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Hunter Walker

By Hunter Walker 5/11 4:46pm

Drama

Matt Drudge (Photo: Getty)

Drudge Drops Link After Gawker Questions His Sexuality

Aggregator extraordinaire Matt Drudge briefly linked to Gawker’s story that alleged ABC’s Robin Roberts “wasn’t enthusiastic” about landing her big gay marriage interview with President Obama because she was worried it would call attention to the “near-open secret that Roberts is a lesbian” this afternoon and the site took the opportunity to taunt him with an update.

“Internet behemoth Matt Drudge, who has just directed his readers to this post, is also commonly understood to be gay,” the update said. Read More

By Hunter Walker 4/25 8:00am

Occupy Wall Street

OWS-Subway

Lost In New York: Can Occupy Find Its Way Back To Prominence In The Crowded, Distracted City

You can still see traces of the Occupy Wall Street encampment that once stood in Zuccotti Park—a contingent of police officers by the plaza’s entrance and an NYPD watchtower standing guard on Zuccotti’s
northern edge. However, the protesters who made this park their home before being evicted by the police last November are largely gone and the news trucks that formerly stationed themselves outside have departed in favor of a Chabad Mitzvah Tank.

On a recent afternoon at Zuccotti, The Observer encountered handful of tourists and businessmen on lunch breaks but there was nary a demonstrator in sight. At nearby Federal Hall, there were about 11 Occupiers holding signs and sitting on the steps. On the street below, workers were seemingly oblivious to the Occupiers in their midst.

“You’re a Republican?” a suited man asked his friend as they briskly passed by. “Good man!”

Seven months into the movement, the Wall Street that protesters are ostensibly trying to occupy has become inured to the spectacle of carnivalesque protests, demonstrators sleeping on sidewalks and mass arrests. And it seems the rest of the city has too. The protesters are in danger of becoming just another discordant note in the daily din that New Yorkers are so adept at tuning out, like panhandlers, street performers, sidewalk preachers and the other distractions of urban life. Read More

By Hunter Walker 4/19 3:13pm

Crime

Police officer and FBI agents in front of the basement at 127B Prince Street. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

FBI and NYPD Dig Up SoHo Searching For Remains In 32-Year-Old Case of Missing Child

FBI and NYPD investigators shut a two-block stretch of Prince Street in SoHo today to dig for remains in the case of a young boy who went missing nearly 33 years ago. Etan Patz, 6, disappeared on May 25, 1979 after leaving his home for a two-block walk to his school bus stop. Despite worldwide attention, the case has never been solved. NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne told The Observer that police and FBI investigators are “executing a search warrant this morning for human remains, clothing or other personal effects that may help us lead to the location of Etan Patz” in the basement of 127B Prince Street. Etan went missing about a half block away from the basement.

“It’s about a 15-by-30 basement space,” Mr. Browne said. “It’s currently unoccupied, we’ll be taking down the drywall and excavating the basement.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 4/11 10:33am

Politics

Illustration: Jason Seiler

Run, Rabbi, Run! Shmuley Boteach Goes From Neverland to Capitol Hill

“One thing about smart cars, there’s no room for error,” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said as he piloted his 99-inch-long convertible along 10th Avenue. “I’m a little person, I like little things,” he said cheerily.

Mr. Boteach took directions from a GPS system as we zipped across Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel last week. Our window was at bumper level with the surrounding traffic as the rabbi made the sharp turns and tight maneuvers required for escaping Midtown. Wearing a Bluetooth headset and juggling a pair of cell phones to maximize his multitasking, Mr. Boteach said he often takes calls on the move. When he’s not driving, he opts for a much larger headset that offers better reception.

“It’s military grade,” Mr. Boteach tells us. “It’s like a landline.”

Always a busy man, the rabbi balances his career as a widely published author and Oprah-approved spiritual guru with a family of nine children and the daily demands of religious worship.

Now he’s running for Congress. Read More

By Hunter Walker and Kat Stoeffel 3/30 5:37pm

Changes

NBC Sports Personality Press Conference

Keith Olbermann Will Sue Current TV for Replacing Him with Eliot Spitzer

Al Gore’s upstart progressive cable news network Current TV has fired marquee anchor Keith Olbermann, The New York Times reports.  Starting Friday, his 8 p.m. Countdown slot will be filled by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, with a new show called Viewpoint.

According to the Times, Current management “unanimously” agreed that Mr. Olbermann had failed to honor the terms of his five-year, $50 million contract, giving them the right to give him the boot. After declining to speak to the Times, Mr. Olbermann slammed network executives Mr. Gore and Joel Hyatt on Twitter, saying they had fired him unethically and he would seek legal recourse. Read More

By Hunter Walker 3/28 5:56pm

Sports Page

Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman watching spring training last year in Tampa. (Photo: Getty)

Yankees Down South: Dispatch From Spring Training

On Sunday afternoon, Brian Cashman, general manager of the New York Yankees, stood by the dugout at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa watching the team take batting practice prior to a spring training matchup against the Detroit Tigers. A pair of dark glasses shielded Mr. Cashman’s eyes from the bright Florida rays, but his mostly bald crown was exposed. A man walked up to Mr. Cashman and gave him a warm greeting.

“What’s cooking?” the man asked.

“My head,” Mr. Cashman replied tersely.

The 44-year-old GM has plenty of reasons to feel the heat aside from the temperatures in Tampa, which topped 80 degrees nearly every day this month. Mr. Cashman spent much of the offseason dealing with a sex scandal that saw photos of his alleged pajama pants make the blog headlines and found him in court facing an alleged mistress he claims stalked and harassed him. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel and Hunter Walker 3/01 10:00am

RIP

Andrew Breitbart (Photo: Facebook)

Andrew Breitbart Dead at 43

Online publisher and conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart died shortly after midnight at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed. He passed “unexpectedly from natural causes,” according to one of his websites, BigJournalism.com. He was 43. Read More

By Hunter Walker 2/17 7:55pm

Beef

dr.noren

‘Good Shabbos Indeed:’ The E-Mail That Inspired Scott Noren To ‘Occupy Liz Benjamin’

For the past few weeks, longshot “Occupy” Senate candidate Scott Noren has been at war with the state politics blog and TV show Capital Tonight with angry ads on Albany politics sites and supposedly plans to fly a plane over the capitol. Today, Mr. Noren published a series of emails he claims inspired the feud. Mr. Noren became enraged with Capital Tonight host Liz Benjamin, one of the pre-eminent reporters on the Albany beat, after receiving what he described as a “less than professional” response from her following “several attempts to get media coverage on Capital Tonight.”

“You have come across as the most arrogant local newscaster I have ever encountered,” Mr. Noren wrote in the missive he released today. Read More

By Hunter Walker 1/11 11:49am

Bigger Than Hip-Hop

"Heems" Suri of Das Racist.

Redistrict Remix: Gerrymandering Issue Taken Up By Queens Rapper and Punjabi Proteges

When one thinks of Queens rappers, one does not think of political redistricting, but all of that is about to change.

Himanshu “Heems” Suri, a member of the idiosyncratic rap group Das Racist, is releasing his hotly anticipated solo mixtape Nehru Jackets in conjunction with SEVA NY, a community organization that’s currently focused on raising awareness about the consequences the citywide redistricting scheduled for later this year will have in the Queens neighborhoods where he grew up. Mr. Suri’s mixtape will be accompanied on several songs by young SEVA members who rap and sing in Punjabi.

The Observer made our way out to Queens to watch Mr. Suri record at SEVA co-founder and executive director Gurpal Singh’s bedroom studio. Mr. Suri was accompanied by a pair of young SEVA rappers—Lovedeep Singh, 21, and Jaspreet Singh, 17 (none of the Singhs are related, it turns out). Lovedeep’s parents don’t know about his rap hobby—he simply told them he was at a SEVA event without mentioning the recording studio. Mr. Suri and Mr. Singh told him they would break the news to his parents before the mixtape’s release party.

“He’s got strict parents, but we’re going to have to tell them,” Mr. Singh said. “He’s going to be on stage in front of the whole community.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 11/30/11 9:50am

Hollywood Treatments

Illustration by Fred Harper.

The Tussle for Tinseltown: Hollywood Hellcats Throw Down Over Traffic, Influence

One weeknight late last month, TheWrap.com editor in chief Sharon Waxman sent an email to The Hollywood Reporter’s editorial director, Janice Min, shortly before 1 in the morning. Ms. Waxman asked Ms. Min if they could speak in person, privately, about how to improve the relationship between their publications. During the previous two days, Ms. Waxman had feuded with Ms. Min’s web editor, Joseph Kapsch, over a story on TheWrap that said Mr. Kapsch was considering leaving THR as part of an “editorial exodus” that saw three employees depart. Mr. Kapsch, who, as of this writing, remains employed at THR, blasted TheWrap, or, as he called it, “The Crap,” on Twitter and in a 600-word response he sent to the media blog FishbowlLA.

Prior to emailing Ms. Min, Ms. Waxman forwarded copies of Mr. Kapsch’s statements to two executives at THR’s parent company, Prometheus Global Media. She urged one to see how badly his employee was treating her. She told the other to watch his back.

“It’s kind of amusing, these blogger characters out here,” Ms. Min said, ever eager to remain above the fray. “They really enjoy ruminating and obsessing over what we do. It’s just part of the kooky Net landscape out here.”

Hollywood has always felt like a small town, but it may never have felt smaller than it does right now among the members of the city’s Hollywood press. For decades Daily Variety was the sector’s indisputed leader, the prime organ not only for scoops but for wild speculation, backroom smoke signals, trial balloons and brazen displays of wishful thinking as well. The Hollywood Reporter seemed content to take the number-two spot.

Then came Nikki. And Sharon. And Janice. And, never one to miss a party, Bonnie. Read More