doing capital markets, swaps, govies [government bonds], you know, that kind of stuff,” he explained.

It didn’t work out.

In the book, he describes the experience as being “like American Psycho without the chainsaws,” adding, “I didn’t want to be that guy, and I didn’t want to fuck clueless women.”

Leaving the Street with his bonus, he purchased a one-way ticket to Italy, where he bought a used VW Rabbit, embarking on what he calls an “intellectual journey” and “very primal, sensory trip” across Italy, sampling the local foodstuffs, terroirs and women. While the younger ones were comparable to the Virgin Mary, he writes, the divorcees were “giving it away.”

Bastianich’s preference for over-salted prose with four-letter words is prevalent; the book may as well be called Eat, Fuck, Profit. But his thorough understanding and appreciation for all things food—especially native Italian wine and cuisine—is passionate and eloquently conveyed.

On his return to New York, Mr. Bastianich opened up his first restaurant: Becco, in the Theater District, earning decent reviews. Soon, his mother introduced him to Mr. Batali, then the co-owner and chef of Po. Together they opened Babbo in 1998. The restaurant, which featured an offal-laden menu and a loud rock soundtrack, was a hit, and a three-star review from Ruth Reichl at The New York Times certified it. Since then, his empire has relentlessly metastasized.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Bastianich has won some detractors along the way, especially in recent years. One big hiccup occurred in November, when Mario Batali compared the evils of investment banking to those of Stalin and Hitler. He apologized, but not before sparking a Wall Street revolt, including a Twitter hashtag (#Bataligate), rumors of investment banks refusing to honor expensed lunches at Batali/Bastianich restaurants, and Bloomberg terminals categorizing all their eateries as “DON’T GO.” Despite his own unpleasant experience in finance, Mr. Bastianich (who raised money for Del Posto in part from “a couple of guys at Goldman”) is still defensive about the episode.

“That was Mario’s thing,” he said. “I really have nothing to do with that.” But isn’t Mr. Batali his business partner? “He’s entitled to his opinion. You know, whatever. Quite honestly, he was misquoted.” Even so, restaurants like Del Posto—which earned four stars in 2010, what Bastianich feels is one of the most important moments in his career—can’t risk alienating deep-pocketed patrons. Especially given the restaurant’s tumultuous history.

Del Posto was almost closed shortly after opening due to its lease changing hands. The new landlords—described by Mr. Bastianich as “the most unlikable fucking New York douchebag landlords ever” (page 206) and “pure fucking evil” (page 210)—served an eviction notice, claiming the partners had violated the lease agreement with unauthorized construction. Eater claimed it all went back to a pasta dinner the management refused to comp to the new owners.

The ensuing 18-month legal battle included a trip to State Supreme Court. Though he prevailed, Mr. Bastianich is still seething about the fight. In the book, he calls the opposing counsel, Warren Estis, “the fucking antichrist of landlord-tenant lawyers” (page 210), and describes the landlords’ PR advisor, Richard Rubenstein, as the “Hermann Göring of publicists” (also: page 210).

Recalling the dispute, Mr. Bastianich’s eyes glazed over, as if he were having a bad flashback. “I was fighting for my very life, for my 15-million-dollar investment,” he said. “We spent well over a million dollars fighting that shit.”

But it was the press war that stung the most. “The fact that you can buy that kind of ink in The Post ...” he said, trailing off.

The New York Post did go hard on Del Posto. Food critic Steve Cuozzo slammed the restaurant—in a filing that also took on its neighbor Morimoto—under the headline “Bum and Bummer.”

In the book, Mr. Bastianich addresses Mr. Cuozzo directly: “I just want to ask Steve, ‘Are you a real-estate reporter, a restaurant critic, or just plain fucking stupid?’”

Mr. Cuozzo responded in The Post, calling Bastianich “dumb” and a “lunatic,” asking if he remembered the episode incorrectly: “Did Mama Lidia beat him with a zabaglione whisk for the mess he made of Del Posto’s launch, when it was nearly evicted for violating its lease?”

He finished with the taunt: “Lidia, talk to your boy before he costs you real money.”

It was far from the only hostile reaction the book earned. In response to a passage about the time when Esquire’s food critic John Mariani, a “self-righteous, condescending prick,” berated him and “sliced my balls off tableside” over a bad meal, Mr. Mariani fired back through gossip items. He called Mr. Bastianich’s recollection of events “not just vile but so duplicitous that it’s difficult to imagine you are truly the son of your ever cordial, ever civilized parents.”

Regarding the backlash to the book’s more fiery passages, Mr. Bastianich initially claimed to be taken aback. “Quite frankly, it’s surprising to me,” he said.

He later admitted: “Oh, Mariani, yeah. I knew he’d freak out. I mean, whatever. It happened, it’s the truth. I don’t hate him.” Still, he said, “I wish they would leave my mom out of it. She is probably a kinder, more gentle person than I am, and she doesn’t deserve to be brought into this.”

Still, those dustups are fingerling potatoes compared to the labor lawsuits that have been filed against the company.

In 2010, a suit was brought alleging labor violations and demanding back pay. The original lawsuit—which started with only two Babbo employees and alleged that a percentage of wine sales was being deducted from the tip pool—was eventually expanded to a class-action suit against eight Batali/Bastianich restaurants in 2011, a few months after Mr. Bastianich called “bullshit” in the press (a line that was quoted in the judge’s decision to expand the suit to a class-action).

Initially, Mr. Bastianich told service industry gossip site Eater that “we’re going to fight this to every inch of the law, because we know we’re right” and later remarking to The Post that the suits were the work of “money-hungry lawyers” who were “shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan’s restaurant industry.”

One of the lawyers Mr. Bastianich was no doubt referring to was Maimon Kirschenbaum, who brought the suit against his company, and who has handled numerous such cases against many of the largest names in New York's service industry, winning more than $35 million in settlements.

“I don’t think it’s confidential that that guy doesn’t like me,” Mr. Kirschenbaum said in a phone call with The Observer. “I called him a thief.”

Mr. Kirschenbaum hasn’t read the new book, but when told of some of the opening passages, in which Mr. Bastianich explains the various ways in which employees can rip off their bosses, he quickly fired back. “I’m of the opposite mind,” he said. “Employees have to be incredibly suspicious of restaurateurs, because restaurateurs sort of believe that there are two groups of people. There’s the businessman and the employees, and you are the slave. So you should be happy with whatever I give you, and you should not be getting rich in my establishment.”

In the book, Mr. Bastianich plays both sides of the net, initially describing professional waiters as “generally overeducated, artistically deprived, bitter people who feel that every dollar they earn is blood money, and they resent being there” (page 95).

He then goes on to praise his own wait staff as “passionate” and “great,” explaining that “we create a positive work environment” (page 96) where he wants to “make them as much money as possible, and I want to educate them as much as I can” (Page 96). He also lays claim to “encouraging them to stay with us as long as they can” so they can become “part of the family.” This much is true: They have made partners out of former waiters, like Jason Denton, who started working for Batali at Po, and is now a restaurateur in his own right.

At the time of the waiters’ initial lawsuit, Bastianich explained: “We’re not going to let them shake us down for a quick settlement.” Only one of Bastianich’s pledge part proved true: The fight was by no means quick.

In March, almost two years after it was filed, the suit was settled for $5.25 million.

“Yeah, well,” Bastianich sighed, “I was wrong. I was wrong in that I didn’t have the resources or the time to fight this thing. I spent two years of my life fighting lawsuits when what I should really be doing is opening restaurants.”

Still, the concession had to hurt, no?

“Yeah, it hurts,” he said. “Five million is a lot of money.” At this, he put down his fork: “I can’t comment on this a lot because we signed those rights away,” he said. “But there is no justice in this, I can tell you that.”

Did he learn anything from the experience?

“I learned that I should shut the fuck up. And I learned to eat my words.”

When The Observer's conversation was wrapping up with Mr. Kirschbaum, we suggested that maybe he and Mr. Bastianich weren’t so different: They both come from immigrant parents. They both view the restaurant business as a fundamentally blue-collar profession, of servitude. And they are both sufficiently cynical to the point of misanthropy about the motivations of those they stand in opposition to.

“Look, my parents opened a restaurant, too,” he interjected. “It was a Kosher restaurant called Luvana. It was open for thirty-something years.” The restaurant, which was on 69th between Broadway and Columbus, wasn’t that far from Felidia. Did his parents ever have any problems with their waitstaff?

He pauses to think about this for a moment, and then, answers:

“Not that I know of.”

On the horizon for Mr. Bastianich is the third season of American MasterChef, and the second of the Italian MasterChef. Eataly is expanding to Los Angeles and Chicago. Two months ago, Babbo began lunch service. Lupa Osteria Romana recently received a one star review by The Times’ Eric Asimov, and they’ll want more. Del Posto’s challenge is to retain its four stars, while keeping the seats filled.

And there might be another New York restaurant on the way. In a heated moment during the labor dispute, Mr. Bastianich told The Post he was done opening restaurants here.

When asked if this was still the case, he turned to the publicist sitting with us: “Did I say that? Really?” he asked. She nodded.

“Fuck,” he said, admitting that a new local spot was “percolating,” after all.

He laughed. “I was just in a fit of rage,” he said. “Time heals, and life goes on.”

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

For some reason, Blodget has authored a troll-baiting piece on Business Insider asking why people do not like Jews.

The post initially looked like this. Note the slightly conspiratorial Hasidim and the assumption that "people" (non-specifically, in general) hate Jews:

Now it looks like this. Note the beautiful Hollywood Jedi/Jewess Natalie Portman, who is non-threatening and beautiful, and the clarification that only "some" people hate Jews:

Rather than link to it—or even, for that matter, bother reading it—let's just look at the superficial product he's produced here, which is likely to be the majority of what most people engaging in this will give anything resembling serious consideration to (a result partly produced by Blodget's commitment to headlines that write checks the stories below them can only occasionally cash).

Seeing as how Blodget himself is not Jewish, this is an odd question to ask, considering every race, religion, culture, ethnicity, nationality, and so on has been hated by another. If I were to ask, "Why do people hate Thought Catalog writers?" I would expect—and hope—the general population would assume I hate Thought Catalog writers, because I am "people." I am speaking as a "person."

In other words, to have a persecution complex about a religion you are not of might invite one who is of that religion (like the author of this blog post) to ask him:

Why do you think people hate Jews? Is it because you hate Jews?

For the record, I don't think Henry Blodget hates Jews.

I'm pretty sure he even has a few in his employ who he doesn't whip while building his SEO pyramids on a daily basis.

And I don't wonder whether or not Henry Blodget knows this might not be the best way to have a discussion about race and ethnicity and Anti-Semitism. Not that candor isn't appreciated, but The Internet Being What It Is, his post will no doubt invite a slew of nasty comments that will muddy anything that could remotely resemble an intelligible dialogue. And Henry Blodget is intelligent enough to know that this is the case, because he runs a business on the Internet.

Henry Blodget knows this is not the best way to have a discussion about race and ethnicity and Anti-Semitism.

The only possible motivation for writing a headline like that is to attract attention, and pageviews, and it's the kind of attention that will (naturally) only inflame parties on all sides (be they Jews, Jew Haters, Self-Loathing Jews, and so on). You can rest assured that whatever genuine intellectual curiosity Blodget has about this issue—and compassion towards marginalized and/or persecuted peoples, which I don't doubt he has—was made a moot point by that headline.

And as a Jew, I can tell Blodget, this does not necessarily help our cause.

All of which is to say: Blodget does love a juicy headline, and if he found the question at hand worth asking himself, well, it's obviously worth asking of him. Even if it's unfair to assume that Henry Blodget hates Jews.

Again, he probably doesn't.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Bourdain.

For example...

On Paula Deen

"The worst, most dangerous person to America is clearly Paula Deen. She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations and she’s proud of the fact that her food is bad for you."

On Guy Fieri

"I look at Guy Fieri and I just think, '...I'm glad that's not me.'"

"If I had to be him for five hours, I'd hang myself in a shower stall."

"Anyone who's on TV, if you can’t have a sense of humor about yourself, it's going to be a very tough road. If you can't make fun of Burrell and Fieri, comedy's dead."

On Bobby Flay

"In service to this new, groin-level dynamic, even poor, loyal, Bobby Flay was banished from cooking anywhere near as well as he actually could—to face off with web-fingered yokels in head to head crab cake contests—to almost inevitably (and dubiously) lose...They're sending this poor guy all over the country, to trailer parks and meth labs."

On Sandra Lee

"Pure evil. This frightening Hell Spawn of Kathie Lee and Betty Crocker seems on a mission to kill her fans, one meal at a time. She Must Be Stopped. Her death-dealing can-opening ways will cut a swath of destruction through the world if not contained...The eye-searing 'Kwanzaa Cake' clip on YouTube, of Sandra Lee doing things with store-bought angel food cake, canned frosting, and corn nuts, instead of being simply the unintentionally hilarious viral video it should be, makes me mad for all humanity. I. Just. Can’t. Help. It."

On Bourdain's Brief Time at the Food Network

"I knew there was no light at the end of the tunnel the day we were joined by a new hire—the lawyer and the (it would soon be revealed) outgoing execs stood up and said, "Say hello to Brook Johnson … who we're all delighted to have join us from … (some other network)." Ms. Johnson was clearly not delighted to meet me or my partners. You could feel the air go out of the room the second she entered. It became instantly a place without hope or humor. There was a limp handshake as cabin pressure changed, a black hole of fun—all light, all possibility of joy was sucked into the vortex of this hunched and scowling apparition. The indifference bordering on naked hostility was palpable."

On The Food Network's Programming

"2007 was also the year that Food Network canceled 'Emeril Live,' and stopped ordering episodes of 'Molto Mario,' a calculated break with the idea of the celebrity chef as a seasoned professional and a move toward an entirely new definition: a personality with a sauté pan."

On Scripps' Purchase of the Travel Channel

"I'm definitely taking a wait-and-see [approach]. I'm not happy about sharing a hot tub with Guy Fieri, is what I'm saying."

"Given recent developments, I would say that anything could happen. I'm giving the whole enterprise some serious thought. I know that my crew and I are really into pushing this season as far as we can go creatively. We are doing an entire show in black and white, dubbed in Italian."

From Bourdain's 2010 memoir, Medium Raw:

""It's Sandra Lee's world. It's Rachael's world. Me? You? We're just living in it. If this wasn't clear to me then, after Aunt Sandy had turned me inside out, left me shaken and husked, a shell of a man—like the remains of a lobster dinner, it became absolutely clear just last week: When Scripps Howard, the parent company of Food Network, outbidding Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, bought my network, the Travel Channel—for nearly a billion dollars.

I remember now, from a distance, my earlier, dumber self, watching Emeril, hawking toothpaste (and later, Rachael, endorsing Dunkin' Donuts and Ritz Crackers) and gaping, uncomprehending at the screen, wondering, 'Why would anybody making the millions and millions of bucks these guys are making endorse some crap for a few million more? I mean … surely there's some embarrassment to putting your face next to Dunkin' Donuts—what with so many kids watching your shows—and Type 2 diabetes exploding like it is … Surely there's a line for these people, right?'"

It is safe to say this may have been in the works from quite some time. Like, since the day Scripps purchased Bourdain's network. He may have found more liberal masters in CNN (the same network that decided to make a disgraced governor a television host and that made an attempt at syndicating VICE video clips two years ago). Here's hoping they show him and his crew that kind of liberal approach to television.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Until they do.

Earlier this month, Tammy Battaglia—a breaking news reporter at the Detroit Free Press—wrote a story about a 26 year-old roofer who was electrocuted while working on a job. He was saved by being kicked off of a roof by a co-worker.

It's a pretty great filing, but that's what it was: a filing, another day's work. It didn't go viral, or national, but it's certainly a great piece of local reporting any paper would do well to have. So imagine Battaglia's surprise at a little piece of fan mail she got from one of the greatest writers to ever reside in Detroit, and one of the most well-known crime novelists and masters of dialogue in the King's English: Elmore "Dutch" Leonard.

Leonard, who's currently experiencing yet another peak in popularity with the success of FX's Emmy and Peabody award-winning Justified (which is based on his Raylan Givens stories), decided to write in to Battaglia to tell her what a fan of her writing he is. He doesn't own a computer, so the letter—like all of his manuscripts—was hand-typed.

It reads:

Dear Ms. Battaglia,

I read your story the other day about the roofer narrowly dodging death and admire the way you wrote it: the way you took your time and used dialogue, Quinlan telling what happened and his co-worker's first attempt to help, summing it up with the one-line paragraph "That didn't work either." Not wanting his mother to know about it pays off the story. She does and makes the reference to warming up cat food. What I admire the most is the sound of your writing, your effortless style.

Take it easy,

Elmore Leonard.

Rather than scream about it on Twitter, it was one of Battaglia's colleagues who Tweeted it out ("@elmoreleonard sends praise letter to coworker @tammybattaglia. Way to go, Tammy! Very jealous. ‪#freep‬ ‪#elmoreleonard") along with a photo of the letter:

To cap it off, Elmore Leonard's assistant—the guy running his Twitter account—re-tweeted it out to all of Leonard's fans following him to see the writer's endorsement of Battaglia. It's easy to imagine that most working journalists in the world don't get any kind of formal recognition for their efforts—like awards, or national stories, let alone any media coverage—besides the kind words of their editors and co-workers.

As far as plaudits go, however, this has to be one of the cooler ones anyone's ever received. That one is absolutely worth framing.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

And during that review, he somehow managed to note the Occupy movement as terrorists.

Apparently, some guy started giving Bill a hard time leaving The Theatre. Usually, people get harassed at the theatre because they didn't turn off their cell phone. We have no proof Bill O'Reilly didn't turn off his cell phone. We also have no proof that he did.

Anyway, the money quote:

"This Occupy Wall Street movement is now very coordinated and they are terrorists. They are trying to create trouble, that’s what terrorists do.”

Now, some people might take umbrage with this definition—like Occupy Wall Street and civil rights advocates—who'd argue that they're using their first amendment to practice free speech, who could then—based on O'Reilly's logic—reasonably equivocate blowing up buildings with free speech.

But that wouldn't make sense, because Occupy Wall Street hasn't killed anyone.

They have, however, had more cayenne pepper sprayed in their face than two weeks worth of pretty decent tamales. They also did not sink the global economy. So they've got that going for them.

Want to see? Of course you do.

Here. His ditty starts at about 1:34:

http://youtu.be/spE6yBn0xzo

More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that Bill O'Reilly saw Jesus Christ Superstar.

This musical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AIRBpW1drE

On Broadway.

Bill O'Reilly hates Jesus.

[Via ANIMAL NY]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Well, we now know what he meant by "immediate horizon." And it wasn't "for the next year."

It was probably more like "in the next month or so."

Today, Yassky told the New York Daily News that it is "reasonable" that a group of taxi cab fleet owners and drives would want an increase of "between 16% and 20%," which is going to be discussed at a public hearing on May 31st.

Before you start keying cabs, a few things to keep in mind:

Livery Drivers: Last month, taxi cab drivers (who have to have medallions issued by the TLC) had to deal with the news that livery cabs could be legally hailed in Northern Manhattan and the other four boroughs, beginning this summer. Livery cabs could take away from Yellow Cab drivers' business, especially when they're trying to pick up hails in the outer boroughs, which already isn't consistent (and which is why drivers hate taking you to Brooklyn from Manhattan). If taxi drivers have more competition and 10% less business because of it, they're going to naturally want to charge more money.

Medallions Are Still Prohibitively Expensive and Crazy Valuable (for Drivers): At the last Taxi Medallion auction, the average bid for corporate medallion owners was $1,237,189.51. The average price of a Taxi Medallion from one owner to another in May 2004 was $323,000 for a corporate license, and in April 2012, it was $1,000,000. Most taxi drivers—because they don't own medallions—only take home a cut of what they make, after taxes, credit card charges, and the money they pay to lease the cab from its owner. Even if the value of an NYC Taxi Medallion falls because of the influx of livery cabs, if any of them aspire to move up and own their own business (or: cab), quite simply, they're going to have to make more money. Even if they do, it might not matter in the end (because of what Felix Salmon at Reuters sees as a Medallion Bubble). It might benefit drivers to simply make more money now at the meter, than in the future with a Medallion.

Gas Is Expensive: Here's the price of Gas in New York over the last three years.

Someone's gotta pay for that.

The Dollar Sucks (or: Inflation): You probably hear the word "inflation" a lot, but a quick refresher? Sure: It's what happens when the government puts a bunch of money in the economy, and the dollar becomes worth less, so prices adjust (i.e. "go higher"). And guess what's happened to the dollar lately? It buys less than it used to. To be fair, it almost always does. And higher gas prices (see above) are supposed to be deflationary (because more expensive gas slows down the economy and the need for more money to go into circulation). But in New York, it doesn't work that way when cab drivers have the same amount of business as they always do—when was the last time you had no problem whatsoever hailing a cab on a rainy day—and yet, everything around them is still expensive.

Basically, at the very least, drivers want to continue making the same amount of money (though at those numbers they're proposing, they're looking to make more for the moment, bargaining hard, and/or know how not-often the opportunity to be taken seriously for a fare increase comes up).

Either way, (A) they're probably going to get some kind of increase, and (B) locals' and tourists' best option alike still remains a Metrocard and decent walking shoes. Also, a bike (which the city is already trying to capitalize on). If you're looking for a positive spin, here, it's that fare increases present a decent reason for you to feel significantly less guilty about telling your cabbie to take you over a bridge, away from Manhattan. So there's that.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Now that all the discussions have been had about how diverse (or not) or authentic (or not) the show is (or is not) have been had, we can get on to the pressing matter of portraying the lives of Young Hip Brooklynites with more authenticity and diversity (and authentic diversity) than ever! Or so a casting notice for the second season would have us believe.

From an official Girls casting notice posted to Backstage.com, we now know what "hipster" typecasting looks like:

Seeking—Hipster Types: male and female, 18-30s, all ethnicities, all types, specifically seeking people with tattoos, piercings, colored hair, and unique looks. Young Adult (ages 18-29), Thirties (ages 30-39). Caucasian/White, African-American/Black, Latin/Hispanic/South American, Asian, Native American, European, Middle Eastern, Indian/South Asian, Other.

And no, there's no nudity. So you can't do that. But hey, they're trying to cast diverse..ly. Is this what they call "progress"? That said, we can still fairly accuse the show of slighting Aborigines.

Regardless: Tatted-up "unique looking" Billyburg stage players, your time has come. This is basically Hipster Idol, and your best nonchalance face is about to be put to the test. Only the strong will survive long enough to pretend to have a conversation at some backlit table in a distant corner of Bar Matchless so you may call Mom and Dad in Council Bluffs, and breathlessly let them know: It's not just you that made it.

We all made it. All of us.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek