"I pooped my pants," confessed Roker. (NBC)

Al Roker, who is a very famous weatherman (or so we've been told), admitted on Dateline last night that he pooped in his pants at the White House after his gastric bypass surgery in 2002.

"I probably went off and ate something I wasn't supposed [to], and I was walking to the press room, and I thought I had to pass a little gas," Mr. Roker told NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman. "And I thought, 'Whose going to know?' Only, a little something extra came out."

Dr. Snyderman took this in stride. "You pooped in your pants," she shrugged, like a real doctor would.

"I pooped my pants," he concurred.

Video below.

Also, the full video quotes from Al Roker's book, in which he says about his weight loss, "I no longer had to beg my wife for sex."

And thus, the two most disturbing images of the day are left to your imagination! Enjoy!

Al Roker, spicy (NBC)

Who would have thought Al Roker had a snarky side? During Today’s segment this morning on the Olympic women's rowing team, the usually jolly Mr. Roker made a thinly veiled dig at Matt Lauer for not standing by their co-star Ann Curry when she was abruptly fired in June.

http://youtu.be/VvgrlyWrU5A
Mr. Lauer noted: "The tradition here in New York is that you throw her in the Hudson River."
To which Al "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner" Roker: "Which is different than in our tradition, which is to throw one of us under the bus. But that's another story."

Then everyone chuckled uncomfortably and Mr. Roker segued into the weather report.

Michelle Obama vs. Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

If you're a fan of talk shows where famous people talk to other famous people so that the second famous person can promote their latest whatever, then you might have noticed an odd trend: First Lady Michelle Obama has been making the rounds lately: first on Ellen, then Jay Leno, and now Jimmy Fallon, all in an effort to raise awareness for the Let's Move! health initiative. Or is it?

Michelle Obama gets a visit from Jimmy Fallon last night:
Mrs. Obama on The Tonight Show last week, talking about her husband's singing and nutrition:

Michelle Obama challenging Ellen to a push-up contest:

Now, these three clips all have one thing in common, and it's not just that all three shows appear on NBC, which is the conspiracy theory put forward by Nikki Finke. Two of those segments featured the First Lady going head-to-head with the host in some kind of physical endurance challenge, while the Leno clip had some doctored footage of Mrs. Obama getting into fistacuffs with Al Roker.

While one could claim this is all part of the Let's Move! Initiative, it also shows that Mrs. Obama has a sense of humor about herself. After all, it wasn't so long ago that she was being called an angry black woman and every major network was speculating on her strong-arming tactics with White House policy advisers.

This the call-out to any anchor, writer, or media commenter who wants to take on Michelle "The Rock" Obama. She'll make you gasp for air before she even breaks out a sweat. She's not going to meekly hide behind a nutrition campaign because her physical strength is associated with some negative stereotypes. The message is clear: Don't mess with the First Lady.

Elijah Wood on 'Today'

Even though it may seem like an inordinate amount of coverage has been given over to the Occupy Wall Street movement, we here at The New York Observer are still committed to giving you the full taste of what is happening in NYC. Like this morning, when the cast of Today gave Elijah Wood major props for being quirky enough to ride the subway to Rockefeller Center. The subway! Can you believe it?

Al Roker couldn't.

After having a good, hearty laugh and making about 30 more references to Happy Feet 2, Elijah Wood bid goodbye to the NBC hosts, got into solid gold limousine/fighter jet, and laughed all the way back to the shire.

Jurors had apparently been curious to see the names he might marshal in his defense, and some seem to have taken the lack of witnesses as an indication of Mr. Marshall's poor character. 

“Either they really believed the prosecution had not proved their case or they couldn’t find anyone to testify," one juror told Meryl Gordon in a piece about the deliberations for Vanity Fair. "If they could have found anyone to say, ‘Tony and Charlene are great people,’ to talk on their behalf, they would have been invited," said another.

But there are people--and some of them are even famous, which never hurts, right? Whoopi Goldberg may not have the sparkle of Annette de la Renta, and Al Roker may not have the gravitas of Henry Kissinger, but at least they would have said something nice about Mr. Marshall, and presumably, livened up a rather listless summer.

Mr. Marshall still owes upwards of $5 million dollars for that defense-that-wasn't.

The entire cast of Today gathered to congratulate Mr. Roker and praise his untiring work ethic. They also hinted at some supernatural activities at Studio 1A—perhaps explaining some of the inspiration for his fiction.

“You know, I’ve heard that Studio 1A is haunted,” said Natalie Morales, wearing a black blouse with one shoulder exposed and accompanied with a high-waisted gold skirt ruffled out at the hips. “Matt [Lauer] once said he smelled roses very strongly, near the hallways. Apparently that’s the sign of someone trying to make contact from the spirit world,” she told the Transom, grinning.

“We had a guy come and do sort of like a spiritual, psychic reading. And he said, ‘Yes, I feel a strong presence here,’ so someone maybe has died in the building a long time ago,” Ms. Morales continued. 

Earlier that day, on the show, Meredith Viera had joked about the mystery of how on earth Mr. Roker got the book done. “I thought a lot about this,” she said before the crowd. “I looked at your schedule and how much you work, the time of day you get up. I realized, you didn’t write one damn word of this book!”

The Transom found the novelist standing near his particularly adorable family (his son Nicholas wore thick-framed black glasses and suspenders). “I’ve always loved mystery novels from when I was a kid,” he told us. “The Hardy Boys, Edgar Allen Poe—my mom read them like crazy.”

Someone at Random House heard Mr. Roker might want to get into the novel-writing biz and jumped right on it!

“I was thinking about something in the morning TV world because I know that,” the weatherman said. “But I didn’t want to make him a weatherman; that’s too obvious. So I made him a chef.”

But when the Transom asked Mr. Roker about paranormal activities back at Studio 1A, he drew a blank.

“I’ve never heard that story! And I’ve never smelled roses, that’s for sure! I’ve smelled something, but not roses. …” he said. “She’s the investigative reporter”—pointing at Ann Curry—“ask her!”

“I heard about it and I was falsely accused and I’m upset about it!” said Ms. Curry, before we could even ask a question. “I think she made it up!” said Ms. Curry, faux-glaring at Ms. Morales.

Ms. Curry was more interested in discussing the death of print journalism than murder mysteries. She told us that she has almost 900,000 followers on Twitter, reaching people across the globe.

“So I’d better not drop the ball! It’s a lot of pressure to always be on it, and be worthy of credit people give you,” she advised in a cool-younger-aunt kind of way.

"Someone, somehow told Hugh Jackman that I was doing the food for Graydon’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party," Mr. DeLucie told the Daily Transom. "So I walk over to his table and Hugh Jackman says, ‘Hey, I hear we both have Oscar gigs.'"

The affable chef was dumbfounded. "Is there a bigger star than Hugh Jackman right now?"

On Thursday evening, May 14, the 47-year-old Long Island native, dressed comfortably in jeans, a blue blazer, and gray hoodie, lounged on a semi-circular yellow sofa, under an imposing Christophe Pillet-designed chandelier of hand-blown glass raindrops, signing copies of his new book, The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, Ambition, and posing for photos with a bevy of beautiful young models, at French designer Catherine Malandrino's posh boutique at 652 Hudson Street.

"This is the genius of Ecco," he said, referring to the Harper Collins imprint that published his memoir, "and their special events marketing division. They do parties in non-conventional places."

Throughout the evening, a fashionable crowd mingled around the Patron table, lining up for margaritas, martinis and a mixed vodka drink called the "grape ape," while regular customers continued to shop and push their way past partiers into the fitting rooms.

"I've been a friend of John's and a fan of his cuisine," explained the shop's proprietor and occasional Project Runway guest judge, Ms. Malandrino. "I was one of the first guests at the Waverly...I think I've become addicted." (She's apparently a big fan of the grilled fish--particularly the non-decapitated version. "I like the visual of the head on it," she said. "It's very French.")

Earlier in the day, Mr. DeLucie appeared on NBC's Today show, giving weatherman Al Roker a tutorial on how to make a frittata. Mr. Roker asked him to explain the Waverly's popularity. Mr. DeLucie offered two reasons--the food is good, and the proprietor, Mr. Carter, is famous.

The Daily Transom wanted to know: is the food at Waverly really that good?

New York Times critic Frank Bruni awarded the flashy venue only a single star.

"I think the food is very accessible," Mr. DeLucie said. "You go there, the menu says roast chicken and you get a great roast chicken. It delivers on its promise. I think that’s why it’s so popular."

Much of the initial buzz about the Waverly surrounded its cost-prohibitive macaroni and cheese with truffles, advertised at an astounding $55 a pop.

Mr. DeLucie pointed out that's actually just the base price, depending on the cost of its highly sought-after seasonal ingredient. "When the truffles are $3,000, it goes up to $95," he noted. (Right now is the cheapest time to order, he added.)

"What people don’t realize is, if you go to Da Silvano and order pasta with butter and truffles on top, it’s $125," Mr. DeLucie said. "So, it’s a bargain at the Waverly!"

Mr. DeLucie has been working on his book for almost five years, beginning when he was a cook at La Bottega at the Maritime Hotel. (Maritime owners Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode are also Mr. Carter's partners in the Waverly.) "It wasn’t a Waverly book on its inception--it became a Waverly book," he said, laughing.

"I was very committed to making the book funny," Mr. DeLucie noted. No easy task. "Which is why I needed expertise," he said. So he turned to longtime pal and writer Ken Carlton. "He’s a good friend of mine--much funnier than me," Mr. DeLucie said. "I would toil over my Apple at Morandi every day and he would structure it for me. And we’d fight. I would say, 'It’s an and!’ And he’d say, 'No, man, it’s an or!'"

Mr. DeLucie intended the book to be "aspirational," he said. "Because I was a corporate drone. I was a headhunter for the insurance industries. Awful! I did it for four years until I was 30. Eventually I said, 'I can’t do this one more day. I can’t put on a suit and I can’t shave one more day.' And I had this Italian background. I was cooking at home as a hobby. I decided I’d take this little class at the New School. And I found out I have the aptitude for cooking. I got my first job at Dean & Deluca, slicing prosciutto. So I hope someone will read it and say, 'You know, there’s something I want to do and if this idiot can do it, I can too.'"

For the moment, Mr. DeLucie said he was happy to be out of the kitchen and in "full book tour mode," noting, "I can drink tonight, although my Diet Coke is mocking me right now."

But is Ms. Barnett just a normal girl? In April 2007, the New York Times's Ruth la Ferla visited one of Ms. Barnett's "eco parties"—kind of like a Tupperware party, but with eco-friendly products—and discovered that the daughter of cable television and cellular phone billionaire George Lindemann was pushing green housecleaning onto fancy friends like Renée Rockefeller, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès, Melania Trump, Julia Koch and Jessica Seinfeld. (Incidentally, the products were made by a brand called Shaklee, which Ms. Barnett's husband, Roger Barnett, purchased in 2004.)

A couple of years ago, Ms. Barnett and her husband moved to San Francisco, where Ms. Barnett found a job at NBC as a contributor through Mr. Zucker. (She's also the "green editor" at an NBC affiliate in San Jose.) And while she no longer has the time for Styles section-worthy eco-parties, she's still educating her uptown friends about greener living.

"Some have made a few little steps and other have made drastic changes," said Ms. Barnett, who was wearing a dress the color of grass (eco-evocative!) with gold detail, of the friends she's helped convert. "I think a lot of my friends are keeping more open ears—you’ll see a lot of them here tonight."

But does Ms. Barnett miss the New York City benefit circuit of which she and her husband were elite members before they had children and moved away?

"We don't have as many parties over there, but when we do we really enjoy them," she said of San Francisco. "I'm the type of person who makes the best of wherever she is, so when I moved there, I embraced it and I made new friends. I miss my girlfriends here and there is a lot of action in the city, but there are a lot of other things in San Francisco, like hiking in the woods, and the kids can play sports year-round."

Over in the corner, Mr. Zucker and his wife were holding court. Mr. Zucker was recovering from a knee surgery he had had just six hours earlier and was sitting down in an armchair, his crutches propped up beside him, as friends like Donald Trump and wife Melania came over to say hello.

"We miss them dearly, but we still get to see them occasionally and we always know when they come into town," said Mr. Zucker. (The Zuckers' kids went to school with the Barnetts' when the latter still resided in a five-story townhouse on the Upper East Side.)

"They’re here quite often," chimed in Mrs. Zucker.

The Zuckers have apparently been long-time targets of Ms. Barnett's green efforts.

"She is always lecturing about products to me and what's going to harm our children," said Mrs. Zucker. "Everything from, like, the ring around the tub when the children take a bath to why the toys in the bathtub turn black. I used to spray down the table with Fantastik after the kids ate, but there is no way I would do that now."

We wondered if any of these household changes had been hard to make for Mr. Zucker.

"Nothing that Jeff would notice," Mrs. Zucker said.

Another one of Ms. Barnett's converts was Lisa Anastos, who has been best friends with the author since the two were at NYU Law. Ms. Anastos, who is currently busy planning the Whitney Gala on October 20, said Ms. Barnett is "brilliant" and that she plans to incorporate instructions from the book into her lifestyle. (Ms. Anastos proudly declared that she already uses a green car service whenever she goes anywhere.)

Roaming about the room was also the Today show host Al Roker.

"Hey, you're the salmon newspaper! You're the only newspaper in the city that matches my lunch. I like that," said Mr. Roker, who famously had gastric bypass surgery several years ago.

Mr. Roker said that his children police his eco-lifestyle.

"My nine-year-old is always saying, 'Daddy, you shouldn't leave the water running while you're brushing your teeth,' and 'Daddy, you shouldn't run the water when you shave,'" said Mr. Roker. "So you start being green just to shut your kids up!

"I tell you, if America wants to borrow my kids to nag them, America will be green in a month," he added.

Still, keeping up with the ever evolving eco-friendly lifestyle can be difficult at times.

"I now always leave a canvas bag on the front door, because I inevitably go out to go shopping and then forget it," he said. "I've got hundreds of these canvas bags--from Whole Foods and Stop & Shop and Duane Reade--but then you get to the store and you always forget it. So now I have a canvas bag with me whether I go shopping or not."

We inspected Mr. Roker head to toe, but didn't spot one of those Whole Foods totes.

"I don't have a bag here now because I had to hold an umbrella," he said sheepishly, pointing to the rain outside.

“It’s this amazing thing that sort of started small, and it really shows the power of women,” said City Parks commissioner Adrien Benepe of the event, which takes place in the Conservatory Garden, designed by one M. Betty Sprout in the 1930s. “It’s so appropriate—I don’t know if everybody here knows how appropriate it is—that women are also helping to rescue Central Park. Now it’s become the hottest ticket in all of town; I’m lucky I get to sneak in.”

Evelyn Lauder was clad in a brown suit with pink accents and—of course—a matching chapeau. Asked  her summer plans, she said “To enjoy New York City and Central Park”—really?—though a few trips abroad aren’t out of the question, either.

“I’ll be going to England and Spain,” said the cosmetics queen. Ola!

Deborah Roberts, the ABC News correspondent and wife of Today Show goofball Al Roker, was wearing a svelte black-and-white suit and an arresting smile.

“I just plan to relax a lot with my kids,” Ms. Roberts said. “We have a house in upstate New York, so we just want to go up there and get away from it all and really just veg, swim a lot and eat some ice cream and just relax!” Not too much ice cream for Al, though!

Arriving an hour and a half late, Ms. Roberts’ fellow journalist, Katie Couric, stormed down the steps in a bright shade of beige—yes, we know it sounds contradictory, but that’s what it looked like! After posing for a few eager photographers corralled on the other side of the gate, Ms. Couric gave her apologies to The Transom. “There simply isn’t time,” she said.