Goodbye strangers, it's been nice! (CW)

One time we tried to watch an episode of Gossip Girl. It was 2007, and Obama was gaining grass-roots support among young voters thanks to the hard work and dedication of Will.i.Am, Scarlett Johansson and two teenage newcomers, Blake Lively and Penn Badgley.

Yes, these two--dare we say--heroes had stood up together (in accordance with CW regulations) and announced in a commercial that they were voting for Barack Obama. The two co-stars, who, from the little we had seen of their program, were not especially interesting but found themselves endlessly fascinating, were given special celebrity passes because they were dating both on and off the show. And that's always fun.

But it's no longer the beginning of 2008. It's the end of 2012; the end of an era when Kristen Bell smugly narrated the lives of spoiled, jet-setting, New York prep school teens as they blossomed into spoiled, jet-setting, socialite monster nightmares. And in last night's finale, the one where the irrepressible rapscallion Chuck Bass--whose two defining character traits as we remember them were the ability to say his own name in a sexy voice and a desire to show up his dead father--finally stopped dicking around and married the dark-haired girl. Ugh, what was her name. Bonnie? Blaine?

She was the mean one, but actually they were all "the mean one": a hive of Queen Bees and their lovers, all of whom were as toxic as they were. (Except for the blond one that looked like a cardboard cutout, and had a similar acting range).

These were the kind of people of whom the nicest thing one could say was that it probably wasn't their fault they were so awful, since you only had to take a look at their manipulative, gold-digging moms and lazy, guitar-playing and/or deceased dads to see that the apple didn't fall far from the Park Avenue tree.

So last night's finale: Did we watch it? Sure. It's the end of a television era, and that needed to be celebrated. Even if that means accepting that Dan Humphrey is a woman on the Internet. He's been the one chronicling all his friends' lives with the bitchy lilt of Kristen Bell and calling himself "Lonely Boy."

The two more-awful people got married, making sure that there will be plenty of more little Basses in the sea one day. Serena and Dan may have also gotten married. Nate, who works at a newspaper, got to publish Dan's Gossip Girl memoirs, because this show took place in an age when even a spoof of The New York Observer would run a book-sized chronicle of every minutia of these kids lives.

"You'll never guess what Blaire told her maid today!" We would tease in what would have to be a 20-year column. "Tune in next week!"

That being said, what is more fun than watching a soap opera of the most self-referential kind (since Soap) about New York socialites?

Perhaps The Carrie Diaries.

Meanwhile, shows including Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show With David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel's jaunt to the Brooklyn Academy of Music this week have resumed filming.

Oh! But we totally know who should cover the (obvious) theme song. (Updated below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYEiERfKqU
Alternative suggestions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w
http://youtu.be/du4uH1fC9B8
We guess the only real question is who should play the literature's biggest love-struck assholes? Could it possibly be better cast than the BBC miniseries starring Bane from The Dark Knight Rises?
http://youtu.be/-sT6PUQz_HU

Lady Gaga's maternity wear (Getty Images)

— The Church of Scientology has written a strongly-worded letter to Vanity Fair about Maureen Orth's cover story on Tom Cruise and the woman auditioned to be his girlfriend, Nazanin Boniadi. It's eight pages long. In it, the church threatens, "If Vanity Fair goes forward with publication of such defamatory allegations, now that it is on notice that the story is false, the stain on its reputation will last long after any reader even remembers the article. The sting of the jury verdict will last longer still; far longer than any pleasure from racing to publish a poorly researched and sourced story."

— Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively is eating more food than she normally eats, and you know what that means ... healthier body images for women on television! Just kidding. The only explanation is that she's hiding a secret pregnancy with a shotgun wedding to Ryan Reynolds.

— Lady Gaga is also pregnant, according to reliable source Kelly Osbourne. She's going off the fact that Gaga stopped bleaching her hair and wore a burka to Fashion Week, but she totally forgot the fact that the singer smoked weed on stage in Amsterdam Tuesday. Lady Gaga says she's just fat.

— Fiona Apple is in jail in Sierra Blanca, Texas, for having hash on her tour bus.

— Amanda Bynes continues to go toe-to-toe with Lindsay Lohan for the title of world's biggest train wreck. She also happens to be the most histrionic train wreck, believing that Ms. Lohan's recent car crash was "karma" for the Mean Girl’s mean tweet about her.

Chace Crawford's name, misspelled by the post on the Post's header (top) in the same way the Sprock press release misspelled it.

On Saturday, Off the Record received a press release from Los Angeles-based celebrity PR firm Sprock. It was pretty thin gruel: “Actor Keith Collins & Actor John Stamos” were spotted at Westside Tavern, with Mr. Stamos “discussing his performances in his always sold out Broadway Play ‘The Best Man On Broadway’ [sic, throughout].”

“Also at the Tavern that night shooting pool was Gossip Girls Chase Crawford & Brandon Ruckdashel from ‘Co-Ed Confidential,’” noted the press release.

As we say, not much to run with. Imagine our surprise to see the exact item on The New York Post’s Page Six the next day. Granted, it was a late-summer weekend when most celebrities are in the Hamptons, but this was information many New York journalists had already found in their inboxes. “The Gossip Girl star [Chace Crawford] was seen at Westside Tavern in Chelsea on Wednesday night playing pool with Brandon Ruckdashel from ‘Co-Ed Confidential’ and a handful of beauties,” indicated Page Six in an item titled “Tavern Appeal.” Mr. Stamos, Mr. Collins and the play The Best Man also got name-checked in the 80-word item.

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

Assange. Swinton. Assange. No, Swinton. Assange?

Last week, Michael Bloomberg attended a press conference for the 100th episode of Gossip Girl. “I just don’t see how Blair could marry Prince Louis when she’s clearly in love with Chuck,” said the New York mayor, who apparently had nothing bigger on his plate to worry at that moment, such as the allegations of rape made against Greg Kelly, the son of his police Commissioner Ray Kelly, or the NYPD head’s own cameo in an anti-Muslim training video for NYPD recruits.

“I just wish that Nate and Vanessa had been able to work things out … but, again, I’m just a casual fan,” he added.

We don’t begrudge Mayor Bloomberg his guilty pleasure—after all, we spent all of Monday night watching the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race instead of doing actual work. We’re pretty sure front-runner Sharon Needles is taking all her inspiration from Lady Gaga, who has been stealing her “signature” look from drag queens and selling the designs to Barneys. It seems only fair.

Julian Assange, who is not quite a drag queen (though if he started dressing like Tilda Swinton we might not even notice a difference), is also guilty … of loving The Simpsons! The Wikileaks founder and all-around creepy person of interest will be supplying his own voice for a Feb. 13 episode, the plot of which we’re predicting will involve Lisa picketing SOPA and Bart teaming up with the Australian after confusing the name of the international whistle-blowing organization with that of a rapper with poor bladder control. We’re impressed with Matt Groening’s ability to convince infamously reclusive celebrities to perform cameos. How does one even get through the levels of publicists, assistants and team of ninja henchmen guarding the abodes of Thomas Pynchon or Michael Jackson and pitch them on doing a Fox cartoon? We’d say Scientology was involved somehow, but Nancy Cartwright’s robo-calling fiasco from 2009 made it clear she wasn’t a high enough in their caste system to be considered an Operating Thetan … let alone a Thetan operator.

But let’s not pick on Scientology too much. After all, we are located in New York, where members are basically regulated to asking people taking stress tests in the Times Square terminal. What worries us more is another pseudo-religion. You know, the formerly fringe one based out of Utah, where a single patriarch rules over a cult that’s become alarmingly more mainstream every year despite its seemingly arbitrary set of rules and scripture. We’re talking of course, about the Sundance Film Festival, which just finished its 28^th year of indie hits and celebrity swag parties sponsored by Bing and Grey Goose vodka. We realize Sundance plays a very important function, since by February most actors are so worn out from the exhausting L.A. awards season that they need to depart en masse for a vacation on the slopes—where they will also be handing each other awards and mingling with the Kardashians.

The festival was originally created to promote independent American filmmaking but has turned into a paparazzi paradise where it’s easier to find Tracy Morgan passed out at a party than a ticket to one of the 181 screenings taking place over the course of the week. Still, some of the original anti-Hollywood sentiment remains in the proceedings: The grand jury prize went to Beasts of Southern Wild, directed by first-time filmmaker Benh Zeitlin and starring an 8-year-old unknown named Quvenzhane Wallis as an impoverished African-American girl scraping by in Louisiana with her father. Expect the remake to star Willow Smith, or even worse, one of the Fanning sisters.

(Un?)fortunately, the end of Sundance is just a placeholder in the middle of a season marked by Hollywood award ceremonies, Fashion Week and Jay-Z’s first concert at Carnegie Hall. We’d ask our assistants to help us with all the RSVPs, but they’ve already taken the time off to start gearing up for South by Southwest. Or maybe we’ll just stay home and watch Gossip Girl.

OMFG! Mayor Bloomberg is totally freaking out over Blake Lively

Yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference for the 100th episode of Gossip Girl.
"I just don't see how Blair could marry Prince Louis when she's clearly in love with Chuck," said the New York mayor, who has nothing bigger on his plate to worry about right now. "I just wish that Nate and Vanessa had been able to work things out... But again I'm just a casual fan."

By itself, this might have been an irreverent, fun comment, written by one of his younger staffers. But look more closely, and it becomes clear that Mayor Bloomberg is, in fact, a 16-year-old teenager on the verge of womanhood.

1. Gossip Girl: OMFG! The fact that we can't even verify if Mayor Bloomberg was up to date on his Vanessa/Nate romance (didn't she leave the show awhile ago?) confirms that we are not young women obsessed with Chace Crawford. But the mayor of New York City just very well might be.

2. An obsession with Lady Gaga: He kissed her when the ball dropped on 2012, ensuring a shout-out to her "favorite little monster" in Gaga's next YouTube video. Skweeee!

3. He's on FourSquare: Seriously. He's collected 8 badges too, which isn't a lot, but his "tips" definitely include a Shake Shake run.

4. His "Check In" to the Smash premiere party last night: The NBC show (premiering after the Superbowl, for all of you that have forgotten the show's already ubiquitous promos) that offers a "backstage glimpse" into the world of Broadway theater doesn't exactly strike us as a high-brow, serious drama. It looks more like, um, Rent. Meets Showgirls. Meets that Christina Aguilera film Burlesque. And Mayor Bloomberg already loves it!

5. He keeps a diary: When you come down to it, what's the difference between a teenager with a Tumblr and editorials in Bloomberg View? Well, the latter probably has less readers. It's like a secret diary! Next thing we know, his column is just going to start being adorable cat pictures. It will most likely be an improvement.

Mayoral advisor Blake Lively (Getty Images)

Unsatisfied by his recent date night with Lady Gaga, Michael Bloomberg is to immerse himself further into pop culture with a meeting with the cast of Gossip Girl today. (Even his culture tastes are centered around the city's ultra-upper crust!) The meeting is meant to publicize New York's busiest year ever for TV production, but we're more curious as to what Blake Lively--and whether it would've been the cast of 30 Rock meeting with Mr. Bloomberg if Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin knew how to stay quiet and look pretty like Blake Lively. What will Blake wear? What will the Mayor?!